BOOK DESCRIPTION
A deep future family reacts in horror to devastating news. Their ancestor from the early 21st Century has been attacked from the future and deeply wounded, potentially beyond the limits of being healed. The dire ramifications of ceasing to exist as a family confront them. What is the right thing to do? How can the family be saved? What choices will they have to make to restore the family?
PROLOGUE – JUNE 7, 2681
Fred gazed outside as the public transport craft slid through the air tunnel towards the suburbs of Toronto. He smacked his lips. Another satisfying day of work. Life could not be better. Being an AI technician and logician makes good money!
Fred dwelt on the interesting peculiarities of AI. AI had never quite been able to hold a consistent pattern of success for centuries. It always excelled at first, but as time went on, and people became complacent and overrelied on AI, errors built up in the AI and eventually the AI would go off down a rabbit trail. People would then have to learn how to do all the work the AI did for them anyway, and they would not know how to do it. It was a consistent pattern.
He thought about the AI he had been working on today. The AI had been an excellent calculator of risk for a pension company. It was able to spit out the perfect required pension contributions to manage the pension fund. A high flying company was using it to manage their pension plan, and they eventually relied on it for all their business and fired all of their staff that managed it. But then the AI developed a strange logical fallacy when the market had gone badly that it was supposed to maintain the facade that all was well. And one day, the pensioners realized that they weren’t getting their pension funds. The high flying company had been forced to call on Fred to keep their customers happy. The mysteries of AI indeed.
The public transport craft finally stopped and descended to the ground via an air tunnel that went straight down. It landed. Fred saw his wife, Janet, waiting outside. Something was wrong… he could see it. Her face was ashen pale.
He exited the public transport craft, “Hi Janet! What is wrong?”
Janet was crying, “We got a voice call from the Canadian Time Military Armed Forces. They say they have identified that my ancestor from the early 21st Century has been attacked from the future by a bot of some kind.”
Fred looked worried, “Is he or she OK?”
“She has been given severe brain impairments and she hasn’t even had her child that leads to us yet!”
“Will the Canadian Time Military Armed Forces be healing her?”
“They say we will have to help pay for her healing as they do not have the money to cover the healing of the huge extent of mental damage she has sustained,” Janet was sobbing.
Fred looked worried, “But we were going to use our money towards a vacation! We also need to save for our daughter’s education!”
Janet cried, “I don’t know what we are going to do! We did not take out insurance to protect ourselves from that outcome! I might not even exist and then we won’t get married and we won’t have our child! This is the worst thing that could have ever happened to us!”
Fred started shivering, “The costs for healing ancestors from attacks from the future are incredibly high. How are we ever going to find the money?”
Janet sobbed into his shoulders.
Fred muttered, “We got the investment in tech stocks. We got the investment in mutual funds. That might do something.”
Janet cried, “Those are all our life savings! How are we going to afford this? We got basically no money over.”
“We’ll figure something out,” Fred stuttered incoherently, “I will talk to my brother! We will take out a loan! We will do something!”
“We are going to go bankrupt! How are we ever going to make it work?”
Fred held Janet’s shoulder and stumbled with her towards the apartment where they lived. His mind was numb with shock. Are they going to be able to figure out what kind of brain damage was done to Janet’s ancestor? What if my wife and I never meet?
Memories of the happy days of dating Janet flashed through his head. All their joyous moments spinning into a hurricane of loss. But why is she still here? How much is this going to cost? How much money are we going to have to lose to make this work?
CHAPTER 1 – JUNE 8, 2681
Fred and Janet lay awake in the airbed. It shook as it massaged their backs. But they were unable to sleep.
Fred mumbled, “You still awake?”
Janet turned over, “Yes, dear!”
“You know we could mortgage the house. That could give us some cash.”
Janet sighed, “Interest rates are way too high.”
Fred scratched his head, “I could work a second job.”
“No you would run out of energy in no time.”
“I could take like a remote job and earn some cash off the Solar Communications Network.”
