Chapter 1
Official Recognition of Primitive Advantage (ORPA)/October 14, 5460
In the 5450s and 60s, all families had a 'Connective Name' attached to their names, which is sort of like an extra last name. For example, the Vatch family was the 'Vatch Club.' The Vatch Club was a regular family of the 5400s, with a mother, a father, a son, and a daughter. The mother's name was Lats. The father's name was Yasin. The Son's name was Terpin. The daughter's name was Comopin.
Yasin was always the first to come home from work every day. He would go to the basement and fix up whatever areas might have been vandalized, and then go to the rest of the house. They were a poor family, and many people could afford precisely the kind of tool that could help break into their house. He would usually finish at the same time that Lats came home with the children. Then they would go to the TV room and press the button that turned on both the light and the TV.
The TV was rich in color and sound. The pixels were smaller than the naked eye could see, which was a useful way to enhance color, and the sound was not only far more accurate than today's sound machines, it had a computer built in to make sure the volume was in a comfortable range (if the real sound was too loud, it would be taken down a bit). This was the cheapest TV of the 5460s. Other TVs were more compact with a bigger screen, and the pixels got even smaller than the individual cells of a human body.
Afterward, they had dinner and homework for the children. Then they finally went to bed. Their daily routine was very specific; they hated trying new things. If they didn't know about something, they would immediately say, "Nope, I'm not going to do it." It seemed genetic; they had family history of great great grandparents that showed evidence of this trait.
Their name, Vatch, came from an old language called Latin, which was now dead, and the language they now spoke, French, branched from that language.
That day, October 14, 5460, during TV time, they were watching the news.
"In other news," the newscast said, "a concept known to all but followed by none has finally been recognized officially. This day will be known as the 'Official Recognition of Primitive Advantage' day. Only one country failed to sign the agreement, so the few that disagree with Primitive Advantage can now flee to that country, because they're tearing down your houses tonight."
"Lots of dirty trash," said Yasin.
Lats looked at him sharply.
This recognition meant that they would actually follow the concept. Primitive Advantage was a concept that had been recognized unofficially for about a thousand years. It meant that technology's best form is that of primitive tools. That is, a light bulb would be disguised as a tree reflecting an unusual amount of light off its leaves.
"The rich people will deserve it, the way they walk around with their noses in the air like that," continued the father. "And it won't make a difference to us; we'll just have to get a new television set."
They suddenly heard a noise that sounded like scraping metal, and Yasin bolted out the doorway toward the front door. When he arrived, he opened it, and watched, expressionless, as their neighbor's house was torn down by the machine. The other members of the Vatch Club followed, and they gasped, clapping their hands to their mouths.
"I would expect us to be next," said Yasin, observing the absent houses beyond their neighbor's.
"Wait!" cried Comopin and Terpin in unison. "I want to get my-"
"Won't do no good," snarled Yasin. "Nothing we have follows the rules of Primitive Advantage."
So they all exited their homes and waited. It happened in a flash of metal against metal. Before they knew it, all that was to be seen was a deep hole where the foundation had been. This was almost instantaneously filled up with soil.
They spent the rest of the day following orders, figuring out what they'd be doing. Now Yasin was feeling growing dread within him that the recognition had ever occurred, as he was sure the rest of the family was. They all hated change, after all.
When it finally sunk into the children that the school had been taken down, Comopin cried, and Terpin gave his parents a look that was expressionless except for the glittering in his eyes that could only be concealed tears.
Everything would have to be replaced. They would need new school supplies, a new home, etc. At the end of the day, they were finally told where they'd live, after being given two sets of coats to replace their clothes (this one's mainly for the winter, because of the thick fur, see? And this one is for them hot days...). They were inside a forest, near the edge. At least the forest was a more useful area; trees could serve as virtually anything that just sits there and does its job, and branches virtually anything else.
Yasin went to sleep that night wondering if this was all a dream, and he was now waking up.
Chapter 2
Zero Breakthrough (ZB)/November 1, 5460
They were just beginning to get used to their new way of life. "Give it a few years, and our old life will only be a memory," Yasin Vatch would say. Of course, most others would have completely forgotten it by then.
