They arrive in the future

It was crowded in the capsule. I’d tried to make the case for building a new one that included more space for the needed batteries, but Drs Moore and Rodriguez didn’t see any need. With the batteries for the initial travel, the batteries for the return travel, and the batteries for the six-month cloak, the three of us barely fit inside. Once we were squeezed in and the door was closed, we all said a silent prayer and hit the button to travel 566 years into the future.

Like Chad the volunteer said, there was no sensation of anything happening. Once we opened the door though, the sense of a failed experiment was short lived. Instead of the pristine art deco Griffith Observatory, we were greeted by its ruins. All three domes were gone as was the entire planetarium. It looked ancient, like looking at an old British castle.

The park was as quiet as I’d ever heard it. The sky was clearer than I could possibly imagine, and I wondered what their power source could be. But as much as all of us wanted to answer these types of questions, we knew that was for future trips. This was very specific. Find out about the war and return to prevent it.

The city itself was almost as quiet as the park with very little traffic which allowed us to get into the station where the Eastern Coalition family came in. We found a quiet alcove along the track where we wouldn’t be noticed and waited for the train to arrive. Even after practicing for more than a week, it was strange to refer to Dr. Moore and Dr. Rodriguez as Atticus and Catalina, or Catty as she preferred. It was equally as strange to hear them call me James, although I wish they’d go by my preferred Jim, instead of Dr. Williams. It’s not that we weren’t personable or even friendly… we’d just always called each other by our professional titles and last names.

As Atticus and Catty chatted with each other, going over the made-up details of their marriage, I guess I nodded off as the next thing I knew my shoulder was being shook gently. “James, we can hear the train coming, it’s time to get up.”

As I stood up and stretched, I could hear the humming coming from further down the tunnel. It didn’t sound like any train I was accustomed to. We all put our game faces on, knowing we couldn’t gawk and stare open-mouthed at any advanced technology, no matter how impressed we were. We had to blend in. That was certainly put to the test as the train flew by us. Literally flew, as it was hovering a good two feet off the tracks. And the hum was the air moving in front of it as that nearly blew us all over when it passed. It felt and looked like it was going the speed of a jet plane.

When it came to a stop and lowered down to the tracks, we made our way to the station. As our probe showed, there were plenty of people getting off the train and it was easy to blend into them. Just before exiting the station, however, we went to the kiosk labeled simply with “All Travelers Please Check In Here.”

It was a far cry from the security checkpoints of international travel in our when.

The seemingly bored man perked up as we walked up to him. “Welcome to Angel City of the Free Union of Western Nations. Where are you folks from?”

As practiced, Dr. Moore took the lead. “Thank you. We’re from the Eastern Coalition and are seeking medical attention for me and my wife. I’m Atticus Moore and this is Catty, my wife. This gentleman is my cousin, James Williams.”

The man nodded, as if it were a common occurrence and pushed a pad toward us. We’d seen the family go through this and it looked like they were taking a thumb print, probably for identification purposes. When Atticus pressed his thumb onto the pad a light in the kiosk turned red. The man looked at the light, concerned, but continued on and pushed the pad to Dr. Rodriguez. “You’re all welcome here. We know what a journey it can be coming from the Coalition and will do everything in our power to help. I assume you’re seeking help with fertilization?”

The same red light turned on with Dr. Rodriguez’s thumb print and I started to worry that instead of forming an identification it was checking a thumb print AS identification. Identification that we obviously wouldn’t have. Again, the gentleman looked concerned at the light but listened to Atticus’ answer as he pushed the pad to me. Atticus, to his credit, didn’t let any of this affect the tenor of his confident voice. “Yes, my wife and I have been trying for some time now and we heard we’d have more luck here.”

