Prologue

The little dog sniffed the air.
It was the fourth of July 2099, summer in the northern hemisphere, a beautiful day in Washington DC, the ancient capital of the Great American Empire, a gigantic city, with more than a billion people living within its borders. The dog was accustomed to all the stress the humans beings in the city experienced on a daily basis; being a street dog meant it usually was yelled and kicked at, and it knew how ill-tempered humans could be. But today it sensed something else, something special, different, in the air; it felt like if it was loaded, the dog could almost taste the feeling. Some of the humans it saw on their way to work in the morning reeked more of anxiety than the others, especially those who wore those strange black skins that smelled like the weird, clear water the humans used to bathe in when the day was hot; or the other ones, the ones whose skin was hard and shiny like polished rock and that rattled when they walked. Those humans reeked of anxiety, like if they had been waiting for something for ages and now it finally was going to happen. The dog kept out of the way of those humans, it knew how irritable they could be, especially when they were as nervous as they were today.
But the dog, despite its own instincts and experiences telling him otherwise, but driven by the power of curiosity, had decided to follow one of these humans, to see what made him stink of fretfulness. Following the human had led it to a big white building in the centre of the city, the one every street dog feared because of it burning fences; the dog remembered the first time it had experienced the stinging touch of the metallic hedges, it had yelped and jumped back, crying like a puppy. Because of this, the dog was wary of going near this building, but today, nosiness drove him to follow the man, hidden in his shadow. To the dog’s surprise, as it approached the fence, behind the man, who by the way hadn’t even noticed the canine, it opened, allowing both the man and the dog inside the zone. The dog then left the man; it wanted to explore this new, to it, unknown place.

And now it sat there, by one of the few trees in the sector, hungry, searching the air for that sweet scent of food, but there was none. The dog, disappointed, put its head down on its grey front paws, scanning the scene for anything that could mean food. Then it heard something; the sound of human voices coming from the building. The dog knew that humans often meant tasty food, so it gladly got up and trotted towards the voices. As it approached the window from which the voices emanated, it could distinguish the singular sounds the humans made when they communicated, and even though it did not understand the meaning of those sounds, it did understand the tone and rhythm of the voice.
“… In two minutes Mexico City will be reduced to ashes and Mexico will be ours”, said one of the voices. The dog wondered why this voice sounded so ill-meaning and greedy; he didn’t like this one at all.
“I still think we should’ve done this a long time before, to show the world that the G.A.E. is not to play with!”, the dog liked this voice even less than the first one, it sounded extremely malign and greedy, a human like this was bound to be violent.
“But what about the other countries, what do you think they’ll do when they find out we’re invading Canada and Mexico?”, said another voice, but this one sounded more hesitant than the others.
“What can they do?”, said the second voice, “They don’t dare to defy us, we’re America, remember?”, the voiced laughed, a scary, wicked sound in the dogs’ ears.
The canine had now got the feeling that he shouldn’t be here, even though he couldn’t understand what was said; so it got up from under the window and started trotting away. But suddenly it stepped on something pointy, yelping loudly.
“Hey, what the hell?”, said the second voice, “What’s that dog doing in here!?”
“Calm down, general!”, said the third voice, “It’s just a small dog!”
“I don’t like dogs!”, said the “general”, and the dog heard a metallic noise. Turning around, out of curiosity, he saw a big human male staring out the window, his right hand holding out something shiny.
“General, please…”, another, smaller, man appeared by the window.
“Shut up, Connors”, answered the big male, “That dog is fried meat!”
The animal heard a loud bang, and then it fell, its eyes shutting and the small lungs exhaling their last breath…

*   *   *

At the same time, miles away, in one of Mexico City’s suburbs, another small dog lifted its head from its front paws and stared up at the cloudless sky. Up there, high up in the atmosphere, it could see a glowing spot of light grow bigger and bigger. The dog, sensing danger, jumped up and started barking as loud as it could, and soon other dogs joined their fellow canine, until the whole neighbourhood was submerged in the sound of barking. Humans came out of their homes to see what their dogs where barking at, and they looked up at the sky and saw the glowing light grow even bigger as it descended upon the city. Panic started to grab hold of their hearts; their minds raced, because they knew this scene all too well, they had all seen it in action movies. They started running and shouting desperately; this, combined with the barking from the dogs, created a great noise, which, in turn, created even more panic.
And then, suddenly, it disappeared. The light just vanished from the clear morning sky. The dogs stopped barking, and, for a fraction of a second it was dead silent; not even the wind dared to make a sound.
And then, out of a sudden, there was a great flash of light, completely blinding everyone and everything with eyes. The light was hot as the sun, melting the skin away and scorching the hair; the grass was set on fire and people started yelling again as they were being fried alive. Then came the shockwave. Powerful as a god, it destroyed everything in its path, throwing trees and houses into the air, flattening the grass against the ground, killing every living thing.
And then it was quiet as a tomb again, as a great mushroom-shaped cloud rose to the red skies above the piece of land that used to be Mexico City.

*   *   *

On the 4th of July 2099, the Great American Empire (G.A.E.), former United States of America, bombed Mexico City with an ICBM (InterContinental Ballistic Missile) loaded with several nuclear warheads, completely destroying the metropolis; followed by an invasion of the country. These events caused severe reactions from the rest of the world, and soon the world was once again submerged in war. Nations split into two factions; the Coalition and the Alliance. The Coalition condemned the G.A.E.’s actions and was mostly composed of Europe, Africa, South America and some countries from the Middle East and Asia; while the rest of the world, the Alliance, supported the Great American Empire. Some countries, like Sweden, chose to remain neutral at the beginning, until the G.A.E. declared war against every country not supporting their cause; “If you’re not with us, you are against us”, they stated.
The Third, and final, World War, had begun.