Our Future. Part One

"The Future?" Hah! This is the future Tom. Were living it now." Charles was nearly out of breathe from talking to Tom, he felt he had wasted his words as Tom clearly disagreed with everything he said. "This argument is not gonna go anywhere! Let's just leave at that, agree to disagree alright?" The nimble man before him shook his head in defiance, and adjusted his lips to produce another retort. He stopped just has he began to speak. He smiled. "Fine. Charlie you'll see soon enough what I mean. You can't ignore everything around you telling you..." Charles interrupted "Telling me what, that I'm foolish for doing the kind of work that I do? Sir, you have it all wrong, I am very happy with the work I do and it isn't about the money or anything else except that I enjoy doing it that's all. Besides, Im not worried about the future because as I said the future is now!" Charles felt he was getting defensive again, and after all, the money was really good and he enjoyed having it very much, but he sincerely enjoyed doing his work. "Alright. We'll end it there, I have to go pick up Sarah anyways, were gonna go see a play tonight. Have you seen Mama Mia?" Charles was relieved, the tone of the conversation shifted just at the right time. "No, what is it?" Tom chuckled a bit, "Don't know man, Sarah picked it all I know is there is dancing and singing and stuff I could probably do without, but Sarah thinks its spectacular so I'm going for her." Charles wanted to laugh but noticed the lights on his watch changed, reminding him that he was already 15 minutes late before the argument. "Sorry Tom, I really got to go, I'm already half hour late. Good luck tonight man, maybe it will be great after all." Both shook hands and Charles was off to catch the next train, and before he knew it, he was sitting in his twittering office, looking out his window watching they city move with the usual smooth and constant flux.

His office had trinkets of all types covering the desks and shelves that made up his tiny environment. All these items contributed to his work as a robotist, with small semi-working prototypes of machines that were destined to be built within the year. Some made small buzzing noises, others tried to talk but failed mid sentence. Another, almost completed and the only one full-size (that is human size), stood erect gazing indifferently into the opposite corner of the room. One sat on his desk, the only one fully activated, it's name was Penny. She stood about 3 3/4 inches high, about as big as a toy soldier, and was a fully functional robot. "Penny" was huge success for Charles, and was the reason for his recent "over-night" fortune. "Sir may I remind you that the meeting is in 5 minutes, with the current traffic reports, you'll be 6 minutes and 22 seconds late if you are to catch the train at..." The tiny robot danced around his desk all the while repeating the same good intentioned statement where 6 and 22 became larger numbers every time. "Yes, I know Penny, but this has to be finished first. They expect a certain amount of quality out of me, and this blueprint will be worth the wait. They'll be blown away by this next model." Charles smiled, he couldn't imagine himself anywhere else.


Charles stepped out from the elevator, he was relieved to find another man, Jonathon Rockefeller, who he had met a day before, was also late to the same meeting. "Yeah traffic was horrid, guess some guy fell asleep and hit his "auto-descend switch" and hit about 5 other cars before he smashed into the Chrysler building, I wonder if the car he was in was a Chrysler, that would be ironic, those cars are...." Charles remembered that when he met this man, he had a hard time walking away, seemed Mr. Rockefeller had a hell-of-alot to say. "...probably that new sedan, damn things are all out of whack, cant even be considered a car if you ask me, don't you think Charles? It is Charles right?" Charles snapped out of his daze at the sound of his name, and responded, with his half-interested tone. "Yes Charles, that's right." The lady at the desk waved them in and gave Jon a sort of "Hurry-up-your-late" kind of gesture. It seemed to Charlie to be a kind of "fun" gesture and added to his relief.

"Charles! Let me introduce everyone here to our new robotist, mister Charles Leek, go ahead have a seat." Charles was stunned, in his rush he hardly had time to notice just how beautiful the building was. He quickly noticed a machine behind the man who had greeted him, it was a prototype robot, the corporation had been working on it for years, but gave up due to it's lowly demand. He smirked, if the corporation had only hired him before it would have been a great success. "It seems you have already met our friendly military liaison Mr. Rockefeller here, and to my left is Roger Gates, vice-president of Microcore industries, and to my right is Ms. Haley Brendan, who is ahead of our robotics team in Minnesota, next to her is..." Charles began to wonder off again, the walls were a dark black titanium steel expertly crafted in the shapes of old Roman architecture. The meeting room was adorned with beautiful electronic paintings, their lights pulsating to the now unintelligible words of the man speaking to him. Lights hung low from the curved ceiling and created a wonderful warm glow on everyone's face, reminding him of a painting he saw years ago, a futuristic rendition of the Last Supper. "and has worked for our company for fifteen years, probably our most loyal publicist to date. Well she is taken, but she is definitely a wonderful asset to our small group of innovative thinkers here." A small chuckle erupted from the room of about 9 people, Charles forced a chuckle to show that he was listening. "So Jonathan has told me that you have something to show us. Before you do, I would like to say, on behalf of all who his here, welcome! We are all admirers of your work and hope that our companys dedication to meet the worlds needs for robotics and your fundamental technology, that this will lead to great things in our future." Suddenly Charles thought of his conversation earlier with Tom, and how Tom was so advent on trying to convince him that his kind of robotics will drive the world into chaos, and that he should consider the future of mankind if he continues his work. "You ever see the movie Terminator? Yea, neither have I but it was about robots taking over and killing humans in the future. It's not so far from our imaginations anymore man!" Clearly Tom is a conspiracy theorist, after all, robots are in complete control of humans and can be rendered harmless with the flick of a switch. "The future is now though....ahem" It was him, thinking out loud. Charles let out a short nervous sigh, for a moment he felt he might have insulted the man speaking to him. Alas, a man at the end of the table, who looked an awful lot like Josef Stalin, spoke up. "Indeed Charles, the future is now." The entire table repeated the the statement as if it was some kind of mantra, and from here, Charles began his presentation to win them over on his new design. A fully functional, customizable, robotic lady. He named her simply Ashley, a name appropriately fit for the porcelain-skinned prototype he had standing in his office.