2959

Silouettes...silhouettes lay stretched across the barren land; each one telling a story before the Great Disaster. It has been over a hundred years since that bleak and terrible day. Not a single living thing was left...or so that's what it seemed. There was a small machine in the shape of a box that was clean white and chrome. This small machine continued to pour out life before it had been ended. No, no not actual physical life; life in the form of pictures. Moving pictures to be exact. Now of course, you and I both know that moving pictures are movies, shows, and videos, whether they are exciting, glum, mysterious, romantic, or even humorous.

This machine known to you and I was a television, wasn't playing a popular TV show or the last big movie that was newly released. It was playing a recording...a video recording. Once the video was over, the TV would reset itself, replaying the video all over again. How does a one hundred year old television continue to play and not go out without any maintenance or somebody to turn it off so it can get some sleep? You see, when the silhouettes first appeared on walls, the ground and any other solid object you could find, there were great technologies called Hypercyscreens. These intelligent objects had the ability to play continuously because of the amount of power they could run off of. No wires, no cords, no catch. It was just a white and chrome colored box that seemed to be alive with copious bright colors and remarkable sound...only this box in particular had no sound.

What could this "box" be playing? Nothing of great importance, right? On the twelve inch screen, there appeared a group of people in white jackets...six of them to be exact (three men and three women). They were all gathered around a large rectangular table with paper as big as the table itself, spread out on the surface. The readings and markings on this paper were difficult to read, but each person in the white coats were pointing to something on the paper. A map perhaps? Could it possibly be a map? The paper looked more like a game board than a serious paper for such highly intellectual people such as the people on the screen appeared to be, but it indeed looked to be a map.

The people in the white coats, as you and I have presumed, are scientists. Each one playing a role in the Great Disaster. What they were pointing to was a specific landmark on the map. It looked like a triangle, representing a mountain. One of the scientists was a man of average height with thick square lensed glasses. His hair was dark and was combed back with a thick gel that left a glossy appearance. He had a handsome face, yet was stern and showed little expression other than confusion and deep thought which made itself visible on his forehead. There was stuble on his neck and face that had started to grow only after a few days of shaving. This man was known as Dr. H.E. Macon.

He took a step back from the table and the map, stretched out his arm, and put his hand over his mouth and began rubbing his chin as if he was given the task of solving world hunger within the next twenty four hours. He did not speak a word. He simply stood in his own bubble of confusion and deep thought while the other scientists continued to point and move their hands around the map. There was no sound that came from the Hypercyscreen...only the images of the scientists at work. Finally, after around four minutes of separation from the rest of the group, Dr. Macon removed his hand from his chin and rejoined the others at the table. He slowly pulled out a piece of folded up paper from the pocket inside of his lab coat and gently unfolded it and placed it in the middle of the map. The other scientists gathered in closer to read what it was Dr. Macon had presented to them. One by one as each scientist finished reading the paper, they looked up with stares of disbelief and stood in silence.

Dr. Macon turned his back to the rest of the group, shed his lab coat and threw it on the ground in disgust. He then exited the room through a heavy wooden door and wasn't seen again on the Hypercyscreen. The other scientists stood with their mouths agape. Finally, one by one each one exited the room through the same door Dr. Macon had and turned out the lights, leaving the map and the unfolded piece of paper on the table. Suddenly, the screen of the Hypercyscreen went black and after thirty seconds of nothing but a blank screen, it began to play the same scene of the scientists from the very beginning all over again. This cycle went on for years and years, sitting in a room that had been used for video and voice recording purposes. No one would know it was still sitting on a shelf that had begun to rust and grow a thick layer of black mold from the leaky roof due to the fire that ravaged the facility some fifty years prior. No one would know it was still sitting on an old, rusty shelf...until one day, the door leading to the room was pushed open with a great force and in stepped three individuals dressed from head to toe in black.

The Hypercyscreen was brutally snatched from its position and the shelf came crashing down, making a horrid sound that echoed throughout the entire building. "Alright, we've got what we need. Let's get out of here before they come back." As all of the people in black ran out of the room with their boots stomping loudly on the tile floors, one of them took a steel bar and smashed the door stoppers, making it close tightly where it could never be opened again, save for an explosion.