A Futuristic Affair

London, 2017 What would you do if you could travel to the future? Nothing, he thought. I wouldnt do anything. I would take the secret to my grave. The future did not matter to him. He was not going to mess around with causality, and paradoxes and other concepts he did not even understand. He wasn’t some sci-fi protagonist who would risk messing up with the fabric of space time for curiosity’s sake. He was satisfied with who he was, Fred Quinn, a twenty-three year old Starbucks barista. Maybe someday, he would look for another career, a more satisfying one. But that could wait for years. All he had to do was to throw the pills into the trash. Or better, burn them. He did not want anyone accidentally consume them and to alter the fabric of space-time. His mind kept replaying the conversation he had overheard. In Starbucks, of all places. He laughed as he thought of how much like a clichéd sci-fi novel it all sounded. ‘So, you managed to get the pills done?’ ‘Yes. One white pill would take you five years forward in time. Consume a black pill to take you back to the present.’ And they-seemingly accidentally –left the bag of pills there. And now, they were in his hands, for him to use. He thought of the middle-aged couple who were the participants in the conversation. He was tall, and had greying hair and a beard. She was nearly a foot shorter, and expensively dressed. They had given their names as Garth and Mary, and ordered venti lattes. He had not given them a second glance, before he heard the conversation. He shook his head. This was probably an elaborate prank. Maybe they were sci-fi buffs who were just pretending. He had known grown men and women who did that sort of thing, though this was the first time he encountered such people who were older than forty. Still, each to his own, who was he to judge? He was foolish to even to have thought it was the real thing. Take three pills and he would be transported fifteen years forward in time? What a joke. He found himself examining his last thought. Why fifteen years? He could have thought of being transported five years, or ten, or twenty, or even a hundred years forward in time. So, why did he think of fifteen years in particular? Probably because he’d have crossed thirty-five by that time, he realized. He didn’t think he’d achieve great things by the time he turned twenty-five, or even thirty, but surely, he’d have done something that was at least a sliver of significance to the world by the time he was thirty five. When he had dropped out of law school, he had decided he wanted to start a business of his own. Weren’t so many famous entrepreneurs college dropouts? However, it did not take long for him to realize he did not have it in him to join their ranks. Or did he? He was really young, after all. People change, their capabilities change, and it was not too farfetched to believe that he would someday be someone significant, someone more than an ordinary barista. The idea of finding out was really tempting. All he had to do was swallow a white pill. His mind briefly flashed to the movie The Matrix, where Neo had chosen to attain a different sort of knowledge by swallowing a red pill. While it was a completely different situation, he couldn’t help likening it to what he faced. Gulping, he removed three white pills from the packet. He realized he had known that he’d do that right from the start. He was deluding himself when he had thought that he wouldn’t. He closed his eyes, as he let the pills travel through his food pipe, his mind racing with fear and apprehension. What have I done? When he opened his eyes, his mouth hung open with shock. The scenery had completely changed. There was no Starbucks, for one, it was in fact replaced by a really fancy looking café. And his apartment building, which was usually visible from his place of work, was missing as well. London, 2032 He felt a chill down his spine as he became aware of the enormity of what he had done. He was definitely in a different time, he realized as he peered through the glass door of the café. The servers clearly were not……human. They seemed to be androids of some sort. Sighing, he realized that he wouldn’t be working in Starbucks anymore. He knew not if it was for the better or for the worse. He had to find out what he was doing in the present. He looked at the café. It had to have free Wi-Fi, it was the year 2032, after all. Unless an alternative to Wi-Fi had become mainstream. He realized his worst suspicions were proved correct. His phone was unable to connect to the internet. He approached one of the other customers, a woman who looked about his age. ‘Could you please help me? I am unable to connect to the internet, and I urgently need to look someone up. May I use your phone, please?’ The lady gave him a weird look. ‘What do you mean you are unable to connect to the internet?’ He ran through the options in his mind. Flee, quickly swallow the black pill or wait till the woman called the cops. The latter would be because probably in 2032, only convicts did not have internet access. ‘Alright, I’ll look that person up.’ She said, sharply. ‘Only because I feel sorry for delinquents like you.’ So, he was kind of right. ‘The person I want to look up is called Fred Quinn.’ The woman showed him the screen after typing in the name on the Google search bar-which apparently hadn’t changed much in a decade and a half. There were many results, but none of them were of him. He frowned, and typed in Fred Quinn London.’ Again, no meaningful results. Of course, there was no guarantee he even lived in London anymore. Deciding to give it a last shot, he typed in Alfred Quinn, cringing slightly in the process. He never used his given name. Alfred was a name more suitable for an Anglo-Saxon royal than a twenty-three year old barista. The first result was a link to a Wikipedia page about an Alfred Walker. He wasn’t sure whether he was more stunned by the fact that he had a Wikipedia page, or the fact that he had taken the name Alfred Walker. Walker was his father’s surname. His parents had split up when his mother was pregnant with him, and she had full custody. She decided to give him her last name, a decision he thought completely reasonable considering his father had only cared to visit him twice in his entire life. He couldn’t think of any circumstance that would make him change his last name to his father’s. He clicked on the link and realized that so far, he had only seen the tip of the iceberg. Apparently, he was the cofounder and CEO of Legolas Ltd, an electronics company based in London. Two years after he dropped out of law school-three years from the time he was from, he decided to continue his education, and study business instead. He ends up starting the company with one of his classmates, and becoming a billionaire. He had also married once, and divorced. Somehow, he found that idea even more farfetched than the idea of him being a CEO. He had also reconnected with his father later in life, and decided to take his name after his death in unfortunate accident. ‘Let me look up one more thing.’ He told the woman whose phone he was using. ‘Please.’ She gave a disapproving nod. He looked up the address for the company’s headquarters. How does one ask to meet the CEO of a company anyway? He was outside headquarters of Legolas Ltd. He tried to get inside, however the security guards refused to let him in. He sighed. Should he just go up and tell the unbelievable truth? How would he be able to prove it if he was asked to do so? His eyes fell on a man who stood near the gates. He looked like he was in his late thirties, maybe even forty. Clad in a formal suit, he looked impeccable. He had a handsome face, with a decent amount of facial hair, and dark, caramel eyes. Fred did not think himself to be particularly attracted to much older men, but there was something about him he found distinctively attractive. He was engaged in conversation with a woman in a pantsuit, who looked like she held an important position in the company as well. ‘I can’t believe this, Alfred.’ She said. ‘This is absurd. How could they expect us to…….’ Alfred. Impossible. It couldn’t be. Fred took another look at the man. He looked nothing like him. His hair colour, eye colour, facial structure -were all wrong. Except…..he had read in the Wikipedia article that he had to undergo facial reconstruction surgery after an accident. And hair and eye colours could be changed. He tried to shut the idea down and bury it deep in his mind, when he realized that on looking closely, there was a vague resemblance. He decided to take a risk. ‘Alfred Walker!’ He cried. The man turned and stared at him, apparently stunned. ‘I…..I need to talk to you.’ He nodded and told the security guards to let Fred in. Fred entered the premises and looked at the guards, and the CEO’s female companion. ‘I need to talk to you in private.’ ‘We can talk in my office.’ He said. ‘So, you are me, from the past?’ Fred nodded. ‘I must say that sounds incredulous.’ Alfred said, and he drew out his phone. ‘But I’ve looked at some photos from my past, and I must say, we look identical.’ ‘That’s because we are the same.’ Fred said. ‘I know that sounds incredible, but it is true.’ He paused for a moment, before saying ‘How come you don’t have any memories of time travelling to the future.’ He suddenly felt gripped by fear. What if this was all an elaborate hoax. ‘It must be because’ The older version of the man hesitated. ‘Because, I do not have many memories from before the year 2020.’ ‘Wait, what? How come?’ Alfred nodded. ‘In the year 2020, my-our-father and I were in a car accident. The accident killed him, and I was also severely injured. My face was severely disfigured, and I had to undergo reconstruction surgery. But that was not all. I also ended up losing many of my memories.’ Wow. ‘I regained most of them eventually.’ He said. ‘Though not all, apparently.’ ‘Did you colour your hair? And do you wear contacts?’ ‘I did, and I do. Maybe it is narcissism, but I felt I had to look different after my divorce. My ex-husband used to rave about my “golden locks” and “beautiful blue eyes”.’ I felt like I had to get rid of them. Not that there’s anything wrong with them, of course.’ He added hurriedly. ‘Mind if I ask you a couple of questions? Just to make sure that we are indeed the same person.’ ‘Sure.’ ‘What is our mother’s middle name?’ ‘Jane. Her name is Caroline Jane Quinn.’ ‘Who was the mean teacher who suspended us when we were in eighth grade?’ ‘Mrs Sprint.’ Fred said, smiling at the shared memory. ‘Who was our first-and only, hopefully-girlfriend?’ ‘Jodie Hamilton.’ Fred said. He was all of fourteen when he started going out with her. However they broke up in less than a month after he came to terms with the fact that he played for the other team. ‘Wait, you remember Jodie Hamilton, but you don't remember travelling to the future?’ ‘No.’ Alfred said, an amused smile on his lips. 'Jodie told me. She never fails to joke about “how she turned me gay”.’ ‘You're in touch with Jodie?’ Fred asked, surprised, for he certainly wasnt. ‘She's my COO. You just met her today.’ Fred's mind turned to the elegant woman in the pantsuit he had seen conversing with Alfred. Could she really be the gangly, freckled Jodie Hamilton? ‘So, me from the past, what are you going to do now? Are you going to go back to your own time, and forget that all this happened?’ ‘I dont know.’ Fred said. ‘I….I don’t think I could.’ Alfred nodded. ‘Then why don’t you come to my place? Well talk about this from there.’