by P. F. White
“Pardon me,” the man said to her. He smiled even broader for some reason as he looked her over. Strangely: Claire didn't feel creeped out by it or anything. He felt...familiar.
“Oh. Hi there,” he said eventually. Claire found herself smiling back at the strange man.
“Hi,” she said eventually, “Can I help you?”
“You can,” he said, “Or...jeeze. This is strange. I actually forgot you would be here. Silly me. Why wouldn't you be? I've miss- I mean...nice to meet you, Claire.”
Claire smiled in a puzzled fashion.
“I didn't give you my name.”
“I know. I would recognize you anywhere.”
Adriana asked: “Claire, who is at the door?”
“I'm not sure,” said Claire. She looked the man up and down and then snapped her fingers, “Oh wait, I know.”
It came to her instantly and she was sure about it without hesitation. This place was weird, she had learned to accept that. And whether it is your boyfriend showing you a virtual reality, the shower keeping itself tuned to your perfect temperature without you even asking it or...this, well, Claire Fletcher was learning to roll with the punches.
She called back to her step-mother: “It's my baby brother at the door. He's all grown up it seems and wants to come in for dinner. Should I let him?”
The man laughed and reached forward to hug her. It was a natural motion and she found herself going to hug him right back. It was probably the weirdest single thing to happen to her yet. Maybe it was just the pot, but instead of freaking out about it: Claire just went with it. Why not, she reasoned, its not like the weirdness is going to stop anytime soon.
“It's good to see you,” said the man- or baby- or whatever he was. Claire smelled him, hugged him, and felt loved by him. She didn't even really want to know why right now. Seeing him somehow made her certain that everything would eventually be all right.
“It's good to see you too,” she said softly. She looked at him for a moment. “Oh,” she said, “What's your name anyway?”
“Alexander,” he said, “Adam was too common. Dad wanted an “A” name, and he liked the historical connotation. Mom said she had once dated an Alexander, but Dad was okay with it because that guy was almost certainly dead by now.”
Claire laughed.
“That sounds like them. Plus it suits you. Very regal. Come on in, we are just waiting on the food.”
# # #
Miriam sat at her desk and looked outside at the world. She had her first official communiques in front of her, now that the data transfer was up and running between the towers. There was lots of news it seemed. Some parts of the world hadn't been completely destroyed, most of it had. There were monsters now, and magic in places as well. Demons had poured forth upon some towns in Eastern Europe, a limited nuclear exchange had taken place in three parts of the world, London was covered in eternal winter, sentient machines were eating people in the Midwest...it was all too much for her right now.
Miriam didn't want to think about it. They had just survived an attack by a giant monster. Odds were good that another might eventually crop up, but she had no doubt she would survive those ones too.
Miriam sighed. The general missives from the reports were pretty clear, even if she hadn't yet gotten into the real content. Things were not going exactly as the executives had planned. Every tower except for hers and the Japanese one was experiencing some form of mass civil disobedience. Nothing major, it seemed, but the survivors were refusing to simply bow down to the dictates of the executives. They wanted a say, and more than that: they were simply doing what they wanted. Miriam wasn't really surprised. She hadn't really given it a lot of thought before, always working so hard towards the big goal that always seemed impossibly far away. Now it seemed obvious.
It looked like now, after all the hard work it took to build the damn things, the people had simply taken control of the towers. Some of them were already establishing fledgling governments, but most weren't. Despite what the movies and books had to say: when people got to the business of surviving, most of them just wanted to do what they felt like. There had been exactly zero murders so far, and only very limited in-fighting. The executives were not fools. They knew that, simply put, their control had vanished as easily as the strange mist. One of their first missives was to start examining the adoption of newcomers into the towers on a case by case basis. They didn't want people leaving the towers or actively seeking the survivors- things were still far too dangerous for that- but it was clear that the idea of simply sitting back and watching the world die completely had failed.
Well, thought Miriam, maybe failed is too strong a word...
Their best estimates now put the remaining survivors outside the towers at somewhere under fifty thousand. The number was almost impossible to grasp. Nearly six billion people had died, and surprisingly: things hadn't changed much for her own little corner of the universe. Further die offs were expected because nearly no crops were being harvested, Nuclear Winter was starting to devastate some of the most fertile climates, and the various other forces scouring the world made it nearly impossible to do much but sit and hide.
The global population was expected to hit the statistically irrelevant mark- where their data simply stopped being accurate due to low numbers- somewhere in the next few months. Even if the towers turned all their resources to combating this: they most likely wouldn't be able to do much more than save a few hundred people.
