Chapter 32
A week had passed since the safari. The group had returned quickly to the city after what they experienced. They had spent most of the week apart from each other. They all needed time to think. For Thomas, Vera, and Doug, what they had hoped would be a brilliant escape into the far advanced and better off world of the future had been a huge disappointment. Their minds were all over the place, but one common question rang clear between them: What now?
For Darin and Lyla, it was a slightly different story. Until that time, they had been fine with their world, and hadn't noticed most of the deep, essential flaws. They had lived very much like the large majority of people two-hundred years prior. Now that their eyes had been opened, they felt much like Thomas had felt before meeting Frank. The world was a wreck, but what could they do about it? They wanted to escape, but where would they go? After nearly a week's worth of thinking, they still couldn't come up with a single plausible plan of action that would make any difference whatsoever. This left them feeling stranded and adrift, both of them wondering: What now?
Finally Thomas couldn't take it anymore. He was going crazy sitting around doing nothing all day. They had to get out of the lab and talk about this together. He knocked on everyone's door, asking them to come down to the lab. A few minutes later, the group was gathered, looking toward Thomas, waiting for him to say something.
"Well," he finally said, "given how we've all been alone this past week, I'm guessing we've all had a lot of time to think about what we're going to do." Everyone nodded solemnly. "Thing is, we haven't done any talking together. We're all trying to figure out what to do, but I'm guessing that so far, we've all come up empty, right?" Everyone nodded again. "So why don't we pool our resources and try to come up with something together?" No one responded. "Come on, let's go get a pizza or something and take it to the park. We can get some fresh air, relax, and try to make some plans." No one seemed willing to move. Finally Doug spoke up.
"We might as well. What else are we going to do but sit around and feel sorry for ourselves?"
"That's the spirit!" Thomas said, hoping the others would follow suit.
"Why not?" Darin said.
"Sure," Lyla said.
"Whatever," Vera mumbled, still bitter.
They walked out the door and into the sunshine. It was an exceptionally beautiful late-summer day. The temperature was perfect, a gentle breeze was blowing, and it was only partly cloudy. Were it not for their recent experiences, all would have seemed right with the world. The park was only about ten blocks off, and there was a pizza place along the way, so they decided to hoof it rather than use the PODS. The exercise, they reasoned, would do them some good too.
About twenty minutes later, they were one block from the park and were picking up their pizza. They ordered two because they couldn't agree on what to get, and it was easier to just get two rather than to endlessly debate over sausage or no sausage. They arrived at the park and tried to seek out a quiet spot where they wouldn't be disturbed. After a time, they found a secluded corner near a pond. There were only a few other people around feeding the ducks, but they were far enough away that they wouldn't bother them.
"So," said Thomas between mouthfuls of pizza, "what are we going to do now?"
"I dunno," Doug said, "the past sucked, the future sucks, and I don't really care anymore."
"Doug," Vera said snottily, "you express your thoughts so elegantly! Please, tell us more."
"You guys, I'm not convinced things are as bad as we think," Darin said quickly before a fight erupted. "I mean, yeah, even from my perspective things seem pretty bleak. I never realized how things truly were till you guys came. I always readily accepted anything that came my way and didn't question it at all. But maybe we just made some mistakes when we were picking travel destinations."
"Three times in a row?" Lyla said. "That seems pretty unlikely."
"Well the whole world can't be THAT bad," Darin insisted, "there has to be some good out there we haven't found yet."
"I'm pretty convinced there isn't," Lyla said, "we've been blind till now but my eyes have been opened."
"I think we're missing the important point here," Thomas said. "Yes, we can easily agree that the world of the future--now, that is--isn't what we thought it was going to be. I mean it does have its perks. I got to ride in a flying car, the world is united under one government, genetic disease has basically been eradicated, I mean there's a lot of really good stuff. But for every good thing we've seen it seems like there are a couple dozen negative things."
"I'll say," Vera mumbled.
"Right. So what we need to figure out is not WHY things are bad, but what we can do about it." They sat in silence for a time.
"Well where on Earth could we go?" Lyla asked out loud.
"Hey..." Thomas said, an idea occurring to him. "Maybe it's not where we go, but when..."
"What?" Lyla asked.
"The lab!" Thomas said, his idea taking shape.
"Oh come on," Doug said, catching on, "you can't be serious! You want us to freeze ourselves again? What's the point? Humanity has had two-hundred years to get their act together and failed. Miserably. You think that giving them more time is going to make a difference?"
"Yeah," Vera said, "we tried it once. It was a grand experiment, it had to be done by someone, but it failed. There's no reason to do it again."
"But how do we know what the future holds?" Thomas said excitedly.
"We don't!" Doug shouted. "We didn't know what it held the first time either! Fat lot of good that did us!"
