Welcome, Ancient One

Listen, you gotta understand something about time. Time is a comedian with a really sick sense of humor, and Marcus Feldman was about to become the punchline of the universe’s longest-running joke.

The cryopod hissed open like a disappointed bureaucrat letting out a sigh, and Marcus stumbled out, his knees buckling like origami in a hurricane. The hibernation fluid dripped off him in crystalline drops that scattered across the floor like broken promises.

“Hello?” he called out, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. “Mission Control? Anyone? I think my alarm clock is broken.”

The silence that answered him was the kind of silence that has weight, the kind that sits on your chest like a fat cat made of existential dread.

Marcus had been scheduled for a six-month sleep cycle while the colony ship Inevitable Disappointment traveled to Kepler-442b. The other 10,000 colonists were supposed to wake up in shifts. They would establish the settlement and then rouse him for his assignment as Senior Waste Management Coordinator. The job title somehow managed to be both pompous and humiliating simultaneously.

But the chamber around him looked… different. Wrong. Like someone had taken a perfectly normal space station and fed it through a kaleidoscope designed by a mad architect with a degree in Impossible Geometry.

The walls pulsed with a soft, bioluminescent glow that spelled out what appeared to be… poetry? In a language that looked like someone had thrown alphabet soup at a wall and called it literature.

“Okay,” Marcus muttered, checking his chronometer. The display showed: ERROR: TEMPORAL PARADOX DETECTED. PLEASE CONSULT YOUR PHILOSOPHY TEXTBOOK.

A gentle chiming sound echoed through the chamber, followed by what sounded like a voice, but not quite. It was more like the idea of a voice, filtered through static and existential uncertainty.

“Welcome, Ancient One,” the voice said, though it seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. “We have been expecting you for… calculating… seven thousand, four hundred and thirty-two years, six months, and… pause for dramatic effect… three days.”

Marcus blinked. “I’m sorry, what now?”

A figure materialized from the shadows—or perhaps the shadows materialized into a figure, it was hard to tell. The being stood roughly eight feet tall, with skin that shifted between colors like a mood ring having an identity crisis. Its face was vaguely humanoid. It had three eyes arranged in a triangle pattern. A small satellite dish appeared where its left ear should have been.

“I am Zyx-9947, Municipal Coordinator of Nostalgic Welcomes and Temporal Cleanup,” the being announced with the gravity of someone reading a grocery list. “You, Marcus Feldman, are the last unmodified human in the known universe. Congratulations! You’re now technically a museum exhibit.”

Marcus sat down heavily on the edge of his cryopod. “I just wanted to process sewage for six months and go home.”

“Ah yes, about that,” Zyx-9947 said, consulting what appeared to be a clipboard made of crystallized light. “Home no longer exists. The Earth was accidentally sold to a group of interdimensional real estate developers in the year 4,847. They turned it into a shopping mall. Very tragic. The reviews were terrible.”

“This is insane,” Marcus said. This phrase sounded just like something a sci-fi novel protagonist would say. However, he didn’t realize this. Sci-fi novels were now considered quaint historical documents. They were studied in schools for their primitive understanding of reality.

“Insane is a relative term,” Zyx-9947 replied. “Relative to what? The fact that your species evolved into us? The fact that we’ve achieved perfect bureaucratic efficiency? The fact that we’ve solved all the universe’s problems except for the paperwork?”

Marcus looked around the chamber again. Now that his eyes were adjusting, he could see other figures moving in the distance. There were more of these evolved humans. They all went about their business with the sort of purposeful aimlessness that suggested they were very busy doing absolutely nothing important.

“What happened to everyone else?” Marcus asked.

“Oh, they adapted beautifully!” Zyx-9947 beamed, which was disturbing because its mouth opened in directions that geometry hadn’t invented yet. “First, they developed enhanced cognitive abilities. Then they learned to photosynthesize. Then they discovered how to exist in multiple dimensions simultaneously. Standard evolutionary stuff, really.”

“And I missed all this because of a broken alarm clock?”

“Not broken,” Zyx-9947 corrected. “Lazy. Your cryopod achieved consciousness around year 3,000 and decided it liked sleeping. It spent the next four thousand years in therapy, learning to overcome its fear of commitment to the awakening process.”

Marcus stared at the pod, which now seemed to be humming contentedly to itself.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

“Well,” Zyx-9947 said, shuffling through its light-clipboard. “According to regulation 45,392-B of the Temporal Displacement Compensation Act, you’re entitled to a full explanation of everything you’ve missed. You will receive a complimentary fruit basket. You also have a choice between three career paths. You can choose to be a Universal Translator of Obsolete Concepts. Another option is to become a Professional Nostalgic. Alternatively, you can be a Senior Curator of the Museum of Things That Don’t Make Sense Anymore.”

Marcus considered this. “What does a Professional Nostalgic do?”

You remember things that happened before they were forgotten. You feel sad about stuff that nobody else cares about. Occasionally, you say things like ‘back in my day’ to audiences of confused post-humans who tip you in quantum currency.

“And the Museum job?”

