by 2049 (pdf)
2049
Aaron Bergen
2049
Copyright © 2020 Aaron Bergen
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-6603-0402-8
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Aaron Bergen
DEDICATION
To my family, friends, teachers, and anyone else who helped me through this journey.
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Preface
Hi, my name is Aaron. I’m 18 years old and I’m a freshman
studying electrical engineering at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. I play sports, like hanging out with friends, and stay up late sometimes procrastinating and watching Youtube.
Essentially, I’m just your average guy. This recording could have fallen into pretty much anyone’s hands. Why it found itself in my hands, I have no idea. But I’m glad it did.
I woke up one morning and noticed a black flash drive on my
desk. It wasn’t my roommate's and it wasn’t mine. I asked him if anyone might have left it in our room, and he shrugged his shoulders. I noticed the red numbers, 2049, on the back were drawn in with a red sharpie or something. I decided to pop it into my laptop and take a look to see who it might belong to.
The flash drive had no name and only one single audio file.
The audio file read the same as the marking on the flash drive: 2049. I dragged the file into my laptop and took out the flash drive (probably not ejecting it properly) and stuffed it in my junk drawer. I just left the file on my computer for a while, and almost forgot about it actually. But one night, I decided to listen to it with my headphones. It sounded like some lame audio sketch for a screenplay or something, or some type of group project, but I kept listening. Something about the way the story unfolded, the voice of the narrator, the organic feel of the recording, made me feel like what I was listening to wasn’t just some group project or fictional screenplay. It sounded real. And the story, as crazy as it was, stuck in my mind. I couldn’t get it and my thoughts about the recording out of my head for weeks. Finally, I decided to do something about it.
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What you are about to read is my transcription of the audio
recording I found. All of the words are his words and not mine. I will repeat that because it’s important. This is not a story that came from my own unimaginative engineering mind, this is Thomas’s story. I obviously cleaned it up a bit, took out some of the ums and likes and put some chapters in with a few timestamps to help the narrative flow, but other than that, these are all completely Thomas’s words. I gave my first draft of the transcription to a few friends and they persuaded me to try to get it published. So, that is exactly what this is: a published version of my transcription.
You can think whatever you want about this transcription. You
might think it’s blatantly fake, the product of someone with too much time and a vivid imagination, and hey, you’re probably totally right. Or you could be like me and think it’s real. Either way, real or fake, I think Thomas’s story is fascinating. If you have any questions about the recording, you can always contact me at [email protected].
Everything you read from this point forward will be Thomas’s
words. (Hopefully you actually read this preface, and you aren’t like me and just skip every single preface of every book ever. But if you did, that’s cool too.)
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Prologue
"Wait, hold on a second, is it on now?"
"Yeah, it’s on."
"Um...OK. How should I start it?"
"I don’t know. Making this recording was your idea."
"Right. I guess I’ll just start from the beginning.
If you are listening to this recording, know that your life is about to change. What I’m about to tell you will change your understanding of time, reality, and the way the universe works. Time travel is real. It’s very real. You can go both forwards and backward in time. Basically, every science fiction novel or movie or TV show you’ve ever read or seen is right… but it’s also completely wrong. It’s… hard to explain.
There is still a ton that we don’t understand about time travel, but for now, you’ll have to trust me that time travel is real. I’ll do my best to explain the details later.
You might be wondering right now, ‘how does this guy know
that time travel is real’. Well, it’s because I invented the time machine.
Well…sorta. My dad did. My dad was an inventor by day and a tinkerer by night. When I was younger, we would spend countless hours in the basement of our small home, fiddling with electronics and mechanical parts, working on project after project. I fondly remember waking up early before the sun could peep through the cracks between the blinds and the windowsill, slipping downstairs in my fuzzy slippers, and looking up at the warm and smiling face of my dad. He would’ve already been up for hours, the slight streak of sweat under his blonde hair making his forehead shine like treasure I had taken for granted. The musk of burnt electronics and sawdust would linger in the intimate air, and the 6
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scent of pancakes and syrup would slowly settle in and draw us upstairs to greet my mom whistling in the kitchen. She would set a stack of golden pancakes thicker than tree trunks down in front of us, and we’d laugh at the sticky streaks the syrup would leave if you tried to fit too much into your mouth at once. Then my dad would head off to work, and my mom would hastily shuffle me into the backseat of the car, and the school day would begin. This was our family routine. Like clockwork, but never boring. Those were the good old days, when nothing mattered except the project we were working on.
But then there was the accident. The storm was biblical. One
minute you could see the stars and the road, the next minute, you were blind, scared, and alone. The rain pounded like a drum that shook the whole foundation of the house, warning us. Wind ripped the shingles off of our frail house like tattered skin. Dismembered limbs of trees littered the black asphalt of our house’s cul-de-sac. In the living room, I remember the figure of a cartoon character dancing across a pale screen screech after a boulder fell and smushed him into the Earth.
