"They said it would be similar to dying. A crushingly dark tunnel with an alluring illumination at the end. But it wasn't death. It was what the eggheads call Neuro-Temporal Displacement. Through some mumbo-jumbo that is way above my head, they figured out a way to shunt human minds from one point in time to another. Through some experimentation, they managed to enable disembodied human minds to travel to the past and future. The participants essentially became ghosts, free to observe, but not interact. Apparently this was a way to avoid paradoxes, so some idiot won't accidentally erase himself from existence.
The procedure consisted of a variety of injections, mostly in the back of my neck and near my temples. I was glad that they put me under before that part because the sight of those needles alone would have caused me to pass out. After the injections, my unconscious body was housed in a protective isolation chamber, and all sorts of tubes were inserted to keep me alive while I was under. After that, it was just a waiting game. For me, the waiting was consumed by narcotic and dreamless darkness. For the scientists and doctors observing me, the waiting was consumed by frenzied checking and rechecking of monitors and print-outs to ensure the process was going as planned. After forty-three minutes of black, a pinpoint of light appeared. It grew and grew, eventually encompassing my entire mind's eye. Then suddenly, I'm there. Or rather, I'm then. I'm now. Whenever the universe decided to send me to. The whole process was so damn unpredictable and jumbled up with quantum-nonsense, but a paycheck is a paycheck.
So, the universe sent me here. This time. What year did you say it is? 2246? Interesting. Never been this far ahead before. That certainly explains why you can communicate with me though, your ancestors one hundred years ago were unable to communicate with us yet. It seems the knowledge we have back in 1981 does not become entirely forgotten after all.
I arrived in your time in precisely the same place I left my own. I was shocked to see that the brick and cement buildings of my time were entirely leveled and replaced by massive, gleaming, white towers; the green-brown grass medians common in my time succeeded by floating planters filled with fake-looking flowers. Oh really, they're more efficient synthetic flowers? I bet they don't smell as good. Not that you people would care anyway, zipping along near light-speed on your hover-bikes and plasma-skates. Tell me, do you ever stop to smell the roses?"
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