Hi all! I do science fiction which is basically rendered non-existent in comparison to other electives, and I'm not sure how many people reading this will have studied sci fi too, but I'm going to post my creative piece here mostly because I need a title for it! This version of it is a little rough (there may be some tense issues as it is an edit of two slightly different stories being put into one story), and of course any feedback is very warmly welcomed, though I'm not posting it in the creative marking thread as I don't know what the post count for feedback is now? Anyway, if anyone could give it a quick skim and throw me some title ideas and any thoughts on improving the story, that would be so amazing! Thanks!
Spoiler
To whoever you may be - in whatever past or future or world - if this letter has managed to reach you then it is essential that you read it to the end. My findings in the past 20-odd hours are absolutely fundamental to understanding the events unfolding in whatever society you are a part of. I implore you to do whatever you can to alert people in your time to the truth.
I must start with an introduction. My name is Francis Lalor, and it is presently April the 23rd, 2049. I work at Endine Consulting and Finances, commonly known as ECF. ECF is headed by Damien Endine: a man who is a household name in my world, but whether he even exists in your time I cannot know. Mr Endine paints himself as a God, but he is far from that – he is behind the demolition of all societies, in every past, every present and every future
The story starts yesterday morning, as I rode the elevator to the 38th floor of the ECF complex, my work bag slung over one shoulder and a coffee in each hand. As a first year associate, I had assumed being dubbed coffee-boy was merely a necessary part of the job; a nuisance; but I now realise it is because Mr Endine wants only his most ignorant employees to be anywhere near his private rooms.
Yesterday was the first day that Mr Endine did not answer my 9am knock on his door. Thinking no further, I proceeded into his room to place his coffee on his desk and leave.
It was immediately evident that something was wrong. Upon entering the room, I was met with a dimly lit assortment of computers, files and locked drawers, but to my greatest surprise was the huge, transparent screen taking up the entire left wall of the room, that I realised to be Mr Endine's own lightscreen.
I should interrupt my own recount here to explain what a lightscreen actually is, because if you are in the past you will not have founded this technology yet and if you are in the future you may be so far beyond it that it is unrecognisable to you. Each citizen working in business in 2049, especially data analytics, possesses a light screen – a sheet of reinforced glass that contains all of one’s personal and professional data and necessary technology. Most peoples’ lightscreens are usually the size of an A4 sheet of paper, which is the government-allocated size. I've some as big as an A3 size belonging to citizens of higher social status.
Mr Endine’s lightscreen had been left on, and so the whole wall was lit up with constantly moving numbers, notes, emails and data. Taken aback by the sheer scale and unfamiliarity of the screen, my curiosity caused me to linger longer than I should have. It only took a few seconds of scanning the information on the screen, however, to realise that none of it had anything to do with consulting or finance – and in fact all of the data was scientific, displaying variables, population counts and ‘experiment success’ rates.
Before I could think twice, I had pulled my own lightscreen from my bag and aligned it with the edge of the wall – a function that allows multiscreening. The data instantly began displaying on my own device: data I knew it would retain for me to observe later. I managed 1 minute and 42 seconds worth of data collection before I heard the elevator arrive at the end of hall. I threw my lightscreen into my bag and hurried to the door.
Holding both coffees once more, and standing outside the door as if I had been there all along, I had tried to seem as inconspicuous as possible. Mr Endine met me with an uncharacteristically hostile greeting - "You didn't go in there, did you?", to which I simply said "no". "Good", he replied, before whisking himself away into his room of secrets. He was a man who was hiding something.
I now sit in my own office at ECF, looking out my window to the empty street below me. The time reads 3:53am, marking over 18 hours spent analysing 102 seconds worth of collected data. My findings are as follows:
Mr Endine is a figurehead for the company who makes lightscreens, which is said to be a government-run enterprise but isn't: they go under the name of RFA, though it is unknown to me what this stands for. RFA utilises ECF, Mr Endine's faux-company, and many other similar corporations, to integrate lightscreens into the lives of employees. The glass of lightscreens is semi-permeable, absorbing dead skin cells on its surface and analysing them invisibly, sending all of the data they collect to RFA for processing, building a database of the genetic information of thousands of people.
Where this comes into effect, however, is with the RFA's ability to manipulate the legitimate flow of time. They have formulae that will go to any specified second of any day that is any number of years to or from now, and can transmit information back and forth from the selected time within seconds. Because of this, there is no 'present' - my present exists simultaneously to yours, wherever you are.
This time travel technology works in conjunction with the RFA's collection of genetic information, as this DNA is analysed and then sent to the 'past'. So take, for example, Worker A. When Worker A is employed in any RFA facility, he is constantly being assessed, and a complete map of his chromosomal structure is constructed within only a few days of him first touching a lightscreen. This information is analysed, alongside the performance and potential of the individual at hand. The RFA then travel back in time to alter these scientific facts, which creates real time aberrations as a desired gene is inserted as a recessive allele in the DNA of Worker A's ancestor under the guise of ‘routine injections’ or an ‘annual doctor’s check-up’. This change will alter every offspring of that person as they exist in their own present time, and ultimately will be seen in Worker A's phenotype, as desired.
Through this, the RFA handpick their employees, either genetically altering them to become hyper-intelligent and a leader of their oligarchy, or causing them to fall out of the company's ranks due to heart disease or chronic fatigue or whatever disease has been inserted into their DNA. Not only is Worker A's career dictated by this process, but his whole existence is at stake. You are a worker A; I am a Worker A.
The overall aim is to divide every society, in every past, present and future, into an elite, time-transcending oligarchy that rules a mass of unsuspecting citizens. It seems that their only true motives are as simple as that – power for the sake of power. They will, in fact, I'm sure in some time they already have created a monopoly on world finance and trade, becoming an unsurmountable supergiant under which every citizen will lose control of their lives. Perhaps in your time, you are already suffering.
This is, of course, only what I have found in my time. The RFA ultimately exists in every time period, controlling every possible situation that has arisen or may arise. There is a future somewhere, that already knows what has become of me.
My life is surely in danger as I send this. I am sure the RFA itself will soon intercept this message, but hopefully not before someone who is in a position to help does. I do not know if I will exist tomorrow, or in your time, but all I can hope is that I become the coffee-boy who begins the process of bringing down the RFA's empire.
Your colleague, in every time,
Francis.
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