Times That Change Us (On Hold)

Chapter 2 - A Flash into the Future

Otis Ray, Age 28, 2114.

He found himself in a holding cell waiting for his integrators to return. How did he get here from his trip to the agency? Well, that's an interesting story.

Time was never something that was designed to be tampered with. There was always a beginning and end point. Creatures were born, live through their lives and die. From the smallest of krill to the noble lion. Humans dared to be more, to build houses, and tear down forests. Going to jobs, creating machines to do tasks that they were more than capable of doing themselves.

They allowed the computers to have sentience, to care for their young, and replace them in their seat at the dinner table.

There was not anything human beings couldn't do. They landed on the moon and had rovers travel on distant planets sending back photos. You could search up our birthday on the NASA website to see the photo that was taken on your birthday if you so desired. This was all before his time. It wasn't enough for them; humans couldn't settle. They had to play God. Mess with the unattainable. Surely, they saw this coming.

Rapture day. When they would meet their maker. When playing God was too much. Outside forces wrecking the palace they fought nail and tooth to build.

You could only hold so much power in your small cities blocked off from the rest of the world. Glass houses were meant to break. Holes in wired fences were meant to be crawled through.

Surely, he wasn't the first to pick the less travelled path, but he won't be the last, not with the two that followed him.

This was the flood that wiped out of man kid. The overseer decides to allow their creation to crumble.

It all started that fateful day when he talked to himself in his old bedroom.

Spotless, no thanks to him, well her. Ram must have cleaned it, Otis always seemed incapable of doing it no matter how much he tried, or the mother figure tried to make it fun by turning it into a game. White walls and smooth polycarbonate flooring over a white base, glowing where were you stepped at night- making sneaking to the bathroom easier. The only personal touch to the room was the old rock posters he was gifted when his grandparents passed.

"She sounds wonderful," she said looking up to the man from her place on her bed. Resting on those cursed white sheets that still give the man nightmares five years later. Eight from this day.

"She is, I can't wait for you to meet her," he responded.

"Wait, why are you here?" she asked. "Shouldn't you be with her?"

Otis went to answer but held his tongue. He couldn't spoil the ending of his love life, could he? The day his summer days turned to an autumn's night, and with no one at home to cuddle up with, was there a point in going home.

His house was full of memorabilia, high in value but only to him. A prison of his memories. An once hoarder's dream turned nightmare. There was nothing left for him back in the future, except Summer's friends she left behind.

He peered down at the device connected to him, he unbuckled it, rushed over to the girl's trash can, tossed out all the contents, much to the girl's dismay and shove the device in. He snatched a bottle of water drowning the device.

"Nothing, and we are going to make sure of it."

"Pardon?" Her eyes widened, pulling herself off the bed, tugging the doona's fabric with her slightly.

"Fetch a coat kid, you're going to need it." The woman was no child, but eight years difference makes anyone seem immature in comparison. Warily, she followed, keeping her sight on the older version as she grabbed the first hoodie she found but earned a disapproving look from Otis. "Are you sure about that one? The black stitched one is better."