They would usually wear their summer coats at this point, but sometimes it got cold enough for them to decide to put on their fur coats. They were quite used to getting air-conditioning, and they still got it, but it was less convenient.
They got 5 trees for themselves; each family member got their own tree to live in, and there was a single, family tree for things such as TV ('you see,' said Yasin, 'it's only necessary to have one TV; them rich people that have a TV per person are simply too greedy’). The trees were exactly like real trees, except that the lower part was hollowed out for them to live in, and, of course, the trees were artificial. The upper part could be used by woodpeckers and any other animals that want to break in. Their air conditioning came from a circular mark on the tree, and one had to press it to change what it was doing (heat or cold, strong or weak).
On October 31, they decided to join the celebration of an age-old holiday that was usually criticized for its failure at anything realistic, just to get the feel of how community is experienced in this new system. Its old name was unknown, but it was now known at the time as RIP (Rest In Pieces) day.
At night, they always wore the fur coats; they didn't have blankets because the blankets didn't fit with Primitive Advantage. Their coats were like pajamas; they covered everything but the head and neck.
The next day, November 1, 5460, they followed their new routine, which was just like the old one but warped to work around this new concept. When they got to the TV part of their routine, they went to the family tree.
The Primitive Advantage TV appeared to be a part of the rest of the inside of the tree, until you turned it on by pressing your finger against the TV area. It checked your fingerprint, and then turned on. The door had to be closed at that time; the TV wouldn't turn on with it open. This was because of how strange it would be to an animal if they saw glowing from a hollow tree, and the whole point of Primitive Advantage would be ruined.
They turned it on, and the news was about yesterday's celebration of the RIP day.
"The few people that find scary stuff scary have a lot to say about yesterday," the newscast said. "For example:"
"My closest neighbor had set up a scare park, and whenever a ghost turned up, I felt my blood freeze," said a chubby-looking man.
"I came up with an idea at the heart-stopping experience, and spoke to the scientists at once," continued the newscaster. He gave a short pause, which might have been hesitation. "You'll find I do more than tell the news," he added, grinning.
"We thought about what he said," said a man wearing a white fur coat. "And we realized that his idea was a partial prediction of our most recent theories based on observations of the amount of vibration of particles. The other part is chemistry."
"Their theory," continued the newscast, "said that all particles use the same amount of energy, even when not accelerating. The reason for this is because they're always accelerating, just not always on the high scales that we observe. They hadn't interpreted the very prediction we're talking about until I told them about my idea.
"There are some gasses that are very good at sucking energy, and could thus reduce the otherwise consistent movement of particles. The amount of gas needed would be tiny to reduce the energy all the way to absolute zero, which is where particles don't move at all, resulting in zero temperature. This breakthrough could be useful for all kinds of things, such as preserving museum paintings and statues, detective work, and time travel, though you'd only be able to travel into the future. I interviewed scientist Farsich Mins about how absolute zero could be used for such things:"
"You say that, quote, 'the object experiencing absolute zero wouldn't experience time, and would therefore be preserved throughout time.' Who says it wouldn't experience time? Time is mysterious; we don't know exactly what it is, so how could we say it isn't be experienced by unmoving objects?"
"Well," replied Farsich, "we may not know exactly what time is, but we can figure out that, even if objects that aren't moving do experience time, they would experience no rusting or anything like that, because that would involve movement of the chemicals, which isn't allowed. And our brains operate through movement; our conscience would be frozen anyway."
"OK, so how would you interpret what you're saying now in direct terms of time?"
"I guess you could either say there's two forms of time, absolute and that which is based on movement or the only form of time in existence is that which is based on movement. We know that absolute time doesn't exist as it was interpreted about 4,500 years ago, because time slows down as one approaches the speed of light. But it's still possible that there is an absolute time that each object experiences, which may change based on the amount of activity or movement, but it's still absolute in the sense that it's always there."
"Those of you that didn't understand a word of that, the main thing you need to know is that objects at the lowest temperature possible wouldn't experience any time as we know it," said the newscast for a wrap-up. "In other news..."