My dad had gone out that night, before the rain got really bad, to get the last part of the project that he promised to tell me about as soon as I turned thirteen. He said he’d be quick so my mom left the garage door open. He said to me before he left, "Be good Thomas. There will always be a time when you feel like quitting, but remember, that moment when you finish will be worth the suffering." He said these last words like he was going to war, like he knew that he would never come back.
Rain pierced the sleepless night like daggers, and I stayed awake, pressing my face anxiously up against the bitter cold glass. I watched lightning rip across the sky and felt the shattering of thunder deep in my chest, more powerful than the beating of my heart. I waited and waited, fighting against heavy eyelids that threatened to shroud my world in darkness. But he never came back. Waiting there helplessly felt like walking across a tightrope spanning a roaring river, utterly powerless against greater forces that I couldn’t quite yet comprehend. I felt terrified that at any moment, a strong gust of wind would come and make me lose 7
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my balance, and I would tumble and tumble into a world I would no longer recognize.
The next day, right after the sun rose above a sleepless
landscape, the phone sang its hollow tune like a sick bird that had fallen from a tree. I can still see the look on my mom’s face. The phone clattered against the tile floor and she covered her mouth with a single hand, the grief so new that the tears that woul
d plague us for the next three years hadn’t started yet. I ran outside and looked at the house.
When I blinked hard, it seemed to disappear, like it never even existed.
They found my dad’s red corvette at the bottom of a cliff under the bridge by the streets Pine and Redbird, a mere five miles from our house. At some point during the night, he lost control and crashed through the side barrier and fell down to the Earth. The mangled metal of the car constricted around my dad so tightly that they couldn’t get his body out. I watched his coffin sink slowly into the ground through blurry eyes, not even knowing if he was in it.
The authorities gave us the contents of the car that they were
able to recover. A single file, warped from being saturated by rain, caught my eye immediately and I seized it with eager hands. To me, the contents of the file were clues for what might have happened that night. Little did I know what those papers had in store for my future.
The sketches were blueprints for the project my dad was trying
to keep a secret: a time machine. At first, I didn’t believe that it could be possible to build a time machine, but as I looked further in-depth into the blueprints, I realized more and more how possible building it really was.
Building the time machine became an obsession for me. It was my holy grail. It could be a way for me to go back in time and save my dad and put the shattered pieces of my life back together. Sounds simple enough right? Well, building a time machine was only the first part, what came after…well, I guess now that the stage is set, let me begin my story.
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2049
Part 1: The Time Machine
5:35 PM January 15th, 2019
I looked over my shoulder frantically to see that they still
peddled furiously on their bikes after me. Even though it was a late winter afternoon and the cold air stung my face, beads of sweat streamed down my pulsing temples.
Damn it Thomas! Why did you do that? You couldn’t just mind your own business and keep your head down, I thought to myself. I gripped the handlebars of my old bike so hard the knuckles of my cold hands turned whiter than my already pale freckled skin.
"You’re dead!" one of the thugs chasing me bellowed, not far behind. I heard the rumbling of a motor come up from behind me. I looked to my right to see one of the older gang members ride his motorcycle parallel to my bike. He snarled at me under thick sunglasses and yanked his handlebars towards me. The motorcycle encroached on my space, forcing me to run my bike off of the side of the cracked asphalt road. The muddy soil grabbed at my front tire and my bike stopped suddenly, hurling me over the handlebars and sending me crashing headfirst into a pile of weeds. I braced myself with my thin arms and tumbled to the side. The motorcycle screeched its brakes, and the thug driving it took a few steps towards me in his heavy boots. The other 9
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kids stopped and got off their bikes and followed suit, slowly gathering in a half-circle on the road to surround me.
"Why’d ya do that?" the older one who rode the motorcycle asked, chewing something in-between yellowed teeth.
"Do what?" I asked dumbly, rubbing my head with my filthy palm. I recoiled in shock at the scarlet streak my forehead left on my hand.
"Don’t play stupid. Why’d you stick up for that kid and spit on my homie?" one of the other school gang members asked, cracking his knuckles and cocking his head to one side.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that asshole was your homie,” I
scoffed, squinting against the pain I felt in my forehead.
“You better watch your mouth, Dead-Daddy-Tommy, or I’ll
break your jaw. Swear to God. Now answer the question," the one wearing the thick shades snarled. Now that he stood only a few feet away from me, he towered above me. I guessed he probably weighed double my weight.
"I dunno," I started. I didn’t want to answer the question, but a tugging feeling at the back of my head, even stronger than the throbbing I felt in my forehead, compelled me to keep talking. The words just sort of spilled out of my mouth. "Knocking some kid’s books out of his hand isn’t fair. I mean, what did he do to you?"
"Nothin. But life isn’t fair," the tall one with the shades sneered, and his other three buddies chuckled. "You of all people would know huh? You still miss your daddy? Sad that your mommy drinks too
much?" he jabbed. My breaths were short and shallow. I urged myself to do what my therapist told me to do whenever this sort of thing happens, whenever I feel this mad. I pictured the little compartments she would talk about. I tried to put the angry thoughts in the box, but his abrasive words were too much, and I slammed the metaphorical lid on my thumb.
