It was a cloudy summer’s evening several years ago. Tom, age 10, was a very bright young boy with a passion for computers. He had taught himself to program his very own games on his old Abox computer, which was very popular in his time.
That day, he had just completed his latest creation, a game which he had called Gigabit. It was, in his own words, his first real masterpiece, and he was really excited about it. He couldn’t wait to show it off to everyone he could.
That evening, he had saved his game on an old-fashioned floppy disk, and put the disk neatly into his trouser pocket. He had intended to show it off on his friend’s computer. Tom left his house, a large country residence, and began to walk in the direction of his friend’s house.
Suddenly, however, it started to rain. Tom quickened his pace. His friend’s house was a fairly short walk along a couple of open fields. He heard a loud rumble of thunder. “I’d better get moving,” he thought to himself.
He was just passing an old tree in the middle of the field when there was a tremendous crash of lightning, right in front of him. The lightning split the tree in two, and sent Tom falling backwards to the ground in shock.
It wasn’t ordinary lightning, however. It appeared to have a slight bluish-green tint to it, and Tom noticed some rainbow-coloured sparks circling around it. The sparks continued to flutter about as the flash disappeared, with everything else in silhouette, and settled into the form of a figure. It looked like a man. Tom blinked hard. It was a man! He appeared to be around 30, and was wearing a style of clothing which Tom didn’t recognise.
“Tom?” the man asked.
“Yes, that’s me,” Tom replied, in a daze. “Who are you?”
“Call me Mike. Can you come over here?”
Tom noticed that the man was standing on a spot of bluish-white light. As he came closer, the spot grew in size until it was covering the ground under his feet.
“I’m taking you on a special journey,” he said. He was holding what appeared to be some kind of portable computer, but it was not like anything Tom had ever seen before.
Mike tapped some figures into the machine, and pressed a large button. The light enveloped them both, and Tom felt a falling sensation; then all the scenery, the fields, the houses in the distance, appeared to melt right before his eyes. Overcome with shock and disorientation, he felt himself blacking out.
Tom came to in what appeared to be a small lab of some kind. However, he was struck by how unusual the room looked. The ceiling was curved slightly into the walls, and the whole room had a peculiar silvery-white glow to it. As he got up, he saw that his bed, or cot, or whatever it was, was suspended slightly off the ground. He put his hand underneath it. There was definitely nothing holding it up.
At that point, Mike entered the room.
“Where on earth am I?” asked Tom.
“You’re not,” replied Mike, smiling slightly. “This is the Myqu 5000 space city. It is the year 2252.”
“2252?” gasped Tom. “You’ve taken me through time?”
“Precisely,” said Mike. “We’ve taken you exactly 260 years into the future.” Tom screamed.
“Why did you take me here,” he gasped, in utter shock. “What do you want from me?”
“We are very concerned about your future.”
“My future?”
“Let’s go for a walk,” Mike said.
“Everything will be made clear.”
The door slid open, and Tom could not believe his eyes. He was looking at the inside of the space city. Above his head was a silver axis running through the middle of the huge cylindrical structure. Beside that, buildings seemed to come right out of the sides of the cylinder, and he even noticed trees and people above him, walking about as if nothing was amiss. He felt a little dizzy and disorientated.
“I read about this in my science book,” he finally said. “It says cities like this in the future could be held up by centrifugal force.”
“You are a clever lad,” said Mike, leading him towards a central compound.
There, Tom noticed what appeared to be some kind of holographic projector, which was projecting a huge image in the centre of the room. He stared at the image. It was displaying scenes from his life! From his early childhood!
“From your very birth, you have always been a very special boy,” Mike said. The image was of Tom as a young baby, with his mother rocking his crib. The image moved on, now displaying scenes from his early school years.
“You are a very bright boy,” Mike went on. “You have an IQ of 150, which is remarkably high. From the very beginning, you have always been fascinated by numbers and computers.” The scene showed Tom receiving his first computer at the age of seven, and going on to spend many happy hours on it.
