Start.Earth

By T.C. McArthur

Darcy, Samuel, and Bailey live in a world of advanced technology which allows people to briefly pause their life, forget it, and live out a different one. Every day the children of their world enter into a program called Earth, where they experience decades of life in just a few hours. Using these machines as teaching tools the children learn how to live their actual lives to their fullest potential, even if the only way out of them is by dying over and over again inside the program.

• Language: English
• Publisher: T.C. McArthur
• Release date: Oct 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9780463357910

Book preview

Start.Earth

By T.C. McArthur

Copyright 2021 by T.C. McArthur

2nd edition published 2023

Cover Illustration by Dominique Courtoreille

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please return it to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents:

1.Darcy

Oppression

Science

Evolution

Exit

2.Samuel

Evolution

Sacrifice

Exit

3.Bailey

Connect with T.C.

Star.Earth = DarcyPyke

For Darcy and Samuel, who are no longer a part of Earth.

And for Bailey,

Please, remember…

Life is all about choices, and these choices have either a positive or negative impact on you and the people around you. Any choice you make creates a ripple effect which spreads to others and affects how they decide to live their life. In my universe, in my world, we are given many extra lives, many extra choices. It's like a game, and the only rule is to live as best we can with each life we are given.

Each life has the same people in it, the same people that live with us in a life we have declared The Main Life, our real life. Everyone starts their other lives at the same age they are when they enter from The Main Life. When we enter the other lives, we are given a general understanding of what they are like. Memories from years we did not personally live through are programmed and implanted into us to make the simulation seem perfectly real. We forget everything about The Main Life while inside these other lives so that we can be more immersed in them and feel as if these other lives are our real ones. This helps make our choices in these other lives both challenging and unbiased. When we enter the other lives, everyone starts out looking the same as they do in The Main Life. We may change our outfits, our hair, and any other part of our appearance inside the other lives, but none of these changes will affect how we look in The Main Life. Time does not move the same in the other lives as it does in The Main Life. This means that while in the other lives, no matter how many years pass inside of them, we do not usually miss more than a day of The Main Life. We do not know how long we will live in the other lives, just as you don't know how long your life will last, and I do not know how long I will live The Main Life.

Before entering one of the other lives, we are given words. Words that represent what each life is about. Sometimes these words may not mean what we think they mean, but that is another part of life; things are not always what they seem. Sometimes we think we are bound to doing things a certain way when, in reality, we can manipulate or even break that mould. Either way, in every world, in every universe, life always boils down to the consequences created by the choices we make.

I will be giving you a choice now, but do not be afraid; you are not bound to the decisions you will make here. Not like we thought we were. Now, here is my question to you:

What life will I retell for you today?

Oppression

Enter

Activity Log:

(Active) Malek Lovitz: ---

(Browsing) Samuel Foulley: 0

(Browsing) Darcy Pyke: 0

(Last Entered Yesterday) Bailey Lan: 1

(Last Entered Yesterday) Ayla Zika: 2

(Last Entered Two Days Ago) Tinny Golding: 3

(Last Entered Four Days Ago) Max Delcourt: 1

(Last Entered Ten Days Ago) Marian Pearson: 1

.......(More).

It was late in the evening when Darcy got home. All day she'd been busy with her usual weekday routine: Get up, eat, go to school, go to her after-school program, come home, eat, do homework, and then, maybe if she were lucky, she'd have enough time to rest and watch some TV before going to bed. As she entered her room, exhausted, she noticed a little envelope sitting on her desk. It was addressed to her in the familiar handwriting of her friend from The Other Side. It'd been over a month since she'd last seen that handwriting, and she'd been afraid she would never see it again. But now here it was, on her desk, waiting for her to pick up and read.

Darcy fumbled with the envelope, trying as quickly as possible to open it. All thoughts of sleep escaped her; she couldn't wait to read what was inside. Maybe she’d even have enough new-found energy to reply to it.

