The Dark and Shining Future

by P. F. White

  “Not specifically. The term engineering is still a little- Christ, I'm probably butchering this whole thing pretty badly,” said Miriam with a shake of her head. She dug around her pockets for something and returned with a battered pack of cigarettes.

  “Want one?”

  “I don't smoke,” said Adriana.

  Miriam shrugged.

  “I don't either, as a rule, but I keep some around just for times like this. Sometimes you just need to calm your nerves, relax, and think for a few minutes. I find cigarettes do that nicely.”

  Adriana looked at the woman then back out over the edge of the building. She didn't know how much she believed, but she did know there was a lot of really weird things in the world now...

  “Actually,” Adriana admitted softly, “I usually keep a little bit of pot around for that.”

  Miriam laughed long and hard.

  “Oh thank god for that. Here, you might be more interested in this then.”

  She pulled out another cigarette with a distinctive green tinge under it's wrapping.

  “I know it's kinda juvenile to do it this way, but I always keep my cigarette pack half filled with normal cigarettes and half with these. That way if someone asks-”

  Adriana had already taken the joint and lit it. She inhaled deeply and then blew out a cloud of smoke. She closed her eyes to revel in the familiar sensation. God, she thought, but I needed that.

  “Makes sense,” she said and passed the joint. Miriam took a puff quickly, then another longer drag. She held it and together they looked out over the edge for a minute straight.

  “It's not really unreality,” said Miriam eventually. Adriana nodded absently and took a puff.

  “See, you can't really just, uh, interface with non-reality. They are like the two parts of the Venn- diagram that don't link up. Reality and non-reality cannot interact, that's kinda how they work...but what does work is taking stuff from the future, or a future anyway.”

  Adriana raised a quizzical eyebrow, but Miriam was continuing on:

  “See the future is weird because it is both unreal and real at the same time. It's kinda where the two meet up in the Venn-diagram. Right now the future is non-real, but that's just because we aren't there yet. In the future: it is real so that's okay. What we thought we were doing was taking things out of the other side of the Venn-diagram, but we weren't. We could only reach so far and where that led us was smack in the middle of the diagram.”

  “Which is the future...” said Adriana, “I think I get it.”

  “Good! I know it's a lot to take in but, basically-” she took a long drag, “All we had done was figure out how to...rob the future!”

  She started laughing and Adriana joined in. It was a pretty ridiculous concept, but part of it was just the fact that she had, unknowingly, been operating in a state of near constant tension ever since they had arrived here. Every day she worried and fretted and thought about what could be, and what might be...now, at last, she was finally just letting go. She smiled warmly at Miriam and Miriam smiled back. The younger woman took her hand in her own, looking into Adriana's eyes.

  Then she leaned over and kissed Adriana fully on the lips.

  Chapter Ten:

  The baby was fine. In fact: he was having the time of his life.

  All around him were little cartoons of men, women, a few animals and a lot of things that he simply couldn't understand. Right now he was playing with something that looked like an octopus crossed with a pound sign. It wiggled and tickled him with limbs that could become so thin they were invisible, but were also very soft. There was a fuzzy caterpillar thing on top of the baby's head and some sort of monkey with a tomato for a head clinging to his back.

  It was pretty much baby nirvana.

  These things, whatever they were, seemed to really enjoy the baby as well. They had already changed him, cleaning him quickly and efficiently without any apparent disgust for his waste. They had little snacks laid out for him, though the snacks didn't really seem to be anything familiar (the shapes and colors were nice though.) They also really enjoyed crawling all over him and even into his nose and mouth. This tickled, but didn't cause him any distress. Every so often he would try and shake one or eat it, but neither seemed to do much to the little cartoon creations. If there was any failing of the little cartoons, it was that they didn't make a lot of noise. That was one of the very few things that the baby didn't like. They were almost entirely silent. Every so often there would be a strange whispering sound coming from them, or a creak when they interacted with the physical world around them. For the most part they were almost like ghosts.

  The baby loved ghosts! Still, after awhile of playing with his new friends he began to suspect he had better get back to his sister. She was bound to be out of her box by now and would probably be cranky. The baby knew that when adults got cranky all you usually had to do was knock something over onto your head, cry, or failing that: cry really loudly. That seemed to do the trick pretty well. His sister was probably in need of a particularly strong cry right about now.

  The baby looked for the door, and found to its' surprise there was none. For a brief moment he considered panicking, but then one of the little creatures drew a door in the wall and the baby was able to crawl through that just fine. It was actually a pretty exciting door, he discovered. He could see all kinds of things through the little tunnel it led through. He could look down and see the many floors beneath him, with people doing all kinds of interesting things. He could see up to where on the roof his mother sat talking to a lady that the baby kind of liked. He could see down into the vast pool, and all the weird little machines that went everywhere. It was a nice tunnel and he wanted to stay.

