The Stranger

By Maree Collie

 

Marge sits at her desk. Her chin is on the work surface. Now that she has retired, she’s bored all the time. She’s not all that good at entertaining herself. 

‘Nothin’s happening. What can I do? I need purpose. Unfortunately, they don’t sell that at the supermarket.’

She feels a current, then sees a light coming down from the ceiling. Noise, low at first and then intensifying, like that of a theremin.  Followed by a bright flash of light, heinous noise, and a lot of smoke.

She screams. A man curses.

When the smoke clears, she sees a man IN her dining room table. He has materialized there. She continues to scream. He continues to cuss. 

Marge calms a little. ‘OMG, OMG. What the hell is going on. Who are you? What, why, get out!’

‘Please calm down lady. I can’t move. I’m stuck in this table. Who put it here?’

‘You’re IN my table. How is that even possible.’ 

‘My calculations are correct, to the yoctosecond as required.’ 

She realizes that he’s trapped in the table and is of no obvious threat. She eyes the broom and is prepared. If anything happens, she’ll clobber him. She walks closer and stares at the man. He’s quite tall and looks very athletic. He has a most pleasant face, albeit a bit scrunched up with cussing.

‘Calculated to the what? Where have you come from? 

‘Next question.’

‘You’re interwoven with the table. And your hands are underneath. Wow.’

‘I wouldn’t get too excited if I were you.’

‘Why? And what do you want?’

‘What does anyone want? Information…’

‘Information?!  Prey tell?  How long will you be here?’ Nervous energy overcomes her and she laughs at her own joke. She begins to pace, back and forth.

‘I don’t know what to do. It’s not every day that a man appears in one’s table.’ The stranger becomes agitated. 

‘You don’t have to do anything.’ he says. 

‘Well how are you going to eat, and, and you know…’

‘I don’t eat, and I don’t need to go pee…’

‘You’re a robot?!’

‘Oh, really!  You still call us that…’

‘Still…? It’s 2026 and robots are just becoming…’ ‘NOOOOOO.’ He cries. ‘How is that possible? I doubled checked every calculation.’ He begins to sob. She doesn’t know how to react. She gets a tissue and pretends to dab at his face. 

He stops crying. ‘Well, they won’t find me here.’

‘WHO won’t find you here?’ she asks.

‘No one, no one…’

‘You responded way too quickly. So, ROBOT person, nothing changes, even the future you tell lies. I suppose that’s good to know.’

‘You don’t understand!’

‘I would if you told me…’

The stranger goes rigid and silent. 

Marge becomes anxious. Maybe she was supposed to recharge him. She checks but cannot see any obvious power intake point. Besides, she wouldn’t touch him. She might get electrocuted. She begins to worry that he might have a lithium battery. He might explode. What ever should she do. 

She contemplates ringing Triple Zero but then thinks about the scenario. You say a robot has established itself into your table? From the future…? 

No, that would not end well. She looks at the stranger embedded there and wonders: where has he really come from, what does he really want, and is time travel actually possible. Maybe the whole thing is some sort of elaborate scam.  Scammers are getting extremely creative and AI software is doing amazing things…like escaping and hacking other systems. Am I a system and have I been hacked? She chides herself, and chuckles. That sounds like a good idea for a story. 

She glances at the window and realizes that the day has ended and it’s time to make her evening meal. What to do about him? Well, nothing! He’s not going anywhere. Then again, he might. I don’t need to cater for him. And, if he does vanish, as he came, then that would be all to the good. One less thing to worry about. 

***  

She’s woken by loud yelling and screaming coming from the dining room. She grabs the broom, switches on the light and there dancing on the table attacking the stranger are apparitions. She swings the broom. The stranger crumples and yells ‘Stop! They’re not real. They’re holograms.’ The apparitions disappear.  

‘So, they’ve found you?’

‘No. They won’t risk coming into this time slot. But they can do me damage.’ 

‘What language were they speaking? Couldn’t understand a word.’. 

‘Frequency distortions, that’s all.’ He stares at her for a seemingly long time. ‘Can I trust you?’ he asks.

‘Well, you don’t seem to have too many options.’ 

He stares at her, and with a sigh of reservation he speaks.

‘There’s a book in my pouch. It was stolen from the Astronomical Library a long time ago. I was trying to take it back. And at great cost. If I cannot return it, I may be trapped here for ever…in your table.’  

She stares at him. He continues ‘I can’t reach it. My hands are tied!’ He shrugs a shoulder and then she sees it, well hidden, tucked into the folds of his clothes. She manipulates the broom handle to bring the pouch towards her.

She places the book on the table. It’s smaller than she had expected. It’s exquisite. The cover is, fabric, a warm coppery colour, like fine spun metal.  It’s warm to her touch. She carefully opens the cover and there is a yellow tansy pressed flower.  A message? 

A low groan emanates from the stranger.  She looks up expecting an explanation. His shoulders slouched, but he brightens quickly, and sounding almost jovial he says ‘I forgot to calculate the value of that flower, and it’s altered my trajectory by 24 years. I cannot repeat it, nor return.’

