(c) Supernova (PG-13)

Summary: It's the night before the third millennium, and there's been a lot of changes since then.

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Scarlet bled dangerously into gashes of violent purple, slivers of green and garish pink tinting some bygone curves, the old sapphire a forgotten memory from centuries past. It was the sunset to end yet another millennium, the clouds a portrait of sheer glory and majesty, one of man’s most beautiful creations.

It was also one of the most destructive: sulfur, nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and mercury emissions were all purposely released into the atmosphere to ensure that each and every twilight was more colorful and breathtaking than the last. That was the price nature had to pay, after all.

No pain, no gain. Humankind’s everlasting motto. It was a learning process, after all.

Adoni Worth, age thirty-two, public informant, wasn’t looking at the sky at that moment. He was fifty-five feet below the ground, in his office, where the history archives were kept, for safety and for security. Mostly from the public themselves, since ignorance was a welcome gift bestowed by the World Allied Government.

There were some things better left unknown.

But a grand anniversary was coming up (Welcome Year 3000! was constantly flashed on the wide screens), and Adoni’s current job is to sift through the annals and gather the tidbits considered ‘healthy’ for global viewing, and leave out the ones that would only raise the number of rebels in the mind-cleansing laboratory. ‘Cleanse’ being a mild word.

Adoni peered at the generated photographs surrounding him in that dark, unlit room, all millions of them symbolizing a milestone in scientific advancement. He only needed to raise a finger to a particular picture and the mainframe would sense the activity, and unfold the events in a narrated video. Some of them dated back to the beginnings of the archives themselves, like communications from the past to the present (future?)

He checked the pixilated catalog flickering in front of him, dragging a few images in its parameter. The file immediately registered; the CPU would edit it itself, providing transitional devices and arranging it in chronological order, and it would be made available for communal access when the clock strikes exactly midnight.

Adoni reflected upon his work, flexed his arms, and bared his teeth to no one in particular, in a satisfied manner. It wasn’t a grin, per se, since non-cautionary emotions were strictly frowned upon, if they haven’t been approved by the Board of Control yet. Too much trouble than they’re worth, really.

He exited the system and locked it, grabbing his halo-suit as he jumped into the surface capsule, knowing he was going to need flesh protection. It was New Year’s Eve, which meant fireworks, which meant that there would be havoc in the city when spontaneous combustion becomes triggered by the methane explosions.

But of course, people really valued tradition.

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There are some things that didn’t make the list that would be released at 12.00 mn, Eastern Standard Time (there was no more West left, to speak of).

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2065

The first holographic pod comes out, rendering tapes and disks virtually obsolete. Two months after the product discharge, a video scatters on the interweb and gets uploaded into bootleg pods.

A curvaceous, arguably female form is stretched out on the revolving floor of an animated studio, recorded as an erotic dream as the sight, sound, and very smell of her(?) is imprisoned in the tiny diamond matrixes of pods that outsells the first cellular phones less than a week after its appearance.

They say the porn industry is the only one that can be trusted.

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2098

The fight for cancer has been won—at least temporarily, until diseases make sense of it—but there’s a slight side effect.

Every patient ever treated by the miraculous drug grows an appendage they didn’t quite have before. No one can really explain it, but no one shrugged too much.

People take the pill for recreational purposes now, as certain chemicals are added to pinpoint the kind of extra limb they would want to, for lack of better term, ‘grow.’ Fingers, tongues, legs, penises, intestines, and lymph nodes—nothing was exempt, except for a few lobes in the brain. Gender reassignment surgery and transplanting was wiped out.

The matter was disputed for years—people died, in special cases, when the body would misinterpret the code and grow an eye, in, say, a cardiac artery and stop the blood flow—but was soon resolved after a gigantean war that merged all the nations into one universal power regime. All diversities annihilated.

Then again, that’s another story.

