The Good egg

The elevator was moving up, a young man dressed in a white uniform stood inside looking at the floor display. He lifted his left hand, holding a box full of oatmeal, and checked the time on his watch. Then, disappointed at the speed of the elevator, he looked back up steps out into an apple orchard. As he looked around, the elevator vanished almost instantly. 

" Why so early, Mr. Egg?" a loud voice echoed as if from a speaker.

It came from the direction of the metal cabin behind him. Big letters at the top of the cabin read 'Butterfly Effect Box.' "Got stuck at the canteen.. they didn't have my oats prepared," replied Mr. Egg while climbing up the stairs to the cabin. He entered and said, " Mr.Toast."

"Good morning." Mr. Toast responded.

Mr. Egg took the seat in front of a huge console, with fancy-looking buttons and levers and a large display of the orchard, from every angle. " It is grapes today. I've set the sustainer for 1200 years, not a lot of aberrations required ... and .. uh.. they have installed a new sustainer, unhackable, I've heard," says Mr. Toast.

"Well, let's have a look at it then, shall we?" replied Mr. Egg. The sustainer helped them change the soil's quality by making small aberrations to the timeline to suit a particular fruit and grain, whatever the company required to sell. 

" Alright, this is quite user-friendly... they've set the limit to go back in time... 10,532 years...hmm... why so specific...Any thoughts, Mr. Toast? ". "Just one, This one is 'Egg proof'! ". 

"Do I smell a challenge?" Mr. Egg retorted, looking back at Mr. Toast.

 Mr. Toast Grinned back at him. Finally, Mr. egg turned to the console, did a few clicks, and whacks and voila!. Mr. egg opened up his lunchbox, drowns the spoon into the oatmeal, brings the scoop up, and right before putting it into his mouth, he said, "10,532 years and ... one minute". Mr. Toast approached Mr. egg's console and checked it out " Alright, alright, now let's get to work, shall we?".  

Mr. egg looked back at the display. "We need to add some acid for the grapes...now... what?".

 The orchard was gone. " Mr. Toast, look!"

 " What happened? " exclaimed Mr. Toast.

"What was the setting for Apples?" said Mr. Egg, now in a panic. Mr. Toast checks the log, replies " 700 years...the console is stuck.." 

" Because of the hack...Think... Think ...we don't want half the earth population to die." Mr. egg said.

Mr. Toast came up with an idea, "Switch to manual mode. I guess we'll have to sort out the current setting.." looking at the console display of the land 10000 years ago with wolves roaming the ground."...however dangerous could it be."

"I messed up! I'll go," said Mr. egg buckling the seat belt of his chair " Mr. Toast, please keep a tab on the changes, and inform if any apples come back." Mr. egg pressed a button on the console and disappeared from the cabin.

Back in the old-time, the wolves looked for something when the pod arrived out of nowhere on the land, making a swish sound. The wolves turned their ears to the swish and ran towards the sound, growling. Mr. Egg turns the metal shield up. A few of them growl and scratch onto it, unable to get it. Mr. egg inside the shield only heard the sounds and waited till they are away. He stepped out, sighing from relief. he opened his communicator, "The danger has been averted, Mr. Toast.... come in, Mr. Toast."

He roamed around the field. "That's good, Mr. Egg. I'm putting the cabin in a temporal lock so that the time remains still while we solve this, but once I put it up, you won't be able to hear me." 

" So how would we communicate." Mr. Egg asked.

 "The incoming signals will have no effects, so I will be able to hear you. I can broadcast weak outgoing signals, so your speaker will beep. Beep once - no apples, Beep twice - yes apples."

 " Clear, Mr. Toast."

 "Good luck, Mr. egg." and the communicator turned off with a beep. 

" Now Now Now, what to do, " Mr. egg muttered as he looked at the barren land with a few trees and small bushes around. He could see hills at the edge of the land. They looked green. Mr. egg turned to the pod and closed it. The pod turns shrunk down, revealing a terrible sight behind it. Two corpses, a woman and a toddler, chewed up flesh all over the body, toddler's hand missing. Their loincloths of flesh were drenched in blood.

" That shouldn't cause any ripples...." Mr. Egg thought.

He sighed, realising the corpses are going to rot very soon. He had to take care of them. He found some sharp stones around the bushes. He started digging with a sharp rock. It was near noon when he had started, and now the sun was going down. He stopped to breathe a little. He looked at the setting sun. The smell of the corpses was getting worse. His eyes were heavy. He turned on the communicator, " I need to find food very soon. Please do not touch my lunch while I'm here."

He chuckled as he spoke and then - thud - Something hit his head, rendering him unconscious. He deserved some rest but didn't imagine it like this. He opened his eyes and found himself bound in a cage made of sticks. A man resembling the dead woman's look, a man was performing the last rites on the bodies of the woman and the kid, burning their bodies in a big fire. "One thing less to worry about," he thought.

