In business news, the defense giant Stabilic has recently acquired the Center for Future AI Systems, a non-profit research institute based in Miller University. Collaboration between defense contractors and research groups is common, however acquisitions are less so, prompting experts to speculate that the defense giant is working on a large-scale project that will continue to entrench it as the favourite contractor for the United States Air Force. The price of Stabilic shares had fallen earlier this year due to leaked documents from the NSA suggesting its involvement in a controversial project for nationwide profiling, of which its CEO had since repeatedly disavowed and stated that any such project is fundamentally counter to the firm’s values. Over the weekend, its share price rose to above two hundred dollars for the first time in its history. In other news, the water shortage in the state of Utah has prompted…
The words from the news reporter ringed in the spacious waiting lounge. Despite being an hour early, I was considered late by the other prudent travellers who looked as if they had arrived here two hours prior. Their suitcases were colourful and large, suggesting that most of them were moving permanently or visiting family. Like me. But unlike them, the size of my suitcase was void and its colour was inexistence. My only accompaniment was my cheap backpack that was far from being exhausted. The sunrise from the wall of windows was doing little to dispel the remnants of my drowsiness. Neither was the increasingly dissatisfying taste of the most inexpensive coffee I could find. The mediocrity made perfect sense. This was a place of obligated transcience. Good things were entirely unnecessary. But the prices were still cruel.
As I drowned out the bleak noises from the television with the rays of light peeking from behind the clouds, it dawned on me that this was likely the last time I would be in this airport. There was nothing left for me in this city. It had been a couple of months since I had woken up on the bed of my shabby apartment again. It had taken a few days for the initial shock to wear off, but when it did, I became busy with damage control. The rent wasn’t an issue—my repayments were automatic. But it was everything else that had crumbled. Due to my admittedly less than stellar behaviour in the weeks leading up to my abduction, the absence from my teaching and research duties were taken as a sign of a troubled employee, not a victim of conspiracy. So rather than alerting the authorities about my disappearance, they terminated my employment contract instead. That was the very thing I had feared the most. And yet I felt liberated.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Another couple entered the waiting area. The woman had black hair in a loose ponytail. My heart skipped a beat, but without even bothering to try to sneakily verify as I had wont to do in the first month, I knew it wasn’t her. She didn’t walk like Irene anyway. Not that the details mattered when you wanted to believe something.
Without a job, I had two things; an expiring visa, and time to process everything that had happened. I had even written a detailed account of what had happened. I wasn’t going to show it to anyone of course. Not that anyone would believe me anyway. I still had a lot of questions. Over time, I began to accept the truth of some of it, but there were also things I didn’t believe. But I wasn’t going to get any answers. Even if Irene or Lennox told me their truths, it wouldn’t be the real truth. The unobtainable narrative kept me awake every night. But I did come to understand one thing that seemed to be the footnote of all of this. It gave me an understanding deeper than any mathematical proof could possibly offer.
Backechoes gave Receiverists the notion that the future was fixed. This meant that all suffering and pleasure were miniscule yet necessary in the ever-happening grand plan towards prosperity. This was the determinism principle that defined how Receiverists understood their own experiences. It inscribed order to chaos. It derived meaning from the meaningless. It made everything make sense. I wasn’t sure about any time travelling technologies or grand plans, and a part of me still doubted whether they were really receiving messages from the future, but I didn’t doubt Irene. I cherished everything that she had told me.
Everything was brighter. The sunrise had passed. There were more people in the waiting area for our terminal now. The pollution was heavy, but not enough to completely erase the cerulean from the sky. It reminded me that the weather in London was awful at this time of the year, and that finding an umbrella was going to be my top priority after landing. I didn’t have a lot of money. And I didn’t exactly know what we were going to do once my mother completed her sentence. But something told me that everything was going to be fine.
I downed the rest of the plastic flavoured coffee and went to throw the empty cup into the bin. In the last half hour, the atmosphere had shifted from drowsiness to energetic anticipation. I suppose a sunrise has that effect, I thought, before feeling a slight pity for the burrowed lives of Receiverists. I checked the time after I sat back down.
I guess there’s nothing else to do, I thought.
With a shrug, I pulled out the manuscript from my bag.
