Chapter 16:
From the standpoint of Darin and Lyla, things seemed to be good for the three that had traveled to the future. First and foremost, they had arrived safely and with no ill-effects. Secondly, despite the initial altercations, these three turned out to be very nice people after all, and they were taking a liking to them. Finally, the living conditions at the lab were very accommodating. This was something they felt these three should appreciate. However, despite these facts, it wasn't so easy for Thomas, Doug, and Vera.
For them, it was a bit of an emotional roller coaster. It was true that they had two nice--though unusual--new friends, were healthy, and had comfortable, private rooms. However, the basic necessities of life--food, shelter, and companionship--while important, weren’t enough. Thomas always had these things in the past, and while he didn’t feel fulfilled, he was always at least moderately happy with what he had. This journey, though, had left him feeling uncomfortable and uneasy. It wasn’t that he was afraid. He was just suffering from a severe case of culture shock brought on by the revelations of the previous day. After running the same negative thoughts through his head over most of the evening and half the night, Thomas managed to escape from the downward spiral of despair and fell asleep feeling slightly optimistic. The negative thoughts were thoroughly grateful for the break.
Thomas awoke the next morning feeling surprisingly well rested considering the amount of sleep he got. He hopped out of bed and quickly got ready, beginning to feel more confident and comfortable in his surroundings. But his small bubble of comfort would soon be broken. It had been a little under two days since they had been revived, and the group had decided to make that afternoon the first time they would leave the lab for a short little excursion into the city.
"So we're just going to go out and show you a few things," Thomas could hear Darin saying to the others as he entered the lab. "We can't really travel anywhere far yet because there's a few things we'll need to get sorted out first."
"Like what?" Thomas asked, joining the conversation.
"Well, you three don't have government assigned ID numbers yet, and everyone is required to have and know their number." Darin explained.
"You mean like a social security number?" Vera asked.
"It's a little bit like that, yeah," Lyla said, her history knowledge kicking in. "But the social security system collapsed in 2022, and the new worldwide ID program was started. So we'll have to take you down to the ID office and get you a number."
"OK, fair enough," Doug said. "So are we ready to go?"
"Lyla and I are ready if you are," Darin responded. They all nodded and made their way up to the foyer where they stood for a moment in an awkward silence. "You're sure you're ready?" Darin asked again. They nodded again. In reality, though, Thomas wasn't entirely sure. He was still feeling relatively positive. In the back corners of his mind, however, the negative thoughts--having recovered from the workout the day before--were attempting to push their way to the front again. Every effort had been made to keep them in the dark: windowless rooms, no television, nothing to let them have contact with the outside world. What was out there that spurred such protective measures?
"OK, here goes nothing..." Darin said, stopping Thomas' train of thought dead in its tracks. He opened the door and sunlight poured in. The five of them stepped out into the blinding rays. Once their eyes adjusted, Thomas, Vera, and Doug marveled at what they saw.
The street they were entering was just as broad as times past, but it now consisted mostly of sidewalk. The paved tarmac was just a narrow strip in the center, wide enough for only a single vehicle. However, it was empty aside from a single taxi. Thomas thought this to be extremely strange...until he looked up. In the skies above him, vehicles--quite literally--flew by, speeding to their destinations. Thomas stopped dead in his tracks and gazed up in amazement. He couldn't believe it. Thomas had never been one to crave the latest and greatest things. In his mind, it was a futile effort. The newest, most mind-blowing piece of technology to be released since last month would come out, everyone would rush to buy it, and it would be made obsolete a month later when the cycle began anew. But there was one thing that he had always dreamed of, one thing that he always knew he would be first in line to get, if it ever came out. He was finally going to have a flying car.
After staring for quite some time, he suddenly realized that the others were nowhere to be found. Panicked, he was about to run off looking for them, when he heard Lyla shout his name. He looked over in the direction of the call, spotted Darin above the crowd, and rushed over. Lyla and Darin were standing near Doug and Vera, and appeared to be thoroughly amused at their amazement. Doug and Vera were, of course, completely oblivious to all of this, and seemed to be more focused on staring at the cars above them as Thomas had done moments before.
Thomas was just about to start staring again when he suddenly noticed the crowds surrounding them. The sidewalks were bustling with people, just as diverse as before--if not more so. Thomas glanced at them as they quickly passed by, catching fleeting glimpses of every skin tone, hair color, and body type imaginable, including many combinations Thomas had been quite sure were impossible. As the people passed, Thomas caught snippets of their conversations. Some of the bits he could understand easily, but he noticed that a significant percentage of the conversations were completely incomprehensible. This wasn't due to the subject of the conversations, however. It was the languages themselves that were different. He looked over at Darin and Lyla, prepared to ask for an explanation, but Doug and Vera had already gained full control of their attention with questions about the cars flying overhead.
"Hold on, hold on, you guys can ask questions later when we get back to the lab!" Darin said authoritatively. "Let's just keep moving OK?" They nodded and the group made their way into the crowd.