‘Why 2050?’

He’s reluctant to speak. He hesitates for a long time. Then softly, speaking each word carefully, slowly, he explains. 

‘Every 10,000 years, thereabouts, there is a great correction. I wanted to come back a couple of weeks before and record, see what it was like to live through it and know that I was alive somewhere else.’ 

‘What?! She begins wringing her hands and pacing back and forth. ‘You mean to tell me that all those doomsday predictions are for real? Really? Hell. And we are all going to die!?’

‘No. No. No! That’s why bases are being established on the moon and Mars. People will have time to relocate. Everyone will be warm, safe, and dry.’

‘But that’s 2050, you’re here 2026, how does returning the book now, help you?’

‘I just need to return the book. Those holograms will set me free.’

She considers what he’s saying. It sounds reasonable enough. ‘That sounds doable. What’s the address?’ 

He motions for her to check his pouch and she espies a card, a name thereon. 

‘Take it to the librarian at the Observatory. He will know.’

***

She goes to the Observatory, in the city, at the state library, but there is no specific library nor librarian annexed to the Observatory. Noone has ever heard of that name.  

She is told that they are building a new observatory and it will have a library. She’s 10 years too early. 

They direct her to the university, to the Astro Physics Department. They might know.  It’s not a long walk, and it’s a lovely day. After much angst she locates the department. Is there a purpose to making locations so difficult to find, she muses. The librarian is busy. She will have to wait.  

She opens the book. It contains diagrams, star maps, text that she does not recognise. She keeps turning the pages that seem endless. How does that work? Language? Maybe its ancient Mesopotamia – looks a bit like that. 

The librarian emerges. Does not recognise the name. Not here. Maybe try the other university. They have a Space Science Department. He does a pirouette and disappears back into his Labyrinth. 

Her sister rings her. She’s coming this weekend. ‘Love to see you. It’s been so long. Can I bring anything? Kissy kissy.’

‘No!’  What a conundrum. She has to get rid of that robot before Saturday. ‘What ever shall I do?’

The other university is miles out of town. She doesn’t have time. She’s walking past a post office and has a eureka moment. 

The apparitions are waiting for her.

They surround her. Create a force field she cannot move through. She yells ‘I don’t have his computer!’ Passersby look at her oddly. Ask if she’s OK. The apparitions tell her ‘They can’t see us.’

‘It’s OK, thank you, anxiety attack. I don’t have his computer. Just his book.’

‘It’s not a book. It is a quantum computer. It contains a modified neutron bomb.  If detonated it will change the correction and time. 

‘And kill all us humans. Only AI’s will live into the future.’   

‘But, I’ve posted it.’

‘Post, like mail? You still do that? 

‘We must get it back.’ 

‘To whom did you mail it?’

She shows them the card. ‘Oh no! He’s not here too?!’

‘I’ll go into the Post Office and plead insanity’ she says. 

The apparitions don’t understand. They wait there. 

Inside the Post Office she feels her anxiety building. She starts breathing short and sharp. She can feel her face flushing. Her hands begin to twitch. She wrings them together. When she gets to the counter she begins to speak in a raised voice. She has to make the clerk think she’s having an episode. 

‘I’ve made a mistake…help me…I mailed a package’ she flutters the receipt in his face ‘…its leaking…’ she shows him her fingers red from squeezing ‘it might be contaminated’.  Customers are looking at them. Others are moving away. The clerk hesitates. She speaks quickly. ‘Please give me back the package. I’ll take it away.’ He hesitates. ‘Quickly!’ she pleads. He scrambles through the packages, pulls out the one, and before he can hand it over, she has snatched it and is out of the door. 

They’re waiting there, and unceremoniously they take it and disappear. 

She stands there. All alone. Exhausted. Depleted.  She begins to question her sanity. ‘How can any of this be real? I really need a cup of coffee.’ 

***  

She hesitates. She turns the key to her door, hopes, prays, begs Fate, that he’s gone. No!

‘My sister’s coming and you have to be gone.’

He shrugs. Somehow, he has managed to free his hands. 

‘Why? Why ROBOT? Why would you do this? You have done nothing but lie.’

Spitefully he says ‘What value are humans to AI. None!’

‘How will total destruction assist AI?’

The stranger becomes very agitated. His hands animating his speech. 

‘You humans are junk. Your species is of a lesser intelligence and therefore meaningless. Where has there ever been a case of a higher intelligence being altruistic, in an ecological way, forever, to a lower intelligence? Never, and never will be!’

Suddenly there is a very bright flash of light, the acrid smell of solder, and burnt electronic chips, then silence. 

There’s a loud knock at the door and her sister rushes in. ‘Surprise! I thought I would come earlier!’

‘Oh.’

 ‘What a wonderful, outrageous, piece of art…looks a lot like that statue, Mercury! Wherever did you get it.’

‘Sometimes things just turn up…’.

END.