« Ce qu'ils appellent le progrès permet aux hommes de se protéger des catastrophes naturelles et d'en déclencher d'artificielles tout aussi terrifiantes. »**

Gilbert Cesbron, [Journal sans date], 1963

(** What they call progress allows men to protect themselves from natural disasters and to trigger artificial ones equally terrifying.)

His number was on the sign board. The speaker called it, also, almost as soon as it had been displayed. Max hadn't yet realized his luck. The excitement would come later, he would boast to his friends how lady Luck was in love with him, but for now, he was just dumbfounded, his number had been called.

"Number 13256D! Please proceed to room N337."

Max followed the directions on the walls to reach the place. The corridors were colourful, showing images of exotic sceneries. He had dreamt of such places. He had now the chance of a lifetime, or more precisely of his life, whatever short of a time he had remaining.

The door of N337 was waiting for him to knock on it. He paused. Max had a bad case of the jitters. What if he was rejected, even after his number being picked? He had expected so much of this that now he feared to be deceived.

"Come in please, seat beside the desk, I will be shortly with." Max heard the voice from behind the curtain. The room was small, a desk on the left of the door, against the wall. The curtain separated effectively the area in two distinctive zone. From where he stood, he couldn't identify exactly what was behind it, though he assumed it would be an examination bed and some strange apparatuses.

After some hesitation, he sat on the chair beside the desk. Max had some doubts remaining about the whole shebang. His number had been picked by the lottery system, which meant he had been selected for a second chance. However, knowing his medical history, he feared all this had been a mistake.

"Mister McNeil? I am Doctor Halt. I will proceed with your assessment and give you some background about the operation." The man was tall and dry. Not just slim and bony, lanky. It looked like all substance had been drown from his limbs and now you could see the skeleton behind his parchment skin. Max wondered if this would be his future. Should he expect to become a living-dead life man when he would access to the afterlife?

"Mister McNeil, you have been selected to be part of the SLT program, the Second Life Transfer. You know that, normally, only healthy and useful people would have been able to proceed to the afterlife, though Prograze has been looking for a long time now to authorize regular people to serve and get a second chance of a lifetime. You shall have received the documents and contract in this regard."

Max was mentally reviewing what the doctor had described and the documents he had received earlier. The contract stipulated that the corporation would provide him with a cure for his illness, a rare disease touching, however, five percent of the population. The contract also ensured that, in exchange for the treatment, Max would serve the corporation in any way they would deem him useful for.

"The progress in the medical field will let us treat your illness in a few days, a week at the most." Doctor Halt sounded enthusiast about the treatment and the possibilities for the man. So much that the later was now pumped and ready to agree with anything that would be thrown at him.

"When would the treatment start, Doctor?"

"You need, first, to answer some questions, Mr McNeil. It is just a formality, but I need to fill in all this paperwork for the administration. Prograze is a great corporation to work for, but they ask a lot of documents sometimes..."

Max didn't mind the interview. He already had to go through three of them when he registered with the lottery. No doubt it would be similar. And he was right thinking this way considering Halt went through the same set of questions. Max provided his full name and age, is professional situation and skill set. All basic questions about who he was and what he did, where he lived, who he knew... Your everyday interview with Prograze. As Max answered, he crossed mentally his fingers and prayed he wouldn't be sent to the out of the Dome.

"You are a lucky one, Mr McNeil." The doctor's words get his attention back to the moment. "Your disease usually is detected just before fifty, but you are only five and forty. This leaves you five years before you would have been send to the Outworld. Prograze didn't use to authorize a SLT to manual labour, but they recently found that people with experience in your field were also required for their new and ambitious project."

Max knew quite well he was doomed. He would be sent outside the safety of the city to fend for himself with the other unlucky old ones. He feared his fiftieth birthday. Not as he would Death, as Death would be lenient and offer him a quick ending. No. He was terrified by the unknown. No one ever returned under the Dome. No one above the fatidic fifty, who wasn't deemed worthy of a second chance at life, ever found their way back inside. Did they die directly? Did they live? How? All these pondering always made Max anxious to the point where he had restless nights full of gory nightmares.

"You are perfectly fitting the criteria for the treatment. All your answers are complying with the requirements for a Secondlife under the new regulation. I am habilitated to welcome you in the program. Welcome aboard Mr McNeil." Max's nerves relaxed as soon as he heard the confirmation of his acceptation. The artificial light in the room seemed to shine as brightly as the natural Sun. The dirty green paint on the wall appeared like a lush pasturage where peaceful animals would rest and graze.