Had someone from a building above looked down at them, they would've been quite a sight. Darin and Lyla led the way, continuously looking back to make sure that they hadn't left their friends behind. The three visitors from the past were fairly oblivious to everything that was around them. Mouths agape, they looked around in complete awe, noticing one new thing after another. Most of the buildings in this neighborhood hadn't changed--it was designated as a historic district as Lyla would later explain. But off in the distance, countless sleek, shiny, very tall skyscrapers towered over the landscape. They were walking west on 68th Street, heading nowhere in particular.
Thomas began looking at the people around him again: he didn't see a single pedestrian with a cell phone, yet everyone seemed to be talking to someone. At first he thought that perhaps people were talking to their HELPR robots. There were certainly plenty of people who had them. But half the people seemed to just be talking into thin air. One such person seemed to be having an argument with the air. They were screaming, shouting, and flailing their arms wildly! Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the argument seemed to be over, and they started laughing uproariously as they walked down a staircase into the ground.
"Hey!" he shouted to the group, realizing where they were, "Hold up! We're right near the subway, why don't we take that down to the bay?"
"Huh?" Darin asked. "You mean the pods station?"
"Pods?" Thomas asked back. "Let me guess, something new that replaces the subway?"
"Yeah, the subway has been closed for over thirty years," Lyla said. "The PODS--People Oriented Delivery System--replaced it."
"And just how does this PODS thing work?" Thomas asked. Doug and Vera looked on, just as curious.
"Well ... let's just go down and you guys can see it for yourself." Darin led the way and they descended the stairs into the station. Things seemed no different at first. The same stench and burst of hot air met them as they passed through the turnstiles, walked down a corridor, and then descended the stairs onto the station platform. People were standing around waiting, but not for a train. Instead of waiting in one misshapen line along the platform's edge, people split up a
nd got into small, organized lines. These lines led to familiar looking devices that rested in the pit the trains used to run on.
"That looks almost exactly like the cryogenic chamber!" Doug shouted, pointing wildly at one of the PODS. Passersby stopped to stare momentarily, decided it wasn't relevant to their lives, and moved on.
"Keep it down! You're going to trigger a Crazy Alert!" Darin hissed. "Yes, the design is very similar but the function is completely different. People step in, choose their destination, and get sent there. The machine basically does an analysis of the person's body and then rips them apart, molecule by molecule. The information about the person's structure is encoded and sent along high speed fiber links to the destination, where the data is decoded and the person is reassembled."
Doug stared at the chambers lined up against the wall. It sounded impossible, and as far as he was concerned, it was. As he watched, a person stepped into the chamber, pushed some buttons, and the door closed. It looked like the people were talking once they got inside. Then the green light above the chamber turned red. BAMF! The person was gone, only a puff of what looked like steam or smoke remained. The light turned green again, the door opened, and the next person in the queue stepped in. Doug looked across the way to where the uptown train used to board and saw more chambers. Lights would turn from red to green, and a person would appear and exit the chamber, walking casually along to their destination. Doug was amazed and racked his brain trying to figure out what technology could be utilized to make this work, but his thoughts were interrupted.
"Is it safe?" Thomas asked.
"Well, yeah, mostly," Darin hesitated. "See, when the technology first came out, they tried to use it for long distances. They installed a PODS connection between the city and London, and there was a lot of fanfare about it. It was hailed as a great leap in rapid, affordable transportation. People were using it every day, some people even got jobs in London and commuted back and forth using the PODS. Unfortunately..." he looked at Lyla, who nodded, "some idiot was treasure hunting off the coast of England and dropped anchor right on top of the fiber cable and severed it. All the people who were being transmitted from one end of the link to the other were permanently lost, around one-hundred and fifty people altogether."
"Good lord!" Thomas exclaimed. "So all it takes is a failure to transmit the data and the person is gone forever?"
"They've made improvements!" Darin retorted. "We aren't completely unconcerned about human life. Give us some credit! The government decided that the PODS simply weren't fit for long distance transportation and removed the connection between the city and London, and all other similar, long distance connections. The PODS were enhanced and they now store the data representing the person on a hard drive temporarily until the POD unit receives verification that the transmission was successful. But..."
"But what?" Thomas' brow unfurled and he started smiling ironically instead. "Let me guess, it sometimes falsely verifies that the person was received and they are removed from the hard drive, but since they haven't actually arrived, they are then lost forever, right?"
"Actually, yeah, sort of." Darin seemed surprised at the fact that Thomas would know such a thing. "It's more complex than that really, and the actual causes of failure vary, but it's only happened about a thousand times since they've been operational."
"Only a thousand?!" Thomas yelped.
"Hey, stuff happens," Darin shrugged nonchalantly. "And come on! That's next to nothing when you think of how many millions of people use the PODS every day, most people multiple times a day, so it's hardly significant. Besides, if people were really all that worried they would just back up their memories every night and keep their DNA on file."