Yasin pressed his finger against the screen, and it turned off. "I'd love to travel into the future, make a small amount of money, and come back to find that it's a lot for our current time. Then I'd be able to scare them criminals off."
Lats stared at him as he exited the tree. "Where are you going?"
"Off to mourn over the amount of money we have," he said shortly. He was feeling a bit choked up, and he went into his tree for privacy. He pressed the AC circle three times for a strong bout of heat.
Above all his feelings of misery, he felt fury at everyone in his life, except for his family.
Chapter 3
Two Months
Over the next two months, they were still getting used to the Primitive Advantage. It was a concept recognized for almost a millennium, an idea that they had spent all their lives learning and teaching how true it is, and yet it was hard to grasp it in the actual experience.
The doorways on their trees were made of weaved bark, which could be closed by the push of a button. When one pressed the button, a holographic arm appeared, making it look like the arm was closing it (the main purpose of Primitive Advantage was to make sure everything makes sense to the animals). It was such that closing it by hand was almost easier.
Their school was a courtyard with special logs that could be written on by brushing one's finger across it. The movement of the finger was close to that of fingers on a keyboard.
Their least favorite thing, however, was their new rules. As the purpose of Primitive Advantage was to work with the animals instead of without, they had to follow a strict set of rules, which limited pollution (even though they didn't have cars anymore, their other technologies still gave off smoke), injury to animals, and above all, animal suspicion. They weren't allowed to kill more than two animals a day. The two animals couldn't be the same species. They couldn't shoot their guns, which were disguised as branches, from more than a foot away from the target. The rules were endless.
They now had to make their own kills. This was a concept that hadn't been met for over 3,000 years, and the Vatch Club wasn't about to decide to go ahead and cherish it. Few people up until then were unable to go to a restaurant and make their order.
After two months, Yasin had finally gotten the new daily schedule down. The next day, he came to the edge of the forest, about to go in, when something stopped him.
It was a column of fire, which quickly turned into smoke, at the bottom of which was the strangest sight.
Chapter 4
Kidnapping/January 1, 5461 - January 2, 5461
The rest of the Vatch Club arrived home about an hour later, to find that Yasin was missing. The children were the first to react, having run into the forest and arrived there first. Comopin at once ran back to Lats, and asked, "Mom, where's Dad?"
Terpin simply gasped when he saw the open tree that was normally closed, that normally contained Yasin. He stared for a few seconds, and then shook his head violently, realizing what he was doing. He had done so just in time; Lats and Comopin had just arrived, and if Comopin had seen him staring, she would at once lose all worry of Yasin just so she could tease him for worrying.
Lats glanced at the tree, not seeing it, and said, "See? He's right in there."
Comopin shot a suspicious look at Terpin, who, though he had stopped staring, he didn't have enough time to avoid the others seeing him move away from the tree jerkily. He shook his head again. Then Comopin said, "Mom, do you need your eyes fixed?"
"No, darling, I-" she said, looking back at Yasin's tree. This time she saw that it was open, and Yasin was absent. She clapped her hand to her mouth, and let out the squeak that Terpin could tell was a well muffled scream.
Lats wondered what could possibly have happened to him, and then remembered that he had a portable CS (Communication System). "I'm calling him," she said at once.
She went into the family tree, pressed the CS button, dialed the number, and pressed enter. For a moment she heard nothing but a faint ringing sound (the volume was ceased so that animals wouldn't get suspicious), and then the message.
This time, she failed to hide her scream quickly enough, and it bled throughout the forest, and the whole area seemed to freeze.
The children at once entered the tree, to find their mother had fainted. The pressed the CS button again, dialed 911, and then waited for the phone to be answered.
"Hello?"
"Um," said Comopin, looking at Terpin, "Well, we have no idea where our father is, and he's supposed to be home."
"You're sure he's supp-"
"We know he's supposed to be here," said Terpin. "Our mother just fainted when she heard, and I've never heard of a case when they didn't share something between themselves, even if they didn't tell us."
"Yeah… Sure, well, I don't know if that counts as evidence that he's not simply catching up on work or something, but I'll alert the others. Tell me where you live."
"Uuhh," said Terpin.
"1875, Mins Forest," said Comopin, smiling at Terpin.
