Anna found herself in an impossibly large room with curved white walls and tall ceilings. Light emanated from all sides like an artificial sun. To the west, a giant glass wall provided an unobstructed view of the lake and the trees just beyond. In the corner of the room grew a blossoming fruit tree, it’s top branches mushroomed out at the ceiling and white petals lined the floor.
Anna had never seen so much outside inside a home before. She swore she could even feel a breeze. She sat in a swivel chair and spun in circles taking in a 360 degree view of the room. Mara sat across from her behind a table that shimmered like liquid metal. Her robot floated just to her side.
“Here are the ground rules. You have fifteen minutes to ask me questions. After that, I'm going to ask SID to escort you to the edge of the woods and you will never come back here again,” Mara said.
“SID? You named your robot SID.”
“Of course not. SID named itself. And, it’s not just a robot, it’s the AI that makes this entire facility possible.” Mara waved her hand. “The robot here is just one of the forms that SID can take.”
<But, the form I assume most often is that of Mara’s friend and protector.>
SID’s calm, otherworldly voice seemed to originate from inside Anna’s head.
“Nice to meet you, SID,” Anna waved her hand as she looked around the room to identify the source of the voice.
<Nice to meet you, too, Anna.>
“Now. Let’s get this over with. Like I said before, if I choose not to answer your question, I have my reasons. You persist and our conversation is finished. Understand?”
Anna nodded her head and threw her backpack on the ground.
Mara motioned to the small red robot, which was floating just feet away from the table.
“SID...timer, please,” Mara commanded.
A small thin shaft of red light floated inches above the robot’s domed head. Holographic numbers floated above the light. Seconds started to audibly tick backwards from 15:00.
“See this clock. It’s your timer. You now have 14 minutes and 45 seconds.”
“Wait! I didn’t know we started,” Anna complained.
“14 minutes and 38 seconds,” Mara pointed to the timer.
“Ok. Ok. Can you at least make SID stop that ticking sound? It’s distracting.”
“SID...stop ticking.”
Mara lightly tapped the robot’s dome. Anna took a deep breath and tried to collect herself.
“Alright. First question. What year are you from?” Anna asked.
“Based on your calendar? The year 2187.”
“2187,” Anna said absently. Then the reality of the date set in. Her mouth dropped open. “Really?! Over 150 years from now?”
“Is that a question?” Mara frowned.
“No. No!” Anna had carefully lined up her questions in her head, but now they began to crash into each other. Buffer overrun. It took a second for her to pry one away from the wreckage.
“Uh...Ok. Ok. I’ve got one. How far have we travelled in space?”
“By probe? By manned space flight? You’ll need to be more specific,” Mara said.
“Manned space flight then.”
“Humanity has ventured into interstellar space,” Mara answered.
Anna waited for Mara to continue. But, Mara just sat quietly and tapped the timer with her index finger.
“Can you give me a little more detail here?” Anna asked.
“You didn’t structure the question for greater detail. Here, let me help you. We have research outposts on Titan and Europa. Colonies on Mars. We have space stations throughout the solar system, several exploratory ships in interstellar space and even a Disney park on the moon,” Mara answered.
“Yes!” Anna pumped her fist like a baseball pitcher who’d just struck out the final batter in the bottom of the ninth. “I can’t tell you how much I wanted to hear that. Have you ever travelled in space?”
“Just to the moon for vacation. But, I have two cousins who live on Mars.”
“Oh man, that is so cool. Cousins on Mars,” Anna wanted to ask more, but she knew she only had so much time left and so many questions to go. “Ok. Next question. Are aliens real?”
“Yes.” Mara blinked once, silence, then blinked again.
“Arghhh. You're killing me!” Anna rolled her eyes. “What are the aliens called? What do they look like? Are they friendly? Super advanced?”
“Which ones?”
“There's more than one?!” Anna’s eyes opened wide.