“We don’t know how to verify if the employer is legit if we do that.”
“I could play the lottery and we might win big.”
“There is only one winner nationwide per week out of 700 million people.”
“We could start selling some of our house items.”
“We would get maybe a quarter of the value of those items if we sold them.”
“We could save on our spending.”
“Shut up, dear! You are making me anxious!”
Fred tossed and turned the rest of the night.
4am came around. Fred sat up and sighed, “I cannot sleep.”
Janet did not respond.
Fred wandered to the network portal computer display, looking for a message. He saw a message from the Canadian Time Military Armed Forces. He waved his hand to open the message. It was a package with a link to secured files. There was a message:
Dear Fred and Janet Camrose,
We are very sorry to inform you that your ancestor on Janet’s side, Judith Gibbons, has been severely hurt in an attack from the future, sustaining heavy brain damage. We are unsure at this point in time about who did this and why. We are also verifying for you what kind of medical care will be required for Judith Gibbons. Please note that Judith Gibbons at the time resided in the United Kingdom, therefore we are working in close association with the British Royal Timeline Military Police to work out a plan to help your ancestor. We have notified you as our database has identified that you, Janet Camrose, share the same mitochondrial DNA which is passed down the female line.
Unfortunately, at this point in time, Peter Gibbons does not qualify for funding from the Canadian government, as government funding does not cover the medical care of ancestors.
If you need resources to help you at this difficult time, please follow the following links.
Fred grumbled as he waved his hand to open the resources link.
Individuals whose ancestors have been attacked from the future will be allowed to join support groups with other people who have been similarly affected. If you are interested in joining a support group, please select the green button.
Fred pressed the green button right away.
Please indicate what your preferences are and our AI will use your responses to select the optimal support group for you.
Fred grumpily spoke, “We want to be part of a support network made up of married people or people who are monogamous. We would like to be part of a group where the ancestors who were harmed are from a nation that is not Canada. And we would like to meet in person.”
The AI intoned, “I am understanding that you want an in person married persons’ support group, with the patients not being from Canada. Is that correct?”
“YES!!!” Fred yelled.
“Very well! There are several support groups in Canada. There are two in Toronto. Would you like to sign up for one of them?”
“Whichever one is closer!”
“Very well!” the AI warbled, “You are signed up! The support group meets on Tuesdays at 7pm.”
Fred muttered angrily.
He felt a touch on his shoulder, “You are up so early?”
“Janet, I booked us for a support group. We are meeting tomorrow at 7pm at the Central Counselling Centre.”
“They have support groups?” Janet was interested.
“Yes apparently.”
“That was very brave to sign up for a support group.”
Fred grumbled, “We got to find other people who are dealing with this stuff. Maybe we can figure something out.”
“I agree.”
Tuesday, June 9, 2681
Fred and Janet arrived at the Central Counselling Centre via a direct taxi, one of those that was able to go outside of air tunnels. Fred scowled as he looked at the sign. Were they going to try some of that psychological mumbo-jumbo on everybody?
They walked to the reception. A man sat at the desk. Taking note of them, he asked, “Are you here for the support group for persons whose ancestors got hurt in an attack from the future?”
“Yes,” Fred responded curtly.
“Do you agree to keep all things said in the group confidential?”
Janet nodded.
“Will you agree to download into the information system of your house and your communications technology a monitoring technology that records any mention of any information deemed confidential?”
This was one of the technologies Fred resented. It was full of false-positives.
Noting their hesitance, the man added, “We do these things because time travel cases usually require great confidentiality as any information can be used against the people involved, particularly the ancestor who is a patient,”
Fred sighed, “Very well.”
“Good. Wave your finger over this button and draw with your hand ‘Yes.'”
Fred complied.
“Good. You may enter.”
As they walked in, there were several people of various backgrounds sitting on chairs in a circle.
Fred’s face was red as he burned with humiliation that he was going to a support group. They sat down, waiting for the counsellor to show up. Fred decided he already did not like the support group. It was probably a waste of time.
