A Timeless Journey (15 page)

19

The whole of November and the beginning of December went faster than a dream. End of the year holidays were only two weeks away and Luna and I didn’t have any plans as yet. I had been working for a few weeks by then, but still didn’t have enough VC to plan in advance. These two weeks of holiday were a big deal in the 26
th
century. It was the time where everyone enjoyed organic home-cooked food, consumed alcohol every day and bought gifts for each other in celebration of the New Year. December was the busiest month for GNPs. People ordered gifts on Holo and normally requested the shops to deliver them directly to person whose gift was intended. People also spent a lot of credit on planning the holidays and buying new stuff. The global flight system that controlled every single Emze’s route was also overloaded with flight requests during the month of December.

When we had a week left to the holidays, Luna came up with the idea of travelling around the world with her Emze and spend each day in a different place. I welcomed the idea since I hadn’t seen most of the future world yet. I thought it was a lovely gesture by Luna and luckily, I had some spare credit thanks to sharing the expenses of living together.

The weekend before the holidays, we sat down to discuss the places we were going to visit. Since I had no idea of the new world, I limited my request only to visit the megacity where my home town of Ripon used to be. Luna picked the other places we were going to visit since she knew where the most interesting sites were situated.

We decided to spend the first and the last day of our holiday at home and travel for the remainder of the twelve days. Luna suggested we should include at least one destination per continent. Apart the visit in my home town of Ripon, she wanted to show me Antarctica and a few other remarkable places which she preferred to keep a secret to preserve the element of surprise. As for the most important night of the year, Luna insisted we spend the New Year’s Eve in New York.

I looked forward to travel around the world and compare what had happen to the planet during the last five centuries. Thanks to the invention of Emze, we were going to be able to fly from one destination to another in little time.

Luna went on Holo trying to book guest spaces in each destination. Since our holidays were decided in the last minute, she missed out on a couple of places due to being the busiest period. She said we had no choice but to camp out. Luna then purchased a travelling kit for two on Holo. I was quite impressed with this clever idea when I saw the demonstration on Holo how diverse a travelling kit was. I promise to explain in further details the content of the travelling kit during my camping experience.

After spending the first day off on the beach in Laguna city, we were ready for our adventurous trip. In the morning of 26
th
of December 2572, we set off for our first destination, my home town of Ripon, or the megacity of East Riding that my old town was now part of. This megacity included a very large area from where the city of York used to be, all the way to Huddersfield and every town and city in between.

We were able to check-in to a small hotel only fifty stories high in the Ripon area of the megacity. Our guest space, as the hotel rooms were called in the future, was beyond my wildest imagination. It even included a gravity-free sauna room, where you could float around surrounded by wetter than usual vapour. The vapour appeared to be effervescent and was able to massage the weightless body perfectly. The guest space also included a private room and a living space just like the one in our apartment.

The old town where I grew up had completely disappeared and after a little walk around I was unable to recognise where I was. The streets, the houses and everything I used to know had changed beyond recognition. After hanging around Ripon for a while, we decided to take the inner-city tube. It was called a ‘tube’ due to its long tube-shaped carriage with gravity seats circling the interior space. A pipe-shaped rail, run through the centre of the carriage and stretched along the tall buildings almost fifty feet high. The carriage hovered around the pipe rail without making contact thanks to the infusion of magnetic field and zero-point energy. This combination enabled the carriage to move forward as well as avoiding the gravitational pull. The tube travel technology was based on space travel and this why avoiding the earth’s gravitational pull was essential to the way it operated. The carriage travelled at great speeds from borough to borough, as the old towns and cities were known inside the megacity, giving us the opportunity to stop at each borough and visiting each one without wasting any time.

Nothing from the past was recognisable, but it gave me great pleasure to visit the future of the area where I was born and raised. At least, if I had to return home, I had an idea how the place was going to look five centuries later. It was a unique experience travelling within a few minutes from Ripon, to Harrogate and Leeds boroughs. The tube travelled like a bullet in between the tall skyscrapers.

We had organic lunch at a nice eatery in the megacity centre where the old city of Leeds used to be and then we continued our trip to other boroughs around West Yorkshire. The infusion of the old limestone buildings with the modern high-tech architecture had somehow preserved that typical Yorkshire style look, especially in the world heritage boroughs of Halifax and Huddersfield. Certain cities and boroughs around the world had earned the status of ‘world heritage’ in order to preserve the old style architecture and this prevented the building of skyscrapers in these areas. There were parts in the boroughs of Halifax and Huddersfield which looked very much as they did in the 20
th
and 21
st
century, thanks to preservation of old towns. Rather than making it a populated area, these towns were mostly used as a touristic attraction with lots of old fashioned shops as it were back in the 19
th
, 20
th
and 21
st
century. Walking around Hebden Bridge, it reminded me of my school trip. For a little while it felt I was back in my old timeline and it truly felt like home, unlike other people around that treated this place as something unusual and unique.

It was late evening when we returned to the hotel. After consuming a drink or two in our guest space, Luna and I decided to try weightless sauna room. It happened to be one of the best experiences I’ve had during my time in the future. My body floated weightlessly in the air and the effervescence of the vapour gently massaged my body while Luna and I shared one of those special moments together.

Our next destination was kept a secret by Luna. She insisted I would be surprised once we arrived there. The next morning, I had no idea where we were going and how long the flight was going to last. While I was still asleep, Luna had ordered breakfast in our room. When the breakfast was ready, a square space opened up in one of the living space walls on the facilities core side. It contained two covered plates, two glasses of flavoured spring water, some toasted bread and a creamy dessert which appeared to be wobbly like the crème caramel.

