Author: Connor Milligan

Reece Elliot rushed into his manager’s office, Tim Woods with the last printout that the pre-Dic machine will print. The print said “The situation in the future is unprintable. The exit door has now closed.” Reece handed over the sheet to Tim. Reece explained to him what it said. They both had a look of confusion, but disbelief also. They both knew the trouble this will cause, and how much will have to go into finding out why.

Reece and Tim now stood in front of the big, green machine. With its enormous size, the Pre – Dic machine had huge circler buttons, and cogs that were always working. But now nothing was working. There was no sound emitting from it anymore. Reece turned and looked at Tim, ‘What will we do now?’ looking down at the piece of paper, Tim said ‘We have to get Roy here now’

Roy Logan had been in a re-education camp for 5 years. He was sent there because his government saw him as a social threat. Spreading secrets, and information on new technologies such as the Pre- Dic machine.

He now sits on his bed in his cell. The blue walls have lost their sense to him. His room felt smaller by the day. Roy thought he will never get out of this hell of a place. Roy was holding a book Called In Side Gods Mind. Suddenly a guard came to his door and ordered him to stand. The guard lets Roy know that he is being released on a day release for a certain project.

Outside, the prison Roy takes in a deep breath of fresh air. Taking in the moment, he still did not know what he had to do. Were there guards playing a game with him? A second later, a brown car was waiting. The horn beeped. Roy did not care because he liked the sound. After all, it felt known to him. Walking up with curious steps, he approached the drivers’ window. With a sure glance, he could not believe his eyes. ‘No! Whatever it is, I am not doing it.’ said Roy. Tim rolled down the window, and said ‘ We need you on this.’ Roy starts to walk back to the prison not bothering to listen to Tim. Roy starts to bang on the prison door, yelling for them to let them back in. Tim then shouts, ‘It’s the Pre Dic Machine’. On hearing this, Roy turns around.

In the car, Roy asks for a cigarette. Tim hands him over one. ‘You never truly understood me, did you?’ Roy asks Tim. ‘People say you are a man before his time.’ Replied Tim. Rolling down his window to blow out the smoke, Roy says, ‘Just like the Pre – Dic Machine’

Tim shows Roy into the room where the Pre – Dic Machine is. One look at this machine, Roy has many questions but takes a moment to be in ore of the machine. He turns to Tim who is now standing with Reece in the room. He asks what was the last note it had printed. Reece hands over the note to Roy.’How do we not know that the message has not been intercepted and changed by someone else?’ asks Roy. ‘We have been using this Machine for nearly seven years now. Everything it has printed has been right, or close to.’ Roy re-reads the message again.’ When you say “We” does that mean the government?’ Both Time and Reece look at each other. ‘I will take this as a yes then, If this machine can print out from here, but the messages are from the future, we don’t know who is sending them. It could be the Russians, Chinese, or even some other life form.’ Tim has a perplexed look on his face. He did not take into account that the messages could be from an enemy, trying to trick them. ‘So what do we do now?’ said Tim. ‘You have to hope that it starts to print more and whoever is sending them is on your side.’ replied Roy. ‘We will have to wait for now.’ Roy turns and starts to head for the exit door. ‘Wait! where are you going?’ says Reece.

From the closing exit door, Roy says’ To the future’ he leaves them with a wave.