"OK, thanks for your help."
Terpin looked at Comopin in surprise; she was now looking at the wall that had the speaker scraped onto it. "Since when do you know our address?"
"I'm two years older than you, aren't I?"
"No, I'm two years older than you, and you know it," he said, groaning. It was true, but he was the one who usually fell behind on knowledge of their location and such.
They spent the next few hours waiting, their mouths watering; they hadn't eaten yet.
And finally a group of people in black fur coats arrived. "Which way did you come in?" was the first thing they asked. They pointed. The police gathered and spoke in undertone.
"What's going on?" groaned Terpin, who hated to be left out of anything.
"Well, we found a crater when we came in from that way," one of them, clearly the leader, said, pointing in the opposite direction, from which the children knew that Yasin normally came; he had made his tree face that direction for that reason. "It might be helpful in finding out what happened to your dad. You’re the Vatch Club, right?"
"Yes," said Terpin, not sounding surprised at all. They were quite used to others being able to find their name based on a simple address.
"Had you just gotten home when your mother fainted?"
"Yes, we all come home together," groaned Terpin. He was hoping they would say something like, "here's a turkey for you."
"OK. Then I bet you want something to eat," said the police, and Terpin had the vision that he was suddenly shining with bright light.
"This will be useful for testing the ORPA and the ZB," said another policeman. "Sure, satellites will help, but they won't tell us who did what to whom, or even who is where. We need to use these concepts for that."
"Yeah," said the leader, taking a bin that he had been carrying, and passing each of the children a piece of chicken. "Our artificial trees and the real ones have their differences, but they sure look similar. There isn't a single animal that would be suspicious of it. And we don't just have trees for living in; there are trees that do all kinds of different things."
"And bringing a location down to Absolute Zero would be the perfect way to learn what was going on in there," said yet another policeman.
The others suddenly got to business, as if they hadn't realized how useful the two concepts could be. In a matter of seconds, they were gone, investigating.
The next day, the police were still having no luck. Lats had been revived, and was now leaning on her tree for support, waiting.
Suddenly, a loud scream was heard. It was definitely a man's scream, but it didn't sound one bit like Yasin. The police were already rushing toward the sound from somewhere deep in the woods, despite Lats' cries that that wasn't him. The leader stayed behind for a few seconds, pointing out that even if it wasn't him, it could have something to do with him.
"We know the general area that that shout came from. Unfortunately, the area of the scream in this forest is deserted, so we can't ask any questions there, but we'll find a way."
Chapter 5
Official Recognition of Primitive Advantage Text (ORPAT)/January 3, 5461
The policemen were scattered throughout the forest that they had identified, and were now just simply searching every nook and cranny. Two were gathered around a rather strange looking tree, suspicious that it might have been made by a human being.
"You think we're going to find him?" asked one of them.
"Sure, but it may take a while. We don't even have enough evidence to prove that anything is happening; we're only doing this because we've been doing nothing for the last few months. This is the first sign of any crime since the ORPA."
Suddenly, they heard another scream, a scream that made their blood turn to ice; it had sounded suspiciously like the words kill me. "Hey, wait!" said the first police. "This is an artificial tree; it'll shoot a ZB dome to the place that that person just shouted! It must have been planted when the revolution occurred two months ago!"
"Just push the button," the other one growled. Without even looking in the direction of the shout, he pressed the brown button that was buried into the bark. Out came the ZB dome. The dome was painted to look like the surrounding landscape, with trees randomly surrounding it.
"All part of that Primitive Advantage… thingy," said the first police, as if the other one didn't know why it was painted, or why it had such strange neighbors. The dome had gasses built in, which were being released at that very moment. The gasses brought the place down to absolute zero.
They sent laser beams through the area, scanning the scene. That was when their next surprise came. "Oh, my god," said the policemen as they watched the place forming on their computer screen.
They had been expecting to be able to see the faint marks on the ground and walls and trees, etc. But what they saw was far richer. They could see giant wrinkles in the ground which didn't look natural at all, even by their old standards. Some of the wrinkles were arranged in huge ovals. These were unmistakably fingerprints, though it wasn't so clear how they had been enlarged so greatly. They needed the smart leader for that.