  He also saw a puppy.

  The baby laughed at the puppy, but the little man who had led him here prodded him on the butt to keep moving. He did so, and soon found himself outside in a boring old hallway. He clapped his hands all the same and proclaimed:

  “Yay hallway!” as best he could. It wasn't long before he heard running feet and saw his sister, wild eyed and panicking, running down the hall towards him. He reached his arms out to be hugged and she scooped him up with tears already in her eyes. Maybe someone else had given her a good cry already.

  “Don't do that,” she said, though her words were difficult to decipher. The baby then realized something strange. He had understood her perfectly. That hadn't happened before. He wondered if it was a result of the cartoons crawling around in his head. That, or it was ghosts. The baby liked ghosts.

  “I'm sorry,” said the baby. He took a lot of care in saying it and to his delight the words came out perfectly. His sister gasped in surprise and he felt proud.

  “Holy shit...” she whispered softly, “You can talk now?”

  “I can talk,” said the baby proudly. Then he added: “Yay! Holy shit! Yay!” and clapped his hands as enthusiastically as he could. This was a good day, he decided. His sister laughed at his new proficiency with words and he liked it. He liked his sister and was glad that she wasn't crying anymore. When other people cried: it usually didn't seem to do them much good.

  The baby turned to look for his little cartoon friends and thank them...but suddenly he couldn't find them. He was a little sad about, that but figured it made sense. They would probably be back. He was simply too interesting for them to resist!

  “Where's my mama?” he asked his sister. It was still hard to form the words right, but he was slowly getting the hang of it. Her eyes got large, but she managed to respond anyway. The man with her just looked big and dumb, his mouth hanging open but not saying anything. He probably couldn't talk yet. The baby understood how that was and hoped he learned quickly. Maybe if he was lucky the baby could convince his new friends to crawl inside of his ears!

  “I think I'm going to take you to her,” said Claire. The baby laughed at that and clapped his hands. He liked that idea a lot.

  # # #

  Adriana pushed Miriam away ge
ntly but firmly. She looked into the younger woman's eyes with dead seriousness.

  “Stop that,” she said with force, “I like you, Miriam, but not like that. I'm married- happily married and though I'm flattered I am also not interested.”

  Miriam's eyes went soft and pleading. She looked like she was going to cry. She tried turning away, her hands shaking. She seemed to suddenly fumble with everything. Her embarrassment fairly radiated from her.

  “I'm- I'm sorry,” she stammered, “I just...I...”

  The tears began to flow freely now. She seemed small and vulnerable, a woman who had risked it all on a fools dream. Adriana gently hugged her from behind. Miriam sighed, relaxing into the feel of Adriana's embrace. She then turned around and threw her arms around Adriana.

  “I'm sorry,” she whispered. Adriana made sure to keep the hug from being too intimate. Adriana smiled, but made no move to reinforce the younger woman's obvious crush.

  “It's okay,” she said, “I understand. You were sending out signals and I just wasn't getting them. It's a simple misunderstanding. There is no need to apologize. There is really no harm done.”

  Miriam cried some more, but seemed to be quickly recovering. She seemed more embarrassed than anything. In a few moments she let go of Adriana and took the joint in a shaking hand. Adriana led her friend to a shaded little grove and sat with her to show there were no hard feelings about the whole thing.

  “It's okay, really,” she said to Miriam, “I really should have noticed sooner.”

  “No, I mean- yeah,” Miriam laughed a little and shook her head as she looked up at the sky, “I'm sorry- Christ I should stop saying that. It's just, well, hard to find women here to...It has been a long time for me. I shouldn't have- Christ. I'm sorry.”

  Adriana laughed and shook her head.

  “Really it's okay. Really it is. Why don't you tell me a little more about what's going on here? Take your mind off of it. There is no need to dwell. We can still be friends, right?”

  Miriam smiled at her. Adriana could see the crush was still there, and the hope wasn't entirely dead, but that was simply the way of the world. She had made her point well enough. Miriam should respect it.

  “Yeah,” Miriam said and straightened herself a little. She laughed suddenly and shook her head.

  “I really am sorry I- well I've always kinda had a thing for straight women too. And older- oh Christ- I didn't mean that you-”

  “It's okay,” said Adriana with a little laugh, “I am older than you. I can accept that.”

  “Yeah, but a lot of women don't like you to say-”

  “I'm not a lot of women.”

  Miriam laughed again.

  “I noticed that. I guess I was just hoping you had a thing for blonds.”

  Adriana laughed and shook her head.

  “Sorry, I went through my 'experimental' stage in college. You missed it by a few years I'm afraid.”

  “Rats.” Miriam stuck her tongue out at her friend. Adriana decided it was time to change the subject:

  “You were saying?”