"Fine..." Thomas sighed and stared vacantly for a time at nothing in particular. "Let's just go." They exited the PODS Station and regrouped on the street. Just as Lyla was ready to ask where they wanted to go next, a loud roar deafened them. They looked up and large string of vehicles passed overhead, completely unlike all the other cars they had seen till that moment.
"What was THAT?" Thomas shouted.
"That was a hovertrain!" Lyla screamed in response. "It was heading east, probably towards a European city."
"Hovertrain?" Thomas asked. "Some sort of alternative to airlines I take it?"
"No, it replaced airlines," Lyla said. "All the major airlines collapsed under the strain of tremendous debt once the high speed hovertrain lines went into effect. The hovertrains became popular because they were so much cheaper and efficient than the airlines. But most importantly, they didn't treat their customers like dirt."
"So that's what they use for long distance transportation, PODS are for short distances in cities, and the hovercars must be what people use for personal transit, right?"
"Exactly!" Lyla said. "See, you're starting to get it, the future's not that complicated after all."
"Wow..." Thomas muttered. "This is just like something straight out of Walt Disney's imagination..."
"DON'T!!!" Darin and Lyla shouted in unison, but it was too late.
"HALT!" a mechanical voice said.
"Oh no..." Darin muttered. The group turned and looked in the direction of the voice. A sleek, black robot floated down towards them. It moved like the HELPR but was much larger, about the size of an outdoor trash can. The robot had bright red colored "eyes" and was holding an intimidating looking baton.
"Which of you said that?" it asked. No one answered. "Second request! Who said that?" They remained silent. "No answer. All shall be held accountable! You five are in violation of the trademarks and copyrights held by the Walt Disney Corporation and shall be punished accordingly!" The robot started moving toward them when suddenly a second robot, the same kind as the first, swooped down and beat the first to a pulp. The second robot looked toward the group.
"Let that be a warning to you! No creature, human or mechanical, shall be allowed to violate any trademark or copyright without prior written permission from the holder of said copyright or trademark! Take this warning to heart!" The second robot flew off, leaving the first one sparking and crackling on the ground in a crumpled heap.
"Copybot," Darin quickly explained, cutting off the obvious question. "Designed by the media magnates to help protect their works. They patrol heavily populated areas searching for people who are doing anything that can be taken as a violation of a given copyright or trademark. When the first one heard you," he looked at Thomas, "he couldn't narrow down which of us said it, so he was going to punish all of us. When the first one was explaining what trademarks you had violated, the second one must've happened to fly by at the same time and heard it say that name, so it punished the first one."
"Why would it destroy another robot trying to enforce the same policy it was?" Doug asked.
"It doesn't care who or what is in violation, it's non-discriminatory, and there is no warning for machines." Darin said simply. "At least with humans it warns them before it starts beating them for the violation."
"But it can't recognize that the machine violating the trademark is another Copybot?" Doug was getting fed up with how stupid it all was.
"Nope, it doesn't care," Darin shrugged. "As far as it's concerned, the other Copybot could've gone rogue." Doug sighed and decided to just leave it all alone. He would research the technology on his own later.
"Heeeeeyyyyyyy, that's pretty groovy!" a strange voice said. Thomas turned around and saw some girl with purple hair and a striped, rainbow colored sweater staring at him. "Those are really retro, I haven't seen anything like that since I, like, went to the history museum way back in seventh grade!"
"I'm sorry, what? I'm not sure what you mean?" Thomas was very put off by this strange woman staring at him and making comments that sounded like something his mother would occasionally say.
"Those things on your face silly! They're so cool! Where did you get them?"
"Oh, my glasses?"
"Yeah, that's what they were called!"
> Thomas looked around and realized that there were, in fact, no other people he could see wearing glasses of any sort. Thomas decided to simply tell the truth.
"Well, they're very old--nearly two-hundred years old in fact. I got them from my mother before she died in a car accident."
"Car accident? Far out! I didn't know that happened anymore! Well those are some wicked awesome..." she paused to search for the unfamiliar word, "glasses, yeah! I'm going to see if I can find some somewhere, maybe an antique store will have them!" She turned around to leave and then saw the crumpled Copybot smoking on the ground. "Hey! Is this yours too?" she asked Thomas.
"Oh, no, that's not mine..." he replied, perplexed by the question.
"Whoa!" she marveled at the decrepit pile of metal. "It's like a work of art!" She looked around, hesitated, then bent over, scooped up the robot, and ran off.
"What a strange woman!" Thomas remarked. "Why would she want that? And how on Earth could such a small person like that pick it up?"
"It's made of a real lightweight metal, and she's probably an art student," Lyla said, smirking. "Come on, let's head back to the lab, there's not much else to see if you won't use the PODS. It's probably for the best anyhow. I'll bet you have a load of questions." They walked together back to the lab.