TW: N*zis
I smiled. "Ah, I've finished it." My first book. A drunk man in the 1870s enters a Hot Air Balloon, and inadvertantly starts a coup in a central European country. It had all the wildest ambitions and strangest tales I've ever had the pleasure of coming up with put into one book.
"You bloody did. Say, how'd you get here, anyway?" My eyes widened after I hear a voice behind me. I stand up, closing my computer and turning around. I'm on a hot air balloon in the middle of the alps with a drunk old man. The sky is bright as day with only one lone cloud, the sun spilling its light on the reflecting snow capped mountains. There's few villages out and about, but none of the locals seem to take note of the strange white and red stripped balloon. In the cramped space, stands a man with a dark coat. He wears an old hat that needs a bit of sowing together, and next to him is an empty bottle of brandy. "Aliester-" My mouth opened, spurting out his name.
"Call me Al. Say, what'ya got there?" I almost answered, but I decided not to. "Oh, nothing."
"That seems like a strange bit of machinery. I remember working me arse off in Langoon's factory. We certainly had fancy trinkets, I don't recognize this one." He leaned to take it. It suddenly dawned on me that at this point of his adventure he was now sober, but still up in the alps with no way to get down. "It's American. They don't use it in Britain."
He slumped down, giving a slight chuckle. "I knew the world was going too fast for me eyes ever since I first entered a factory. Oh, how things have changed..." I pursed my lips. I certainly know the feeling. I looked down. It takes several pages before he lands in Austria, just outside of Vienna. I look back at my creation. Al was designed to be an older man, deeply regretting his life and deciding to hide out in a stolen hot air balloon after drinking a bit too much. But he felt so...real. He wasn't a design anymore. He was a wonderful face with crinkles, a crooked smile and a few missing teeth. He was the scar cutting through his chest, a wound from the Crimean war. He was his own memories-many that I hadn't created myself, but were in effect just apart of life back in those days.
"How did you get here, though?" I looked down at his leather boots that were beggining to tear. "Honestly, I don't have any idea." His piercing blue eyes looked into mine. "You know more than what you tell me. You certainly didn't appear while I was drunk. Oh well, I suppose the company is nice, especially to enjoy the view." I just stared at him. I had no clue what to say. "Well, get on with it. What, are you here to arrest me for stealing this damn balloon? It'll take a solid week for you to get this back to Rostenshire."
Frankly, I was a bit surprised he didn't threaten me. I stared at that knife in his boot for a long while. It was too far of a jump, and certainly in this time period no one would be willing to get me the proper medicine.
He stopped peering at the view and turned to face me. "Look, I won't hurt you. I just want an explanation." I stuttered, trying to think of something believable. I ended up coming up with something absurd. "I-I-'m a time traveler." He rolled his eyes. "Yes, so am I. I just traveled a second-see? And look, here goes another one. Just give me the truth, pal."
"A real one. From the year 2023." I insisted. "Give me some evidence, at least. A strange choice of clothes isn't enough." I hesitated, before opening my computer. His eyes widened. The electricity filled his eyes-something he had never seen before, and likely never would've. "This-" He clutched his mouth.
"What is this?" He demanded in sheer delight. His eyes were bright with joy. I almost cringed out of embarrassment. I could never imagine seeing a computer for the first time. "A computer. Anyone can find this in 2023."
"And it transmits images? This looks like a paper. Is this the news, perhaps? By golly-you could change the world with this, young chap."
"It does so much more. You can find practically any source of information on it. There's an expert for the most random questions. You can speak to anyone from around the world instantly, and anonymously. Or you could write in your free time as I do." A grin appeared on his face. I took back the computer. "It doesn't work forever. Technolegy can break in 2023, just like it can here. And I certainly can't have it break." He nodded, thoughtfully.
"What other advancements have happened? Tell me everything. Really, I'd like to know." I looked into his passionate, blue eyes. A sense of sheepishness fell through me. I could never admit that the story I was writing was his own. "Well, we landed on the moon. We came back from the moon."
The grin on his face was ecstatic. He cheered loud enough for the birds in the sky to change course. "Man has done so much! I believe that everyone's lifespan will improve, yes?"
I nod again. "Most people live past the age of 70. You can travel anywhere, and in the sky. Food tastes way better, and most people are happier."