He said, "oh, my. This is not on the ground. We didn't realize that we would be able to pick up finger marks and such from the air; see how blurry they are? That's a result of movement. And…" He looked even more closely at the screen, his nose almost pressed against the glass. "Yes… I estimate that for about 50% of the promise that this hides, we will need a computer the size of the dome itself."
This possibility was overwhelming in those days. How could they possibly need a computer that was so big for this? Their smallest computers, smaller than the eye could see, were able to hold the same amount of information as computers the size of skyscrapers from 50 years ago, and now they were talking about thousands of billions of skyscrapers 50 years ago.
"But we can still get about 10% of the promise from this computer," he continued. "This dome holds a heck of a lot of promise, so 10% is quite a bit. We will even be able to read their minds. Look more closely at the screen."
There were ten officers there, so that wasn't so easy, but they could squint hard enough to see that the heads of the 5 people in there were slightly blurred.
"We can see their brains here. This computer, only able to take in about 10% of the secrets that the dome holds, can describe the precise state of their brains, so incredibly well, that we will be able to read their very minds."
"One of them looks like Terpin, only larger" said another officer suddenly.
"Yeah, and the others must be a family. See how similar they look to each other? And they are a mother and a father and two children."
"A family kidnapped Yasin? How could that be?"
The leader typed in a command, and they watched, as the view twisted into one that would be more useful for seeing what they now were urged to see - everything. "Oh, my god," said the leader.
Yasin's ancestors had kidnapped him.
Chapter 6
Official Recognition of Primitive Advantage Conclusion (ORPAC)/January 4, 5461
It was October 30, 2165, and a man called Parkin Vatch was on the computer. He was a very poor person, and therefore always jumped at any chance for money. There were now laws that restricted the false or tricky gimmicks and other such things, so he could safely look for a way into more money on the internet. There was an advertisement for a chance to win $10,000, no fee for entering. He at once entered.
The next day, October 31, his son was overjoyed at it being Halloween. He grunted, and opened up the newspaper. The headlines screamed New Revolution of Flying Car at Unimaginable Speed.
The first car to fly is already taking daring strides through technology. The biggest revolution in this car, besides flying, is its uncanny speed.
This car uses the new ultra-dense gasoline, which allows it to store enough energy to accelerate at 1g for approximately 10 years. "Such a great amount of time accelerating would lead to drastic events," says Alger Mick, a world-famous physicist.
For example, Einstein's theory of Relativity, a theory that to this day is hard to fully grasp by many, suggests that time will slow down at a significant rate at a particular point, which would be a great, but unintelligent, way of traveling into the future.
"If one went into the future without fully experiencing the events in between, and wasn't young enough to learn new things, they would come across an unfamiliar plain. Nobody knows what it would be like. But one thing is for certain, it would be very technologically advanced, and somewhat scary."
So this car could do things that hopefully no one ever wants to do. What's the point in that?
Parkin hated biased stories, but this one interested him all the same. It wasn't the bias at the end that he was interested in; it was the time-travel. Being such a poor person, he always dreamed of going into the future to find that he could make what was a fair share or even a tiny amount of money then, but a lot in the present. It was clear that he was overlooking the fact that he could not return to the present to the policemen in the year 5461, who were learning this very story, but he was too focused on the amount of money he could earn, not whether he could come back.
He looked at the price of the car. It was $10,040. He only had $50, an amount that would even have been too small a hundred years ago. The car was actually just barely above accessible to the average person. But it wasn't anywhere near accessible for him.
Unless…
He shot to the computer, remembering how lucky he was to even have this machine.
He had been 10 years old when his uncle gave it to him as a gift. His father was poor, and it didn't look like his family would suddenly grow richer any time soon. His grandfather had two children - Parkin's uncle before his father. Unfortunately, Parkin's uncle drained his grandfather's money so greatly that he could only barely afford a second child, so his second child ended up being poor. And because a poor person can only barely support a child, the child would likely grow up to be just as drained of money. His family may spend hundreds of years in debt. His uncle's family, on the other hand, had been extremely well-treated and cared for, which was why he so successfully drained the money out of his father. His uncle had looked at Parkin's father's position, and decided that he needed something that could be useful to them.
