The First of Many

"Give it up for Ellias Verone!!"

The crowd goes wild, clapping, cheering, crying.

From behind a towering, black curtain, a speck appears on the stage. Rows of people stretch on and on, all staring at the massive monitors, broadcasting the tall, dark and handsome figure for all to see. His stoic expression cracking slightly as he fights off the wave of emotions... Excitement, confidence, honor and... Uncertainty.

"Thank you, thank you all. It means so much for me to be here, on the global stage... Ushering in a new time... The time of time travel."

His voice, even with speakers, can hardly be heard over the roaring crowd. He pauses, allowing time for the noise to taper off.

"We put humans on the Moon, Mars, and even colonies under the sea. We've made contact... The final frontier is not death, but the future... And the Future is the Now!"

The crowd roars again, as the curtain opens to a massive, glowing chrome and glass dome. Triangular panels joined in a hexagonal format. There seems to be no entrance, until a number of the panels open up, curling back like a flower, revealing a pure-black corridor into The Time Capsule. 

Ellias turns, walking down the stage, lights illuminating his path... Leading him to an uncertain fate... Opening and closing his shaking hands, thoughts race through his head. It could be a one-way, two-way, or a no-way journey... And nobody would know if he failed.

He stops. The Vantablack corridor beckoning him... Looking like the abyss. The void. As though he'd step forward, off the ledge of the earth... where there would be no impact, only Nothingness.

Turning back to the crowd, Ellias forces a smile, waving. 

"Before your very eyes, I will become the first human to traverse through not only through space, but time as well... As an ambassador from this pivotal moment in human history... To what ever may await me on the other side."

He steps backwards through the entrance. Waving, as the doors fold closed. Looking out at the last bit of his "normal", his throat becomes tight and his eyes feel glossy. 

The door pinches out the last bit of light, sound, and everything he has ever known... 

There's no turning back now.

There is only...

Darkness. 

Darker than a starless, moonless night. 

The only sound is his heartbeat... Badump. Badump... Gulp. He had some simulation training, but there's nothing like the real thing...

Stretching his hands out, he feels the sides of the corridor. Turning around, walking forward... Feeling his way through. 

A dim, blue light turns on down the hall.. it's the most beautiful light Ellias has ever seen: he runs forward, his footsteps reverberating loudly. He bursts into the chamber, where a single, ominous chair sit, dimly illuminated by blue, internal lights.

"Sit down", an ethereal voice tells him... Seemingly coming from all directions at once.

He does.

"Now, close your eyes." 

He closes them slowly.

"Now breathe in..." 

As he inhales, the chair seems to exert a pressure over his person. 

"Now breathe ooouuuuttttt....." 

The voice feels stretched out, into oblivion, as he breathes out. The breathe out feels infinitely longer than the one he had shallowly breathed in... His consciousness flickering into something... Out of something.. His mind feeling as free, light, and blank, as a new born baby's. 

"Now, open your eyes."

The words feel distant, and unfamiliar to him. As though they were thoughts, or distance memories. Sounds start entering his perception... And he opens his eyes. Less from the command, and more from curiosity of this new stimulus. 

He finds himself laying down, no longer sitting. 

He's in the middle of the street, people stepping over him hurriedly. 

A kid looks at him while walking by, their dark eyes as big as saucers. Their mother pulls them along, but their eyes remain fixed on Ellias they disappear into the crowd. 

Suddenly he remembers: he has legs.

Right. He tries standing, and a splitting pain shoots through his head.

"Eri en is pai?" 

A person asks, holding out a concerned hand. Their dark skin offers a striking contrast to their aqua hair, and eyes... Golden freckles dappling her skin.

Ellias takes her hands, smiling and nodding. "Thanks..."

She pulls him up to unsteady, tingling feet.. then helps him to a bench. She tap a speck on her temple, and speaks quickly to someone.. or something. She seems to be asking questions, and listening to a response...

"Yia, Yia... Embi. Diyon!"

She taps her temple again, and turn to Elias.. motioning to him, "wait here." before running into a nearby store. Waiting is no problem, as his consciousness fades in and out of awareness. 

She shake his shoulders vigorously, waking him up. 

"Huh?" He murmurs, looking down at her bag full of goodies. First, she pulls out a collar: and clicks it around his neck, it pricks him in the back as it closes. "What are you doing? Are you a cop?" 

"A cop? No way! That's a translator." She laughs.

"You can understand me! Oh thank God, or whatever you all believe in."

She holds out a steamed bun, "Here, eat this."

It smells like heaven, and tastes like it too. He feels like he hasn't eaten in a thousand years, literally.

"Oh my God..." He says, taking a bite, "this is amazing..." He mumbles as he chews. The bun is gone way too fast.

"When are you from? If you don't mind me asking." 

"I'm from Colorado..." He says, licking his fingers.

"Not where, when?"

