It was a cold evening in the year 1984. He was driving his newly bought Cadillac with a fresh leather interior, heated seats, and built in GPS. His window was slightly opened so that he could get a breath of the fresh yet brisk air from outside. It was that night that something unexpected would happen to this man, Sir Enzo Sergio. He was the CEO of Ex-En, which was the most successful company of the year, proudly sitting above companies such as Apple and Exxon Mobile. The only thing was, nobody but selected individuals had even heard of Ex-En. It was a top-secret company that dealt with the revolutionizing of time travel. Although they had only begun four years before, the amount of progress they were making was immense. Located in Turin, Italy, the headquarters of this operation was neatly tucked underneath a multi-billion-dollar skyscraper. Sir Enzo Sergio was driving up to the building around 9:00 pm. He rolled down his window as he approached the building and spoke the words “gouden competitive” into a voice-operated security system. Seconds later, an enormous section of the wall of the building started folding open. As he drove in, he was greeted by some of the employees of Ex-En. You may be asking how this operation was funded. There were numerous anonymous donors who donated a hefty amount annually, but they all asked that their names never be revealed for security reasons. Sir Enzo Sergio, who had just pulled his car into one of the many garages inside the building, was making his way to the bottom floor which was the home of the first model of the time machine. Encased in six layers of bulletproof glass, there it sat. A one inch by one inch cube with a flashing blue light on it.
“Its beautiful as always” said Enzo.
The scientist standing next to him grinned a bit and then replied, “Right you are. It better be beautiful for four years of work and over ten million dollars.” Sir Enzo Sergio knew that someday, the work they were doing would be worth it. It was this night that they were going to test whether the device would actually work or not. “Where will you go first?” asked the scientist.
“What you mean to ask is when will I go first. I’ve done a lot of thinking about that, and only one time makes sense…” Enzo paused, looked at the calendar hanging on the wall, and continued by saying “The future.”
He returned to the top floor of the headquarters because he had a presentation for all the Ex-En employees. He was congratulated by everyone working that night, for they all knew just how hard he had worked over the past four years. He began his speech by saying, “First and foremost, I want to thank everyone who has stuck with me over the past four long and tiring years. But you must know that the time has co…”. Before he could finish, the ground beneath his feet began to quake. Everyone in the large room had a look of panic on their faces. Suddenly, the speakers began blasting the words, “Security breach! Security breach!” so loudly that he rapidly covered his ears in pain. Sirens were also playing repeatedly.
Enzo yelled “I want you to figure out what’s happening this instant!” to the twelve security guards standing next to him.
“Unfortunately, we can’t do that at this moment sir. You’ll thank us later” said the security guards as one of them hit Enzo across the head with their fist. It was then that everything suddenly turned black for Enzo.
Opening his eyes, Enzo awoke in the bedroom of his two-million-dollar mansion overlooking the city of Turin, Italy. His head still ached. The last thing he remembered was being hit across the head, but that seemed like an eternity ago.
He rapidly threw on one of his many vests and, since his new Cadillac had never been returned to his house, he began walking to the headquarters of Ex-En.. After two hours of walking, he finally arrived at his home away from home. After repeating the phrase “gouden competitive,” the door began to open. As he walked in, he gasped. There was absolutely nothing in sight. No equipment and no employees. He feared what he might find on the bottom floor of the building where the prototype of the time machine was. After taking the elevator down, he began to cry, for the device was gone. Years of work, all gone in the blink of an eye.
After sitting motionless for an hour or two, he began to notice something sitting where the time machine used to be. It was a small flash drive. He picked it up and began the long trek home.
“Who would do such an evil thing?” he kept asking himself.
Once he returned home, he stuck the flash drive into his television. What started playing astonished him. It was a man who looked almost alike him, but much older.
“Hello. My name is Sir Enzo Sergio, past CEO of Ex-En. I’m sure you already knew that though, as I am the future you. It’s the year 2020 at the moment. I had successfully finished the final model of mech, which you simply know as the time machine. I know I have a lot of explaining to do, as I am the one who destroyed your version of the time machine. While I expected you to be mad, I have saved your life. Like you were going to do, I traveled into the future of 2021, which is actually next year for me at the moment. What I found was that when I traveled to 2021, my time machine created a virus. Something so bad that everyone was quarantined for years on end. If you would have traveled to 2021 as you were going to, the virus would have still happened. But I destroyed your work, and saved millions. I am currently living in 2020 as I said, and there is no sign of the virus. I know this is all hard for you to understand, but I had to do something. The only way to do it was to convince your security guards to help me. Enjoy yo…”
The recording cut out and turned to static. There Enzo sat, alone in his dark theatre room, slowly processing what he had just seen.
“BEEP, BEEP, BEEP.” Johny awoke to the sound of his alarm going off. He had slept in and was ten minutes late for his online class. School had been transferred online four weeks before, for everyone was quarantined from COVID-19.
No comments:
Post a Comment