The X Visitor

I'm standing in my kitchen, staring at the pile of bills on the counter, when the atmosphere in my living room begins to stir. At first, I think it's just the heat from my broken air conditioning unit playing tricks on my eyes. But then the disturbance intensifies, and suddenly there's a woman standing in the middle of my flat.

She's tall, with silver hair that seems to catch light that isn't there, and she's wearing clothes that look familiar yet completely foreign—like someone took modern fashion and evolved it fifty years into the future.

"Hello, Phoebe," she says, as if appearing in strangers' homes is the most natural thing in the world.

I drop my coffee mug. It shatters against the linoleum floor. "Who are you? How did you get here? What are you doing in my flat?"

"I apologize for the dramatic entrance," she says, stepping around the broken mug. "Time travel isn't exactly subtle. I'm Millie, and I'm from your future."

I laugh, but it comes out strangled. "Right. Of course you are. Let me guess—you're here to warn me about some terrible event?"

"Not exactly." Millie moves to my window and peers out at Manchester Street. "I'm here because of what you're going to create. Or rather, what you're not going to create if things continue as they are."

"Create? I work in a chemical testing lab." I grab a tea towel and start cleaning up the mess. "Look, I don't know how you got in here, but—"

"Phoebe, stop cleaning for a moment and look at me."

Something in her tone makes me freeze. When I meet her eyes, they're a startling violet colour that definitely isn't natural.

"You're serious," I whisper.

"Completely." She pulls out a device that looks like a cross between a smartphone and a piece of glass. "This is from the year 2087."

The device projects a holographic image above my coffee table. I see Manchester, but transformed—gleaming towers reaching into the crystal-clear sky, gardens cascading down building sides. People glide through streets on streams of light.

"That's impossible," I breathe.

"Your great-granddaughter helped design that transportation system."

"My great-granddaughter? I don't even have children. I can barely afford to feed myself."

"You will. But only if you make a choice. A choice you're supposed to make three days from now, but that you're currently planning not to make."

I sink onto my sofa. "What choice?"

Millie sits across from me. "You're planning to decline the job offer, aren't you?"

My blood goes cold. "How could you possibly know about that?"

"Because the choice you make on Thursday determines everything that comes after. The job offer from the renewable energy startup—you're going to turn it down because you think you're not qualified enough, because the pay is less than what you need, because it feels too risky."

The job offer came through yesterday—a junior position at a small company working on solar panels. They said they needed someone who could communicate complex ideas clearly.

"The pay is terrible," I say defensively. "I'd be starting over completely. I have responsibilities—rent, student loans, my mum's medical bills."

"That job is the beginning of everything. You'll start in communications, but you'll become fascinated by the technology. Within two years, you'll have your first patent."

"Patent? For what?"

Millie's eyes light up. "A new type of photolithography process that is revolutionary. You'll call it the Phoebe Configuration, though you'll try to get them to change the name. They won't let you."

I shake my head. "That's ridiculous. I can barely understand how my laptop works."

"You're thinking about it all wrong." Millie stands and begins pacing. "Innovation isn't just technical knowledge—it's seeing patterns others miss and asking questions others don't think to ask. Your physics background will be your greatest asset."

"How?"

"Because you understand basic science. You will also see how artificial intelligence can help you invent, how seemingly unrelated elements connect to create meaning. That's precisely how breakthrough innovations happen—by connecting ideas that appear to be separate."

I want to argue, but something makes me hesitate. "Why are you here? If I'm destined to invent this thing anyway..."

"Because you're not destined to do anything. The future isn't fixed. In my timeline, you take the job, and your work becomes the foundation for the clean energy revolution that saves the planet from climate catastrophe."

"And if I don't?"

Millie's face grows somber. "Someone else eventually makes similar discoveries, but twenty years too late. Environmental tipping points get crossed. My beautiful future doesn't exist. Instead, there are climate wars, mass migration, and ecosystem collapse."

The weight presses down on me. "You're telling me the fate of the world depends on me taking a job I'm completely unqualified for?"

"The company saw something in you. They called you back. They made an offer."

I think about the interview and how excited the hiring manager seemed when I approached their solar efficiency problems from an entirely different angle than their engineers. Instead of focusing on the technical limitations, I wondered about the story the sunlight was trying to tell as it hit the panels.

"Even if I wanted to take the job, I can't afford to. The salary is barely half what I need."

Millie pulls out what looks like a metal credit card that shifts colour in the light. "This contains enough cryptocurrency to cover your living expenses for the first year. Consider it an investment in the future—literally."

"You can't just give me money from the future. Wouldn't that cause a paradox?"

"Paradoxes are a myth invented by science fiction writers. Time is much more fluid than people in your era understand."

I walk to the window. "This is insane."

"Is it more insane than spending the rest of your life wondering what might have happened if you'd been brave enough to try?"

Her words hit me hard because that's precisely what I'm afraid of—the slow death of never knowing what I might have been capable of.

"Why me? Why not someone with a PhD or engineering background?"

“Because someone with an actual engineering background would approach the problem in the same manner as everyone else has. They'd get caught up in the conventional wisdom, the established methods. You'll approach it like a fresh piece of art that needs to be understood, not a problem that needs to be solved."

