Chapter 1: 2125 AD
Those who don’t learn from history will find they repeat mistakes. Those who learn from history will find they repeat mistakes unless they go out and change it.
I’m so groggy but try to focus. I hear the following coming from an antenna attached to the back of my head: Sony-Audi-Google (SAG) is proud to unveil the latest in baby technology for 2125. As everyone knows you must start a new baby with a great mother-board. Our 2125 model comes with our newly improved motherboard with 1,000,000 gigs of RAM with the latest stem cell developments. SAG’s new “Jordish” model comes with a non-sexual uni-body guaranteed to last 200 years or 1,000,000 miles, whichever comes first. All race’s genetic codes are included, and the new model comes in 50 glorious colors. Our new motherboard put last year’s brain-core to shame with twice the memory and it thinks three times as fast. Sexual problems are distant memories as our uni-body; patent-pending, is sex free. This new model does not need clumsy breast, penis or vaginal tissues. Your new baby now comes from the most sterile assembly lines, fed the best liquid nutrition. No breast milk needed.
For those who miss or want intercourse -- we also deliver all the sex you want or need beamed to your brain in seconds -- orgasm guaranteed -- no need for a mess.
So, when you are ready to complete your family, think of Sony-Audi-Google. Remember: “When you are ready, SAG is ready for you.”
This advertisement is the first thing I hear as I come out of my induced coma. I am a twenty-first century man waking up in the twenty-second century.
The United States, which by 2052 included Canada and Mexico, returned to manned space flight after The United Arab States started a space program. There‘s nothing like a new cold war to induce space innovation. The Arabs with all their oil money decided to explore space and wanted to land on one of Saturn’s or Jupiter’s moons to look for natural resources. Most commodities on Earth were getting scarce.
The last thing I can remember -- before my old-school attached antenna picked up this baby -- I was rocketing on an experimental flight to Titan, Saturn’s biggest moon. My robot companion, Mercury, named after the first US manned space ships, warned: “Dave, something is seriously wrong with the spaceship. Fuel has been leaking. I am going to implement emergency alternative Foxtrot.”
“Are you sure, Mercury? That’s a pretty radical program,” I said. It would mean all other options for safe return to Earth were not available. It would put me into an induced coma, inside a life-support bubble. The ship’s other programs would be shut down and I would drift into space until NASA Control could find some way to rescue me. This alternative was experimental. While Foxtrot had been built into all of this model of spacecraft, it had never been used. It was the last resort for a desperate situation.
“Yes, Dave that is the only way to save you. I am sorry. Good luck Dave. You will be asleep in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2…”