The counsellor came into the room and smiled, “My name is Dr. Rajit Manjoor. I am glad to see all of you here today.”
Fred felt angry already. Why do we have to go through this?
Dr. Manjoor sat down, before gesturing, “Let us go around the room and let us introduce ourselves one by one. Tell us your name and more or less what is the situation?”
A man started up the conversation, “My name is Tom. I have a problem in that my ancestor who got hurt was from the 1700’s somewhere and he was in Indonesia somewhere. We haven’t got good genealogical records but the military time police found out that I had the same Y chromosome DNA as this man and they approached me to inform me what had happened. Basically this kind of DNA is only passed down from men to their sons and follows all the way down the male line.”
The next person added, “I am Bajeet, his wife. My ancestor was not affected.”
Another man continued, “I am Jin and my ancestor who got hurt is a while back like in the 12th Century. The problem I have is that in between there were a few incidents with in-vitro fertilization-derived embryos and the fertility doctor in some of these incidents to get better ratings for his clinic tried to tamper with the process to get good embryos by getting the wrong people involved. So let us say he is also my ancestor. And I am descended from one of these embryos and this is culturally extremely inappropriate. I am not sure how much contamination there is. So I want to make sure I exist by helping my 12th Century ancestor but I feel awkward with this tampering that occurred. It feels like I have opened a can of worms as I do not want to help the creep of a fertility doctor.”
His wife added, “I love him, but I feel sick about all of that. My name is Nabeel.”
“My name is Clara,” another woman carried on, “And I am apparently descended from a clone of someone from the 17th Century that was made in the days in the 24th Century when people went back to the past to find the best genes. And the ancestor of that person from the 17th Century was attacked from the future. So now my brains are whirling and I am not sure how to look at that.”
Her partner smiled sadly, “My name is Alex and I am not judging her but it is a bit weird what happened. We are trying to get counselling to figure this out.”
Fred looked unhappily at Janet. As the evening wore out, he eventually stood up and said, “I am sorry but we need to be going. Early wake up tomorrow.”
Dr. Manjoor smiled, “Of course! We will see you next week!”
As Fred and Janet walked out, Janet asked, “You could give them a chance.”
“NO!!!” growled Fred, “We are getting nowhere! But what we do know is there are a number of other people who also have the same kind of problem!”
Janet looked at him gravely, “But of course!”
“What I don’t understand,” Fred continued, “Is why they haven’t put us in contact with your ancestor’s other descendants in our time zone.”
Janet sighed, “Maybe if we kept coming we would find out more.”
Fred grumbled, “These military time police organizations are government organizations. They have a lot of inefficiencies and they probably know at most 25% of the family line histories and most of those would be incomplete. Why did they not put us in contact with the other descendants of your ancestor? There should be at least 100 others by now.”
Janet bit her cheek, “That is a valid point.”
“How are we going to find the family history of the other descendants? Maybe we can work something out with the other descendants to help your ancestor. Why do we have to bear all of the costs of this effort?”
Janet thoughtfully suggested, “How about we look at the genealogical records? Maybe we can find something?”
Fred hugged her, “I don’t know if even 1% of us will make a decent family history tree. So we may need an alternative course of action to find the others.”
“Like what?”
“Maybe like DNA? Maybe we can find out more about DNA to see whether we can find the other people in your ancestor’s family tree?”
Janet smiled, “Why that is a very good idea but not everybody does a DNA test?”
“Someone within three generations always does a DNA test and adds their DNA data to the DNA database. Maybe we can find someone who knows about DNA and have him or her explain to us how to find the others. And maybe we can use that as a starting point to check on family history to see who else may be a descendant of your ancestor?”
CHAPTER 2 – June 10, 2681
Janet and Fred wandered through the microbiology department of the University of Toronto. Seeing a sign saying Dr. Phenyo Abayo, they waved their hands over the door.
A voice came out, “Hello! How can I help you?”
