*Fall of Civilization

Intro: On Friday, the 13th I would like to add, Blogger was down as well as a few other sites. This was right after Google launched their cloud campaign to convince people that everything is safer when stored on the cloud and not on an actual machine. Hmmm. Blogger came back up but some of the information had been lost during the downtime. I am still under the impression that I want to keep a "hard" copy of information that I can always fall back on. This story came after reading some of the reactions from the downtime.

Harold cranked the wrench one last time and stepped back to admire his work. After four years, seven months, thirteen days, the time machine was finished.

"Looks good, but how do you get it out?" A voice said from the stairs.

Harold spared Meg a passing glance. His childhood friend stood on the stairs looking up at his project. The time machine occupied the entire attic, with a workbench spanning one side of the room and the actual machine in the middle of the room.

"It's a time machine; I don't have to worry about getting it out."

She raised an eyebrow and Harold nudged the bottom of the machine with his foot.

"Hover technology."

"And does it work?"

Harold shrugged. "Want to find out with me?"

She stared at the boxy metal machine and shrugged. "I'm not doing anything else for a while. Can we make it back in fifteen minutes?"

"We can make it back fifteen minutes ago if you want." Harold said motioning for her to climb in.

"If that were true, we would be talking to ourselves." Meg said but she climbed in to the back seat.

"Where do you want to go?"

"How about two hundred years from now?"

"Nice round number," he said an typed in the coordinates.

Harold positioned himself in the front seat and counted down in his head. At zero, he flipped the switch.

The air around them vanished, as if eaten by a fire. Ten seconds later the air whooshed back. As Harold gasped for breath, he could hear Meg coughing behind him. The ship wobbled and then they lowered slightly. Harold caught his breath and looked around. Tall buildings rose around them and people stood frozen, staring at them.

"Harold," Meg whispered. "It worked."

"Of course it did," Harold replied over his shoulder. "What did you expect?"

"Failure, like the last fourteen times you tried this."

Harold had no response.

"Who are you?" A man came forward pointing at them. "What are you doing here?"

A few other people in the crowd murmured.

"We're taking a survey," Harold said scrambling for some paper. He held it up. A few of the people relax. "How do you think the world will end?"

"Zombies," one voice cried out.

"Asteroid."

"Epidemic."

Harold scrambled to write down all of the answers. They moved the machine off to the side so as not to block the sidewalk. He ended up sitting on the end of the time machine while a line formed to give answers. While he wrote, he watched the people. Well dressed. Gadgets. More Gadgets. Blinking lights. Noises. Everywhere.

"They're saturated in technology," Meg whispered as a man with implants in both his ears gave his answer "Ice Age."

"And we aren't. Even though we're not home, you keep checking your phone for messages."

Meg didn't reply but both of them still gazed wide eyed at the people who approached.

"It's like an episode from Dr. Who." Meg whispered at another point.

When the sky darkened, Harold waved his thanks and typed in the coordinates for home. This time they ended up in the grass outside Harold's home.

Meg shoved his shoulder. "Fifteen minutes early."

Harold turned so he could look at her and held up the sheets of paper.

"Can you believe some of these answers? Meteorite. Sun going nova. Sun burning out. Zombies, more zombies. Rise of the animals. Aliens. Robots."

"Did you see their stuff. I would kill to have phones like theirs."

They sat for a moment in silence. Neither mentioned the idea of going upstairs to check on themselves. It just didn't seem right in Harold's perspective.

"Anywhere else you want to go?" He finally asked and with a grin added, "We've got the time."

"How about five hundred years into the future," she replied.

Within a minute the air was gone and ten seconds after that it was back. The tall pristine buildings were gone. Harold couldn't see a structure of any kind. The land was covered with sparse vegetation. He craned his neck around caught sight of some movement behind a bush.

"Hello?"

The bush wavered and then someone climbed out. The woman wore clothes of the same style the Amish wore. She wasn't in a dress but she wasn't wearing jeans and a tee-shirt either. Her gaze remained fixed on the machine.

"What do you want?" She called.

Harold opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Instead Meg spoke up.

"We're here to take a survey. How do you think the world will end?"

"What do you mean end?"

"What will cause civilization to fall?"

"Oh that, it's already happened." She said, moving a little closer. Harold looked around but couldn't see any sign of fallout, zombies, craters, or even fire.

"How?" Harold asked.

"The day the communications crashed. No one could get them back online. It took a couple of years to recover even half of the information lost."

Harold frowned and the woman came closer still.

"Communications?"

"Cellular, internet, satellite. Everything gone in an instant. Went back to the stone age."

"Smoke signals?" Meg asked.

"No. Letters, and telephones. You would not believe the havoc it wrecked."

"And how long has it been since the fall?"

"About fifty years," the woman replied. "Scientists say that if we're lucky, we will get dialup back in my lifetime."

She patted the machine with her hand and then walked off. "I don't know if I should be glad or not. I just hope that this time, we keep good records of everything."

Harold and Meg remained in the time machine staring until the woman passed out of sight behind a hill.

"The fall of civilization shall be from the weight of their own accomplishments." Harold said.

"Right You think this is the real future?"

Harold merely shrugged and flipped the switch to take them home.