"I don't even like science," I mutter. “My father convinced me to major in physics. That’s the main reason I dropped out of Oxford.”

Millie laughs. "You will. In about five years, you'll become obsessed with novels about terraforming."

Despite everything, I smile. "Terraforming novels?"

"Beverly Foster becomes your favourite author. You'll read the Mars Chronicles at least six times while researching atmospheric processors for your third patent."

The casual mention of multiple patents makes my head spin. "How many patents do I end up with?"

"Seventeen, though the first is most important. It's the foundation everything else builds on."

I sit down heavily. "This is completely mental."

"Most worthwhile things are. The question is, are you going to let fear make your decisions, or are you going to make them yourself?"

"What if I'm terrible at it?"

"What if you can?"

Millie touches her device again. The hologram shifts, showing laboratories filled with people working on incomprehensible technologies, then vast solar farms stretching across deserts.

"Those panels are based on your design. They're generating enough power to supply clean energy to half of Europe."

"Half of Europe?"

"Your efficiency improvements made solar power cost-competitive with fossil fuels overnight."

The hologram shows clean cities, green spaces, and children playing in parks that exist because the planet wasn't destroyed.

"What will happen if I don't take the job?"

The beautiful cities vanish, replaced by flooding, drought, and millions fleeing their homes.

"Turn it off," I whisper.

The hologram disappears. We sit in my ordinary living room with its peeling wallpaper and second-hand furniture.

"You don't have to believe everything I've told you," Millie says. "You just have to be willing to try."

"What happens to you if I change the timeline?"

Millie considers this. "I don't know. But existence seems less important than meaning. If my existence helps create a better world, whether I continue to exist afterwards seems less relevant."

"What's it like? The future, I mean. What's my life like?"

"You're happy," Millie says simply. "You spend your days working on problems that matter, surrounded by people who challenge and inspire you. You travel to conferences around the world, sharing your discoveries. You have a family who adores you. You live in a house with a garden where you grow tomatoes and herbs.”

The image she paints is so vivid, so appealing, that I imagine my future life with longing. "It sounds too good to be true."

"It's not perfect. There will be failures and frustrations. But you'll know your life has meaning."

I really look at her. "Why do you care so much?"

Millie's expression becomes soft. "Because in my timeline, you're my great-great-grandmother. The violet eyes run in the family—you'll have them too, eventually. It's a side effect of working with certain types of solar radiation."

I touch my brown eyes reflexively. "Solar radiation changes eye colour?"

"Among other things. But that's spoiler territory."

I walk to my desk, where the job offer sits buried under papers. I pull it out and read it again. "They want someone to help develop educational materials about solar technology. To make complex scientific concepts accessible."

"Which is exactly what you're good at. Making complex things understandable."

I think about my dissertation on scientific metaphors in literature. Maybe there's a way to work in reverse—use human understanding to illuminate scientific concepts.

"The salary really is terrible."

"Your patents will eventually make you quite wealthy. Though wealth isn't the point."

"What is the point?"

"Becoming who you're meant to be instead of settling for who you think you have to be."

I stare at the offer. "What if I'm not brave enough?"

"Courage isn't the absence of fear—it's acting in spite of fear. And you're braver than you know."

"How can you be certain?"

"Because you're still here, having this conversation, instead of calling security. When faced with the impossible, your first instinct is to ask questions, not run away."

She's right. A sensible person would have called the police. Instead, I'm seriously considering career advice from someone claiming to be my great-great-granddaughter from the future.

"If I do this—what then? Do you disappear?"

"I return to my time. The timeline transforms gradually, like a river changing course."

"Will I remember this?"

"Memory is strange with temporal interactions. You might remember it as a vivid dream. But choices echo through time regardless of whether we remember making them."

"You're really my descendant?"

"I really am. And I'm proud to be."

When was the last time someone said they were proud of me?

"All right," I hear myself saying. "I'll do it. I'll take the job."

Millie's smile is radiant. "Really?"

"Really. What's the worst that could happen? I fail spectacularly and end up back where I started?"

"And what's the best that could happen?"

I envision clean cities, efficient solar panels, and children playing rather than fleeing from disasters. "I help save the world?"

"You help give the world the tools to save itself. Which is even better."

She touches her device. The air begins to shimmer again. "I should go."

"Wait! What if I need advice?"

"Trust your instincts," Millie says as she fades. "Ask the questions no one else is asking. And remember—every story needs someone brave enough to turn the page."

"Millie—"

But she's gone, leaving only a faint haze and the lingering scent of hope.

I stand for a long moment, staring at the empty space. The broken mug scattered across the floor proves something happened.

I walk to my desk and pick up the phone. My hand shakes as I dial.

"Hello," I say when someone answers. "This is Phoebe Lawson. I'm calling about the position you offered me. I'd like to accept."

As I hang up, my reflection in the window looks different. More determined. More like someone ready to find out what she's capable of.

Outside, the grey Manchester sky seems brighter, and I can almost imagine streams of light running through the streets, carrying people toward a future cleaner and more beautiful than anything we can currently envision.

I have no idea what I'm doing, but for the first time in years, that doesn't terrify me. It feels like the beginning of something extraordinary.

The story, as Millie might say, is just beginning.