The good doctor continued to explain to his patient what would be expected of him during the next weeks. Max listened absentmindedly, his eyes fixing Halt without seeing him, dreaming of a new version of his fiftieth birthday. He would go the The Cupola, one of the most popular restaurants under the Dome, and would indulge in genuine roast beef and greenery. Nowadays, the price for real earth-bound grown cattle and vegetables were a crime. They were such a rare occurrence in the daily diet. Max was used to the silicate soup, though he knew the taste of good food. The last time he had real meat had been to celebrate his starting position as ground keeper. He had been sixteen and ordered to patrol a section of the city walls, near the sewage. It wasn't smelling so good, but it had been an easy job. One he was still doing at forty.

The Corporation usually employed people in the same task until they were discarded once reaching their age limit. They would prepare their successors in the position for few years then be sent to the Outworld. Max had been assigned, few days ago, a trainee. He had been even more depressed thinking about his near termination. This was now but a bad memory, an episode of his life stored in the "must forget" bad experience shelf. Max McNeil was a new man. He would start in few days his second life.

***

Life in space wasn't too bad. For the treatment to be applied and receive the best results, Max had been admitted to Prograze medical center located on the Lagrange station. The reason given for these two weeks of pre-treatment preparation stage were that his organs and bones would receive less pressure and his body would realigned itself. Only under these conditions would the cure be successful.

For Max, the transfer to the space station had been an adventure. He never really left his quarter under the domed city. His parents used to live in the same area. It had been the birthplace of his family for generations. He even followed in his father foot-steps with his job. As far as he could remember, his great grandfather and granddad had also been ground keepers.

The spatial scenery was a good change for Max. He had needed some times to adapt to the new environment, the new routine. The first day, he had been sick. The movement resulting from the rotational artificial gravity gave him motion sickness. Not a lot were so sensitive that they would detect the Coriolis Effect added to the pull of the centrifugal force.

Max realized his predicament as he was reaching his assigned quarters upon his arrival on the station. He fell unconscious in front of his door. Some guards patrolling the area found him and called for help. The doctor who checked on him explained that he had just a really sensitive internal ear and that for the first days he could suffer from dizziness and nausea. Hopefully, all would be sorted out in few days.

Three days after his arrival, Max was finally able to leave his quarters. For the first time, he went on the observatory deck to be quite surprised by the view. More than surprised, he had been amazed. His eyes lightened at the expense of the dark Universe. His mind marveled at the planet bellow him.

The thick orange atmosphere was hiding perfectly the shapes of the continents. Max heard the planet Earth used to be green from trees and blue from water, though he only knew of the domed cities and the perilous Outworld. The corporation, Prograze, had built the domes to protect the population from the lethal radiations and the polluted atmosphere.

Looking around him, getting his marks on the space station, Max wondered why there weren't more space habitat. It seemed a convenient alternative for the Domes, however the regulation of population could be a bit trickier in the infinity.

At the end of the first week, Max had met with some other patients admitted in the same program. They all were nearing their fifties and didn't carry much hope for their future until they had won the Lottery. In this group of new acquaintances, two ladies had made good and fast friend with him.

Clara and Mara, twin sisters, could pass for one another without doubt. They were the typical look alike mirror image twins. What Max liked most about them were their dry humour and vitriolic tongue.

There was also an angular man with whom Max shared a bond built on their common interest, their love for daydreaming and fear of the Outworld. While the sisters critiqued openly Prograze and accused the corporation of having dark secrets and a hidden agenda, Georges was the reason and peacemaker of the group. For each new complot theory Clara or Mara invented, Georges would find a logical explanation. The silicate soup was used for mass mind control, would Clara proclaim; Silicate were easier found than fertile soil would Georges retort, thus the common soup. The domes had been set in place to control the population, Mara assured. It was a necessity to protect people against Natural catastrophes hitting more and more frequently and to provide a safe heaven, Georges countered.

All in all, Max had some fun following the argumentation between the dragon twins and Saint Georges. Though, he wasn't too knowledgeable about the facts and hypothesis thrown in the discussions. He had always accepted that Prograze was giving their best to the people, to protect them and ensure the population to continue growing. For Max, this was enough to accept whatever was thrown at him.