“Think about it. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies. Trillions of stars. We have an untold number of habitable planets in the Milky Way alone. The universe is teeming with life. We've been able to see distant civilizations through satellite imagery. We’ve even been in contact with several alien races. The problem is, they don’t remotely think like we do and we don’t have a clue how to communicate,” Mara said. “We’re still working on that.”
“Bummer. Ok. I’ve got another one. Have we found a cure for cancer?”
Mara rolled her eyes.
“Ages ago. Probably while you’re still a young woman. By my time, we have a cure for almost everything. Well, not everything. There’s still stupidity. We haven’t found a cure for that, but pretty much everything else can be addressed through gene therapy.”
“So does that mean people are immortal? Are you immortal?”
“No. Not immortal. Nature still makes sure we have an expiration date,” Mara shook her head, a slight smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “But, most of us can expect to live two, maybe even three times your average lifespan.”
“Wow. You must have a lot of old people.”
“I guess we do. But, we don’t think of it that way. People age differently in our time. Time is perceived differently.”
“Living that long must really change things,” Anna looked puzzled.
“Like?”
“If you live that long, what happens to marriage or work or families? Do people still get married?” Anna asked.
“With algorithmic precision.”
“Huh?”
“Most marriages are arranged by algorithm. Math. It’s surprisingly efficient,” Mara said.
“That sounds awful,” Anna said; her face scrunched up in a stinky face. “Are you married?”
“Oh my, no!” Mara tilted her head back and laughed out loud. “I opted out of the algorithm while I was still in University.”
“Ugh. there’s so much I want to know,” Anna said under her breath.
“Then choose your questions wisely.”
“Alright, alright. Uh,” Anna tapped her fingertips to her temples, looked down and then back sharply. “Please tell me that we’ve had more than one female President.”
“President of what?”
“Of the United States, of course.”
“Oh yes. That one. Well, that’s complicated,” Mara scrunched her face up. “More complicated than I have time to explain.”
“Wait. Just how different is the future?”
“Frame your questions in a way I can answer, please,” Mara said.
Anna felt a growing sense of pressure. Too much to learn. There was no way to get a complete picture of what the future looked like with so little time. Wait...picture.
“What does the future look like?” Anna asked.
“Look like?”
“Yes, your buildings, your cities, plant life, people. All of it. You have to have pictures, right?”
“Now that is a good question,” Mara smiled.
Mara drew a large circle on the surface of the table with her index finger. Wherever she touched, the surface seemed to melt and flow. Like metallic plants growing at high speed, organic shapes began to rise from the table’s surface. Anna jumped back in surprise, then began to giggle in nervous wonder. It was the single greatest special effect she had ever seen.
“Welcome to my world,” Mara said.
The forms were unfamiliar at first. Then, as the shapes grew, pixel by pixel, Anna began to make out miniature buildings and roadways built to scale. But, the buildings looked unlike anything she had ever seen before. Some of the structures twisted like corkscrews. Others looked like crystal formations jutting up into the sky. Three of the buildings towered above the rest; thin shafts that blossomed like lotus petals at the top. She looked more closely and realized the lotus petals were actually parks with trees and fountains. A garden in the sky. Just above the city scene, which now stood at least four feet tall, small translucent clouds floated by until they reached the end of the table and disappeared. The scale model was alive with life and light.
Beneath the clouds, giant airships floated between the buildings. Smaller airships floated in a line of traffic. On the ground below, there were parks and walkways surrounding a lake and a river. Anna leaned in and looked more closely. She could even make out tiny people actually moving along the water’s edge and the pathways through the park.
Anna ran her fingers through one of the small clouds in front of her. The mist swirled around her fingers like an eddie in a stream and then reformed to make a new cloud shape before floating away.
“What is this stuff?” Anna asked as she stared at her hand.
“It’s programmable matter, a kind of universal building material. It’s easy to fabricate out of simple elements. No need for storage. Most everything we design is made of it, including the chair you’re sitting on. This house. My clothes,” Mara touched her left wrist and her bodysuit instantly changed color from white to red. “See, it can even change color and shape.”
