Future Findings

I suppose I slept for as long as they could let me. Because I was ripped from slumber by Angus shaking me so hard I nearly fell out of bed.

“Almost time to go. Dress. Eat,” he told me in his lulling and masculine voice. I sat up slowly, and stretched. Angus left, and I realized I was completely alone in the Living Quarters. It gave me a weird feeling-- being alone somewhere that should never be quite empty. It was very akin to the feeling of being in an abandoned school, or in your office after hours. I hurriedly dressed, and made my way to the bathroom. Someone had laid a toothbrush, toothpaste, and other necessities next to my sleeping bag while I slept. There was no face cloth or shampoo on my bed, so I assumed that I didn’t have time to shower.

I made my way to the bathroom, which was quite a long walk. When I passed the cafeteria, I slowed down. There were only a few people in there. Eddie, Angus, Beck, and a few people in robes. The robed ones sat together, on the far side of the room. The persons I recognized sat comfortably in the middle, with a large gap between the two groups. Matt cooked away in the kitchen, audibly whistling to himself.

I started heading to the bathroom again. Once I was there, I brushed my teeth and tried to make myself look as professional as possible. I rubbed my eyes, applied deodorant, and even washed some places with my hand acting as a cloth. After that, I headed back to my ‘friends’, if I could call them that.

Before I even entered, I could hear the laughter. Someone must’ve said a hilarious joke, and I was walking in just after the punchline. I discovered that another person had joined Eddie’s table. It was a woman-- dressed in a plaid top and blue jeans. She had numerous scrapes and cuts on her arms, just below her rolled up sleeves. She must’ve been on the mission from yesterday.

I headed over to the table, and sat to the right of Beck, across from Eddie and the woman. Angus looked at me without a word, and Beck gave me a smile and a pat on the back.

“Hi, Abid!” Eddie practically shrieked. He was obviously in a great mood.

“Hello,” I said quietly. The woman looked at me quizzically, then stood up.

“Well, I should be going. The team’s in the storage room, and judging by how long it’s taking them, they’re stuck in there,” she said.

“Oh, alright. Well… I’ll see ya later, hon,” Eddie said as he got to his feet. He leaned in, and gave her a hearty kiss on her cheek. She smiled, and returned the gesture. Silently, she gave a nod to the rest of us at the table, and left. Oh. It had never occured to me that Eddie had a partner. It seemed even more unlikely that he had a girlfriend. I guess you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, even if it is an unmistakably gay one.

Eddie got back into his seat, and put his hand onto Angus’s shoulder. He was most definitely lovestruck, it was obvious. The table was quiet for a good minute, each person staring straight ahead or into their hands. But then Matt came out with a full platter of fruit, and the table sprung to life.

“Hope you all like fruit and burnt bacon, cause it’s all we’ve got!” Matt exclaimed with a wide grin. He rushed back into the kitchen after he set the platter down, and returned with a heaping plate of bacon. After he put that on the table, he sat down next to me.

“My favorite,” Angus said in a fusion between a complaint and a deadpan. I looked around questioningly, trying to find a face to make sense of what he said. The fruit looked amazing, and overcooked bacon was just the way I liked it.

Matt had the answer. “He’s a vegetarian,” he said. “Killing anything other than humans is just wrong. At least, that’s what Angus thinks.”

“Damn straight,” Angus retorted, just before he stuffed his face with several pieces of watermelon. Beck pulled a napkin out of her pocket, and daintily wiped away some food particles off of his cheek.

Eddie snagged some pieces of bacon, and set it on the plate in front of him. I waited until everyone else had their food before grabbing mine-- I didn’t want to intrude.

“AMO, the only place where you get to eat with your cook,” Matt said and smiled.

We ate in agreeable silence for a while. Angus and Beck quietly chattered, but the rest of us were untalkative. There was one empty chair at the table, and I briefly wondered if anybody would show up to fill it. But I supposed that everyone else would be tired from yesterday’s mission, and one of the robes wouldn’t be very likely to journey out with us.

“So, Abid,” Eddie finally spoke up, breaking the silence. “You ready for today?” he asked.

“I sure am,” I said in a largely over exaggerated show of confidence. Eddie and Matt laughed, but Beck and Angus didn’t seem to hear me. Their laughs stopped instantly, the second someone else entered the cafeteria.

He was a boy, who couldn’t have been any older than 15. He had shaggy black hair, and wore ripped jeans and a white shirt. He slowly made his way to our table, and sat down next to Eddie. Without a word, he picked up a piece of bacon and started eating.

“Morning, Donnie,” Eddie said in not much more than a whisper. Donnie, the boy, looked into Eddie’s eyes and attempted a smile. It failed horribly. His grin didn’t reach his near black eyes. He finished his bacon, and left the room. Where did he sleep last night? I wondered. If he was in the Living Quarters, he must be in one of the back bunks-- where nobody could see him. After his shadow disappeared, I spoke up to the group.

“Who is he?” I questioned. Eddie took a gulp of air, and slowly replied.