“God that's depressing,” said Miriam to herself. She turned to another part of the data feed, looking for anything a little more up-beat.
Apparently the European Tower had even started sending autonomous robotic drones out into the wild to help out the survivors. They had fought the executives on this, and eventually compromised to make certain the drones were both completely autonomous and incredibly difficult to detect with human eyes. Furthermore: the drones were being programmed with some really inventive systems so that they aided survival rather than just helping out in the short term. They placed tools and materials within easy range of scavengers, sanitized drinking water in areas hidden enough to be safe, and even herded animals towards human centric locations. They thought that, with these drones, they might be able to save as many as six or seven thousand people across Europe. It wasn't much: but it was a start.
Miriam sighed again.
Things were going to be very different. She knew that now. She looked a little at some of the impending scientific breakthroughs- a cure for cancer being chief among them. Too little, too late, she thought to herself on that one. There was also a promising program from a Japanese team that took random works from world libraries and could animate them in a variety of artistic styles to create almost entirely new narratives. It was the first step towards automated art, but still required a fairly heavy human presence to edit it into something worth watching. They had included three of their best in the stream and Miriam went ahead and shared them with the tower forum. She couldn't bring herself to get really excited about it though. Not right now.
She couldn't quite get it out of her head that they had deviated. That their carefully worked out plan had broken apart within the first few months. She had worked with the other executives for many years now. She believed in what they were doing just as strongly as anyone else...yet she knew that some of them hadn't always agreed with the idea of a static plan at all.
Absently: she brought up a little piece that someone had written on the topic. The piece was dated more than twenty years ago, and been largely ignored by most of the executives in charge at the time. Miriam still kept a copy around though. It went over- in detail- exactly why they would have to try to integrate constantly changing plans into their ideal workings. It was very academic in nature. Very professional. The person who had written it had clearly spent some time turning in papers to the scientific community. The paper had references to dozens of studies, some of which hadn't yet been completed or even started because
of their place in an uncertain future. The paper had statistics from another Earth with only tangential connection to theirs...but mostly it just had good solid arguments for why being human was the best course for humanity now that it had finally collapsed upon itself.
Miriam glanced at the author's name and smiled a little. It was obvious that she was passionate about the subject, believed very strongly in it, but was preaching to deaf ears. What did the executives care what a future person, by definition part of the non-real, have to say about their plans?
“Adriana Fletcher,” Miriam said aloud, “Even in the future: you are charming, persuasive, and never, ever, mine...Oh well. Such is life.”
Miriam got up and made herself a cocktail. She looked out at the world and raised her glass.
“Here's to you world. You haven't always given me what I wanted, but why should you? May we all have a much better go of things this time around.”
She drank and watched the sun sink slowly past the horizon. Then a thought occurred to her, and she began to look through the data package for any promising new development on the sex-robots.
# # #
“I think we had better sit down for this,” said Hank as he motioned towards a chair. The man- his son- nodded and sat. This would be awkward for everyone involved.
“So...you really are him?” asked Adriana. She didn't need to gesture to the baby, which watched the newcomer with quiet fascination.
“I sure am, Mom. My name is Alexander by the way. You don't have to call me that if you don't want to.”
Hank shook his head.
“Don't we though? I mean, what, you are from the future or something so-”
“I am from the future, yes. But I'm also from the past. I'm also not real, or at least not fully real. See, I was pulled from the future around 1950. I was barely formed, but I had a history and most of the things that make me human. The future is...well it's not like what you would expect.”
Hank just raised an eyebrow, but Adriana chimed in.
“I think I know what you are talking about. I've been compiling notes ever since Miriam told me about it. I think that the future is a little like that fog that was outside right? It has properties but not a lot of substance yet. When they grabbed you they didn't grab-” she pointed at the baby, “That you. They just grabbed a version of you...is that right?”
“On the nose,” Alexander grinned at his mother, “Actually, in my history, you were the one who eventually explained all this to me for the first time. It's what got me interested in my current field of extra-dimensional constructs held within the second dimension.”
“Oh really eh? What am I a teacher or-”
“You are head of temporal research.”
Adriana got wide eyed.
“Oh.”
Hank laughed.
“And me? Did I end up the Janitor or-”
Alexander hesitated. Hank caught on to that and help up his hand.
“That was a joke. Son- god that feels weird to say- you don't have to tell me. It's okay. I don't need to know.”