The scene then shifted to the playground at Tom’s primary school, and showed Tom being picked on. An older girl was calling him names, and spat in his face. Tom shivered at the still-vivid memory of this scene.
“Although not everything in your early life has been perfect, you have overall been very happy.” The picture showed Tom, aged around nine, writing stories at his school, and helping his aunt out with her finances at the weekend. “However, it was not until this very year, in your time, that you found what you were really made of.”
The scene shifted to Tom doing something on his computer he had dabbled in before, but had only seriously attempted a couple of months earlier. He was learning the art of computer game programming.
“It has only been recently that you have combined your two remarkable talents of mathematical and creative genius, and turned to creating what you had always enjoyed playing: your very own computer game.”
“Gigabit,” said Tom. He pulled the disk out of his pocket.
“Yes, Gigabit.” Mike carefully took the floppy disk from him, examining its label, and held it in the air. A robot arm reached down from an orifice in the ceiling and took the disk, inserting it into the gigantic computer. The image of his game appeared on the screen. He had never seen it so big before. It was about two players in a futuristic universe battling for supremacy.
“At this stage,” Mike said, “at age 10, you have reached your very happiest stage. It is, so to speak, your golden age, the peak of your life.”
“The peak?” asked Tom. “What does that mean? What about my future?”
Tom thought about what his parents had constantly told him. ‘When you grow up,’ they had said, ‘you will be so happy and successful. That is guaranteed.’
The hologram then showed an image of Tom, happy and smiling, with the words ‘Tom - Age: 10’ above it.
“This is you now,” said Mike. “You are happy, because you have found something you really enjoy doing. You have, so to speak, found yourself. You are in your element. All your problems you have had at your primary school, such as your bullying and difficulty fitting in, are now almost like nothing. They seem insignificant to you now, because of this great thing you have found.”
“You have developed a great relationship with your teacher, who once saw you as a troublesome child, yet now recognises you as the person you are. He is like a best friend to you.”
Mike paused as the image moved on. ‘Tom – Age: 13’ said the caption at the top. The boy in the image was remarkably like Tom, yet looked several years older; and Tom noticed, to his horror, how much less happy he looked.
“This is you in three years’ time,” Mike finally said.
“Although you are still enjoying your creativity, the stress of your new school is clearly taking its toll.” The scene shifted to one of him in his new school playground, a huge and unfriendly place, being kicked and punched by a gang of kids. “You have few friends there,” Mike said. “All your primary school friends have lost contact with you and moved on. Nevertheless, you are not entirely unhappy.”
The image moved on to one of a scowling teenager. He looked very miserable. “Tom – Age: 16”, it said. Tom stared at the image. Although his basic features were still recognisable, the sparkle in his eyes appeared to be almost completely gone.
“This is you in six years,” said Mike.
“Sad to say, the constant bullying and lack of friends has been too much for you, and you have fallen deep into depression.” He looked Tom in the eyes. “Although you still create games, it brings little comfort to you. It has become more of a chore, a habit, rather than something you genuinely enjoy.”
“At this point in your life, you have become preoccupied with your past. In particular, with the time in your life when you were last truly happy.”
“When was that?” asked Tom, in a daze at what he was hearing.
“When you were ten years old.”
Now Tom was really shocked. He could not imagine his future turning out like this. To his young eyes, he had thought that everything was going to turn out all roses for him – he had never even thought of questioning this before. It had never even crossed his young mind.
“I’m sorry if this has been shocking for you,” Mike said. “You are very young. You don’t have to watch any more of it if you don’t want to.”
Tom thought about it.
“No, I can’t leave now,” he finally said.
“So be it,” uttered Mike.
‘Tom – Age: 19’ said the image now. The now adult figure on it seemed no happier than the last one.
“At this stage in your life,” Mike said, “and rather late, I admit, you have finally become acquainted with the opposite sex. You had your first girlfriend, your first true love. But that ended in disaster, and you ended up totally heartbroken. You’re too young now to realise the damage that the opposite sex can do to you.”
