Primeval: ficlet: "A better future"
Title: A better future.
Author: Keenir & Rodlox.
Summary: Jess sees the future as it would have been, without meddling.
Warnings: 6 Billion people
Spoilers for the setting of Interstellar (if you've seen the commercials, you're familiar with most of it)
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I caught her! Jess thought once more. Weary as she'd become, Helen still managed to evade capture - until I caught her. "This is the way to what I asked you to show me," she asked, as Helen led her through the Anomaly Grand Central Station, out to one which stood alone, by itself.
"It is," Helen said. The thing with temporal loops, is that the beginning always has to remain existing...which is what this loner is. "Follow me."
It briefly occurred to Jess that Helen was committing some elaborate form of suicide-by-anomaly, then thought She'd never do that. And she stepped through after Helen did.
...and found herself standing on a utility trail, flattened cornstalks underfoot, and cornfield stretching to the horizon in every direction.
"This is the 'better world' you wanted, isn't it?" Helen asked, her voice no longer able to hold venom the way she used to, no longer sharper than serpents teeth. Or were you merely echoing the preference of Becker, who echoed Nick, who was echoed by Temple and all the others. And she knew that, in the old days, she would have added that as well. In lieu of that, she watched Jess soak in the way of things here: "This is how it was, before I or anyone else began 'interfering' in time."
In sparse patches between all the visible horizons, parts of the corn field was being burnt. And this is happening globally, Helen knew. Wheat and okra have already gone extinct, as have many other crops. The air is thinning.
"When?" Jess asked.
"One generation's time since I first vanished into the Forest Of Dean," Helen said. "Before a second generation finishes growing up, mankind will no longer be able to survive."
Jess thought of Philip's plan. "What about the past? Can we use that?"
As a resource or a new home? but saw possibilities in that.
Comparing this with Matt's tales of his time, with reports of the younger Quinn's foster home... Can we ever have a better future? Jess wondered.
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The End?
in hindsight, I can see a problem with Jess' idea, and possibly why Helen didn't do that to begin with.
Author: Keenir & Rodlox.
Summary: Jess sees the future as it would have been, without meddling.
Warnings: 6 Billion people
Spoilers for the setting of Interstellar (if you've seen the commercials, you're familiar with most of it)
------------------------------
I caught her! Jess thought once more. Weary as she'd become, Helen still managed to evade capture - until I caught her. "This is the way to what I asked you to show me," she asked, as Helen led her through the Anomaly Grand Central Station, out to one which stood alone, by itself.
"It is," Helen said. The thing with temporal loops, is that the beginning always has to remain existing...which is what this loner is. "Follow me."
It briefly occurred to Jess that Helen was committing some elaborate form of suicide-by-anomaly, then thought She'd never do that. And she stepped through after Helen did.
...and found herself standing on a utility trail, flattened cornstalks underfoot, and cornfield stretching to the horizon in every direction.
"This is the 'better world' you wanted, isn't it?" Helen asked, her voice no longer able to hold venom the way she used to, no longer sharper than serpents teeth. Or were you merely echoing the preference of Becker, who echoed Nick, who was echoed by Temple and all the others. And she knew that, in the old days, she would have added that as well. In lieu of that, she watched Jess soak in the way of things here: "This is how it was, before I or anyone else began 'interfering' in time."
In sparse patches between all the visible horizons, parts of the corn field was being burnt. And this is happening globally, Helen knew. Wheat and okra have already gone extinct, as have many other crops. The air is thinning.
"When?" Jess asked.
"One generation's time since I first vanished into the Forest Of Dean," Helen said. "Before a second generation finishes growing up, mankind will no longer be able to survive."
Jess thought of Philip's plan. "What about the past? Can we use that?"
As a resource or a new home? but saw possibilities in that.
Comparing this with Matt's tales of his time, with reports of the younger Quinn's foster home... Can we ever have a better future? Jess wondered.
.----------------------------------------.
The End?
in hindsight, I can see a problem with Jess' idea, and possibly why Helen didn't do that to begin with.