He smiled again, staring out into the still-bright sky. "Not everything is perfect in the future, but we seem to be going to the right path."
"Give me back the computer. I-I'll show it to the world! We can achieve so much even more quickly. Just give us a chance, maybe what happens in your world in 100 years only happens in 20 in mine." He lunged for the computer. I dodged, holding it tightly. "No. We can't let this happen. Please, let me keep it. We can't change the future, not now. We don't know what will happen if we do." I silently didn't believe myself. It would never effect me. Him, on the otherhand-it could change his children's futures.
The hot air balloon started to shake violently as we ran around. It constantly changed courses with the amount of fire being produced also rapidly contracting and expanding.
But as all this happened, I felt the computer loosen in the grips of my hands. I turned around, facing the outside. I knew Al was standing right behind me, trapping me so that the second I turned around he could nab my computer. The grip continued to loosen, no matter what I did. "Al! Please, stay away!"
He still stayed close. I felt his breathe on my shoulder. My fingers had given up, and I watched helplessly as the computer fell from my grasp.
Suddenly, the world shifted. I felt so in my bones. Al's shouting stopped. It was a cloudy day, and all too quiet-besides one strange noise in the distance. It was a bizarre humming, but when I crained my head for a few moments I could identify nothing.
"What the heck happened?" I asked. The computer was gone. I didn't even hear it crash. A time vortex? I wondered. No, this can't happen. This wasn't ever written into the story. I looked down onto the ground. The people were looking up, now. Still the same people living in the alps, but they weren't looking at the balloon. I looked up, and saw a plane. Just because it wasn't written in doesn't mean it doesn't exist. "Hey, you shagbag! Stop your fowl mouth!" I didn't bother with responding to his obvious sarcasm, and the fact that I had no idea what a 'shagbag' meant.
"Hey! We're not in the 1800s anymore, Al. Look out there-a plane. Maybe it could bring us back to the ground." The steady winds blew the wisps of hair out of my face.
I stared at the plane. Something was off about it. The plane was gray, and far too small to be a commercial one. And it flew weird, too. Then, I recognized it's insignia and immediately panicked.
"It's the nazis! It's a freaking nazi fighter!" I turned around to look at him. Right-the word 'nazi' means nothing to him. "Does 2023 not have some sense of dignity or something?" He seemed genuinly annoyed this time.
The plane swooped back, and started to fly towards us. "Al, this is the 20th century. This is exactly the place and time we probably shouldn't be in."
"It's the future. I thought you said it's great with human achievement." I paused for a moment, trying to contain my pure anxiety. "Remember how I said 'nothing is perfect'? Well, you can thank the nazis for that." I panicked, trying to figure out what to do. I tried slowly lowering the balloon, hoping that I could do it without us dropping to our deaths or encountering a nazi.
"Oh, I'm sure they're not so bad." Al insisted. "Perhaps they're some russian or frenchmen. We might not like each other, but they're at least a little bit respectable. Right?" I couldn't even get myself to respond to his words or look at him. The plane went ever so closer. Now, it was spewing out some random german that I couldn't understand.
"Oh, they must be germans." He stood to the edge of the balloon. "Guten Morgen! Wie geht's? Es geht gut, oder?" He gave himself a chuckle. "That's the extent of my german. It's not much, but-"
Suddenly, a bullet rang through the air, hitting the balloon. It fell rapidly. I felt my body pulled down, and I had to admit that I peed myself a bit. Fine, a lot.
But as I fell, I saw the future snap ahead of me. It was so vast. I saw a glimpse into everything, and then-
We landed onto a platform. It was now raining. My eyes widened. Al was right next to me, getting up. I was alive.
"Well, I'll be damned. They didn't seem like nice people." Al looked around, brushing any debre off his coat despite the fact that the rain could do it for him. We were now ontop of a floating platform, which was over a sprawling city that illuminated the night. My eyes widened as I strained to look around. The future. There was nothing else on the platform, as far as I could tell. It was relatively loud with the engine working. I presumed that the platform was for planes, or something else equally as marvelous.
"Say, what happened to the ice at the tips? It seems to be all gone." Al noted.