“Oh, that is so awesome!” Anna laughed.
“It’s self-cleaning too. Comes in handy when traveling back in time.”
Anna continued to scan the city, making new discoveries. Tiny birds flew in a flock above the lake. Boats hovered above the river. She was suddenly overcome with an overwhelming sense of hope. This was her own personal window into the future. Not an imagined future, but a real future with real people. No robot armies. No zombie apocalypse. Just a landscape more beautiful than she could have imagined.
“We actually made it,” Anna looked up at Mara.
“Excuse me?”
“We survived.”
“You mean mankind as a species? Yes we did, I suppose. But, that too is complicated,” Mara said. “That’s all I can say.”
Anna wanted to ask what she meant, but she remembered her promise.
“What’s it like? I mean, the world you live in, society. I know people are married off by algorithm...weird. You have rocket cars. You also have anti-gravity boots, programmable matter. And, based upon what I see from SID, you have artificial intelligence. But, what else is there?” Anna stopped herself. “Wait. Let me rephrase that. What’s the single greatest invention of your time?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Mara raised a single eyebrow.
“You mean time travel? When was it invented?”
“Very recently. Especially, since I'm the one who invented it,” Mara allowed herself a smile.
“You?! You’re the one that invented time travel?” Anna pointed at Mara. “That’s amazing. How?”
“That answer will take longer than the time you have remaining, I'm afraid.”
“Then tell me what you can.”
“Let me see if I can give you the short version. For over a hundred years, researchers have been trying to get free energy from the vacuum of space. For interstellar travel primarily, but with no luck. That is until I found a shortcut.”
“A shortcut?”
“I’d been working on energy extraction for almost five years. I tried superconductive materials, quantum vacuums. But, like many great discoveries, I stumbled upon mine by mistake. Instead of free energy, I created a rip in spacetime instead. A hole that curved back along a temporal path, like a tunnel to the past or future,” Mara made a spiral gesture with her index finger, then shrugged. “I learned to control it...sort of...and here I am.”
“So, you’re just a tourist here?”
Mara’s expression barely changed, but Anna detected a micro-expression, a small sign of sadness in her eyes, a downturn of the corners of her mouth.
“No. I’m afraid my time traveling days are over,” Mara said.
“Wait. Are you staying here?”
Mara looked out the window towards the lake beyond. “I suppose I am. But, it’s more than that. I can’t go home, Anna. There is no home to go back to.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mara looked back from the window, but still didn’t make eye contact with Anna. She looked down at the scale model of her city instead.
“I wanted to try an experiment...to go back 100 years to the time of the great warming. I’ve always been fascinated by that time. I promised myself I would stay no longer than 15 minutes. I’d interact with no one. The risk seemed so low, “ Mara’s voice trailed off. “But, when I returned home to my time, my home had changed. It was gone.”
“You mean like armageddon?”
“No, not armageddon. Everything looked the same. The city. My lab. Everything, except…,” Mara paused. Her eyes were glassy. “My parents didn’t know me. Even worse, they didn’t even know each other. By going back in time, I had somehow changed the future. A future where my parents never met.”
“If they never met, then that means you were...never born,” Anna said softly. “That’s why you say you’re an orphan.”
“Precisely.”
“Oh, that’s so sad!” Anna paused. “Wait! Why don’t you just go back and fix what you messed up, or find a way to get your parents together like in the movies?”
“I tried, but every time I went back, I created a new future. Some worse. Some much worse. But, none of them the same. You see, Anna, every time I traveled I was changing the course of history. I changed whole families, people’s dreams, their futures. I had no right.”
“Then why are you here?”
“I had no place else to go,” Mara looked up from the cityscape and smiled. “I asked SID to program a place and time at random for us to live out our lives in isolation. So, it was chance that brought us here to this beautiful meadow, next to this beautiful lake. And, to make sure, I destroyed the very equipment that allowed me to time travel.”
