A Future Unknown

An rude awakening

How did a situation spiral from catastrophe to complete calamity? Kings, princes, and leaders of nations used to bow when they met him. He had granted them extended life and a life worth living without aging. He had saved them, and now his ride was late. On top of his current predicament, his frustration grew with every passing moment as he had realized he wouldn't be around to witness any of it. He would not be around when the colonizers arrived at New Earth.

Amid the bustling chaos of Cambridge on a Monday morning, a lone figure stood, he himself and I. Enveloped in the symphony, or maybe cacophony of the cities frenetic energy, humans living their daily life, ignorant of their imminent death. He stood there dressed in his athleisure wear, as if he was some random regular person without coffee, with a pounding headache. Where was his private helicopter?

A few days ago, he had decided to go on a bender of sex, drugs, and rock and roll—he had decided to celebrate—or mourn was probably a better word. His celebrations had been harder than anything he had done before, as he needed a "tad" bit more stimulants to feel anything at all. All in all he had probably spent tens of millions the last week. His penthouse he had left in shambles. He had ordered Winston not to clean it. He wanted to feel the chaos he wanted to own the chaos. He would die on a spaceship, how depressing.

As he was sitting on his couch, reading up on the information about the colonizing mission, he had done some calculations. The colonizers would be confined in a spaceship for millennia. With his mild claustrophobia, he wondered if it was even worth it. For what? Perpetuating the human race? Without being able to experience it himself? No, thank you.

Even with the current speed of the fastest spaceship ever developed. HDRS (Hyper Drive Repulsion Spaceships.) Super modern space technology. With little over a parsec to Alpha Centauri, their destination. It sounded so little when you uttered it like that, "One Parsec." However 39.8 trillion kilometers was vast number, almost unimaginable.

The whole length of the journey from Earth to New Earth would be as long as it had taken the Egyptian and Roman Empires to rise and fall, including the many escapades of Medieval Europe, the colonization of the United States of America in the 15th century, the colonization of Mars in the early 21st century, and all the way up to the present time—combined. Five thousand years. It was mind boggling how long their journey would be, and he would not be alive to see it all into come to fruition. Why even bother?

At his current rate of decay, he estimated that he had another two hundred years to live. Even if he managed to double his lifespan, he would still die on that wretched spaceship. He had thought of maybe using cryosleep, however cryofever was all too common, slowly seeping into the mind and rendering the sleeper insane.

He had cracked the code of the human genome, unraveling the very fabric of life itself. And yet, here he was, facing the harsh reality of his destiny: to die on a colonizer ship, a mere pawn in the game of cosmic expansion. Pathetic.

Staying on Earth did not sound so bad after all. He could make the best of his life and simply live it to the fullest or he could form a cult called "The End" and make love to all kinds of women, maybe even men. An interesting thought.

The autumn sun in Cambridge felt like needles in his bionic eyes. Even they had a hard time with what he had exposed his body to over the last few days. The same agents who had brought him the awful news drove a Chevy Suburban hover car—the audacity.

"Welcome Dr. Willmall." Said McCarty.

"Yes..." he muttered back as he sat down in the backseat.

Calling him Dr. Willmall—yes, he was a doctor, but he hated the formality of it all. So many things he had done to be a mere doctor. His work had changed everything.