"Whoa whoa, come on, calm down now." Thomas exhaled, gathering his thoughts. "Yes, there is no guarantee that it'll get any better, but there's no promise that it'll get any worse. We have nothing to lose by trying it. Even if it hasn't gotten any better we can just freeze ourselves again and stay frozen for another couple of years, waking up occasionally to see if anything has changed." Thomas paused to let them think and see if anyone would agree with him.
"You know," Vera said slowly, "we might as well try it..."
"Umm, I think you guys are forgetting something," Lyla said. "There are only three of those tubes in that lab and--I don't know about Darin--but I don't particularly want to be here anymore either. You can't expect us to just stay behind and let you guys go."
"Oh," Thomas said dejectedly, "I hadn't really thought about that." They sat in silence once again, Thomas not wanting to relinquish the idea just yet. He reflected for a minute about the sacrifice that Frank, Ervin, and Flo had made. It was the first time he had thought of them in quite a while. How had it been for them, he wondered, seeing us frozen in the chambers everyday, knowing that they couldn't accompany us? It was a sacrifice, he was sure, but at least they had each other for support. A support system...
"Why don't we just play rock paper scissors to decide?" Darin was saying.
"Idiot!" Thomas said out loud and smacked himself on the forehead.
"What did you say?" Darin glared.
"Oh no, not you," Thomas quickly backpedaled. "Sorry. I just had an idea," he said, standing up. "Lyla, can I talk to you?" The others all looked over at her, then back to Thomas, then back to her.
"Sure, I guess," she said as she got up. The two of them walked together away from the group.
"We'll be back!" Thomas shouted over his shoulder. Darin, Doug and Vera watched them as they walked away around the pond.
"I wonder what they're talking about..." Vera said aloud.
"I don't know, but who cares?" Doug said.
"Hmm," Darin muttered. He was beginning to piece things together.
"Lyla," Thomas began once he was sure he was far enough away from the group, "I've been an idiot."
"You were being a pretty big jerk on the safari, yeah."
"No, I'm not even talking about that. Though I am sorry, I should have told you." Lyla nodded. "Anyhow, I just had an epiphany. I came on this journey because after I lost my job, I realized that I had
never been content. I began searching for answers, and found Frank's team. I thought that coming to the future would make a difference, that things would be better and I would finally be at peace. For the past few weeks, I'd been thinking that I had made the biggest mistake of my life. I had flung myself into a future world where I can hardly relate to anything or anyone. This whole time, though, I'd been overlooking the most important change..."
"Which was?"
"Us. Me and you, together. That's what I've just realized! It's not where or when you go, but who you go with that matters! Think about it... Frank, Ervin, and Flo started this lab because they wanted to see change, but in the end they let us go instead. I think they realized that while they wanted the world around them to be better, if you have a good enough relationship with someone else, you can pull through it together, regardless of what's going on around you. They were probably never entirely sure that the future would be better, but they hoped for the best for our sake. In the end, if it wasn't better, we'd have each other," Thomas said, reaching for Lyla's hands. "Will you stay, with me?"
"Oh Thomas," she said, a tear flowing down her cheek, "yes. Yes, I'll stay." She hugged him. Thomas had never been happier than he was in that moment.
"Come on," he said, "we'd better go tell the others. I'm sure they're wondering what's going on."
"OK," Lyla said, smiling, "let's do it." They walked over and rejoined the group. Everyone was looking at them quizzically, unable to comprehend what they had seen from a distance.
"We could still refreeze," Thomas said.
"How?" Doug protested, frustration making him forget what he had just seen. "We can't build more chambers, so we can't all go."
"I know."
"So it doesn't work, it's not an option." Doug said firmly.
"Maybe, maybe not," He looked at Doug and Vera. "You know what a huge sacrifice it was for Frank, Ervin, and Flo to stay behind while we traveled to the future. Every day they would see us there, and they knew they couldn't come. But they had each other for support. It still couldn't have been easy on them, but when you have someone you love," he said, looking back towards Lyla, "it's easier to cope." Thomas waited to let them mull it over, maintaining eye contact with Lyla. She nodded.
"So who would stay behind?" Doug asked, oblivious to what was going on right in front of him.
"We will," Lyla answered quickly, reaching for and grasping Thomas' hand. The others were shocked for a moment, then their brains finally began to connect the dots.
"Wait, you two?" Doug said, pointing back and forth between them in disbelief.
"We were trying to keep it quiet," Lyla said, smiling. "We didn't want to make a big deal over it in case it didn't work out." Thomas smiled back.
"So you two will stay behind and let me, Doug, and Darin go?" Vera asked.
"Yes, that's the plan...possibly anyhow." Thomas said.
"I still don't like it," Doug said, "I honestly think it's a waste of time. So long as humans rule this planet, they're just going to keep messing things up."
"Well if you stay frozen long enough, maybe something else will have taken over the planet and things really will be better!" Thomas said jokingly. He was in an excessively good mood since his relationship had been made official.
