Future Shock by Elizabeth Briggs

Author:Elizabeth Briggs
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company
Published: 2016-04-04T22:00:00+00:00

10:29

I wander around in a haze until I find myself on a wide lawn of grass trimmed with rosebushes and thick hedges. The sky has grown dark, and the sun dips into the ocean in the distance. We’ve run out of daylight.

There’s an amazing view of Los Angeles from up here, all twinkling lights and cloudy skies. The city of the future doesn’t look much different from the city I know. Downtown is wider and the buildings seem taller, but the residential areas all look the same, with a few pockets of high-rises scattered on the path to the coast. From Future-Adam’s backyard I can see it all.

I sink to the ground and wrap my arms around my knees. The grass is wet on my butt and a cool wind brushes against my bare arms, but I welcome the chill. It keeps me focused. I’ve done enough moping around. Now I need to sort through all the data I’ve collected in my head if I’m going to get us out of this alive.

I hear footsteps on the brick behind me but don’t turn around. I’m not in the mood for conversation. Maybe if I ignore whoever it is they’ll go away.

No such luck. Adam sits next to me on the grass, facing the view. I stiffen up, bracing myself for whatever he is going to say. I’m not ready to talk to him or to face the knowledge of how he feels about me. But for a few minutes, the only sound is the wind riffling through our hair.

“I don’t want to become this person,” he finally says.

“Why not?” Future-Adam didn’t seem that bad to me. The others thought he was crazy, but I see now that everything he did had some meaning behind it. There was a method to his madness.

“I live in this house, but it’s not a home. It isn’t me.” He rips grass out of the lawn and lets it fall between his fingers with a sigh. “I’m not married. I don’t have any kids. I’m all alone…This isn’t the life I want.”

I open my mouth but struggle with what to say. He’s rich in the future. Famous. Important. And he’s good-looking even in his late forties, so I suspect he could be married if he wanted to be.

But I understand the desire for a real home. And learning you’re going to spend the next thirty years alone can’t be easy either. “You’ve done great things in the future. You cured cancer. You saved millions of lives. You won a Nobel Prize.”

“But I don’t even have a dog.” His head drops, as if the thought of not having a dog in the future upsets him more than anything.

“A dog?”

“My dog, Max—I know he won’t be around in thirty years, but I always assumed I’d get another one.” He turns to look at me with tortured, blue eyes. “Why don’t I have a dog?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you work long hours now or travel a lot or…”

“And I failed,” he continues, like he hasn’t heard a word I’ve said.

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