“He’s, uh, Donatello. He’s been here for a few weeks, but doesn’t do much more than lay in his bed. He was the newest member, before you got here.” Huh. But that doesn’t explain his sorrowful attitude.

“What’s his story?” I said through a mouthful of bacon. Eddie was the one to speak yet again. Matt got up and headed back into the kitchen.

“His parents worked for some big tech corporation. I guess they were doing something the government didn’t like, so the police raided the building. His parents died protecting whatever they were doing-- they were unwilling to give up their stuff, so the police shot them. I recruited Donnie from in front of the building-- he had a gun in his pocket. Odds are he was going to try and shoot the place up. He blames the company for his parents’ deaths, not the police.” Eddie finished. Wow, I thought.

Talking about him seemed to put a damper on the conversation of the group, and not much was said until breakfast was completely gone.

Once the food had departed our plates, we headed for the storage room. It was devoid of human life, so we all assumed that Eddie’s girlfriend had gotten her friends out. Eddie directed us in picking out gear and bags. Angus obviously had the heaviest load, with food and bandaids and water. Beck mainly carried a few old cameras, some paper and pencils, and some seemingly random scraps of metal. Eddie and I carried whatever Angus and Beck couldn’t fit in their packs.

When we got out of the storage room, Eddie pulled a chain off of his neck. There was a key strung onto it. He used that old, rusty key to open the door that led to the stairs. Once he had it opened, I groaned.

“It’s not that bad, trust me,” Beck offered me an apologetic smile. There seemed to be well over ten flights of large, winding stairs. We had to be at least a couple hundred feet underground. Eddie led the group up, and tried to get us to sing some sea shanties with him-- but to no avail.

I spoke, taking a long time to talk in between breaths. “Why… are you guys… all here? I know why I’m here.. and why Donnie is here… but why are you?” Eddie and Beck exchanged looks, and he gave her a small nod.

“Well, Angus is here because he’s seen what this world has done to nature. He’s seen the torn down forests, the acid rain, the melting polar caps. I’m here, because the science doesn’t add up. For humans to survive, there is absolutely no way we can go at this pace. If we don’t return to a pollution less world we will all die. Even if we move to renewable energy, what’s the point? Staying indoors and glued to your electronics and air conditioning is no way to live. Humans aren’t meant to live apart from nature. We are just as much a part of it as trees or bugs or wolves are,” Beck told me.

“I see. Eddie?”

“Technology divides us. The more time we spend online, the less time we spend with other people. And even worse, more and more people are turning to augmented enhancements-- basically cyborgs. But what happens when a human being is completely replaced with a robot? A person that thinks like a computer, yet feels nothing. It will have no soul. And it will be the destruction of us. I know it seems kind of radical to be part of an underground resistance like AMO, but I really believe that we have to do something as opposed to sitting and watching the human race be wiped out.”

“Woah.” was all I could say. “But what about your girlfriend? And the elders?”

“She, well, she hasn’t told me yet. I’ve only been dating her for a few months now, and she’ll tell me when she’s ready to. I actually didn’t recruit her, she found us on her own. As for the elders… nobody really knows. They run and control AMO, but we don’t really know why they’re doing it. I guess that doesn’t matter to us, just as long as we have someone to rally behind.” It took me a while to think about what they had said. I was so deep in thought that I barely noticed the floors fly by, and we reached the top of the stairs in no time at all.

“The hell?” I questioned once we left the staircase. The view was an utterly contrasting image from the bustle and glamour of the city. We seemed to be in the midst of some abandoned town. Therewere rusted buildings and half torn down houses. Men and women in rags and dirty clothing bumbled around in the cracked roads. There were no children here.

“This is the old city, Abid. I’ve got the feeling you’ll recognize a lot from here,” Eddie said. Oh. This was the city, my city. The new one, the one that was beautiful and in the north, was just a fake. Instead of creating and adding to my city, it seems that they made a new one from scratch, and gave it the same name. Although I couldn’t distinguish anything from the nameless streets and broken buildings, it had the air of my hometown. I was home for real this time, I guess.

Multiple cars sat on the street, untouched by the dying population of this place.

“They’re all here because they can’t afford the homes and technology of the new city. They are a dying generation, and once they’re gone-- nobody will remember them,” Beck said matter-of-factly. Why aren’t there any kids? I thought. I turned to Beck, but she answered before I could even ask.

“Everyone here has been chemically castrated by the government, in order to ‘end the pain of the poorer civilians, and lead to 100% of the population living in prosperity,”’ she told me.

“What? They can’t do that! That’s illegal!” I exclaimed, surprised that the government would do something so barbaric.

“No, it’s not. They all agreed to it,” Beck said. “They don’t want to create kids, only to have them suffer. It’s rough, but it’s just how it is.”

“Christ,” I said. Nobody said anything else. We got into one black car, with Angus at the wheel. He put it into drive, and turned it around. The destroyed remains of my home slowly melted into the ethereal world of the new city.