"You're not funny, Thomas." Doug said bitterly.
"I still think it's a good idea," Vera said. "I mean even if things don't get excessively better, there has to be some point where we begin to colonize other parts of the galaxy, right?" She paused to get consensus. Everyone nodded, seeing where she was going with this. "We can always escape this planet and go somewhere else, right?"
"Yeah, but those planets will still be run by man," Doug said.
"Not necessarily," Thomas said. "We don't know what's out there. There might be intelligent life on other planets. They will probably be more advanced than us, and will likely run things better. You could always escape there if they let you."
"I doubt it," Doug said. "I mean, I'm sure there's intelligent life out there somewhere. There has to be, and the proof is in the fact that they haven't tried to contact us. They don't want us out there messing things up. So they hide from us, avoid us like the plague. I'm sure they're hoping that humans will blow themselves up before anyone ever makes contact with them, and that's probably what will happen."
Just then, as if Doug were some sort of prophet, the ground they were sitting on began to shake. A faint rumbling was heard and began growing louder with every passing second. Ripples began forming in the pond, breaking the surface tension and prompting the ducks to fly away. The group stumbled to their feet, trying to decide if they should run or just stay where they were. Vera somehow caught sight of the sky above them and stood, transfixed, mouth agape, pointing in horror. The others looked up and saw what it was. If any of them screamed, the loud roaring made it impossible to know.
The sky above them was an intense color of red and orange. The clouds that had gathered in the meantime were parting as if they were fleeing the city below them. As they did so, an immense, glowing object became visible. It looked simply like a giant ball of fire, roaring downward. What's worse, it appeared that the thing--whatever it was--was going to land on right on top of them. They took off running, constantly looking up as they went to check on the object's trajectory. Running seemed futile, however, and more than one of them shouted this at different points.
"It must be a comet or an asteroid!" Thomas yelled.
Of course, none of them could hear the shout to respond to it. As they neared the edge of the park, more and more people could be seen running away from the madness. Thomas looked back once again and suddenly realized that this thing, whatever it was, was slowing down.
"That's no comet..." he said in awe. It looked as if it was going to land right on top of the baseball fields near the middle of the park. He stopped and stared, trying to comprehend what he was looking at. The others kept running, then slowed when they realized Thomas was behind them. They turned back to look for him and saw him standing there, staring. They assumed he had simply gone mad and were quite prepared to leave him. But as they looked back, they too noticed that the object was slowing down. They walked back to where he was standing, joining him in a group stare. The sense of terror was still there, but whatever this thing was, it was no longer going to come crashing down right on top of them.
The object kept slowing and finally came to a rest on the baseball fields. A burst of wind and hot air hit the group and they shielded their eyes. Once the wind stopped, they looked back to where the object had come to rest and waited till the dust and smoke cleared. Sitting in the middle of the baseball field was an immense, almost cigar shaped metallic object, pointing upwards, gleaming brightly in the sun's summer rays. There were slick, smooth curves and lines running across its body, adding shape to what would've otherwise been a dull design. The group stood staring in silence. Even the birds had stopped singing, and the majority of the screams had abated. Everything was eerily quiet.
Thomas looked over at Lyla, grabbed her hand, and finally broke the silence.
"Well... I guess we won't have to wait for space travel after all..." They all began walking together towards the spaceship.
Timeline:
2015 – Nuclear power plant buildup
2022 – Social Security System collapses
2024 – First worldwide treaty signed to institute Worldwide ID Program
2035 – OH NOES! Oil Gone!
2036 – World economy collapses
2037 – World War three started "A jolly good way to rejuvenate the economy"
2042 – Internet declared a threat to global instability, destroyed.
2052 – World governments collapse, "Pangea" founded, war ends
2053 – Thomas' condo demolished
2055 – Solar panel efficiency tremendously increased, "Great Green Movement"
2058 – The personal computer makes a comeback, Portal System launched
2061 ?
?? Melvin Frey walks on Mars
2063 – Genetically engineered "Giganto Foods"
2071 – First "smart" robots mass produced at an affordable price
2083 – Earth's climate declared "stable" (August 16th)
2131 – Hover technology demonstrated
2135 – Personal robots begin utilizing hover technology
2144 – First hovercars begin selling
2145 – Hovercars switch to autopilot system only.
2149 – Implantation Law passed
2150 – Reliable human cloning demonstrated (August 17th)
2152 – Hovertrain lines opened
2155 – Personal DNA and memory backup hardware introduced
2158 – Robot Inequality Act passed
2161 – All Major Airlines Declare Bankruptcy, shut down
2164 – Designer Babies introduced
2166 – Responsible Human Procreation laws passed
2169 – Human Improvement Lottery introduced
2175 – PODS System First Demonstrated
2179 – First PODS Station Installed for commuter use
2185 – Subway system closed
2190 – Copybots first deployed
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