139 Years to the End of the World

Life Goes On, Part Two

G brought me to the conference room. A ten meters long and wide room with a ceiling twice my height and walls bland enough that they painted them beige. The floor was also carpeted with the same furry blue as the rest of the building. What looked to be chair-desks were arranged in a large circle in the middle of the room. Each desk had an in-built computer, sleek and glowing with blue neon at the edges. The chairs looked more like the seats from a first class plane, fully wrapped in comfortable looking brown leather with enough arm space to fit an elephants' trunk.

I told him, "This looks nothing like a conference room."

"It's for V.I.Ps," he replied. "We usually don't get to use this place."

I circled around the desks and spotted a large, metallic torus in the middle of the circle. Made of a shell of glass, the torus had wires running round its shape with four projectors joint in a cross at the perpendicular inner edges. An arms length away, it was connected to a black platform surrounded by four cameras which were stuck onto metal poles drilled into the ground.

"Does that make me a V.I.P?" I asked.

G followed me around into the circle and sat casually into one of the sofa-chairs. "You actually have higher security clearance than I do." He turned on the laptop on his desk and settled back as he waited for the system to boot.

"Why would I have higher clearance? That makes no sense."

"Something about you needing access to high security places in case of emergencies." The computer finished booting and he began working on it. "I guess the higher ups thinks we'll still be here in a hundred and twenty nine years and whatever it is you're suppose to save us from will need clearance," he laughed.

The glass torus lit up and a blue neon glow emitted from it along with a low humming sound. Small red dots lighted up on the four cameras as the equipments turned on.

"And what does these things do?" I asked about the torus shaped machine.

G wiped off a speck of dust that had settled into his glasses with a flick of his nails before replying, "Hologram projectors. Really expensive apparently. There's only one in each of the five cities."

"Are you serious? Holograms?"

"Yup. That's the meaning of progress, man. It's still a prototype though. They're trying to make it more marketable but it's really costly to build. Joan will be using the one in Hillbury to contact you." He then pointed to the black platform surrounded by cameras. "Stand over there. Once the machine starts up, she'll be able to see you as well."

I did as he said and stood on the platform, feeling a little silly.

He continued tapping away at the touchpad of his computer. "Looks like Joan just activated hers," he hit one of the keys harder than I thought he should, letting out an audible clack. The projectors in the torus powered up, lighting up the space in the centre of the circle with a block of red, green and blue lines. "Once she sets up her side, you'll see her in that," he pointed to the psychedelic coloured block.

"And she can see me?"

"Yup. Just like a normal conversation really." G got to his feet. "I'll leave you two to it then. Just come back to the Cryo chamber once you're done. I'll get someone to come up and turn off the machine. You have all day to talk this time." After the instructions, he headed for the exit, turning off the lights before closing the door behind him noiselessly.

Alone in the dark room, save for the glow of the hologram torus and its projection, I was suddenly overwhelmed by nervousness. Joan was engaged. She was getting married. To someone who was not me. I rummaged through the thought of it as waves of unending questions beats into my mind.