Because the sunlight is stronger than ever as it passes through the thinning atmosphere, we are moving to the city. The plastic dome provides the protection Nature cannot. There is no room for pets. I am letting Marek and Beldine free in a dried–up riverbed. – Thirteen-year-old Briana Monte, 5248 A.D.
Ithaca, New York — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is formally listing the Mialto leopard, a small, forest–dwelling, omnivorous leopard, as endangered. This action permanently protects the leopard under the Endangered Species Act of 4380. – U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service press release, 4465 A.D.
Researchers Find the Cure for Zombies: Reign of Flesh – A novel by Lena Landi, 2083 A.D.
Mars, Day 5 When the spaceship Emeritus took us from Earth, I imagined I would see the blue and green beauty pictured in the history holos from ancient satellites. I thought modern images of Earth were forbidden because they had more important things to do with satellites than let the populace see our beautiful planet. I suppose it is important to keep the populace in the dark, so to speak, but it was rather a shock to me. The seas, a vibrant blue in the holos, are now a muddy gray. The continents once covered in lush greenery are a light dusty brown from the equator to the tropics; from there, they gradually fade into green spotted with the white and gray domes of our cities. Although I knew from Academy that the icecaps melted long ago, it was still an oddity to see Antarctica, brown and barren, and the gray sludge that caps the North Pole.
The rest of the flight was uneventful, and I’ve had time only to unpack and become barely acquainted with the city. New Canada is quite as I imagined it, only now I am here. My home is on the 608th floor, spacious in comparison to the hovel I was residing in on Earth. My neighbors have an accent, how marvelous! The last time I met someone who spoke a variant of New English was as a child, before we moved to the city. I have a wife arranged for me. The holos of her are quite stunning, though she does have the elongated face of those born on Mars. I am to meet her tomorrow. – From the private journal of Lanyon Corma, 5268 A.D.
The soft tiles glisten white under my feet, reflecting the bronze and silver of the bars. The last monkey on Earth lives in that cage, and his name is Billy. He doesn’t screech; he doesn’t shriek. He moans, a long eerie sound echoing against the flatness of his artificial home. – Excerpt from “A Visit to the Zoo” by Leonard Metrophilius, 3428 A.D.
Step 8: Pull zipper entirely closed. Step 9: Pull on helmet. Step 10: Attach oxygen tank hoses to helmet. Step 11: Press button to seal helmet. – From “18 Steps to Safety in a Lava Flood,” published 2987 A.D.
Flatmuffs: These full body protective suits have a retro design of Twenty–Eighth Century fiber–optic petals. Although the fiber–optic petals serve no purpose, they relieve the boredom of a six–month night in an Antarctican city. – From a transcript of Holo-Bay listings, 3140 A.D.
Antigrav ['an-ti-grav] 1. adj. Of or having to do with antigravity. 2. adj. Consisting of or produced with antigravity fibers. 3. noun physics The principle of the control resistance to gravity having been imparted to objects. – Cambridge Dictionary of the Modern Era English Language, 3814 edition.
Maeve Blogen We were there when the ash started to fall. It had been two days since the volcano, so we didn’t realize there was anything wrong until the crops withered where it touched down. Luckily most of us were in our houses. When the ash built up around our houses – that was the scary part. Thousands of years on this planet, and still at the mercy of Mother Nature. The ash seemed beautiful at first, white as snow. But then it started to bury our house. I was just a child, and my mother was carrying on, and my father was trying to pull up a holo link, and my older sisters were trying to distract me. Later I found out how lucky we were that the houses had just been upgraded to full temperature control. The ash was solidifying to rock all around our house, and we were protected from the heat and fumes. A few in the town weren’t so lucky – had a window open, or happened to be outside when the fall started. But we were fine, and had food to last the few days it took for them to get through to us. It was afterwards that was harder for me.
We lost our house and property in the ash fall. My father was a farmer, and while the hydroponic garden made it through just fine, it was rather inaccessible under the fresh layer of rock that formed. We didn’t have volcano insurance – after all, it had been dormant for over a century! The city was overcrowded and expensive, but the government had a good out for us. Leave Earth, go to the new city on Mars as some of the first colonists. It wouldn’t be much of a change for our lifestyle, my father already being a farmer. We just had to remember that outside the bubble of the city, the lack of atmosphere was deadlier than any volcano on Earth. – “Personal Testaments of the Ash Fall of 3705”
Earth looks like Venus Walking far away Brittle shell of lifeless past Pastel explosions abound I look to the stars Sink under the dirt --“Experiments in Dead Poetry Forms,” published 4236 A.D.