“We are Fred and Janet, a couple that needs some help with some DNA testing to find the other descendants of our ancestor.”
“Come in!” the voice rang out.
As they entered the room, Dr. Phenyo Abayo looked up from his desk, “Fred and Janet! I hear you want to find out who the other descendants of your ancestor are. May I ask you why you are interested? Isn’t genealogy historically associated with gene manipulation? Didn’t our neighbour to the south have the Gene Wars with China over gene manipulation and ensuring that superpeople were created? You know the DNA of the superpeople collapsed in various ways and the superpeople were not balanced enough to help China win against the USA?”
“Yes we know,” Fred responded, “We know that superpeople don’t often do well as the balance is out. Much like a liger cannot hunt but a tiger can.”
“So what is your interest in the subject?” Dr. Phenyo Abayo asked.
“Well… um… the military time police told us that our ancestor was attacked from the future and they came to us to get our ancestor health care, but they did not tell us who the other descendants were.”
Dr. Phenyo Abayo sighed, “That does not bode well for government organizations to be that inefficient. Very well! I will indulge your interest! If you can get your ancestor’s DNA map, then get it. Also get the DNA map of whoever of the two of you is his or her descendant. There are various DNA databases in the community of people who get DNA tests to find their DNA maps. You need to find one that is reputable, preferrably one that is a database of databases. What you need to do is to compare the DNA map of the ancestor or the DNA map of the descendant of the affected ancestor to the DNA of the people in the database and if the DNA has a high percentage matches, you are likely relatives. Once you have found these people, you need to look at a genealogy database, noting of course the reason you are doing so for security purposes and you need to find who is related to the people whose DNA is a close match to you or your ancestor.”
“That sounds easy. We already have our DNA maps and the military time police provided the DNA of our ancestor.”
Dr. Abayo shook his head, “It takes effort, but the good news is there is likely quite a high number of descendants of your ancestor who was affected, even if each generation had just two siblings.”
“Okay, so where do we go?”
Dr. Abayo folded his fingers together, “I will give you a referral to the DNA and genealogy databases, and sign off on the reason for access to these databases, and you can go to the Archives. Remember they are incomplete, and remember not to trigger people’s paranoia about superpeople.”
“Thank you very much,” Fred smiled.
“You are welcome,” Dr. Abayo responded as he waved his hand over a device to create the referral.
June 12, 2681
Fred and Janet arrived at the Archives. As they entered, a robot appeared, asking, “Hello visitors, how may I help you?”
Janet smiled, “We would like to access to the DNA database and the genealogy database.”
The robot leaned forward, “Please state your reason for your interest as per Regulation 78d instituted on May 6, 2645 after the Peace Treaty of Beijing that ended the Gene Wars.”
Fred produced the referral. The robot scanned the referral and hummed, “This is an acceptable reason to access the database. Your ancestor being harmed from the future. Please proceed to this portal and enter in this code that I give you.”
The robot provided them with the code. Thanking the robot, they walked to the portal and entered the code.
The portal buzzed and made noises, before a voice spoke, “Searching for matches with the DNA of Judith Gibbons born 1992 and Janet Camrose born 2651 that are 95% or more that represent the last generation of each family tree.”
A list of almost 250 matches was produced with some rudimentary genealogical data next to some of the matches. The portal buzzed. A voice spoke, “How would you like to receive the data?”
“Straight to my communications system please.”
“Very well,” the portal buzzed.
“How can I find the names and contact information of the living descendants of the people on the list?”
The portal responded, “I will see if the referral provided is sufficient for access to the medical database. Processing!”
Fred held his breath.
Finally the portal came back with a message, “Access granted!”
A list of 400 names with contact information was provided.