He pauses, dumbfounded. She knows?! Is it that obvious?? I mean, his clothes do look pretty old, but...

She laughs, "I guess I'll start, then! I'm Nadi. came from a timeline where... Humanity went too far. They broke paradox laws. I'm trying to learn how to restore the timeline."

"What happened...?" He's shocked to meet another time traveler so quickly.

"Oh boy. That's a looong story!" She says, "What's your story: lite?"

"Well, I was the first human to travel to the future... I guess my legacy led the world down an odd path."

"You're a First! Ahh, Well, I hate to break it to you... But there's thousands of people who were the First, from their respective timelines.."

"There are others?" Ellias says, rubbing the collar on his neck.

"Not only are there others, but there's even a Support Service for The Firsts. They tend to be in denial at first.."

Ellias had been so focused on Nadi, that he forgot to look around. There were people of all ethnicities- most were mixed, as though they'd clicked the "all of the above" ethnicity box while being conceived. People had cybernetic limbs- everything from legs, to tails. There were robots, or cyborgs, ET's...

The streets were clean, but busy. There were no vehicles, only pedestrians... Fruit trees and gardens lined the outer street. People grabbed food as they walked, and tossed the remnants into compost-waste bins located every couple hundred feet. A waterway ran down the middle of the street, with bridges crossing one side to the other. People walked one way on one side, and the opposite direction on the other. Odd aquatic creatures filled the waterway. It looked like staring into a coral reef: beautiful, and mysterious... But looking up, the buildings were thin, and tall... With bulbous tops, and open sides for hoverbikes to land. Aether-lines were stretched out like a web of roads, as hoverbikes and pods zipped from one building to the next.

"So... What is this place? What time are we in?" Ellias asked, "it's amazing..."

"It's much better than my future, that's for sure." Nadi agreed, "This is still earth, but this timeline is called The Convergence."

"The Convergence...?"

Nadi suddenly tapped her temple and started talking in the common tongue. 

"Hey, I have to go, but the Support will explain all that. Come with me... Er, what's your name?"

"Ellias."

She grabs his hand, she stands and he wobbles to his feet. Despite being a head shorter than him, he struggles to keep up with her spry movements. Soon they ducked into the bottom of a building... A couple buttons later, and they're on their way up. The glass sides show a spectacular view, as they rise above the lower city. The building tops seem disproportionately large, but now that he was inside one... It seemed like the elevator provided no structural support. It was more like an anchor...

"What are these? Are those ships up there?" Ellias asked.

"You're preceptive! They are. People call them Bubbles."

Ellias chuckles, "Really? Bubbles?"

"Really, really! They are their own centers of gravity. They anchor to the planet to calibrate to its gravity... Otherwise people get sick, switching gravities all the time." 

"What, so you can jump like it's the moon in there?"

"No... When its not attached, if it were empty, you could walk from the floor, up the walls, to the ceiling. The center of the ship pushes outwards. It's quite fun! Oh look, there's one taking off!" Nadi points out the window. 

Some of the aether web lines shrink back into their ports. The elevator detaches from the bottom of the Bubble, and it begins to float up. The hole, where the elevator connected closes up as it floats gently upwards, then shoots off faster than he could sneeze. 

"That's incredible..." Ellias admires.

"Consciousness technology changed everything... And I mean EVERYTHING." 

They arrive, and the first thing Elias notices is the wall of honey-comb like offices, stacked one over another along a wall in the center of the Bubble... And in the center of the Bubble is a large glowing sphere: the engine.

Nadi stops a tall and distinguished Grey, and they share a moment telepathically. The Grey nods, and looks over Ellias sympathetically. 

"Enya will help you from here. Happy travels, Ellias!" She says, rushing off.

"Later, Nadi" he waves to her turning form. 

Then he looks into Enya's eyes... He had briefings about Greys, but knowing "they use telepathy" does NOT prepare one for telepathic communication... The amount of mental noise in his head was a cacophony. Enya turned it off, replacing it with a knowledge and understanding of exactly what he needs to do next.

He blinked out of Enya's gaze, bowing his head slightly... Before walking up to the Comb-covered wall. A plate on the floor levitates him up to the proper comb, and it opens in response to his presence. It is more spacious inside than he expected.

A blue, avian figure said, "Welcome Ellias Verone."

"You know my name?" 

"I know more than that... More than you know, or want to know. For instance, you're from the Timeline 19534.B. This is meaningless information to you... But it is quite relevant for what we will be doing today. I am Erā, your Support. Please, take a seat." 

Erā motions to an open seat across from her, and Ellias sits down. He didn't know what to expect when coming to the future... And he certainly didn't expect this. He thought he would go down in History, along with the other great pioneers... But to be one of the ranks? One of the many Firsts? Disappointment overwhelmed him. All his pride crumbling as the situation sinks in.

"Tell me about yourself, Ellias."

