A SMARTER WORLD AWAITS

It had felt like a newborn shedding an invisible membrane, the afterbirth of life in the present, and entering a terra-incognita of future realities.

I was trying to recall what I had been through in the few minutes before touch down.

Everything before me had suddenly blurred and then momentarily appeared upside down. Finally my vision became normal.

As the flight taxied towards the gate I heard the flight attendant’s announcement “Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome to San Francisco International airport. Local Time is 10:55 am PDT and the temperature is 67 Degree Fahrenheit. For your safety and comfort, please remain seated with your seat belt fastened until the Captain turns off the Fasten Seat Belt Sign…On behalf of ANA Airlines and the entire crew, I would like to thank you for joining us on this trip and we are looking forward to seeing you on board again in the near future. Have a nice stay.”

What I saw when I looked out of the window took my breath away.

In the parking bay lay half a dozen sleek aircraft that reminded one of the experimental solar-powered “Solar Impulse” plane.

The San Francisco Airport I saw was quite different from the one I had been familiar with. So were the airport buildings. Even the atmosphere was felt to be strange.

I glanced at the in-flight entertainment screen to make sure the aircraft had arrived at the intended destination.

Then, my eyes lingered over a weird thing on the display.

“Date: 28-June-2037”

That meant I left Tokyo 20 years ago?

I smiled to myself amusedly and took a selfie with the screen showing the funny date in the background.

Then I heard some of the other passengers ask an equally bewildered flight attendant whether the information shown on the screen was true. She simply nodded in affirmation and left.

Now it was my turn to get dumbfounded.

But what would you do if you arrived late at your destination, say, by 20 years?

 It upsets your calculations. It leaves you with no plan.

As in every uncertainty, the first thing that came to my mind was the faces of my beloved –Akane and our daughter Misaki.

While still seated, I tried to call my travel coordinator in California on my cell phone, but to no avail. The calls did not go through. Not even the dial tone. My phone had become history, and quite understandably so. From the very look of the fellow travelers I guessed they too had the same experience.

Nothing could be as pertinent as the metaphor of parturition that came to my mind when I thought of being ejected out of the present world into an unknown yet fascinating realm. A child in the womb, as we know, lives in a world different from that of its mother. While both the worlds function parallel to each other, the one outside is the future.

I unbuckled the seat belt and hesitantly got up from seat 14 C .A few moments later I found myself following the herd of anxious co-passengers out of the aircraft.

The airport official in the aero-bridge stared at my cell phone, as if he was seeing some pre-historic artifact.

Smiling in acknowledgement at the ANA staff who greeted us at the International Terminal Gate G98 on the second floor, I was about to head for the Immigration desk when a message flashing across a digital screen near-by caught my attention “ Connect to Airport Free Li-Fi or Wi-Fi & download SFO App for easy navigation. It just takes a second! ”

I took out my cell phone and did exactly as it suggested. Since my phone was not able to access Li-fi,I selected Wi-Fi. Once downloaded, the App prompted me to scan my flight ticket with its barcode scanner. Welcome to SFO Mr.Narihito Hashimoto,the initial screen on the App said “Proceed to immigration.Your checked luggage will arrive at carousel #10.  Stay connected to the App for further directions.”

The flight information system screens everywhere also showed the current date as 28 June 2037.It was all for real.

After the clearing the immigration formalities, I made for the baggage claim area.

I just looked at the seals on my passport page; Departure from Narita on June 28, 2107 and arrival at SFO on June 28, 2037. I, probably like other passengers, wondered whether anyone would believe that when I get back home.

“Your Baggage has already arrived. Press OK for trolley”, informed the SFO App, when I reached at the carousel which oddly seemed to have not many people around it.

And when I heeded the advice, to my surprise, a trolley came rolling to me from a corner stack.

“Press OK to transfer your baggage to the trolley” the message on the App instructed me.

On my approval, the trolley moved closer to the carousel and docked onto one of the slots underneath the running conveyor belt. My bag fell exactly on the trolley.

It backed off with the luggage and rolled back to me. The App suggested I follow the trolley or to manually push it to the Customs section.

Although I had had a brush with the Internet of Things before, this was the first time I came across the technology being used at a public space. But it appeared to be just a foretaste of what awaited one at the largest completely 3D printed airport structure in the world.

Exiting the Customs inspection area,I entered the International Arrivals Meeting Area.

I used the airport telephone to call the travel coordinator again. After telling me that the number I dialed was non-existent it automatically redirected my call to the right number.

“Good Morning, this is Chang Patterson, Associate Director,Bioscienceswith Ames Research Center. Mountain view, California. Can I help you?” said the voice at the other end.

“Hi,Chang, Narihito Hashimotoof JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center speaking. I was supposed to attend a conference on 29-June-2017 at Ames Research Center, on the subject “Challenges facing human habitation on Martian surface” I replied.

“Mr.Narihito Who?...and on 29-June-2017?” was the perplexed question that came from the other man.

Since I had expected that kind of reaction I had had an elaborate answer ready for him. I narrated the entire episode from the start of my journey from Tokyo Narita Airport until the ANA Flight #008 landed at SFO.

I could hear sounds of key depressions and clicks even as he conversed with me.

At last, Dr.Chang asked me to wait where I was and instructed me to call him after fifteen minutes.

He promptly attended my call when I rang him up again.

“Don’t worry, Dr. Narihito. Mr. Warren Griffith will be receiving you at the airport in a short while.” said Dr.Chang reassuringly. “You’ll be taken to the Best Western Hotel near the Airport. We have drawn up your itinerary for the next couple of days and Warren comes with clear instructions to guide you in the city.”

