Lost Angel

01

"Randy, what do you think the future will be like?"

The woman's voice asking the question came from behind the camera. In the middle of the screen was a man in his fifties. His skin was very white. His hair was white, too, and a little long. The man had it held back by a narrow headband that crossed his forehead. He wore glasses, a horizontally striped t-shirt, and a black leather jacket over it. It was noticeable that the video had been recorded on a VHS tape. Horizontal lines and stains appeared and distorted the image. The colors were very dull, it was almost black and white. The video had a date stamped on it: 24 MAR 1982.

"The future...? Oh... I think we will use... Some kind of digital umbrellas. Each person will have his or her own umbrella and will go out with that umbrella on the street. The umbrellas will have antennas that will be connected to databases and their friends' umbrellas. And people will go out shopping and the umbrellas will tell them where they have deals and which stores have new and exciting items to buy. And when people buy nice things, the umbrellas will send their friends the list of the items they bought, so they'll be aware... People won't need to meet their friends, they will just need to use their umbrellas".

The man in the video spoke with a somewhat mannered tone, perhaps forcibly.

"And on sunny days, what will they do with their umbrellas?"

"Oh, no, people will go out with their umbrellas rain or shine. They will use them all the time. It will be hard to walk on the narrow sidewalks."

The camera panned to a second man sitting next to the first.

"What about you, LeFrost? What do you think of the future?"

This second man was younger, under 30. He was darker-skinned than the first and his hair was black and curly. He was wearing a jean jacket. The man smiled at the camera.

"I don't know. The future is not what it used to be."

The camera returned to the first man.

"Will people still go to the movies, Randy?"

"Oh, yes... But movies starring humans will go out of style. People will want to see movies starring robots. Robots will make movies, and people will become fans of certain robots, and write them letters... And it will become fashionable to have plastic surgery to look like robots, people will go to surgeons with pictures of movie star robots and they will come out of the operating rooms looking like robots, no noses, no ears, no hair, gray skin. It will be a splendid thing to see."

"That would be interesting to see, yes," said the second man.

The first man picked up an old can of diet soda. That brand no longer existed.

"Do you have secrets, Randy?" said the woman's voice behind the camera.

"Oh... of course not. My life is one hundred percent public. What the world sees, that's what I am."

The camera panned to the second man.

"Do you have secrets, LeFrost?"

The second man smiled.

"I have no secrets. But my art does. There are secrets in my paintings. Which I hope, for now, will not be discovered."

"My paintings have no secrets," said the first man, holding the soda can to his mouth. "What's there is what you see. Just like in my life."

The second man put his arm around the first man's shoulder.

"See, that's a point on which Randy and I disagree. For him, art is about what you see. I don't think so."

"What do you think, LeFrost?"

"I think things that are not seen, but are there, are always more interesting."

The video ended, the screen faded to black.

The light in the room came on. Tony looked at Agent 32 and Agent 48, who were sitting next to him. Agent 54, his other partner, was standing in the back of the room, next to the video projector.

"What the heck was that?" asked Tony. "What strange people."

"They were artists, Agent 48b," explained Agent 48. "Avant-garde artists."

"And get used to them," said his boss, Agent 32, "because you're going to be spending some time in that environment. We have a matter to take care of."