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2374

Life form was discovered on Mars and Jupiter, and a strange, solitary arctic fern on Pluto. It was decided that robots shouldn’t be the only ones doing the explorations. They wanted to see if anyone would make it past three planets.

But no one wanted to go too far, to risk the long journey to the other end of the galaxy. No one volunteered, so they had to make them do so.

Them, being those who couldn’t really disagree. The ones who were rendered worthless with no real contribution to the community, and soon to be ‘evacuated’ anyway.

Midgets, hopeless cripples, the deaf; sufferers from autism and Trisomy 21; schizophrenics and irrecoverable bulimics. Packaged in a metal container filled with oxygen and hooked up to liquefied nutrients, and a destination. They were sent off into deep space, and everyone sat and waited for them to come back.

At least three-fourths of them did, eventually.

And with minimal surprise, they weren’t alive either.

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2720

The earth was a finite planet, old commercials said. The ones with messages like ‘keep the surroundings clean and green’ or ‘save the environment’ or even the more drastic ‘save mother earth!’ It wasn’t as if any one bought it, though; not until the oceans began to noticeably lessen, until whole islands were stripped of resources. It was running out of things to give.

A frantic containment mission took place. To preserve the ones left to sustain the species. A total of twenty-three seas were entirely drained and stored, filtered and put away for the future. All the landforms that withered were destroyed—crumbled and crushed with antimatter bombs—continents that served no more purpose, so that the ones still inhabited by living beings took all the water, air, and sunshine needed to sustain life.

The earth doesn’t look green and blue from above anymore.

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2093

One day, all the animals were gone.

It wasn’t too sudden, but subtle enough that people didn’t notice they were missing until the last kind became extinct.

Their DNA had been too altered by then, so that nothing more can be made from them but meat and leather and lipstick texture.

Fact of the matter was, they left, and humans were all alone.

No one knew what to do. Even the most brilliant were stumped. What’s a world without animals?

But someone suggested it. Simple, obvious, easy.

What else were babies for?

Not all of them would grow up useful, and besides… they were not rational, thinking creatures. Babies can’t defend themselves.

It became a requirement that two children per female would be donated to the administration. So the carnivores got their meat, the fashionistas got their stylish clothing, and the scientists got their guinea pigs back. There were problems, of course, and complaints… but people do?

After all, they’re only human.

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Adoni saw his breath make cloudy imprints on the inside of his suit, and it bothered him, somewhat, but he couldn’t risk taking it off. There were four minutes left, and his stomach grunted just as he sighted the food behind the panel, to be served as a celebratory feast later on. He certainly hated waiting, but if he showed signs of irritation or impatience the shift would register in his suit, with another Board of Control notice to be taken care of. Can’t afford that.

He settled for watching the outside scenery, all lights and hovering vehicles and people dressed accordingly—shielded by their own suits.

A ball was dropping in the capital square—a colleague of his took an interest in that practice, after seeing it in the archives, and implemented it. To spread some holiday cheer, or whatnot.

He could hear the countdown, outside. The blinking time teller beside his windowpane was in sync with the chorus of voices, the pitch and tone of them indicating excitement and merriment

Twenty one, twenty, nineteen…

There were sputters of fireworks exploding too early in the wide expanse above. Perhaps an engineer made a mistake.

Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, fourteen…

Flames began to lick the rooftops of the structures in the city, and somewhere, from a very far distance, a warning siren was resounding.

Ten, nine, eight, seven…

Adoni raised his eyes and was stunned by something that wasn’t there before.

“Has the sun always been that red?” He asked out loud. “That close to us?”

It wasn’t really red now, but a bleeding, horrible crimson, a drying maroon verging on black, and the fires from the capital was slowly spreading, crawling towards the corporate hills where he resided.

Five, four, three, two…

He wondered how long the end of the world had been planning to drop by, how eagerly it had wanted to pay humankind a visit.

Happy New Year!

They certainly didn’t have very much time left, now.