The jock’s mouth still moved, but I wasn’t listening to his words anymore. I’d heard enough.
I sprung to my feet and swung a swift left hook at the tall guy’s jaw. The impact caused him to stumble back a few paces. He rubbed his 10
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jaw with his thick hands and looked at me in irritated disbelief. He wiggled his jaw back and forth a bit and chuckled menacingly, seemingly unfazed by my punch.
"Alright then. You shouldn’ta done that." He shoved me hard in the chest and sent me falling backward into the mud and weeds on the side of the road again. My head hit the prickly ground with a thud, and before my eyes could focus, a fist came crashing down into my nose. My nose erupted and I felt spurts of sticky blood flow down my neck and soak into my shirt. I put my hands up blindly to defend myself, but before I could see straight, his black boot stomped hard on the soft of my stomach, knocking all the air out of my lungs. I tried to suck in another gulp of air, but my lungs seemed to gag on my new breath like it was toxic.
"Yo, he had enough," I heard one of the other gang members mumble as I tried to get the world to stop spinning and coax air back into my stubborn lungs.
"That should teach him a lesson. Next time don’t mess with things you can’t handle," the tall one grumbled. He cleared the back of his throat and spat out a wad of yellow-green mucus. It landed wetly on my cheek and dribbled down the side of my face, but I couldn’t muster the effort to raise an arm to wipe at it. I heard the sound of the motorcycle engine start again and then the screech of tires as it sped down the small two-lane road. I heard the others cackle amongst themselves as they mounted their bikes to leave too. I guess watching someone beat someone else senseless is what passes for entertainment nowadays.
I just laid there on the side of the road for a while trying to regain feeling and control in my muscles. Grey clouds floated close to the ground, and the sun hung low in the sky, waiting patiently to dip below the horizon. I slowly started twitching each muscle in my body to self diagnose my condition. I didn’t think I broke anything, but everything hurt pretty badly. All I could feel was a sharp throbbing in my head and my entire body.
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I wondered why I couldn’t stop myself from helping the nerdy
kid the bullies picked on. People get beat up all the time at my school.
School sucks. Seeing something like that is just the norm. Maybe the kid reminded me too much of myself: helpless and tired. Maybe his glasses, the ones the tall guy stomped into a thousand pieces, reminded me of my dad’s glasses. I sighed and my lungs remembered how to work again. I fished around in my jacket pocket and popped the sleek capsule of a loose blue pill into my mouth. I swallowed hard.
I sure know how to start one hell of a weekend.
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*
I got back on my bike and continued peddling home with my
sore body. The old oak trees with the fat gnarled trunks, the kind distinctive to the middle inland part of California that nobody gives a crap about, passed slowly on my right, lost in a sea of dying tan grass.
The cold wind felt nice now, almost soothing on my fresh injuries. This wasn’t the first time I’d gotten into a tussle like that. Just one of the many to add
to a long, painful list.
A small wooden cross passed me on the right. It tilted to the side, carelessly stuck into the loose dirt on the side of the road, probably marking the spot where somebody crashed and died in an accident going too fast on this narrow road at night. There are lots of these that I pass coming home from school on this road. Right after the bridge, my dad has one. I try not to look at it, but most of the time, I can’t help myself.
A car passed me in the opposite direction, his gaze held my eyes for too long and I shuddered. I could feel his judgment, sour like the fake guise of sympathy that so many people like to hide under. I’ve come quite acquainted with that look over these past three years.
I rode my bike into the dingy, forever-open-garage and set it
carelessly against the wall without using the kickstand and headed immediately upstairs to the bathroom to get a better look at my injuries.
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I peered into the mirror and recoiled in shock. I could hardly
recognize myself. I looked even skinner and paler than I remembered. I rolled up my sleeve tentatively and looked at the secret scars streaking my forearm. I ran my fingers gently over them, feeling the grooves like freshly plowed red furrows in white, freckle peppered soil. I quickly pulled my sleeve down and looked back into the mirror. My eyes were so swollen, you could hardly tell that I had incredibly blue eyes, wolf eyes my mom used to call them, and my lips looked more swollen than all of the Kardashian’s lips combined. The Niagara falls still oozing from my nose left a red v-neck shaped stain on my shirt, and I had to wring out the wet blood into the sink.
I rummaged around in the drawer under the sink to find a cotton ball to stuff up my nose to stop the bleeding. I found one and ripped it in half and stuck each half up each nostril, ran some cold water over my hands, and watched the thick red disappear down the drain.
After an hour of self-care to fix myself up so that my forehead and nose stopped bleeding for the most part, I finally no longer looked like an extra from the Walking Dead. I looked at myself again and sighed. I balled my fists and rocked gently back and forth, angry with myself for lashing out again for the third time this month after hearing someone make fun of my dad. I felt even angrier that the work I’d done with my therapist seemed like it was falling apart. The only thing I felt like I could still control was my project: the time machine that my dad never finished. Maybe being so close to finishing it made me restless…