The Prodigy: Part Eighteen

~ beetleypete

This is the eighteenth part of a fiction serial, in 800 words.

Delia had something to say once the fresh coffee arrived.

“We have seen those electronic screens, but they don’t explain how you can move through time. Do you have anything else to show us, Emily?” The girl nodded.

“Finish your coffee, and I will show you things you cannot imagine. Even when you see them, you won’t understand them, believe me. You can ask questions about anything, but I cannot guarantee that you will comprehend the science behind the answers. I do not mean to sound patronising when I say that, but the technology we use every day is centuries ahead of anything you can even imagine”.

Roger hadn’t said anything previously, but then he asked her why she had shown such promise in some classes, but not in others. He mentioned her bad spelling in English, and her rudeness to the Religious Education teacher.

“I am always looking for the more intelligent and adaptable teachers. They might make good guardians, or be more inclined to help me generally. I do not consider the English teacher and the RE teacher to be suitable. But Miss Reiss had potential, as do you. So I made sure to do well in those classes, to bring attention to myself. In your case, it worked. As for Miss Reiss, she made an assumption based on my current name without taking me very seriously. Where I come from, we can learn a language fluently in the space of a few hours of your time. We have implants inserted in our brains not long after birth, and that makes it possible to learn a great deal in a very short space of time. In fact, there are no schools, at least not as you understand them now”.

Putting down her cup, Delia wanted to know something.

“How far in the future do you come from? Can you put that into some perspective we can understand?” Emily thought for a moment.

“In your calendar, it is currently nineteen sixty-eight. That means it is one thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight years after the birth of Christ, who many of you worship as a God. In other cultures, the years are different. For instance in the Muslim world, China, and Judaism. But try to imagine three times the current year. Three times the amount of years since your Christ was born. That would give you an approximate date of five thousand, nine hundred and four. Not that the date really means anything, for as we have found out in the future, time is nothing like you imagine it now. Would you like a break? I appreciate this is all far too much to understand this evening”.

Roger shook his head and told her to carry on. His postprandial tiredness had disappeared in an instant once they had arrived at the lakeside house.

“In the time where I live, humans have to do very little. We study, we learn, we try to improve and develop. Since the discovery of time-shifting, we also travel. But we can only travel back. One law we soon discovered is that travel into the future will never be possible. Becuase the future does not exist until it has happened. So, to explain. Tomorrow, I can travel back to today, but not to the day after tomorrow. However, I can travel back to any time in my life, then from there travel back in time to any date I choose. When I do that, I have all my accumulated knowledge as an elder, and in this case as an eleven year-old girl. Meanwhile, my actual self remains in my time, in stasis. My vital functions maintained by computers, and by robotic artifical intelligence”.

Interrupting, Delia had something to say. “What is artificial intelligence?” Emily pursed her lips.

“I will not try to explain that tonight, but consider what you already know. Machines that make things, machines that make light work of human labour. You even have the basics of computing, with machines that use punch cards to make calculations. In your lifetimes, machines will do so much more. They will manufacture cars, sort parcel deliveries, operate on people requiring delicate surgery. When you are both old, telephones will be portable, and fit in your pocket. You will all have devices like my recall device that can access every single piece of information you can ever need. Students will learn on computer terminals, and games on home computers will replace toys. This is the period in history when technology accelerates. By the time you are both dead, nobody will fail to understand such progress”.

Looking rather uncomfortable, Delia stood up and spoke to Yamada.

“If it is alright with you, I would like you to take us home now. I need a break, even if Roger doesn’t”.

40 thoughts on “The Prodigy: Part Eighteen”

  4. Well, that is a stunning development! Too bad the future looks so bleak. Reminds me of the song, In the Year 2525, which came out in 1969. I wonder if Zager & Evans had an encounter with Emily? 😉

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  6. I like the explanation of why she does well in some classes and not others. Of course, I wonder what this all means for Yamada, Roger, and Delia.

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  7. The underground lifestyle is interesting along with the ability to manipulate time. Seems as if Delia and Roger are being targeted for future guardians? This could actually be expanded into a full novel. Given that any thought Pete? xxoo, C

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    1. A few of my serials have ‘novel potential’, so I have been told. I’m not sure I want to be a novelist though, Cheryl. Editing, formatting, publishing, promotion, that all sounds too much like a ‘job’ to me.
      Best wishes, Pete. x

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    1. There is a bit more to come on that, but basically she travels back into a time when she was young, and her ‘essence’ inhabits that form to travel back to the 1960s. Her brain is the same as when she is older though, and retains all the accumulated knowledge.
      Best wishes, Pete.

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  15. (1) “Finish your coffee, and I will show you things you cannot imagine.” Yamada has slipped a mind-altering drug into the coffee that will permit Roger and Delia to see into the future once Emily activates the app on her modular brain implant.
    (2) Bad citation: “I do not mean to sound patronizing, but our technology is centuries ahead of what you and your fellow bipeds can even imagine.” (Doctor Zaius)
    (3) Bad citation: “Where I come from, we can learn a modern language fluently in the space of a few hours of your time. Of course, it takes a little longer to master the language of Chaucer and Chrétien de Troyes. And longer yet to learn the nuanced language of Darwin, the bottlenose dolphin.”
    (4) Overheard:
    Emily: “Would you like a break?”
    Delia: “That depends. On whose clock, yours or mine?”
    (5) Overheard:
    Roger: “So, Emily. Have you journeyed back to the Triassic?”
    Emily: “Yes! I was hoping to join the Ray Conifer Singers or maybe ask Herp Alpert for trumpet lessons. I wanted to TRI out my musical skills. Maybe get on “Pangaea’s Got Talent.” But everyone I met was a real ASS!”
    Delia: “Yeah, IC what you mean!”
    (6) Will Emily go back to the future? Only time will tell…
    (7) “Meanwhile, my actual self remains in my time, in stasis. My vital functions maintained by computers, and by robotic artificial intelligence.” So Emily is either a body snatcher, a robot, an avatar, a hologram, or a fictional character in someone’s blog.
    (8) I was going to write an eighth comment, but my Tesla bot wants to play a game of 3D chess. That’s fine, except that it’s been programmed to cheat…

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