The computer finally booted up, and he clicked on the internet icon. That was followed by a full-screen show of a man sailing in a rough see, which led into the name Inter-Life. And the page opened up, at Google, a website that had been there since near the beginning of the internet stage. He typed in the domain.
He had won! He was now $10,000 richer! This meant that he could afford the car with $10 to spare. The car would come with plenty of food, full of gas, and everything (that was how cars came in this future). He wouldn't even need the $10.
He didn't hesitate to buy a car, and as soon as he got it, he and his family shot off into deep space, at an unimaginable acceleration. Parkin looked at the people down bellow, but they had disappeared before he could see their faces.
Chapter 7
ORPAC/January 4, 5461
Weeks had passed. They had only just quit accelerating at such a great amount, so they had been pressed against the 'floor' (which was usually the backs of their seats) at a greater amount than they were used to. Now they were going at the familiar rate of 1g. There was a built-in machine that took in the acceleration felt, and used that to figure out the amount of time that had passed on Earth. It now said 10 years.
Almost a year had passed for their time, but the clock said 2,000 years on Earth. They decided to slow down. They were pretty sure it would take another year to slow down to a comfortable speed for landing. It turned out they accidentally went on 1g slowing down for slightly too long; it stretched the trip time to about 2 and a half years their time.
At last, they were able to look at the Earth without squinting; it no longer looked like a basketball bouncing around like a ping-pong ball. It almost looked as though it were standing still, though they weren't fooled; they were still a long distance from it.
"Prepare for landing," Parkins said two weeks later. The Earth now looked like a slightly elongated ball, about the size of a bear.
A few moments later, they were entering atmosphere, and only seconds later, they were finally on the ground (they were going at a speed that would quite alarm astronauts of their time). They got off, and almost ate the soil.
Yasin was walking home, when the car landed right in front of him. He saw the puff of fire that the car had just come down from, which was already darkening into the grayish color of smoke. As soon as it reached the bottom, the door opened. He at once rushed into the forest, hiding behind the tree, making it just in time. A family of people came out. He watched them, thinking of their strange entrance. He decided that they had to be from at least a few seconds in the past; their entrance had been so fast that it left its own fire behind.
And their car looked like it might have come from sometime in the 2000s, especially considering that cars had gone out of fashion in some date around 3010; he couldn't remember his dates. They were from far more than a few seconds in the past. He watched them in disgust as they coughed up the soil that they had tried to eat. They must have been flying for years their time.
When he had finally had it with his moody thoughts, he decided he should arrest them or something. He cleared his throat loudly, and moved into sight.
Chapter 8
ORPAC/January 4, 5461
No sooner had the family remembered that soil wasn't food than they were confronted by a man of the future. They automatically looked around for civilization. They didn't know what to expect, but they certainly didn't expect it to look like the stone age, or earlier.
Even the man's clothes looked ancient. He was wearing what looked like fur pajamas. At once they took him down in fright.
Yasin opened his mouth to protest, but 8 hands clapped over his mouth at once. He was forced into the car that had just crashed through the Earth. As soon as they were all in, the father typed in a command on the computer of the car At once, they were out of the hole, and were driving (not flying) through the woods.
The family was still wondering how a man could be out here at the edge of the woods without any houses nearby. Not that they had really expected houses; that was only about 500 years old their time, and it could really have left the technology ages ago, but they could at least expect something that signified human life.
They finally decided that they would have to ask their hostage if the woods were a safe place to hide. He decided to cooperate; he wasn't at all armed with anything but his arms. "Well, part of it isn't, but the dead center of this forest is too dense for anybody to live there."
They reached a big, dense patch of wood. They exited the car. Yasin looked all around. They had picked their place quite well; he was sure someone thousands of years into his future wouldn't be able to escape.
"If you're thinking about escaping," warned Parkins, "just remember, you dare run away, we'll track you down and kill you."
That night, the adults were fearful that their hostage would reveal everything if he ran away. Parkins, in particular, wanted to find out how he could earn the money he had come for, and then return to the present. He now realized that the latter may not be possible.