Hey Darcy,

I'm sorry I haven't written you in a while. Things on my side of the wall have been getting crazy. There might be a revolt coming. People hate that it's so hard for us to change sides but so easy for your people to come over here. Not that they're your people anymore once they get here, I guess... But some of us have been waiting years to transfer sides. I understand, though, your side wants to avoid someone from my side coming over and saying they're all for what you guys believe in, then turning around and causing a big mess for you all. Like the incident back when we were in grade school... Can you believe it's been almost nine years since we started sending letters to each other? Most kids stopped once their parents realized this whole pen-pal thing was just propaganda from your government to try and get my side’s younger generation to convert to your views. That's actually another reason I haven't written in a while. My parents found a stash of your and Bailey's letters. My father gave me a good lashing after that. They've been watching me like a hawk ever since... Did I ever tell you about Bailey Lan? I must have. She's the girl who used to go to school with me up until last year. The one I've had a crush on since fifth grade. Her mom got tired of the way her father was treating the two of them, so she signed them up for the Women's Protection and Transfer Program. It took a few years, but they finally got transferred out. (That's one of the reasons people might start revolting. It doesn't matter if you just feel like transferring sides or if you're in a severely abusive household; the wait time is still the same) from what I've heard, Bailey and her mom live close to you now. Maybe you've even met them? You're one of the people involved in your area’s transfer program, right?

I'm looking forward to another letter from you. I don't know if the border patrol checks letters coming in from your side, but they sure do check letters going out to yours. (Hopefully, this gets to you). But even if they don't check letters coming in, my parents check all my letters now, so I have to be sneaky about checking the mail before my father gets to it.

By the way, while I wasn't writing you, I signed up for the men's transfer program. It's a little harder to transfer through that one than to go through the women's transfer. (Unless you're a part of the LGBT community and can prove it). But maybe if I do actually get through in a few years, I'll finally be able to talk to you in person. (And hopefully, see Bailey again). I wish I could leave now, though, before something drastic happens over here. Anyways, hopefully, I get a letter back from you soon. I miss reading them.

Your Friend, Samuel.

Darcy finished reading over the letter from Samuel for a third time and put it down on her desk next to a blank sheet of paper. She picked up a pen and started to write a letter of her own.

Sam!

I was getting worried that I would never hear back from you! That's so typical of you to be late, though. You’re a procrastinator through and through. Remember that time you told me about in Jr. High when you convinced your teacher to let you hand in some big project two months late?

I do remember you telling me about Bailey Lan a few times, actually, and I have met her. She's been going to my school and has been attending my after-school program, which helps transfer students settle in. We've talked a little bit, and I've mentioned you. From the way she's been talking about you, it looks like you're not the only one with a crush ;) She seems to really miss you.

I'm sorry to hear that it's been going badly for you and that handful of people on The Other Side. I don't know why they have to be so thorough with looking into people who want to come over here. I mean, if they start causing trouble, I'm sure it'd be easy to just throw them back over the wall.

I heard on the news that they think someone from your side might be forming a group to try and get people over here illegally. I don't know how they would, though. A giant wall and soldiers with guns surround your entire piece of land... I suppose they could try to dig under it somehow? But who knows where they’d end up popping out then?

Hopefully, this group doesn't cause your submission to go through slower or get terminated altogether. I'd really like to meet you in person before we're fifty, and I'm sure Bailey is dying to see you again.

Looking forward to your next letter, Darcy.

Darcy didn't bother to look over her letter once she'd finished writing it. She was tired and ready for bed. She had another big day ahead of her tomorrow. She folded her letter to Sam quickly, stuffed it in an envelope, addressed it, and threw it in her backpack to put in the mail on her way to school in the morning. Then, exhausted, she collapsed onto her bed and fell asleep.

****

Months passed, but there were no more letters from Darcy's friend Samuel. It wasn't a huge shock that a letter hadn't arrived, though, not after what had happened shortly after Darcy had sent her own letter out. Two weeks after Darcy had replied to Samuel’s letter, a group of people had tried to get past the wall from The Other Side and had been gunned down after showing violence towards the officers, trying to get them to turn back. After a stunt like that, Darcy thought, it wouldn't be surprising if they'd stopped contact between both sides of the wall altogether.

Although things seemed to be going terribly wrong for The Other Side, everything on Darcy's side was as good as ever. Since the rebellion nearly forty years ago, way before Darcy and any of her friends had been born, women had finally gained an equal amount of power and influence in the world, and equal rights had finally actually become equal rights. The rebellion had been brought on by a group of people sick of feeling oppressed by their government. They had screamed and fought for their rights: For a woman's right to be in control of her own body, for everyone's right to receive