“But, don’t I get any better?” gasped Tom.
“No, I’m afraid not,” he said. “Just when you thought your life was finally getting better, it all blew up in your face. And you never really got over it.”
Mike then added, “You now don’t make games any more.”
The image swam before Tom’s eyes, and through his tears he could see the next caption. ‘Tom – Age: 22’. The man in the image appeared totally absorbed in himself, and lost in thought, yet no happier than in the previous two images.
“This is your philosopher stage,” said Mike. “After the collapse of your relationship with Kirsty, you had a string of failed romances, all ending in utter heartbreak for you. It was at this stage that you turned totally inward, and began analysing everything to death. ‘What is the point of life? What is the point of everything?’ is all you ever thought about. You had no interest in computers anymore. What is more, you never had any children to pass on your genius to.”
“Finally, you could not take it any longer.” The scene showed the adult Tom with a gun in his hand. He lifted the gun and placed it against his head. At that point, the image went blank.
Tom just stood there, unable to take in what he had just seen. He felt an unusual sensation in his stomach, one that he had never felt before. His head was bowed, and he had a slight look of depression on his face.
“Why have you shown me that?” he finally asked.
“Because,” Mike replied, “you are very important. For all of us here. But mostly of all, for me.”
“For you?” asked Tom. “Why am I so important for you?”
Mike looked at him, a slight smile appearing on his face.
Finally, he told him.
“We are related. I am your distant relative.”
Tom stared at him.
“My relative?” he gasped.
“Yes,” Mike replied, smiling,
“I guess you could call me your great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson.”
Mike tapped some buttons on a control panel at the side of the room, and Tom’s disk was ejected through a slot. He handed it back to him.
“But,” Tom asked, putting the disk back into his pocket, “How can you be my descendant, if I die without ever having kids?”
Mike raised both his eyebrows.
“That is something for you to think about.”
Mike pressed a button by the door of the compound, and it slid open. He ushered Tom out of the building, and they began walking in the direction of the lab.
“It is now time,” Mike said, “for you to go.”
Tom looked around. Through his eyes, this city of the year 2252 seemed like an utterly awesome place. He noticed the people gliding about above him; as he had noticed, the artificial gravity in the city was obviously much weaker than on Earth.
“Can’t I stay here?” asked Tom. “I won’t have all the problems I am going to have back home.”
“No, I’m afraid not. You must go back to your own time.”
“But can’t I at least stay some more?”
“I’m afraid not,” said Mike. “The machine is ready now.”
Tom felt the tears coming, and after a few sobs, he felt Mike’s hand on his shoulder.
“It’s going to be all right,” Mike said. He gave him a curious wink, something which stuck in Tom’s mind for the rest of his life. Tom stopped crying, and quickly wiped his eyes, feeling a little embarrassed.
The two of them entered the lab. Tom noticed a circle of bluish-white light in the centre of the room, and as Mike pulled a lever in the wall, the circle of light grew brighter.
“This is your return ticket,” he said. “Your way back home.”
Tom began to walk towards the light. It somehow entranced him. It felt like home. Finally, he turned round, looking towards Mike.
“It has been a pleasure meeting you,” Mike told him, then whispered to him softly, “You’ve been an inspiration to me.”
As Tom stepped into the light, he saw it rise up and surround his whole body, then felt the peculiar falling sensation. He could still see Mike standing nearby, waving to him, but the image of him and the room around him was rapidly fading, disintegrating.
Finally, the room faded completely from view, and Tom felt as if he was falling faster and faster, as if he was going into freefall, falling down and down into utter oblivion.
Tom slowly opened his eyes, a dizzy feeling in his head, and realised he was back in the field, lying on his side. He looked up. The leaves of the huge tree above him were swaying lightly in the breeze. Tom realised that the tree was still in one piece.
Tom sat up in the grass, still feeling a little faint as he did so. He noticed that the storm had passed, and the now fading sunlight was gently shimmering on his face. Looking the other way, he could see a faint rainbow in the distance. His attention, though, fell on some clouds floating overhead. They looked somewhat like spaceships.
