Further Into The Future!

Chapter 25

The first thing I noticed was a lack of oxygen. Every breath I took felt like a half breath. My lungs stopped their expansion alarmingly early. I had to tell myself not to panic against the feeling of helplessness that accompanies a need of air.

The ground was covered in grey mud that might have been a brighter color had the sun been shining more strongly. As it was, the sky was full of gloomy clouds, and the sun was only a dim white disk near the horizon. The air smelled musty, smoky. It was as cold as Christmas day – my breath turned into steam the moment it escaped through my lips.

There were almost no visible landmarks. All I could see in the vast expanse around me was dry mud, with cracks running through it like veins. There was a twisted, leafless tree a few hundred yards away from the machine on one side, and another larger one about a mile in front. Along the horizon on all sides were jagged black mountains.

I had only a few seconds to make these observations, however, because when I noticed the oxygen deficiency I immediately went to work moving the machine. I jumped out of the carriage and hurried to the back, where I leaned on the giant gold clock to push the machine. Luckily the dry mud was good for moving it. As the machine slid across it the mud disintegrated into dust, which quickly filled the air and exacerbated my breathing problem.

Before long I had moved the machine a few yards, but I was already gasping for air. My movements were becoming more erratic, my body's pleas for a lungful of oxygen harder to ignore. Nevertheless, I willed myself to continue, and after a few more heaves the tracks left by the machine looked to be about ten yards long.

Then my body rebelled, collapsing onto the ground and forcing itself into a ball. It flung itself around fitfully as if searching for an errant pocket of air.

The few scattered neurons in my brain still intelligent in the face of such overwhelming panic teamed together to reassert control over my body. I planted my feet on the ground and clenched the leg of the machine, which I used to pull myself up. I pushed the machine in one final exertion that used my last reserves of energy.

My vision went black and I started to collapse again, but I reminded myself that it had probably gone fifteen yards and stepped back into the machine, twitching and flailing my arms like a dog with rabies.

I plopped myself down onto the seat, pressed the button on the top of the lever down with my thumb and pulled it to me. The display seemed to take an eternity – a hundred million years, you might say - to scroll back to 2099 AD. I eased the lever forward slightly to adjust the date to the specific time I left.

As I was about to release the button I saw a football-sized object floating toward me. Even as I ached for air more than I have ever ached for anything in my life I wondered what hardy creature could exist in such a dismal time.

It was a metal dragonfly. Its wings buzzed as they flapped up and down in a grey blur. Its eyes were green lights, the only color I could find in the miles of desert around me. As it flew past the machine it released a few drops of oil from its belly that soaked into the parched dust below.

I released the button and appeared silently on the sidewalk outside the Corrupt Cops' station in 2099. My body was still jerking around as its lungs celebrated the fresh air.

I recuperated in the machine for a while. When I stood up to get out my head hit something sharp and metallic. I looked up to see what it was.

The machine had fused with a traffic sign – "ONE WAY" – that occupied the location I had traveled to. The rusted pole that held it up ran straight through the back, where there was, luckily, no essential machinery. If I had pushed the machine a foot further the pole would have taken the place of my spine. When I felt the back of my head there was already a bump and a small amount of blood.

But I didn't have the time to observe this curiosity any further. I needed to get back in the station and help the others, so I ran along the wall to the sleeping guards. I signed my name under Alfred's scribbled runes and they let me through the gate without even asking how I got separated from the rest of the group. I sprinted back into the Station and ran back to Susan and Jack in the room at the end of the hall.