"You already know everything about me, it seems..."

 "Perhaps. I know information about you, your world, your timeline... But it will help me to help you if I hear your story in your words. I don't know your self-perceptions. Only my perception of your experience."

"Got it..." He says, scratching the back of his neck. "Can I take this off?"

"Sure. I can understand you, but you should keep it accessible while out in the city." Erā says, reaching around and pressing a button.. it clicks open, and falls onto his lap.

"Thanks..." Ellias says, "well, I guess my story is pretty normal..."

"Don't undermine your experience, Ellias. You are a unique soul, as all souls are in this infinite reality. A million souls could be given the same circumstances and choose a million different paths. Whether you are a simple rice farmer, or a time traveler... The infinite potential expressed through life is, without exception, exceptional." Erā says, in a gentle, sing-song voice. Without the translator, she has a slight accent. It suits her beautifully.

"I guess I'll start over, then..." He takes in a deep breath, "My father died in the Third World War. I was 7, I remember he was a good man. An honorable man. He was an author- always writing about weird worlds he'd love to see someday. My mom was an artist, they were the dream team. He'd write, and she'd paint the scenes right out of his mind. The War started slow, a few riots here and there... We figured it would resolve before anything really started. 

We were wrong. I was out painting with my mom when my dad was killed, he wrote too much about... Ideas that didn't match the narratives. His voice made people think too much, and in the end, his ideas won. They didn't want people to believe that other worlds were out there. That we weren't alone in this universe. That time wasnt a tapestry, but a line... A one-way ticket. His ideas won, but when he died... My mom got a notice on her phone that his heart had stopped. We checked the cams, and there were cars. Big, official ones in the driveway. We couldn't go home, we knew they'd be going after my mom, and me too."

Stopping, and breathing deeply, he collected himself.

"We ran. We ditched the car, our phones, our lives. We only had our sketchbooks and our selves. We had a friend that always... Had a conspiratorial mind, it took hours... But we walked out to his place in the woods, and he helped us. No questions asked. We got involved in the militia, and a couple years later when the war finally ended... We had our whole story there in pictures. Everyone had blood on their hands, and we all had to forgive... But forget? So many people died... Or got screwed up.. my mom lost her sight, but she still sculpts. "

He laughs at the memory, empowered by her stubbornness to create, and

"Her paintings from the war were published, she's become somewhat notorious. My dad's books got big too, the ones that survived the censorship, anyways. We couldn't 'forget' if we wanted to. We all have scars and stories to live with. The war didn't even end from our own choices either... ETs, like you guys, intervened. It shook everyone's world, we had no choice BUT to get over ourselves... I wish I could go back in time, to spend some more time with my old man. I still have his books, and reading them as I grew older... He was an amazing guy. The world's he and my mom saw, I had to visit them. And so I decided to sign up as one of the Experimental Voyagers. You had to be young, healthy and fit to join. Between the declining birth rate, and the war... Not many people fitting that criteria really wanted to experiment with their lives. Time Travel was pretty high-risk at the time, not many people signed up for it... That's how a little SciFi nerd like me got to come to the future. My mom was sad, but understood my choice. She supported me. The money she got from me being here will get her some new eyes. Cyborg ones, where she can even change her visible spectrum... They sounded super fancy, and awesome. She'll be able to see U.V. and Infrared."

He pauses.

"That's an amazing story. Thank you for telling me, it sounds like you've had to suffer a lot, but have had many great joys and successes. Thank you for putting your faith in the future, and joining us here at the Convergence. It took a great deal of commitment to make it here." Erā said gently.

"Can you tell me about the Convergence...? What is this place? This time?" Ellias asked, staring to feel award talking about himself, but also humbled by her company.

"Of course, Ellias." She held his hands in her soft, feathery digits, her hands were so small. Tufts of feathers decorating her wrists... "Close your eyes and clear your mind. Using words leaves much room for misunderstanding."

He saw his planet, as though it were a single cell...as though every timeline were a cell, in the body of the Multiverse. He saw himself, a cell of his planet... As though he were a blood cell, being pulled towards the heart... The Convergence, where he is refreshed with oxygen, and sent back out into the body.

"The Convergence is like... The heart?"

"Essentially. All time travelers will wind up here at some point in their journey, you're either going towards it, it away from it." She sits back, releasing his hands. 

"I see... How long before I can go back to my world?"

"Well, what do you want to learn while you're here? What do your people need? You could learn about antigravity, nano technology, philosophy, anything.

You can go back at any time, in months, or years... But on your world, maybe only a day has passed since you left.. or 300 years. You just have to know how to return. You don't ever have to go back, either. It depends on your free will... What will you choose?

"If I go to other planets, will I be able to come back here?" He asks, excitedly.

"That depends on your ability and will."

"What do I want to do..." Ellias thinks aloud, filled with hope... basking in the infinite potential that lay before him.

 - Fin -