Luna placed the breakfast on the table and urged me to join her. The plate contained scrambled eggs with sliced strawberries and raspberries, smoked salmon with dill, lemon and olive oil dressing. The combination of the berries with egg and smoked salmon, tasted absolutely delicious. We finished breakfast with the creamy wobbly dessert, which happened to be a concentrated flavoured ice cream, very nice indeed. I found it hard to distinct what the specific flavours were. All I know is that it was delectable on my taste buds.

After enjoying our delicious and refreshing breakfast, we set off to this mystery destination that Luna couldn’t stop being excited about. We flew at some considerable speed across Europe eastwards, towards what used to be the Russian Federation. Twelve minutes later, a giant blue dome appeared in front of us. In the middle of Siberian iced-covered land, laid a city protected by this gigantic transparent blue dome. From above this city looked just like a snow globe resting on the ice.

There was a visible difference in architecture and technology between this city and other cities I had seen around the globe. It did take long to find there was a very good reason for the way this city looked. It was an entirely new city built and populated by different species of interplanetaries, or aliens as we call them in the 21
st
century. This was the surprise Luna promised, a city inhabited by interplanetary species.

Most of the inhabitants in this city were scientist and researchers from different planets, studying the Earth and sharing their knowledge with other human and non-human scientists. Although I have a hunger to describe in detail my experience in this city and the different interplanetary guests I had the chance to meet, as I mentioned earlier, unfortunately this reality is not ready to know the secrets of the future.

The dome protected the city from extreme cold weather, by regulating the air temperature to levels you would normally find in warmer climate. It was an amazing experience to live in near-tropical conditions surrounded by snow and ice.

Luna and I were very lucky to find a perfect guest space near the top of the highest building situated at the very centre of the city. Someone had cancelled their trip and thanks to the fair trade laws, we managed to pay only half of the price on the room. From our guest space we could see everything around, including the white line of ice around the city limits. The Intergalactic City, as it was called, was busy with tourists flooding in from all corners of the world at this time of year. Everything there was far more advanced than on any of the other cities and megacities on this planet. Any new invention and advanced technology was applied there first before it spread around to rest of the world. Most people who visited this city did so out of curiosity of getting introduced to the new technology and for this reason there were a lot of exhibitions and show rooms displaying the new applicable technology.

A few miles away from the amazing Intergalactic city, near an ice field, stood the only intergalactic spaceport on the planet which connected planet Earth to other destinations in the universe beyond our solar system and the Milky Way galaxy. The intergalactic spaceport connected with the Intergalactic City via a high speed subway powered by an alternative interplanetary technology, which I was unable to understand.

From our guest space we could see far in the horizon the spaceport lights scratching the grey Siberian skies and every so often flashlights of spaceships entering a spiral blue light as they left Earth for some far away galaxy. Intergalactic City was the first destination for most of the visitors from other galaxies. The reason the only intergalactic spaceport was built near this city had to do with the high flux of travellers working and living there. The presence of different species of interplanetaries around the city made my visit there unforgettable and truly amazing.

The whole experience felt like I had travelled to another planet and made me forget I was still on earth. If anyone from 21
st
century will ever have a chance to see this city, would find it hard to believe what will be in front of their eyes, once getting past the shock of course, especially when they see the different interplanetary species. I wished our stay in Intergalactic City lasted more than a day. However, we had a schedule to follow and other places to see in the days to come. I consoled myself with the promise to return to this magnificent city and spend a few days over a weekend.

We left Intergalactic City the next morning and headed southwards towards the Himalayas where an extraordinary holiday resort had been constructed. The resort rested on a platform that hanged scarily in the air near the summit of the Everest Mountain. From this resort we could witness in the far horizon in front of us some of the floating air cities of the Chinese region. This hanging platform was the first of its kind ever built. Its original purpose was to assist the climbers the appassionato to alpinism. After this platform successfully survived the test, the global AI system gave the go ahead for the construction of floating cities all around the planet. Since then, this resort grew in size to cope with the countless visitors and had become an important landmark in the 26
th
century.

A cold wind sent a shiver throughout my body as we walked from the parking building towards a self-camping site. Luna so me shivering and suggested I regulate the air temperature inside my suit. I had no idea at the time how to do this. I remember her giggling before she pointed out a small square on my left arm. I always thought it was a fashion feature, but as soon as Luna pressed on it, a holographic screen came up showing the actual temperature and an up and down sign.

I increased the temperature up to 26 degrees Celsius and immediately felt the rush of warmth as it circulated in the space between my body and the suit. In no time I felt warm again, no matter how cold it was outside. I didn’t feel the cold breeze except the fresh air hitting my face. The warm weather of Laguna City was a far cry from the cold and the snow falling around us.

There was no availability at any of the hotels, just as Luna had predicted. We were forced to go to camp outside and it was then when I saw what camping kit really did. Luna opened the square box, which in fact was a fifty centimetre cube, and pulled out a square flat sheet and four small spheres the size of a tennis ball.

Once we paid for our camping space, Luna placed the small sheet on the snow-covered ground and the four spheres in the four corners equally away from the sheet. She pressed a touch button on a small remote device which came with the camping kit. The four spheres lit up in a blue light and, as if by magic, pulled the sheet from all four corners to create a hard four by four meter standing platform. Luna then pressed another button on the same device and a protective shield with similar technology to the giant one in the Intergalactic City, connected all four spheres with a blue ray sheet, creating four walls and a roof.