“I’m escaping to the one place that hasn’t been corrupted by capitalism… space!”
It had been about four months since David first arrived in Vyjemkagrad. He, with about twenty others, fled the FCS to Cerberus after their “unification war” began—they sensed, being young and fit, they would be forced to fight in the war. After arriving at the spaceport in Achinsk, they went their separate ways. Most decided to settle down in the big city and hope for the best, but David opted for Vyjemkagrad—he heard it was beautiful out in the relatively isolated city.
It was not. At least, in the city. Around the city were large swaths of reserved land where David could go to take photographs, which is what he did as a job when he lived on Elysium. Unfortunately, the Federation news outlets were more interested in the duller, political topics of Cerberus after the Kessler crisis. He must have done at least 15 interviews with the governor of Vyjemkagrad Oblast over the last two months.
David ran through his morning routine in his head. Wake up, eat breakfast, and walk twenty paces to his office. Considering the closest office of the Federation Star, the current outlet he was contracted with, was in Achinsk, a good thousand or so miles away, he had to work from his house. At least it was a house: back on Elysium, there was so little space that he lived in a cramped apartment with three other people. In Vyjemkagrad, he got his own house. A house!
David got up. His room was quite bland; he was never good at decorating. It had eggshell white walls, his bed laying in the top right corner when looking from the door. To the left of his bed was a dark brown wood end table where his cellphone sat, then, after a bit of empty space, his dresser, against the wall perpendicular with the wall the door was located on.
He walked out to the hallway his room was on, then directly down it to the kitchen. His kitchen was open to the dining room and his makeshift office at the very front of his house right next to his front door. In the center of the kitchen, an island; surrounding the island (separated by a gap for movement) were counter-tops, with a door to a pantry in the far left. He went to the pantry. The pantry was a bit sparse for food—he would need to go to the grocery store eventually—but he still had some cereal, so he grabbed that and some milk from the refrigerator on the opposite end of his kitchen and ate that at the island. He had used a paper spoon, and when he walked over to his trash can, it was full. David sighed. He had to go… outside… and take out the trash. He took the bag, tied it up, and walked towards his front door. His front door was mostly window; he could see his reflection. He was completely disheveled—his dark blonde hair curled out in all sorts of directions, his clothes filled with wrinkles, his pale white skin appearing distinctly more dirty than he remembered it. He had to go outside anyway, unfortunately.
He lived towards the urban fringe, but up and down his road were still tightly packed houses. Some were duplexes or triplexes, but most were single-family homes. His trash can was on the road. Walking down his driveway, he heard a voice call out to him from the left:
“Ah, hello, David! How are you today?” It came from his neighbor, Ruslan. He was 20-something, but rumor on the street was that he had already had five kids with four different women in college at the University of Achinsk. He worked as a meteorologist at the local Federal Weather Service station. His job was easy: Vyjemkagrad was quite far north, so most of the time it was cold. On that February morning, it was about -9 degrees Celsius out.
“I’m… fine. Tired, as always,” David yelled back to him.
“Well, that’s good! Have a great day!” he responded. Despite the grayness of Vyjemkagrad days, he always seemed to keep a positive attitude.
He walked back inside after putting the trash in the can and sat down at his desk. His laptop read the time and date: “08:54 3 February 2110.” In Achinsk it would have been noon, so he probably had a mound of emails to respond to. He logged in, and he had… one. Strange. It was from the Federation Star office in Achinsk, and the subject line was “New project.” He opened it, and the email read:
“Hey David! We have a new project for you: we’d like you to go out to the West Vyjemkagrad Nature Reserve and take some pictures (preferably 25 good ones) for us to compile into an album and ship out to the people on Elysium. Our political stories here aren’t making waves anymore, especially with the situation on Elysium, nobody wants to read about politics anymore. They want to feel free these days, these pictures will help. You’re a good photographer, you’ll get it done, we trust. We need them in two weeks, although earlier would be nice. Thanks!”
The email was from Dimitri Leonidovich—the name rang a bell as a lower-level editor at the Achinsk branch when he had to travel there initially to get a job. He must have become the lead editor, then. A “hell yeah” escaped David; he finally got to take his pictures again! He hadn’t been to the West Vyjemkagrad reserve yet, so he was excited for the opportunity. He responded to the email—obviously taking the job—and began his preparations.
David went to his bedroom first and got dressed—he put on his best winter clothes. The reserve was very mountainous, so temperatures would probably reach around negative 15 degrees. He then moved to get his gear together and packed a lunch for his time out. He would probably take multiple trips over several days to get all the images he needed. 25 good pictures would take a while; typically, he would only get one good picture out of a batch of 20 after editing.
David, his things packed into a black bag, went out to his car in his driveway. His car was electric, and it had a dark blue color. Its windows were tinted, making it a bit more difficult to see inside, which was useful in the more crime-ridden areas of Vyjemkagrad. He got in his car—a quite spacious one—put his stuff in the back, and began his great drive.
The reserve was only about an hour away, and wasn’t terribly difficult to get to. Being on the urban fringe, he was able to quickly hop on the ring motorway, take it to the main motorway, and drive west for about 40 minutes. He got off at an exit for a small town called Almegrad, and he was already in the foothills of the mountains. He stopped in the town to charge his car, a process which took about ten minutes. In the meantime, he went and looked around the town. In the distance, he could see the mountains towering above the town like resting giants. If the town had been founded a thousand years earlier, there could have been a long-standing legend about the mountains being homes of gods or dragons, watching over the nesting village like guardians. Alas, that was long before humans even began to think about living on Cerberus.
After the quick stop, he continued down the road through the town back out into the wilderness. There were a few sparse villages out there, but the sparse nature of Cerberus meant they were few and far between. On the road, he noticed a very red bird—one of the genetically modified creatures of Cerberus. When the socialists were first colonizing the planet, their scientists decided, to potentially entice some to come to the planet, that they would create some new derivative species to create a different “biological landscape,” whatever that meant. Ultimately, it boiled down to making animals different sizes and colors. It was cool, though, and that was probably what they were going for.
He had been driving down the road for 20 minutes once he saw the sign: “West Vyjemkagrad Nature Reserve — Federal Land Protection Service.” It meant he had finally reached his destination, although he had to check in with the ranger first before proceeding farther. He arrived at the ranger house after another ten minutes of driving. Thankfully for David, the ranger was sitting on the porch on a rocking chair. He looked to be about 55. He was smoking a cigarette and wearing a black vest with “Cerberus Forest Service” emblazoned upon it on the top-right corner of the vest along with the logo of the Federal Land Protection Service. David parked out in front of the house and got out.
“Hello, there!” David yelled to the ranger. The ranger paid him no attention, so David went closer.
He spoke to the ranger, “Hello, I’m going to be in the reserve all day today.”
The ranger pointed out towards the landscape. From his porch, he could see through a clearing in the trees towards a valley surrounded by mountain peaks. The mountains were covered in dark green alpine trees. The entire sight was covered in blue fog. He could barely see the sky—it was covered in clouds, and they were so close to them that it was almost like they were in them. They appeared blue as well. The ranger said, “See that? I wake up to that…” The ranger coughed. “…every day. Never trade it for anything in the world.” David stayed silent.
The ranger continued, “You can go. Don’t ruin the place, please.”
David thanked the ranger and returned to his car. David thought it was strange the ranger didn’t even ask for his name, but with the level of recognition technology they had these days, they could probably connect a picture of the front of his leg to a picture of the back of his head. David sat in his car, got out a map of the reserve, and charted his path for the day.