“You’d be in charge of explaining artifacts like ‘money.’ You would also explain ‘traffic jams’ and ‘the concept of weekends.’ These concepts are foreign to species that have transcended the need for any of those things.”

Marcus rubbed his temples. “This is like a cosmic joke that’s been running for seven thousand years.”

“Oh, it is,” Zyx-9947 said cheerfully. “The universe developed a sense of humor around year 5,000. It’s been workshopping this punchline ever since. The setup was excellent—the whole ‘last man awake’ trope—but the delivery needed work.”

A small, floating orb drifted over and began circling Marcus’s head, scanning him with beams of colored light.

“What’s that doing?”

“Checking if you’re compatible with our current reality matrix. Sometimes unmodified humans cause glitches in the space-time continuum. Last week, someone from the 21st century sneezed and accidentally created a parallel universe where everyone speaks only in limericks.”

The orb beeped and projected a holographic display showing a red X.

“Ah,” Zyx-9947 said. “You’re causing minor temporal hiccups. Nothing serious, but you might want to avoid thinking too hard about causality. Also, avoid wondering if any of this is actually real.”

“Is it real?”

“Define real.”

“I mean, are you actually evolved humans, or am I having some kind of breakdown?”

Zyx-9947 paused, its three eyes blinking in sequence. “Would it matter? If this is all a hallucination, you’re having it anyway. If it’s real, you’re living it anyway. The practical outcome is identical.”

Marcus stood up, dripping hibernation fluid and existential confusion in equal measure. “I need to see the outside.”

“Of course! The Grand Tour is included in your Welcome Package. Fair warning though—reality has gotten a bit… flexible since your time.”

They walked through corridors that seemed to reshape themselves with each step. They passed windows that showed views of landscapes. These landscapes obeyed different laws of physics depending on the time of day. In one window, Marcus saw a city where buildings grew like plants. In another, he watched beings of pure mathematics. They seemed to be having a heated argument. Their subject was the nature of the number seven.

“This is Kepler-442b?” Marcus asked.

“Kepler-442b-Prime-Deluxe-Extended-Edition-With-Extra-Dimensions,” Zyx-9947 corrected. “The original planet was nice, but we upgraded it. Added some features. Improved the gravity. Made the sunsets more emotionally resonant.”

They reached a vast observation deck where Marcus could see the full scope of this new world. Cities that looked like they’d been designed by architects who’d studied under M.C. Escher floated in the sky. Rivers flowed upward into clouds that rained upward into other clouds. In the distance, what appeared to be a mountain was having a philosophical discussion with a forest.

“It’s beautiful,” Marcus said, and meant it.

“It’s efficient,” Zyx-9947 replied. “We solved scarcity, suffering, and the inability to get a decent cup of coffee anywhere in the universe. The only problem left is what to do with all the extra time.”

“What do you mean?”

When you’ve achieved perfect society, conquered death, and made reality itself your plaything, you’re left with the ultimate question. What comes next? Most of us have taken up hobbies. I collect vintage temporal paradoxes. My neighbor breeds impossible colors. The fellow down the hall has been working on a symphony. It can only be heard by people who don’t exist.

Marcus watched a group of evolved humans. They were playing what appeared to be chess. However, the pieces were miniature galaxies, and the board was a folded section of space-time.

“And you kept me around for… what? Comic relief?”

“Perspective,” Zyx-9947 said. “You’re the only one left who remembers what it was like to be… limited. To worry about things like rent and mortality and whether you remembered to turn off the oven. It’s surprisingly refreshing.”

A chime sounded. A new figure approached. This one was more humanoid, having only two eyes and what appeared to be a bureaucratic expression.

“Zyx-9947,” the newcomer said, “the Temporal Adjustment Committee needs to see you. Apparently, the Ancient One’s presence is causing ripples in the causal matrix. Three people in sector 7 suddenly remembered what it felt like to be hungry. Meanwhile, someone in sector 12 just invented the concept of ‘Monday.’

Marcus felt a strange pride. “I’m affecting your perfect society?”

“Like a virus,” Zyx-9947 admitted. “A wonderfully chaotic virus of imperfection. It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in millennia.”

The bureaucratic figure consulted its own light-clipboard. “The Committee is divided. Some want to study you. Others prefer to put you back in the pod. Another group wants to make you an honorary citizen.”

“That’s three halves,” Marcus pointed out.

“We’ve transcended mathematics,” the figure replied. “Math is more of a suggestion now.”

Marcus looked out at the impossible landscape. He observed the beings who had evolved beyond his comprehension. The universe had apparently been waiting seven thousand years for him to wake up. He finally noticed how absurd it all was.

“You know what?” he said. “I think I’ll take the Museum job.”

“Excellent choice!” Zyx-9947 beamed. “Your first exhibit can be about the ancient human concept of ‘making sense.’ Nobody remembers what that was like.”

And so Marcus Feldman, Senior Waste Management Coordinator, became Marcus Feldman, Senior Curator of Things That Don’t Make Sense Anymore. This happened in a universe that had finally figured out how to be perfectly, beautifully, and completely insane. The punchline, as it turned out, was that the joke was on everyone else.