  “Right right. Christ. So, ah. Yeah the future. So things started to really take off after they got that first clock and figured out how to get other things. I think it took all of a year for the group- what would eventually become Nodencorp- had a secret lab and started to bring things in from the future really regularly. I mean, at first, they didn't know what they were doing. The dabbled in a lot of stupid stuff before they were able to get a real science going. They had these dream circles and chants and- well it was all pretty daft. Eventually though: they started to get things refined. That's when they started really getting a lot of new materials to work with.”

  “What did they bring in?”

  “Well at first they went for a lot of books and stuff. But, well, it was hard to get things like that that really worked right, so they went for simple objects like the one they had gotten before. You wouldn't think that a clock could open up whole new avenues of study, but it can and it did. Before long they had reduced the whole thing to a really streamlined process. They could bring in a lot of really weird things then, not just objects, but entire ideas, even places like- well, there is a thing downstairs that I could show you. Really, it's all pretty crazy. Anyway, well, things got a little tricky then.”

  “I know that I keep waiting for some sinister alien attack or, I don't know, mad scientist type experiment gone wrong,” said Adriana. Miriam laughed.

  “Well,” she said with a shrug, “There were certainly setbacks. Fortunately none of them were major for a long time. They would lose a person here, have someone else get hurt there, but they were smart. They always learned from those mistakes. You can't really fix simple human carelessness, but you can reduce it. Nothing really bad happened until about 1943.”

  Adriana's eyes widened.

  “Wait, was the Manhattan project-”

  “No! God no! All of that was an entirely different group working from first principles. Real scientists. Actually, with a few exceptions, most of what mankind has accomplished until now has had nothing to do with us. See the prevalent thing that everyone involved has to remember is that we were dealing with, if you will forgive the drama: unknown cosmic forces, and so people were hesitant to let even the smallest bit of tech out into the world. At least at first. Eventually we had to publish a few things and get a few products out on the market to fund the corporation. However, at least at first, there was no intention of doing any of that. It was the ultimate human ego project. We did what we did not for profit, but for the simple knowledge of what was out there. We wanted to expand the sum of human knowledge, not make a quick buck...”

  Adriana laughed and took another toke of the joint. She looked around and thought: my god is this place idyllic! If ever you are going to have a talk about reaching beyond the veil of reality and inadvertently causing the end of the world...well, there are worse places for it...

  Adriana shook herself out of her thoughts and laughed at her friend.

  “You know, it almost sounds like you were there Miriam! The way you use we and everything. You should probably tone it down a-”

  “I was.”

  Adriana cocked her head. She couldn't have heard that right. There was no way.

  “Come again?” she said.

  “I was there alright. Adriana: I was born in 1922. I'm going to be a hundred years old before long. I know I don't look it and, well, maybe that crack about age earlier wasn't in the best taste, but...well there it is...”

  Adriana laughed but saw the woman before her was deathly serious. She went through a series of reactions to that news. She wanted to call bullshit on the young woman in front of her- what a cruel joke? She wanted to roll her eyes. She wanted to disbelieve. But she didn't. Somehow hearing it said so simply and honestly convinced her.

  “How?” was what she finally asked. Miriam just shrugged.

  “There were a few things that, like I said, we did release. Not all of them for public consumption, of course, but we released them none-the-less. I'm not immortal, if that's what you are wondering, I just age really really slowly. Give me another hundred years, and I will probably look around forty. It's not that hard really. It's just a...well I guess a perk of this place you can earn. Most of the other executives have gotten the treatment too.”

  Adriana just shook her head.

  “I- wow...I...don't know really what to say to that...”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “Yeah,” said Miriam eventually, “This place really does that to you. The executives are not the only ancient thing around here either. You know those...things?”

  Adriana shuddered a little. There was no need to elaborate. The memory of the attack, the blood, they were long gone, but still...still somewhat close by in a way. It was hard to get any real emotional distance when she knew that right outside the tower they still lurked in waiting.

  “Yeah?” she said softly.

  “They hav
e been around for a long time too. Or maybe they have been around outside of time. We still aren't sure on that. In 1943 we inadvertently brought over the first one. It killed sixty people and destroyed an entire lab. After that we got a lot more careful with what we were taking, and...well we started to realize the consequences too.”

  Adriana didn't say anything. She heard someone open a door, and was looking to see who was coming up here with them. This had to be one of the strangest conversations a person could walk in on.

  “See,” continued Miriam, “You really can't just start messing about with reality and non-reality without something taking notice somewhere. We don't know if they are sentient or just...well some sort of defense or something layered into the cosmos. There are even theories that we created them, mankind's subconscious fears or all the horrors of technology run wild in the barren parts of the non-real... but, whatever they are, they took notice of us then and just kept on coming. We knew, right then I mean in 1943, we knew we would eventually have to really face up to our monsters.”