CHAPTER 3 – September 7, 2681
Fred and Janet looked at the portal at home, which showed the faces of the 400 people whose names were on the list. Some were in Australia, some were in Kenya, some were in China, some were in Brazil. All the various ethnicities were represented. Fred smiled, “Everyone, we are all descended from a woman named Judith Gibbons in the early 21st Century. We hear she was harmed in an attack from the future. The problem we have is we have to make sure she gets healed as she was harmed before she had children. My thought is can we work out a cost sharing arrangement where we figure out how to provide her, her household members, her family line after her and their household members security, health care, restoration services and counseling. These should be relatively cheap when divided among so many of us.”
A woman from Chile responded, “We understand the need to provide these services but we believe we need to recover these costs somehow. How do you propose to do this?”
Janet looked at Fred, “How about we hire a private investigator to identify the bad guy and then between all of us hire a lawyer, one of the best, and then we prosecute the bad guy and we recover the costs from him in a lawsuit.”
A man from Ghana nodded, “This sounds like a plan. We can make sure we exist and get compensated.”
Another woman from France added, “If these bad guys are messing with the timeline then they are people of means and therefore they would be high value targets that we could recover a lot of money from.”
Fred grinned, “So let me know who is for this idea and who is against this idea. Please select the red button if you are opposed and the green button if you are in favor.”
A man from Jamaica winked cheekily, “If we are suing we could sue for damages and then get back more money than we lost. So we could end up with a gain. Especially if the bad guy is a high value target.”
The votes came in with a full flush of in favor votes.
Fred announced, “Everybody, the Time Travel Cost Sharing Arrangement is now formed! Now we can relax as our ancestor has a chance of surviving, and we have a chance of existing again.”
“What technology is available to help heal people from the past and give them security?” a man asked.
“There are rumors about it,” a woman responded, “But it is possible to make a computer link to a person from the past through time and space, and you can do all kinds of things such as remote surgery, remote thought replication and check on the vitals of the person from the past. I think the guy who started that all was Elon Musk with his Neuralink software back in the 21st Century.”
“No it was someone else, wasn’t it?” another man asked.
Fred was introspective, “I think there is a huge debate about that. Nobody is sure.”
A woman asked, “How are we going to get the evidence on who did this?”
A man from Germany spoke, “Once the attack has occurred it is part of the timeline. All we have to do is go back to when the evil deed was done and then track the bad guy from there. Occasionally they will have been state sponsored and they will try to hide behind the state that sponsored them. In that case, we may need to get the state that sent the bad guy after our ancestor into a lot of trouble so we can fish the bad guy out of their hands. We may need to get them into some sort of major national security compromising trap if they try to protect the bad guy. But if that happens we have a lot of high value targets that we can sue.”
“Who will do this kind of investigation and put together the evidence?” asked a woman from Australia.
Fred bit his lip, “Maybe we can see if the military time police have something on file and if we can hire someone from the military time police on a special contract to track down the bad guy and get the evidence on the bad guy.”
A man from Great Britain spoke up, “I know just the guy. He works for the British military time police. He is semi-retired and a little given to swearing. But he has a lot of experience and a lot of training.”
“What are his qualifications?” Fred asked.
“He has been with the British military time police for about thirty years and has training in all aspects of time policing from artificial intelligence to self-defense training to identification of opponents to tracking the timelines of events.”
“Any significant conflicts he was involved with?”
“They don’t talk about those but it sounds like he has been through a fair number of confrontations. Every now and then, he says the later future can be pretty difficult when the British military time police do certain things and it can be quite unsettling when that happens.”
Fred raised his eyebrows, “What was he doing during the Gene Wars with China?”
“That is top secret. But he complains all the time about what China did during the Gene Wars and how the deep future was getting on the case of the British military time police to sort out methods to prevent the British from creating superpeople. He complains in general terms though so he is not allowed to be specific.”
Disclaimer: Time travel is a science fiction concept and/or speculation. The existence of time travel cannot be verified. The author loves playing with unfavorable scenarios based on logic which may include errors to figure out the types of situations that should be avoided in the future that may or may not become reality. Feel free to have an open mind and explore possibilities.
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Copyright © September 2024 Jean Paul Booyens
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Jean Paul Booyens, Author 