Inhabiting Uncertainty (working title)
an excerpt

“Why did you bring me here?”

“Crowded places are the best places for privacy. Everyone is so absorbed with getting through that they don’t recognize anything else.”

“Oh. Very smart.”

“As are you. Listen, Professor. The world needs your help. We need your expertise to revive humankind.”

“What?”

“Yes. In a few years, earth will be uninhabitable and we will be eliminated. The only way to ensure we survive is if the most brilliant minds come with us, contribute what they can, so that humankind will be able to live and prosper. We are looking for minds like you, Prof, and we are not taking no for an answer.”

“Who exactly do you work for?”

“I can’t tell you at this point in time, but you must come for the selection process. Contribute what you can. If you are selected, you will be one of the remaining humans to live beyond the apocalypse.”

“Wait wait wait wait wait. This is some kind of joke, isn’t it? I’m being pranked, aren’t I?” Prof Xu was too stunned to think properly.

“No, I am not. Everyone is deluding themselves that they’ll survive, but it is the culture of complacency that gets everyone killed. You have to come to the interview.” I placed a namecard in front of him, my steely gaze locking on his shocked face.

“How… how… what?”

“You have to do this, Professor. Your molecular accelerator enables me to meet you. We have informed the staff of our past – or our present staff – that people like you are streaming all over the world. Heed my words, doctor. The fate of humankind depends on it.”

I’d always wanted to say that.

“Wait a minute. How do I know that you’re not a fake?”

“I know you have a birthmark on your right shoulder blade.” He flushed. Jackpot. We were told to remember the unique traits of our current and potential contributors. I guessed that worked.

Professor Xu was more malleable, but some others were harder to persuade. Sometimes, I’d have to shake time up a little – open up a time vortex and leave them dangling there before they believed me. It was cruel, I know, and I’m a little sadistic but I didn’t care. What needed to be done was done.