FUTURE SHOCK

 

“Rather we fight to keep something of worth alive than in the expectation that we will triumph.”

– T.S. Elliot

Richard Blaine, sustaining a deadly mental madrigal with an ancient entity, Sentient, 

is trying to explain weapons from the future to the men whom he has reluctantly been given command.

FUTURE SHOCK

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

 - Alvin Toffler

 

Sometimes I think Sentient is trying to write a fable in the heartbeats of my life.

A fable says more than it says, is bigger than its own parameters. I know at least that my aspirations are bigger than my ability to attain them.

I always felt that Sentient regarded me as a hungry owl would an unsuspecting rabbit.

The dry ice vapors from the opening disappeared with a static crackle in a burst of Byzantine brilliance.

The elevator of surprise dropped my stomach to the bottom floor.

Four strange items were displayed singly on the shimmering surface of each of the ivory pedestals.

A sparkling helmet with a glassy visor and writhing cables which searched along its surfaces as if for prey.

A bulky handgun looking as if it lifted weights in its spare time.

A futuristic rifle that looked stolen from the set of a Flash Gordon serial. It seemed more polyethylene than metal … but I later learned it was composed of neither.

A weird weapon resembling a Martian bazooka with a bad attitude and questionable parentage.

Sentient filled me in on their details. I kept my jaw from dropping with an effort worthy of one of Hercules’ Labors. I wondered how the Tartarus I was going to explain them to my Spartans.

‘Simply as if to moronic children … as I speak to you.’

I quoted Old Testament poetry to keep my temper. I had come to realize that if Sentient could make me angry, she could control me. Why should I give her such power over my life when she had so much over it already?

Of course, Sentient knew my thoughts: ‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. What profit hath a man such as thee?’

I sighed in my mind. ‘The true measure of a man is not his intelligence nor how high he rises in this freakish world. No, the true measure of a man is this: how quickly can he respond to the needs of others and how much of himself can he give.’

“Ant” Vincent scoffed, “What the hell are those things, Major?”

I took a deep breath. Made it deeper and prayed for inspiration. I caught sight of his "Spartan 3oo" patch on his left upper arm.

Bingo.

I bent and picked up the helmet. It trembled in my hands, the cables oozing slower. I could have sworn a slight buzzing came from it. “Ant” stepped backwards as I approached him with it.

“The ancient Spartans had their helmets. This is ours. Here. Put it on.”

“I ain’t doing that!”

Cpt. Reese stepped up and took it gingerly from my hands. “If Vincent is too antsy to do it, I’ll put it on.”

In one fluid motion, he placed it on his head a lot faster than I would have.

“Whoa!”

I didn’t blame him. Those glistening cables wrapped about his throat. “Ant” gave a little shriek.

“You all right, Reese?”

His voice sounded odd as if a tuning fork had been granted speech. “B-Better than all right, Ant. It’s cold in here. What gives?”

“The air is oxygen rich,” I said, “along with other compounds that increases your strength, endurance, speed, and thinking.”

Ant frowned, “Where is that air and all that other stuff coming from? I see no tubes leading into the helmet.”

“From 15o years in the future, the time of this helmet’s creation. It’s made from a nation yet to be born … or I should say re-born.”

“That’s impossible,” said Pvt. Stewart Taylor, our resident Doubting Thomas.

“You wouldn’t say that, Stew,” came Reese’s transformed voice,  “if your head was inside this thing.”

I said, “Pick up that bulky gun on the pedestal to your right.”

He did and went stiff. “Whoa! I’m seeing grids, numbers, and crosshairs.”

I said, “Your visor is actually a smart scope among other things. That gun, a Desert Eagle, was made by the same nation that made your helmet.”

“What’s my helmet called?”

“No name. 15o years from now, the entire world is so filled with big and small wars that there is no romantic naming of weapons or even numerical designations.”

I motioned to Theo. “Sergeant, would you open the front door to our barracks?”

He did, and I said, “Reese, will you point your Desert Eagle ten degrees to your left?”

He did and stiffened. “What the? I see Major Laska!”

Porkins laughed, “He’s back from seeing his Mommy.”

Reese kept with tradition and ignored him. “The grid tells me he is 900 meters away. Hey! The gun is tilting and raising on its own!”

“Yes, Corporal. If there were bullets in that automatic, you could squeeze the trigger and be assured Major Laska would be killed no matter the bullet drop or the windage.”

Lt. Stein gasped, “Even at that range?”

Theo quickly closed the door as if fearing Reese would find bullets to put into the gun’s clip.

I shook my head. Laska was intent on finding and arresting us. Luckily, Sentient had made our barracks invisible to everyone but us.

“Reese, you can put down the Desert Eagle and take off the helmet.”

“Do I have to?”

“If you want two of your very own, you do, Corporal.”

He did so, but very slowly and reluctantly.

I bent down and picked up the Flash Gordon rifle. “This, Gentlemen, in a twist of irony, is the Sig Saur Spear made by the Germany of 90 years from now. Fires single or auto. 

It has a clip of 25 bullets with stainless steel bases and bodies of brass to sustain the 80,000 psi operating pressure of this rifle.”

“The Germans beat us?” frowned Porkins.

“Not if we do our job right in this day and age. In the future, they are … allies of a sort.”

“What kind of sort?” snorted Agent Cloverfield.

I listened to Sentient and sighed, “The sort of ally Russia is to us right now.”

“That’s what I figured,” groaned Theo.

I gently placed down the Sig Saur Spear. “They call this the Spear since it was created to be given to an elite group of soldiers … the tip of the spear so to speak.”

I picked up the bulky Martian bazooka. “And this, gentlemen, is the weapon that will win the day for us … or get us killed by those nine Nazi E-Boats.”

“Is it too late to ask for a transfer?” weakly laughed “Ant” Vincent.

 “Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It's the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore. “

- Orson Welles