C x H Week 2024 Day 2: Future
This shouldn’t be happening. Couldn’t be happening.
This morning, Chibiusa had been a starving artist, trying to meet the deadline for what would have been her first published story (ever).
Only for some goon in army fatigues to drive a truck into her workplace and try to shoot her. It was like something out of a movie.
Especially the part when another person, a lanky cotton topped man she didn’t know, shot her attacker and dragged her into a nearby car.
Now, they were disregarding traffic laws all while he babbled intensely at her.
“All right, listen,” he said, “The Terminator's an infiltration unit: part man, part machine.”
Her “rescuer” swerved left, bumping harshly over a curb and
“Underneath, it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored; very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue.”
“Flesh, skin, hair, blood - grown for the cyborgs.
This was insane. Maybe if she reasoned with him, Chibiusa could get this man to pull over and let her go.
“Look, I don't know what you want from...”
He didn’t sound angry; more just… scared.
“We have to ditch this car,” he said, his eyes returning to the road.
Five minutes later, the car darkened. From the concrete and other vehicles surrounding them, it seemed that they had just turned into a parking garage. The man pulled them in between a Humvee and a panel van. He roughly grabbed her shoulder and pushed the two of them down so they were beneath the line of the window.
Only then, did the tension the young man held seemed to release. He seemed to sink back into the seat, eyes closed. For a moment, Chibiusa wondered if he was asleep, before he startled her when he spoke again.
“The 600 series had rubber skin. We spotted them easy, but these are new. They look human... sweat, bad breath, everything. Very hard to spot. I had to wait till he moved on you before I could zero him.”
Zero him? What did that even mean? Forget reasoning, she thought, this guy can go climb a tree.
“I am not stupid,” she said, mustering as much steel as she could into her voice, “They cannot make things like that yet.
The man turned his head towards her, golden eyes sleepy but entirely focused.
“Not yet,” he said, “not for about 40 years.”
“Are you saying it's from the future?”
He turned his head away, closing his eyes again.
“One possible future. From your point of view. I… don't know tech stuff.”
“Then you're from the future, too. Is that right?”
The man nodded, his eyes still closed. For a moment, Chibiusa wondered which lunatic asylum this man had escaped from. Then she wondered if it was all true; if the shooter was some kind of future robot, that this man was a time traveler and why her of all people was caught between them.
Then she realized she had yet to ask one of the most basic of all questions.
The man's eyes fluttered open.
“Your name?” she repeated.
With a tenderness she didn't understand, the man's gaze met her own.