When I pressed my thumb to the pad I gritted my teeth as I felt a slight electric shock. As neither Atticus or Catty reacted, I did the same and kept my face calm. Worryingly though, the light didn’t burn red for me. It burned a bright flashing purple. This time the man looked downright worried. Holding his hands up in a comforting manner, much like a police officer trying to calm down a drunk, he came around the kiosk toward us. “Okay folks, we’re happy to help, but your genetic scans showed some abnormalities. For you two…” nodding toward Atticus and Catty “…it’s just a matter of cleaning up some damage. It looked a little strange but it’s probably from the Coalitions use of proton based power. They probably wouldn’t have even noticed as you’d likely live to their normal hundred and ten years without a problem. Here though, we make sure your genes are squeaky clean so that you can live upwards of a hundred and sixty years.”

It took every bit of my will to not gasp. The less advanced country ‘only’ had a life expectancy of a hundred and ten years!?

My moment of wonder stopped when he turned toward me and gently put his hand on my upper arm. “Your scan though shows more than just damage. It shows a misrepresented karyotype. It’s incredibly rare, but nothing to be worried about. While your cousins get a genetic wash, we’ll get you further checked out.”

The man lead the three of us toward another hallway instead of the stairways leading up and out of the station. As we entered the doors we heard the train lift up off its tracks behind us and whoosh forward as fast as it had come into the station. We were guided through a series of hallways until finally the man opened an unmarked door and let us in. I have a fairly well-developed sense of direction, but nothing down here was labeled and I’m not sure I could find my way out if I wanted to.

The room was as plain and white as the hallways were. There were three comfortable-looking chairs and nothing else. No tables, no magazines, no television. We all sat down, and Catty immediately leaned over toward me. In a quiet voice she said, “I’m a little concerned. First, being able to do a genetic scan in less than two seconds is amazing. But it’s more than a little disquieting for them to point out a misrepresented karyotype. That’s not just genes, that’s your entire chromosome. I don’t even know what a ‘misrepresented’ karyotype could be. Be careful about what they want to do. If it doesn’t sound right, hold off on any treatment and speak to me beforehand, okay?”

I nod as if we’re talking about nothing more important than the weather and answer quietly “You got it. But you two be careful too. It’s not like a ‘genetic wash’ sounds benign.”

Dr. Rodriguez nodded and leaned over to talk to Dr. Moore, probably going over the same concerns. It was only a few moments later that a man opened the door and walked in. “Mr. Moore, we’ll go ahead and start with you. Please follow me.”

Atticus stood up and followed the man without showing any worry.

After ten minutes or so Catty and I ran out of the fake non-specific things we could talk about, so we simply sat in silence. It seemed strange that we’d be held in a room with nothing to occupy our minds, but maybe that was just this society. With nothing to do each glance at the clock made it feel like it was lying to me. I was sure it was thirty minutes later, but the digital time piece assured me only another ten minutes had passed. When I was certain that an hour had passed, the clock corrected me, displaying only a change of twenty minutes.

After another hour and a half, according to the clock, another man opened the door. “Mrs. Moore? Can you please follow me, and we’ll get you finished right up.”

Dr. Rodriguez got up to follow him, but I stood up as well and asked, “Excuse me, sir? Is everything going okay with Atticus? This feels like it’s taking a very long time.”

The man looked up at the clock and shrugged. “The procedure went off without a hitch. Mr. Moore is fine, he’s just recovering. He should be back in ten minutes or so.”

And with that he guided Dr. Rodriquez out and shut the door.

Ten minutes later, per the deviously slow clock, the door opened and Dr. Moore was guided in. Or at least it was someone that looked a lot like Dr. Moore. Dr. Moore had never struck me as old, even though he had four years on me. He’d prematurely gone gray in his thirties but looked more distinguished because of it. While we were working together the little wrinkles around his eyes grew a little deeper, but you wouldn’t call him wrinkled or old. The man that walked in, however, looked like Dr. Moore must have in his thirties. His hair was a dark brown with speckles of white in it. His face was far smoother with only the hint of wrinkles around his eyes and no laugh lines whatsoever. And the fact that he wasn’t wearing his glasses made him look even younger.