The children happily lay down on the soil, thinking no thoughts besides that it was good to be home. Yasin had been forced to sleep in a particularly uncomfortable area of ground, but he didn't complain. At least they hadn't done anything to him yet, short of kidnapping him and threatening him, but they hadn't attempted to kill him. But would they? And if not, what would they do with him?
The next day, the 'ancient' family got a little more interested in the general life of their hostage.
"So, where do you live?" started the interest.
"At the edge of this forest," Yasin replied.
"But," Parkins stammered. How could they live in such poor conditions? He had tried to do some hunting himself, and ended up deciding he might as well be looking through the dirt for food, for all the help it was doing. He ended up eating the car food they had been at for the last couple years. "How?"
"There was recently a revolution known as the Official Recognition of Primitive Advantage. All but one country signed it, agreeing that they should take action. No sooner had I learned this than my house was being taken down, so we started living in hidden technology. We have five trees for my family - one for me, two for my two children, one for my wife, and one for all. The trees look to animals like regular old trees, but they're our living places. I'm still getting used to it, but that's my character."
The family looked at each other. Was it just a coincidence that he, like them, had trouble getting used to new things? The mother gave a test question, which just might be able to answer that very question…
"What's your name?"
"Yasin Vatch," he answered.
The rest of the family dropped their breakfast. She moaned, and started to pick up after them. The children looked at each other. The son was about 12 years old, whereas the daughter was 15. Both were old enough to know where babies come from, and they were both wondering how their descendant could exist, if they hadn't even given birth.
Their mother caught their father's eye, and she at once knew that he was thinking the same thing as her - they both wished they hadn't abandoned their first baby right after naming her, and giving her legal rights (the right to choose her identity was an important aspect of this; she had obviously chosen to keep her name as it was when she grew up as an adopted kid). They didn't know who had adopted her, and they hadn't wanted to know until now. Parkin screamed in terror before he could hold it.
Chapter 9
ORPAC/January 4, 5461
"What's up?" asked Yasin. Why had Parker just shouted out? Weren't they attempting to keep him in secret or something? He was sure that at this point, there would be police flooding the forest, only just barely failing.
"Nothing," mumbled Parkins through his hands, which had just flailed to his mouth. "Nothing."
They continued to talk to each other as if nothing had happened that could result in some sort of paradox or something. Yasin went to sleep that night wondering how he would escape their clutches, if that scream hadn't attracted the police. Would they end up killing him, perhaps?
Only Parkin had thoughts in his family that weren't about what he had just done; he was thinking about what they would do afterward. They had no plans.
The next day, the family was just sitting around, wondering much the same as the night before. "Hey, Yasin," said Parkin. "Tell me, are you good at hunting?"
Yasin had been, if not anything else, their slave, a concept which had been unknown for a few millennia. It was only taught in Yasin's school.
"Sure, yeah, I kill well," he said vaguely.
"Why don't you fetch me a," he hesitated looking at the others, "long iron bar; it's in the car."
Yasin groaned and walked over to the car. He looked in, and saw it. It looked simply like two pieces of iron glued together, but Yasin at once recognized it from pictures in school; it was a 2100s gun. Hands shaking, he reached out and grasped it into his hands. He pulled out of the car quickly.
When he had given the gun to them, the family huddled up in a discussion that he couldn't hear. They were whispering, pointing at him and the gun.
"What's up?" Yasin asked for the second time in two days.
"We're going to go fetch some nice meat and-"
"Wait a second-" said Yasin, looking at the gun.
"Cook it to a crisp-"
"I'm serious-"
"Eat some dinner-"
"Come on, you can't be that-"
"And then, after we've done that-"
"You want to KILL ME?" Yasin cried out in rage. They heard 'ill 'e echoing off the trees.
And Yasin was suddenly nose to nose with Parkins, who was giving him a stern face, as if he were about to do it now. In fact, that was exactly what Yasin took it for, though Parkins was thinking, just be a good man until we do, which is, like I've said, after dinner."