Tom stood up now. Had he dreamt the whole thing? Had he merely had a fainting spell in the field during the storm, which had given him the most awful nightmare?
Tom shook his head. Could it really have been just a dream? It seemed so real. He thought about it somewhat, then puzzled over something.
“If my life is going to go so wrong, and I end up killing myself before I have children,” thought Tom, “then Mike would never be born. But if Mike won’t be born in the future, then how could he come back to warn me about it?” He was totally stumped there.
As he stood there, shaking his head, he noticed something in his pocket.
A disk. His game. He then realised why he was there.
He climbed over the fence and dashed through the other field, in the direction of his friend’s house.
He knocked on his friend’s door. His mother opened it.
“Is Al in?” gasped Tom, now totally out of breath.
“Yes he is,” the lady said, and shouted up the stairs to him.
“Al! Tom’s here!”
“Coming!” came the shout from Al’s room. Tom greeted Al as he dashed down the stairs.
“Did you bring it?” Al asked.
“Yep, sure did,” said Tom enthusiastically.
The two of them walked upstairs to Al’s room, cheerfully chatting away. As they reached his door, however, Tom suddenly remembered something Mike had told him in the future, and he stopped talking. He must have looked a little worried, since Al then said,
“Hey, Tom! Are you all right?”
“Al,” Tom said, now in a serious tone, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Al replied.
“When we leave St. Mary’s next year, and go our separate ways, can we still keep in contact?”
“Okay,” said Al. “I promise.”
Tom made him promise again, though, and the two of them shook hands.
Al booted up his Abox computer. ‘Insert disk please,’ it said in large, chunky letters. Tom put his disk into its floppy drive.
Tom’s game soon booted up. Al and Tom plugged two old-fashioned joysticks into the Abox, and began battling each other.
‘Zone 1’ said the game. It was set in space, and the two players had to battle against each other, with the strongest being awarded. Unsurprisingly, Tom prevailed, as he had spent considerable time testing out his own game.
“Drat!” said Al.
The game moved on to the next stage. ‘Zone 2’, it said. This time, the two players battled it out aboard a futuristic spacecraft. The scenery was silvery and metallic. Tom decided, however, to be a good sport and let his friend win.
“Yes!” yelled Al, jumping up and down. “I beat you.”
Tom had expected the game to end there; however, to his utter surprise, another screen came up.
‘Zone 3’ it said. This time, the scenery was flowing and organic, and looked like some kind of alien planet.
Tom was stunned. He couldn’t remember making this! Maybe his memory was starting to fail. He didn’t say a word, though, as Al glanced at him.
“This is amazing,” he said. “You should really sell this.”
Tom, however, was too stunned either to speak or to play. Al defeated him. The winning screen came up, with Al’s name in stars. Al was grinning widely.
“Looks like I won,” said Al, as the game closed.
The Abox command prompt came up. Tom couldn’t understand what was happening, and without saying a word, he reached over and typed the word ‘dir’ into the computer.
The contents of the floppy disk came up:
- Contents of disk 0:
gigabit 62,332 07-22-92 19:47
level.1 186,996 07-18-92 14:32
level.2 267,356 07-19-92 22:16
level.3 378,643 07-22-52 20:22
mike.txt 126 07-22-52 20:22
Tom froze in shock, in utter disbelief at what he was seeing. Finally, at the prompt, he typed in the following:
> display mike.txt
As the text of that file came up on screen, Tom let out a gasp, and the two of them simply looked at each other.
It read:
Don't waste your genius.
P.S.
I am here because my
intervention had always happened.
Just don't ask me how I knew
to come…
The mother peered over her new baby’s crib.
“Hello, little Tom,” she whispered softly, patting his head. “Tom Jenkins, Junior.”
The baby’s father walked in, a certain Tom Jenkins, age 30. It was a beautiful summer’s evening in the summer of 2012.
Tom looked at his new son, lying there, and felt incredibly happy. He kissed his wife softly on the cheek.