When I started to stand up, he waved at me to stay seated as he took the chair next to me. He stared at me for several long moments, and I could tell he was trying to figure out how to say something that could be said and not give away our possibly unnerving lack of knowledge of this time and place. He finally smiled and patted me on the shoulder. “James, their genetic wash is so much better than what we could have gotten in the Coalition. It’s like Ferris told us, they’re correcting for more than just genetic diseases, they’re repairing the aging genes. The tech that scanned me and prepared the treatment guessed my age as eighty.” He gripped my shoulder tighter to emphasize what he was saying. “I looked like I was eighty years old to him, instead of my forty-four. He says I should look ‘normal’ in a few more hours.”

To say I was shocked is a major understatement. Just how young was Dr. Moore going to look? And what did this mean for us when we returned? He wasn’t even going to look like his driver’s license. At least not one issued within the last couple decades. I caught on to Dr. Moore’s use of ‘Ferris’ as it was a name all three of us used to mean ‘no one’. We could now refer to this fictitious friend back home named ‘Ferris’ and if our information was wrong, it could be attributed to ‘him’ instead of us not knowing what was going on. Not wanting to seem as gobsmacked as I really was, I out a question. “Is it like Ferris said? Painless?”

Dr. Moore genuinely smiled. “Completely. I barely felt the needle going into my shoulder and haven’t felt anything since. I can tell my body is changing, but I can’t feel it. I mean….” he pulled up his shirt and slapped at his abs. His six-pack abs. “…I’ve never had musculature like this. It’s not just reversing the clock; it’s making me ideal. And it’s not just physical. I didn’t exactly feel mentally slowing down before, but I feel quicker. Wittier.”

As if remembering something, Atticus shook his head and leaned in closer. “Something else that they’re going to talk to you about. They had a lot of questions about our youth. Our parents, growing up, our families. It seems that their genetic scan showed that we’re not familiarly related. I mean, we’re obviously cousins. Our mothers are sisters. But they say it’s impossible.”

I nod again, getting what he’s saying. They know the truth, but much like ‘Ferris’ and his stories, we have to continue to play to our story. Our mothers were sisters and passed away several years ago. As far as we knew, we were in the same genetic tree.

At that point, the door opened. While I hoped to see how Dr. Rodriguez was reacting to her treatment, it was another man. “Mr. Williams? Please come with me.”

I gave Atticus a pat on his surprisingly muscular shoulder and walked out, following the man down the hall. Just like our journey to the waiting room, he seemed to know exactly where we were going even though it was turn after turn after turn without any identifying marks or signs. The floor of the hallway was white, the walls were white, the ceiling was white, broken up only by softly lit areas, and even the doors were white.

When the man turned and opened the door, I almost walked right into him. There was nothing indicating this room was any different than any of the other couple dozen we’d passed. Stepping in, the room was roughly the same as the waiting room. The only difference was the furniture. Instead of three comfortable chairs, there was a white table with two hardbacked white chairs to either side. In one was an older gentleman… older meaning he looked about my age… who gestured to the empty chair. “James? Please have a seat.”

Sitting down I clasp my fingers together and try to look calm. “So, they said something about my genes? My Karyotype? I don’t even know what that is. Is it bad?”

The gentleman picked up a piece of clear glass that was lying on the table and looked at it. As his eyes scanned over it, I saw words and diagrams appear on it. It had to be a tablet of some sort, although I couldn’t imagine why it’d be useful for it to be transparent. As he scans over the information, he answers me without actually giving me any satisfactory information. “Yes, your genetics, your entire karyotype, has a problem. It’s not bad, but we wouldn’t be doing our part if we let genetic anomalies enter our society.”

Before I could ask a more specific question he looked up and asked point blank “Tell me Mr. Williams, did you have any gender testing done in the Eastern Coalition? I find it difficult to believe even they could miss something this obvious.”