Yasin grabbed the gun, and pointed it at all of them, making sure the opposite end was pointed beyond him. He knew that he was supposed to squeeze the area in the middle, where the two apparent pieces were apparently glued together. He was about to when they were all covered in a giant dome.
I could kill them right now, he thought. But what would the police think? They are about to watch what I did just now.
The others were cradled in fright, not knowing what to expect or even what to think.
Sure, they don't know what this is, but I do. It's a ZB Detective Dome.
Sure, he knew what it was, and he even knew what to expect, but he didn't know what it would feel like.
It seemed to take forever to Yasin for the gasses to arrive, even though it was directly afterward. He watched them, and felt the cold enclosing him. And suddenly, his very thoughts were frozen.
Chapter 10
Releasing Yasin from the Zero Breakthrough Detective Dome (ZBDD)/January 4, 5461
For one brief second, he felt the cold enclosing him, and it was getting colder and colder, and he wondered if it could possibly get colder. The icy air bit into his cheeks, and he thought they had to be going red. He couldn't see anything; he had sealed his eyes shut at what was coming, and he couldn't open his eyes in time to observe what was going on.
And it was suddenly over. He hadn't felt the transition from freezing cold to normal, unlike with the transition from normal to cold, but he certainly felt the difference in temperature.
He immediately looked over in the direction of the ancient family, his kidnappers. There were guns pointing at them. Obviously, the police had been on their trail these last few days. He felt dizzy, but didn't want to miss anything.
The family looked at the guns, and by the looks on their faces, was probably a bit amused. And who could blame them? The guns were disguised as branches, just like everything else in their new ORPA world.
Suddenly, he heard a cry, so distantly. "WAIT! I'm from the past! We had to take him down-"
"We know your story," said the police, so faintly that he had to strain, and the sound seemed to be flowing out of his ears, away…
He finally shut his eyes. And it all came to him, as if in a dream. The car, the crater, the kidnapping, and, almost, the gun.
He leapt up, not in fright, or anger, but simply utter surprise. But his words didn't say that:
"They," he cried out and panted at the same time, "crashed into - the ground - almost killed me-"
The police were handcuffing the kidnappers. They looked at him in mild surprise. "Wouldn't you know that we already know that?"
He looked up at them. "B- b- but I-" he stammered.
"We just called up the rest of the Vatch Club. They'll be over to pick you up momentarily. In the meantime, I think you should lie down and rest. You've been through a terrible ordeal."
He lay down, but he couldn't rest.
Chapter 11
The Old Vatch Family's Punishment/January 10, 5461
The incident had been on the news the last few days, because it had been the first time the police had tested their ideas. Yasin was famous, and so were his ancestors. Lats and the children had somehow gotten left out.
That day, they turned on the news, to learn what the punishment of their ancestors was.
"Well, we've all heard of the incident with Yasin Vatch and his ancestors. But we have no idea how to send them back into the past. Until recently, there was nothing to do with them. If we didn't send them back to the past, we would have to punish them, right?
"So now they found the perfect punishment - hardly anything at all. Yasin had trouble with getting used to the ORPA, as you may have already heard. Turns out the old Vatch family also hates having to try new things. Seems genetic, that does."
Yasin pressed his finger against the screen.
Afterward
Police officials decided to learn more about the overall situation. Therefore, Lats, Terpin and Comopin got their share of freezing, to read their minds as well. They wrote up a short story about what happened.
The old Vatch family had their share of mourns, but soon afterward they were lifted off their feet because they had new responsibilities, such as making their own kills.
After the old Vatch family finally got used to it, physicists discovered that the secrets of the universe were concealed in some of the farther reaches of physics, and they discovered that they could indeed create a wormhole. Not only that, but they could create one beyond the set boundaries; they wouldn't have to set any boundaries. They could, in fact, send a wormhole into the past - into the old Vatch family's original time.
They, much to the world's surprise, refused.
Policemen teamed up with some writers to improve the story, and it was ready for publication.
Surely one could find the book lying around somewhere in the present day, if they had discovered that they could travel into the past. Where is it?
You've just finished reading it.
Incredibly Short Author's Note
The name, See You Tomorrow, refers to Parkin and his family.
Dustan Levenstein
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