Project A.N.E.W

Seventy-Four Minutes

The streets are cold and damp, despite the glaring lights of holographic adds and flashing bill-boards. Aiden feels the cool drip of water as it steadily falls from somewhere above, running down the clear plastic trench coat that was provided to him before leaving the facility.

The multicoloured lights of advertising ripple over the material, glistening in beads of water.

Sounds from the bustling streets are muffled, his ears ringing as he pushes his way through a glum crowd.

The cable of an intranet earbud curls in spirals into the collar of his shirt. He had been provided the archaic device before leaving the facility, on the basis of it "not being expected, and therefore harder to hack".

He had been briefed on what to say, too—and how to act.

He feels his heart, swollen and beating in his throat as he continues pushing his way through the crowd.

In the time he had spent walking through the bustling streets—following directions barked from crackling voices in his ear—the reality of his situation had driven itself home.

He is a clone, a printed duplicate of his file as it was sent racing throughout the stars, to another planet. He is in a terrible situation, and there is no-one here that would, or could, help him. If he tries to alert the authorities, they might allow him to survive for the sake of extreme circumstances.

But his family might die.

He stops a passer by, and asks her for the time and date.

Pressing her about the year, the woman makes a crack about time travel. Then, realising he is serious, reluctantly admits it to him, before breaking Aiden's grip and moving on.

So. That at least hadn't changed. He is still in his own time, only days after he had left to take a holiday on Mars, with his family.

They were indeed still at risk, and it terrifies him.

More than that, he is ashamed to think, he is terrified for himself. He, the clone, might die—but he would do so in the comforting knowledge that somewhere, out there, the "real" version of himself still existed.

The idea that both he, himself, and his family might all vanish forever in some tragic accident—well, it was too much for him to accept.

And so, he walks through the streets, his heart in his throat, wading against a stream of people to get where he needs to go.

Why on Terra his business has a paper archive on this frozen rock is something he struggles to comprehend. Europa, was, after all, the computing moon. Everyone knew its cold temperatures raised processing efficiency, which is why companies like Infinity2 and ShangriLa operated their virtual reality servers there.

The unfortunate downside was that those servers still needed to be maintained, creating an industry for poor souls to monitor and repair. Their very environments were tailored to the computers they serviced, leading them to work in conditions where even the memory of warmth became a distant thing—the cheap issue thermo-suits only doing enough to keep them alive.

So, why place a paper archive on one of the least inhabited moons—and one most known for its technology, at that—unless for clandestine purposes?

It is the first time Aiden considers such a thing. He feels his leather shoes slip with every step on the damp stone sidewalk as he continues towards his goal.

His business suit—printed to his file's optional extras—fits snugly over the top end heat skin he is wearing, tight against his body.

Only his head and hands feel the biting cold, but he tells himself he will be inside soon.