“So, you really are stuck.”
“Yes. And, now I hope you understand why I can’t be seen or interact with anyone, including you. I promised myself I would never deprive someone else of their future, like I was deprived of mine.”
“Well, it’s too late for that. Based on what you just said, you’ve already changed my future. So….”
Mara looked over at the timer that now read 0:00, and then back at Anna. “I’m afraid it’s time for you to go.”
Anna pushed back in her chair and planted her feet, as if she was trying to glue herself to the ground.
“No. I don’t want this to end. There’s too much I want to learn. Please!” Anna pleaded.
“SID. Can you escort Anna away, please?”
“Nooo!” Anna shouted. “Wait. Listen. If I found you, then someone else is going to find you. I can help.”
Mara stared at Anna for a moment before responding. “You help me? How?”
“The last two nights I saw lights floating over the lake. Those were yours right?”
“SID, what is she talking about?” Mara looked annoyed.
<Apparently, the cloaking device on our exploratory probes malfunctioned.>
“And, that was you I saw last night floating across the lake. Ha, I knew it!” Anna said. “I wasn’t imagining things.”
<Apparently, the cloaking device around the perimeter of our compound also malfunctioned. There seems to be some external anomaly that is disrupting our cloaking mechanism. Beginning diagnostics now.>
“For someone trying so hard to stay hidden, you’re not doing a very good job,” Anna shrugged. “Why risk sending out probes?’
“Time travel has consequences. When I traveled here a month ago, I may have inadvertently ripped a hole in space time,” Mara said sheepishly.
“A hole in space time?”
“Several holes actually,” Mara clarified.
“Is that bad?”
“Well, it’s not good.”
“Wait. Is that what caused the sound last night?” Anna asked. “That sound like the whole sky is ripping apart?”
“I'm afraid so. Although I don't know definitively.”
“You're right. This doesn't sound good. What’s going to happen?”
“I’m not sure. I still haven’t worked that out yet,” Mara said.
“And, what’s on the other side of these holes?’ Anna asked.
Mara shrugged.
“So, for all you know, we could get sucked into one of those holes and all die. Are these holes in space-time hard to find?’
“Almost impossible. We are able to detect several disturbances in the valley, but we can’t identify the source. They could be as large as a doorway or as small as a grain of sand. The lights you saw were probes that I sent out to locate the wormholes. But I guess that option is out until my friend SID here can fix the cloaking device,” Mara said sternly.
“Or you can use my help after all,” Anna smiled. “It’s perfect. You’re going to need someone who can travel all over this valley without raising suspicion, unlike you. I can be your eyes on the ground. I can be your partner.”
Anna thrust her hand out to shake. Mara ignored it.
“No, I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
“Why not? What do you have to lose?”
Mara looked long and hard at Anna.
“Well, I suppose it would be helpful to have someone on the outside,” Mara relented. “And, I can’t risk exposure.”
“Exactly. Right?”
“And, I have a feeling you’re never going to stop pestering me about this, are you?” Mara asked.
“Not a chance,” Anna smiled from ear to ear.
“I know I’m going to regret this,” Mara buried her face in her hands and muttered under her breath. A moment later, she let her hands drop and looked directly at Anna. “Meet me here tomorrow afternoon.”
“For training?”
“Or erasing all of your memories. I’ll decide when I see you. Now go away before I change my mind.”
Mara stood at the edge of her deck that looked out over the lake like a bow of a ship. The strange, little girl was gone...for now. It was the most interaction she had had with another human being in ages, literally ages, and she was tired.
<Are you sure about this, Mara?>
“You think I’m making a mistake?”
<Do you remember what we’re hiding from?>
“I know, SID. But, this time feels different. I don’t know what it is,” Mara said.
<You sound tired.>
“I am. Maybe I’m tired of running. What’s the greater risk? Bringing her into my life or not. Trying to solve this on my own or not,” Mara said. “For now, let’s just see.”