“No I...I want to tell you. You are...well, you are controversial. I don't want to scare you, but-”
“Go right ahead,” said Hank. He puffed on his joint, “Scare away. I've got protection.”
“Well in that case. You are something like a god actually,” said Alexander. He shrugged: “Some people worship you. A lot do actually. I'm not sure to what extent your powers exist here or now, but you had expanded several fields of study past where anyone thought they could lead and-”
Hank was laughing by now, and so hard it was difficult to get anymore meaningful conversation. It was a strange reaction to such news, but at this point he had gotten far beyond being terrified. Weird was the new normal, it seemed. Thankfully the doorbell buzzed. Claire went to get it. A tiny flying robot with a few bags of food hovered at the door. It had a screen which showed a cute little emoticon face and it said:
“Fletcher residence?”
Claire smiled and said: “It is. Thank you very much!”
“My pleasure!” responded the robot. It drew a top hat on top of its' emoticon face in the screen and tipped it to her, “Have a good evening!”
Then it flew off and Claire shut the door.
“Foods here!”
Her family was already deeper in conversation. They were laughing and, gradually, even the newcomer seemed to be relaxing into the flow of things. Claire laid the various food items out on the table and everyone dug right in.
“I love you guys,” she found herself saying after a few more puffs of the joint. Then she got embarrassed. Thankfully her step-mother, chicken stuffed into her mouth, responded: “I love you too,” and soon everyone was chiming in. The baby- little Alexander- even ran up and hugged her.
Claire relaxed and let the experience of it all wash over her.
Unbeknown to everyone present, but recorded extensively in history thereafter, that exact moment was when the singularity event between reality and unreality fully met. The moment later it had crossed paths.
Everything would get better from here on out.
# # #
The day after the newcomer's arrival Hank and a few of the others had arranged a sort of formal presentation for them. It wasn't that hard really, he just got Claire and a few others to put together a few graphics, a good script, and top it all off with good food, comfortable furnishings, and the ability to ask whatever questions were needed afterward.
The seventeen adults that had been admitted showed up to the room scared, disheveled, and suspicious. They had mostly all slept together in the same few rooms, keeping guards stationed in case their new saviors should prove less than friendly. They also, even now, kept their children close to or physically on their bodies. They were paranoid, but also hopeful. Already Miriam and Adriana had been able to befriend a few of the younger women with private showers, chocolates, and a few other niceties that were most likely lacking in the world outside...but it would be a slow road to true acceptance, Hank knew that.
The presentation started easily enough. The projectors they had here were far more advanced that anything most people were familiar with and so when the video began with a 3D projection of the building, an introduction to the company, and directed sound ensuring that every person in the room felt that the speaker was speaking directly to them, many were understandably impressed.
Hank watched a few people bemusedly turn their heads this way and that, trying to tell where the noise was coming from. Most just sat in rapt attention. The sense of wonder on display in the tower never really went away, but it was nice for Hank to see a group even less used to it than he was.
From that point the presentation moved on to a very brief history of the company (almost too brief, thought Hank, but it wasn't his place to spill company secrets just yet,) then an overview of the various major projects and areas of study that would be available. There were details of food and living arrangements, exploration of the various other amenities (with directions to the gyms, spa rooms, pools, theater and other things most probably thought were wiped from the earth), and then a very basic detailing of what would be expected of each of them.
During the presentation three of the infants started to cry. Thankfully, Claire was quite skilled with manipulating the directed sound and so was able to match and muffle the noise so that it did not affect anyone more than three feet away from any of the infants. Hank shook his head upon witnessing the skill his daughter already possessed at the machine. One day she would do great things, he knew that with certainty now. She was growing and learning every day.
He was ashamed to admit that when they had first started to settle in he had worried about her ability to get a quality education. Now he felt she would probably be smarter than most people here before she was twenty.
The presentation concluded with some of the safety details about the building itself, and an explanation on why so many had been denied entry but they had somehow m
ade it into these hallowed halls. There was still some debate about that decision, but Hank felt it was the right one and was prepared to argue it with anyone who would listen. It was too late now, at any rate, so he figured they might as well get used to the idea. No one was about to sentence these newcomers to death by monster.
The presentation concluded to some mind applause and a somewhat cheesy moment where the few executives of the Tower gathered together and said: “Welcome to your new home!”
When the lights returned and questions were opened Hank, Miriam, John, Phil, and Adriana were there to answer them. The first man raised his hand and stood up, frowning deeply with suspicion.
“How in the hell do we knew ye ain't some damn sex cult or somethin?” he asked.