I sighed. "Climate change. The Earth got a bit hotter after humans destroyed it." I responded duly. Even I couldn't comprehend that now, I was seeing the infamous alps without their ice caps. To think that someone would have to grow up only knowing their great peeks like that, it was devastating.
"Hey, who are you two?" A strange man appeared behind us. He had a thick accent, but it sounded more like a New Yorker's rather than someone from Austria. "I can't seem to mind-trate."
"A what now?" Al asked. He was finally frowning. I could barely grasp how he was so calm despite everything that had happened around him. "I think I might not actually be sober. Maybe there was something else in that brandy that was slipped in."
"Mind-trate. You aren't time travelers, are you? Otherwise, you're breaking the law. At birth, you should've been-"
"Time travelers are normal?" I interrupted. The man shrugged. "And who exactly are you?" Al demanded.
"Call me Fred. My real name is a bit more complicated." Something looked odd about his eyes that I couldn't quite point out. "You're AI, aren't you." His eyes glowed blue in the night. There was quiet, besides the rain pounding the metal platform. "We don't use that word here. I'm a respectable human, like all others. Far beyond them, indeed." Fred's voice got deeper. I could even hear a bit of anguish in it.
"Is this-" Al couldn't even comprehend what was happening. Honestly, I couldn't, either. "I'm not quite sure." He finally finished.
"Now, there's one way to get home. You all came here somehow." Fred's eyes stopped glowing, and they returned back to normal brightness. "You in the red coat-step forward."
"What's wrong?" Suddenly, Fred grabbed my arm. "Sedition or admition." He explained. "We don't have the ability to mindtrate without surgery-yet. So all you must do is admit. It's the only way you came here, after all."
"Admit to what?" I asked Fred. "Where I come from, there's innocent until proven guilty. So why don't you let go of my friend?" Al demanded.
Fred ignored him. "Only you know. I hear it in your heartbeat and I find it in your prefrontal lobe. You're keeping a secret. Spill." I suddenly realized what he asked for.
"Al." I cleared my throat. The rain continued to patter. I fell to my knees, soaking in the rain. Al frowned. "When I said I was writing-it was about this."
"So you're telling me I'm not real?" He snickered. "You don't even have the proof for it."
"The reason I kept the computer away was because the story was being rewritten. I didn't want you to realize. I guess-I didn't want you to have an extestential crisis."
"So you're real, then? But I'm not?" Al asked. His eyes turned bloodshot. I assume he was crying, now. "Atleast give me your name, if you're my almighty creator."
"I'm just Joe Johanness. Nothing special. Hell, I've had nothing special my whole life. Why do you think I write stories?" I sighed. "The worst thing about 2023 is that nobody has a truly interesting life. Sure, people laugh and smile and live contently, but all of our lives is that we work until 70 and do nothing. We go do the same job in the same place doing the same thing. We don't learn, we don't experience anything new after a while. Even during school days, our lives are regimented until we are nothing but another student that nobody cares about. We are not children who get to play and explore our world. We mean things to others-but we mean very little ourselves. We live 70 years and we have nothing to show for it. Not one epic adventure. So, we try to pretend that there are epic adventures, and look out to the fake ones for inspiration. There is no freedom. There is no adventure. It's so...false. People aren't daring anymore. People are so obsessed with safety that they don't ever find risk, and risk is where real satisfaction comes from." Tears swelled from my face. I looked at Al for one last time, putting my face in my hands.
When I put them off, I was back in my room. The tears were still there. I almost smiled-oh, the irony. The only way I could find an adventure of my own was with an old man, in a world that was never real.
I sobbed for a little while after that. Oh, if only adventure was real.
But I looked back at my computer screen. It had all been changed from my original concept. I looked, flabbergasted by the details and by the scope of the story. For once, I was sucked in again. On the bottom, I saw the words:
"I was destined for nothing, before you put me on this adventure. Dare I say, all times in humanity are relegated to wanting to be the adventurer and never having the chance. I just want to say, I enjoyed every last moment of it. 'Whimsical' doesn't even begin to describe it. I know you might be sad, but you enjoyed it, too. The writer is the adventurer, and in doing so they bring along the reader for the ride. So don't be a pain in the butt, and know that we had the best time together. See you in another story, old friend."
~Al