“I love you, honey,” he said. She smiled at him.
Tom thought about how successful he had become. Here he was, with his very own family, in his very own country mansion.
Tom had started the ubiquitous Myqu Software company some twenty years earlier. From its humble beginnings, it had grown to be one of the largest computer software companies in the world. At first concentrating on entertainment software, it had branched out into every possible field of computing imaginable. And Tom was its founder, and the president of the company.
Suddenly, they heard a knock on the door.
“I’ll get it,” said Tom. He rushed downstairs and opened the door. He was greeted by Al, the vice-president of Myqu Software, and Tom’s close friend for the past 25 years.
“I hear congratulations are in order,” said Al. He held a box in his hands.
‘To Becky Jenkins’, it said on its pink label.
Becky came down the stairs, holding little Tom. Smiling at Al, she handed the baby to big Tom, then took the box from him and opened it.
It contained a blue wreath with ‘Congratulations’ written on it, and a pair of little blue baby shoes.
“Thanks a lot,” she said, overjoyed. She smiled at Tom.
Tom looked at his wife, at his new baby, then at Al, and realised where he had come to. He recalled how he and Al had stayed in close contact since leaving primary school, all throughout their teens; and then how finally, after leaving college, Al joined up with Myqu Software and became its honorary vice-president. He had met Becky while completing his final year of college. All three of them had become very good friends.
The three of them sat down in the Jenkins’ sitting room, and began chatting about all the great times they have had together.
Finally, Tom spoke up.
“I have decided,” he said, “to donate half the annual profits of Myqu Software to the Institute of Bullied Children.”
Becky smiled at him. “That’s so kind of you,” she whispered. Although Tom had had to face a lot of bullying at his secondary school, he finally managed to stand up for the person he was, and the bullies eventually left him alone. When he met Becky, he discovered that she had been through much the same difficulties as he had. This mutual empathy had drawn the two of them closer together, and they now had a very successful marriage. Both of them felt compelled to do whatever they could so that future generations would not suffer as they did.
Al seemed overjoyed at Tom’s decision, much to Tom’s delight. “It sounds like a brilliant idea,” he said. “It will give our company the new direction it needs.”
Just at that moment, there was another knock on the door. Who could it be now?
“Come in,” the three of them called.
A woman entered, a bouquet of flowers in her hand.
“I just thought I’ll congratulate you,” she said to Becky.
“Kirsty!” Becky cried. “How have you been?”
“Wonderful,” she said.
“I haven’t seen you in months!”
The two of them began to talk and talk. Tom smiled as he realised how he had first met them both. He had first met Kirsty, a beautiful young girl with brown hair, whilst in college. Although they were very close friends, and he liked her a lot, for some reason he decided that they weren’t quite compatible, so they decided to remain just friends. A while later, Kirsty introduced Tom to her cousin, Becky, and the rest, they say, is history.
That evening, after a long chat, Kirsty finally left, and Becky carried little Tom upstairs and placed him in his crib. Tom followed, and kissed his son goodnight. Tom then went down to his basement. He had decided to look up some very old files from his company’s early years.
Tom rolled back the cover to his safe, and turned the dial clockwise, anticlockwise, then clockwise again. There was a click, and the safe door opened.
The safe contained a pile of old folders and papers. Tom began rummaging through the pile, carefully placing the papers he had looked at on a neat pile on the floor. Tom noticed a red ring-binder folder; its cover caked with dust. As he lifted it up, he saw something slip out of it, and land on the floor with a clatter.
He looked at the square blue object on the floor, then bent over and carefully picked it up. It was a floppy disk. Its label was dusty, and its writing faded somewhat, but he could still make out the word ‘Gigabit’ printed on it in peculiar childlike handwriting.
For a moment, Tom actually felt like he was ten years old again. Then he noticed how faded the writing was, something his ten-year-old self had never seen, and the flashback of memory ended. He then realised where he was. When he was. Chuckling slightly, Tom placed the old disk in his pocket, then put the piles of papers back in his safe. He had found what he was looking for.