15"Atlantis. The mythical city of an advanced people. Key word here is mythical. While an interesting topic, Mr. Saris, I do not believe it qualifies as a Historical Report. A perfect grade in Mythological studies, but not in History."
"Why won't you count it?"
"Because , no one has been able to prove that it exists."
"No one's proved it doesn't."
"Look, Luke, you must understand. Projects in any classes are normally about something you do in the subject. Atlantis is not a unit in this class. It is not even classified in this subject. I'll give you a B for the work and research, but that's it. Now, I suggest you leave or you will be tardy to your next class."
Luke, a sixteen year old boy (But I suggest you call him a man to his face) walked out of the history classroom that this lively conversation was taking place in. He walked over to his locker, switched out stuff, and walked to the Tech Lab. Today, that would be though of as Technology Education, or Tech, a combination of Wood shop and Metal shop. But in 2067, that would be a class where you learn to construct, wire, weld, build, and actually build things that could be used in everyday life. Kind of like Sci-fi-tech.
The second he got in there, he went straight to work. The only thing required was three projects, one report, and progress on the year long project. School at the time was more organized than today. There were 3 week years, four day weeks, 8-hour days, 1-hour periods, and the year was divided into trimesters. There were also 2 grading periods.
Well, anyways, the current project was a Palm Pilot like object. Luke was putting in the lightboard, the current screen. All that was left to do was attach a converter for the batteries and put panels to make it look nice. He plugged a wire into the back of the screen, and a bunch of sparks flew out of the other end of the wire- and half of them landed in his hair. He yelped in surprise and shook his hair until the flame that had been produced by the spark was out. After the panels had been fused together with a superheated metal rod, he moved on to the year-long project- a spaceship. When he began, another boy walked up next to him. This one was slightly shorter, with green hair (Natural green, because of a bomb that caused a few mutations in 2051, during WWIII).
He looked at what Luke was working on- a dashboard.
Luke, without looking up, said, "Yo, Alek. What's up?"
"Nothin. Just this," The boy handed him a pink slip.
Luke stood up(He'd been crouching under the dashboard) and looked at the note. "What's this?"
"Your dad called and said he'd be picking you up today,"Alek responded.
"Did he say why?"
"Don't know. It's cofinedenters."
"You mean confidential?"
"What ever."
Luke sighed. "I guess I'm not going to get to look at that new car again today."
The bell rang again, signaling the end of school. Luke walked out front of Cy Woods high school and wondered something- all JR Stevenson ever did was think of throwing a few nukes at an asteroid. If anyone should have a high school dedicated to him, it should have been his grandpa- he was one of the volunteers that went over there to blow the son of a btch up!
Luke lost his train of thought when his dad pulled up. "Get in."
When he sat down in the passenger seat, he saw that Ari, his 18-year-old sister, was in the backseat.
"What are you looking at, twerp?"
"Your sorry ass sitting in the back while I'm up here, that's what!" She took a swing at him.
Then, his dad spoke up. "Settle down, you two. I don't want to hear another word until we get to the dealership."
"What!?"
"Didn't you just hear me? Not another word!"
They came into the Houston Lexus Dealership. Ari picked out this fancy sedan, and after paperwork and a test drive, left. After Luke and his dad entered Cypress, Luke asked, "Why don't I have a car?"
His dad never answered. They drove down 290 and drove past old cypress. So many stores were there, and a few neighborhoods too.
Houston, New York, Los Angeles, and Miami were all nuked in WWIII. Well, not really nuked, but they were pretty much destroyed. In New York, the 2007 hurricane that hit manhattan still showed, and Iran screwed up the rest by dropping an N2 bomb that wiped out everything on the island. Queens, Brooklyn, even things off island like the Bronx, even Yonkers, was gone. They dropped an h-bomb on LA, and indirectly flooded Miami with a bomb, and bombarded west Houston with a few stolen B-2 bombers. After that, they N2-ed Galveston island. All in a week.
The middle east had just shared their side of the argument, and the US's retort was evidently to blow their fcking asses into orbit. Too bad they caught the president on her period.
This effected Luke because everything inside Highway six was obliterated. Houston was being rebuilt slowly, but Cypress was becoming a New Houston. There was even talk of re-naming it that. They drove into Fairfield, cut through Mason, and found their way to 0 field- the first chunk of land in the area to be declared safe to return to, and now the biggest neighborhood in Cypress, besides Fairfield, which was kind of a new town. They pulled into the driveway and Luke's Dad got out of the car, and found Ari spazzing out in the garage, and Luke followed. Once Luke found out why, he started to spazz out, , You ask? Because, next to the new Lexus, in front of the family 6 wheeled van, was a brand new car.
"Made in the 20's. Top speed 450 mph, great handling, torque, suspension, transmission, and it has some thing called a 'supercharger'. But you have to flip a switch to go faster than 120. All yours." His dad pointed a machine. He pressed a button and a tube sticking out of the four-foot-high machine was filled with green liquid. "Fuel." He commented, and stuck it into a hole in the side of the car. The green stuff drained out. "This machine takes pollutants, turns them into a liquid, introduces it to radiation in the air, and, viola, you have fuel."
"AWESOME!"
It was a few days later, and Luke was chilling out in his room, listening to some of an old band's songs on an MP4 player. Maybe you've heard of them- Green Day? Well, he was also reading an article titled BEGINNING- OR END? The cataclysmal crystal. It supposedly was an eternal energy source, though of to come from either space or Atlantis. But, it was going to reach an overload if they could not find a way to use the energy, and if it overloaded, it would blow half the planet into the Oort cloud.