He soon came to his senses and realised that it was not so. The man came to Mr. Egg with a spear opening his cage, untying him." Uh, thank you.. I guess ". The man offered him a spear made of wood and stone. " Why?" As soon as he held the spear, he is thrown to the ground by a hit. The spear pierced through his suit. It was a duel. He started fighting back as soon as he realised the situation. They threw spears a few times. Mr. Egg had his suit while the man had a naked back, one advantage to him. He almost tripped once into the fire, but the man saved him. He perhaps didn't want to tarnish the ritual. But Mr. egg did not have such reservations. He tricked the man into the fire and watched him burn. A sin on soul, he thought. But it was one he had to take, "One for a Billion," he said, praying. The heartbeats high, he looked around at the treasure he had found, a cave to sleep in, tools and earthen pots, stones to ignite the fire. His eyes sparkled when he saw a roasted hog. He ate and finally had some sleep. 

The following day he started with some fruits around, an older version of pumpkins.

"I'll be here for a while, growing something local perhaps, that should do it. "he spoke the communicator. He carried the soil, loads of it to the field. Dug and dumped for days. Every other day he hunted small creatures to roast. Some days he felt fruits from the hills would suffice, but they never did. He had to have another rabbit every other day. In a few months, he was done with the soil. Then irrigation, he found the nearest riverside and started digging a canal. A few years pass he dug meters deep and kilometers long. He kept checking with Mr. Toast every other day to check if the butterfly has flapped its wings, but all he got was one beep, always one beep. Soon he was done with the canal, The water rushing through the fields and filled up the canal. When he was done, he looked at himself, at his reflection in the water. He couldn't even see his face. All he could see was hair, patchy knotty untidy. He had stopped wearing his suit, which he kept for the time when he will go back. Once, he had managed to kill a wolf who got left behind. He used to wear its hide. " I bet you look the same, Mr. Toast." Please don't eat my oatmeal". He started to farm tiny seeds of an indigenous fruit. " A few more months, now I hope to hear two beeps, Mr. Toast. Don't disappoint me". The seeds did not grow. He tried everything he had learned for the job of a temporal farmer. New grains, new soil. New irrigation patterns. He had made a wooden hut near the field so that he didn't have to travel to the cave and back all the time. He expanded the hut made it look more like a big house. 

One night he was cooking a Hog, thinking about the solution, and started to dose off. A pack of wolves had caught the smell of the flesh. They approached the hut. He had always lit the fire to prevent wild animals, but tonight he mind was away on a trip. The wolves entered the hut with their growls growing louder. It woke Mr. Egg up, and he realised the danger. His arms were on the other side behind the wolves. He got behind the roasting hog and quickly picked up a burning wooden stick. He tried to scare the wolves away. They tried to surround him again. One of them tried to attack. He acted quickly, and the wolf fell on the roasting fire, burning himself the wood now spilled on the floor was burning more brightly. Mr. egg growled aggressively towards the wolves, finally scaring them out of the hut. He came out to see them run away, till then the fire inside the hut grew fiercer. He turned back and ran inside to control it. But he couldn't now, slowly the shed of dried leaves caught fire. Mr. egg ran towards his suit, grabbed it, and grabbed the communicator, burning himself in the process. He successfully gets out of the burning hut. Looking at it, burn away. 

He sat out the whole night in silence. He couldn't sleep because of the burns. The dawn broke and he turns his communicator on.

" Mr. Toast...Anything?". 

One beep.

" I've done everything I know....what did I miss?"

He went back to the canal in the morning and looked at his face, a few burns on the cheek and the forehead and patches of burned away hair. He pulled his pod up it comes back to its original size. "Mr. Toast, I'll take a short trip back if you can load the console up..10,532 years and one minute to your present, please". A small fire was still burning from last night. He picked the stick up and sat back down on the pod. Fastening the belt on, he disappears. The pod appeared back on the day he first landed. The wolves were charging. He got out of the pod with the torch and growled back at the wolves. The communicator went, 'beep beep.' One of them attacks him, throwing him at the grounds. The communicator fired again 'beep beep.' Wolves started tearing away his flesh, his torch thrown aside. He cried with pain and anger, but then the wolves turned away. The woman behind the pod picked up the torch and scared the wolves away.

She then turned to Mr. egg, who managed a few words out of his mouth "One for a Billion." 

"Mr. Egg, the apples are here. I am bringing the pod back now, on your word", the voice of Mr. Toast said. He dragged himself to put the communicator on the pod. Finally, the pod appeared back in the cabin, with just the communicator. "Mr. egg? " Mr. Toast took a few moments to take in the news. Then, he placed the communicator on Mr. egg's desk and closed the oatmeal box.