He also told me he could not come to the terminal to receive me owing to certain “security” issues. Wishing me a nice sojourn in the country he hung up.

Warren Griffith met me after thirty minutes. A handsome young man aged about twenty five, he was a project assistant with Ames. He surprised me by coming straight to where I sat and introducing himself to me.

I was scheduled to stay at the hotel for a few days before heading to Los Angeles by Hyperloop 6, boarding at San Francisco Bay area, he informed me.Warren said he arrived in his own VTOL flying car.It was nice 4-seater roadable aircraft. We had a smooth vertical takeoff from the Airport and an easier landing at the Hotel.

The skyline of San Francisco had changed beyond recognition.The cloud-kissing structures seemed to have grown taller and bigger.

I checked in at the Best Western Hotel and Warren, before leaving, handed me a smart phone. “This’s all you need to survive here-A Li-Fi, AR and IoT enabled SatCom smartphone.” He briefed me on its operation as well.

I had to download the latest version of all the major social media apps I had been using.

The last status update on my Facebook page was posted from Tokyo on 28-June-2017.It said “Aboard ANA Flight# 008.Leaving for San Francisco in a few minutes” with a concomitant Narcissistic selfie.

I soon checked out my wife’s page. The last post on 28-June-2037 showed her sitting in a restaurant with our daughter. Akane had become older and frail now, graceful as she ever was nonetheless. Misaki had grown into a beautiful girl, a younger version of her mother.

I felt a sudden pang of loss striking across my chest.

Even with the fastest internet connection I ever used,going back to her posts on 28-June-2017 was not easy. “Praying for Narihito’s return” read the only post on her timeline that day. She had shared several news feeds regarding the missing ANA Flight 008.

Then I saw her observing a teary remembrance of me on the 28^th June of every year. “Still hopeful of his return” her post said.

I longed to contact her on messenger, if not on phone.

But there was a temporal problem.

It is the same trouble with submarines where, despite using the most sophisticated technology, the communications encounter a slight delay- in this case, a delay of 20 years.

Anything I write on my wall or any message I send would only be read by her 20 years later, that too if she is alive then. Since my people are living in the past I, being in an advanced time-space domain,can read their musings on real time. On the other hand, I am in the future, and my thoughts and jottings happen twenty years ahead of theirs.They would have to wait.

Next day morning, Warren came on a driverless Hydrogen fuel cell car. We left the hotel and cruised along the US-101Sfor California.

Every now and then, a few ‘Dronesque’ flying cars passed us overhead. A couple of cars sped past us and suddenly took off from the highway and flew away.

It was only when she spoke that I realized the girl at the reception desk of Ames Research Centre was a humanoid robot.She welcomed me calling my name and even appeared to have been well clued-up about me and my visit.Soon we were escorted to the Associate Director’s Office.

Dr.Chang was a man in his thirties with a lean face that seemed incongruous with his tall well-built body.

When we shook hands I noticed that his hands were unusually dark and long.

“My presence at the airport is bound to give the security guys a run for their money” said the scientist in a lighter vein.“I apologize for not being able to come personally to receive you.”

I did not quite understand the joke.

The conference I was to have attended was held, without me of course, as scheduled.However,they have an upcoming brainstorming session at Ames, Los Angeles the day after the next, and would like to have me join the discussion there.

Some of the participants would be Ex–Mars astronauts, I was informed.

Apart from the ongoing mission on Jupiter’s orbit and the first explorative spacecraft to Saturn’s atmosphere, NASA has successfully landed a probe on Venus, as part of the New Frontiers program.

The SETI program has been able to trace the origin of the mysterious radio signals neither to the “Alien Megastructure” on Tabby’s star nor to any other distant planets.

I was at a loss for words as it all meant that the dissertation I was planning to present had now become inconsequential. I needed to prepare my lecture afresh.

On our way back to the hotel, I asked Warren about Dr. Chang’s purportedly humorous statement that he could become a threat to security systems.

“He’s not one man…” Warren replied “But two.”

“A what ?”I exclaimed in disbelief.

Then Warren told me about Dr. Chang and the weird fact that made him distinct from others.

I had heard that an Italian surgeon Dr. Sergio Canavero was planning to perform the first human head transplant in December 2017 on a Chinese volunteer in Harbin, China.The experimental surgery, as was expected, had a high failure-to-success ratio. Over the past two decades, half a dozen people lived to tell the tale of their transplant. 

However, today, Dr. Chang Patterson is the only surviving human on earth with a fully functional transplanted head. Physiologically speaking, he has a Chinese man’s mind and an African American’s body. That would mean that he has the retinal scan of one man but the finger print identity of another - a glaring mismatch of bio-metric data which could confuse the electronic security system anywhere. Nevertheless, to avoid unnecessary hassle, he had a special ID chip implanted in his body for identification.

In the evening, I went to a branded Jewelry shop near the hotel, to purchase some ornaments for Akane and Misaki. It would be a perfect gift from the future for my dear ones!

Only after I made the purchase did I know they accepted digital Crypto-currency. Fortunately I had an account and a software wallet which I could, with the help of the salesman, upgrade and use to foot the bill.

While walking down the street,I received a mail from Dr. Chang informing me that I would be free to leave after the meeting in L.A and that I would receive my re-booked return flight ticket the following day.

Would it be for a flight to a more futuristic world?

Or would it take me back to the previous present?

It did not say anything.

Back in the hotel, I took off my jacket and fell on the couch.

I dozed off watching a TV program on the recently cloned baby Mammoths, only to be occasionally woken by the roars of the once extinct woolly giants roaming the Alaskan and Siberian terrains again…