The part of the pre-treatment he liked less had been the memory retrieval process. All patients, the doctor had said, would have their memories recorded, this was to cover for any issue that could arise during the administration of the cure. In a small percentage of cases, memory loss could be experienced. Although a slight amnesia, it shouldn't be more than few month of the more recent events that would disappear of his mind, would he be unlucky enough to suffer from this side effect.

Max didn't try to discuss this downside of the treatment with the others. He didn't want to question the doctors and the cure as Clara or Mara would definitely find another of their fishy theory to condemn Prograze. He wanted to keep optimist and only dream about a more glorious future. With the cure and the second chance of a lifetime, he was assured to live at least another 40 years of mature adult life, not too old, though, to not enjoy the perks of a new position within the corporation as a chosen one.

"How do you explain this, Oh Great Saint Georges?" Mara was on the prowl. The group was at the cantina, on their lunch break composed of fresh vegetables grown under the Moon greenhouses. At the table beside theirs, a group of three men and a woman were stoically taking their meal. There wasn't much of a muttered word or two. The twins had remarked that they acted strangely.

It appeared the group was back from the Moon installations. They had received their cure and were on a post-treatment adaptation phase on the Lagrange station before reintegrating the domed city and their new life over there.

Georges had not much to retort, for once, as it seemed obvious the treated group didn't know any of them anymore. Max recalled the discussion with the doctor about the possible side-effect, and he started to feel uncomfortable. Would he, also, be divested of his memories? They would be sent in few days up there, on the other side of the Moon.

***

The travel to the hospital grounds on the dark side of the satellite didn't take long. Max and his friends were fidgety, impatient to get started with the treatment.

As the shuttle landed, they were directed to a waiting area, near another landing spot. The security was heavy, a lot of guards everywhere. The movements were also quite important. Spacecraft seemed to land and depart on a high frequency, though their direction wasn't the space station but rather a strange maelstrom opening in the immensity.

"Could it be...?" "I knew it!" The twins were rambling.

"Wormhole!" Georges sounded terrified.

Max was puzzled.

"... and number 13256D. Dock N337!" A speaker was giving instructions to the awaiting passengers. Max realised they would have to embark on one of the ship and through the chaos, his enthusiasm for the upcoming treatment administration dampened.

The group of four followed to their assigned landing pad. The transporter just arrived, pouring its charge of travelers from the other side of the hole. Max could but see their expression, determined, concentrated. Nothing in their eyes was hinting of happiness or relief.

Max didn't remember much of the ride through the Maelstrom. He got dizzy and nauseous as soon as the shuttle engines started. The twins were quiet, for once, deep in their thoughts. Georges looked resigned.

On the other side, another group of heavily armed guards received them. Another triage. Another landing pad on the Moon. Max had this impression they had been dropped back on the satellite. Taking on his surroundings, it really looked like the Earth little tag-along-rock.

It felt like he was going backward. Max had this impression of the time rewinding. He had these fleeting images of his initial voyage as he went from the Moon to the Lagrange station, and finally back on Earth. This Earth, however, wasn't hidden by the orange atmosphere. No, this Earth was blue and green as he had been told it used to be.

Max's disquietude increased. There were no dome covering the lush surface of the planet. The spacecraft landed on a clearing where peoples awaited. They obviously would be the next passengers on this strange route across the wormhole.

The ever-present guards, since they had left the protection of the space station on the side of his Earth, herded Max and his friends to an enclosure of sort.

"Welcome to Thera!" The man who spoke those words with an obvious irony was the spitting image of Max. His sarcastic smile increased as he looked is Earthian double in the eyes. "Do not fear, I will take great care of your memories..."

They were doomed. The lottery, the cure, Prograze... all had been too perfect. He should have been discarded at fifty. Max was mourning the five years he could have spent under the Dome, though he would on a strange planet. Those five years and the remaining of his life.

What he learned, once inside the enclave, let him think he wouldn't have much more to live anyway. The planet was toxic for humans. The inhabitants had played with GMO and climate control. Their planet had taken a revenge on their interference.

Max had met with doctor Halt when he arrived on Thera -- the real Doctor Halt, from Earth --, along with other people he thought he knew. Those had obviously been already replaced when he had met their doubles on Earth. Halt had explained all this to him, about the destruction of a planet, about how Prograze board of directors thought they could benefit from technology from an alternate version of their World. The people here had been more cunning than the corporation foxes. They had bidden their time, giving Earthlings the tools for their own demise.

Now, they had the perfect escape from this dreaded planet, and no one on Earth would be the wisest...