Gene’s Genes Survive

The year was is 2310 AD. Genius Lempert, affectionately known as Genny, couldn't wait to get off work. All she could think of doing was to get home, relax in her spider chair, and use her Quantum Processing Device (QPD) to cruise the Galactic Web. Her QPD was the latest version and permitted her to visualize and communicate with unimaginable amounts of earthbound data and galactic applications. The GalWeb was the umpteenth evolution of what was centuries earlier known as the Internet. As early as 2100, the old internet was relegated to the junkyard of technology. Fortunately, data from the internet had been saved for access by future generations.

As with most people, Genny worked two weeks on and two weeks off. During her workweeks, she put in six-hour days. Normally, her work schedule gave her plenty of time to do things she really loved. Writing was at the top of the list. Somehow, she guessed it was in her genes.

Finally, it was time for her to go home. She just couldn't wait to get on the road in her adorable "Genny Green Cup" car. Gramp Gene, as she lovingly referred to her ancient relative, would have loved her cup car. Cups were the creation of car manufacturers to provide a small side-by-side seat for two people. No longer did the wasted weight and space of the once oversized conveyances consume energy sources needlessly. Cups were designed to be powered by the Mega Magnet strip that ran beneath all public roads. Once backed out of the driveway, all a driver needed to do was set the navigation to a destination and relax. The cup would travel to a local address or any other place on earth. Literarily! To move beyond a local address, it could connect to the "cup train" or "aero cup." Off planet, travel hadn’t been incorporated into the cup network yet but was being worked on. Travel to Mars, one of the most popular planets, by cup car was expected to happen by 2350.

Cup Car Model 2310 AD

Comes in Green or Pink

Another modern convenience Gramp Gene would have been impressed with was how Genny was able to perform her writing and record her thoughts. Ole-timy books and all paper-recording methods had been outdated since the mid-2100s. The 20th Century innovation of closed caption television was the beginning-of-the-end of paper. Even the rudimentary alphabet was replaced around 2150 by an innovation of Eric Strong. Eric realized there were only 171,476 characters in the Oxford standard dictionary. This easily allowed quantum mechanics to assign a unique code to each word. The almost unlimited capacity that quantum mechanics provided was more than adequate to assign a unique code to each individual word of every known language.

Genny enjoyed her Personal screen using the Galweb protocol of blinking her eyes or as everybody referred to the process, “ticking.” One could navigate around the GalWeb by a right-tick, left-tick, double-tick or a combination of ticks. In Gramp Gene's time, he had to physically "tap" a character to move about a physical display or as they called it a "computer screen." How utterly laborious could that be? Physical screens had been replaced with wearable glasses that provided users with views they needed to visualize the content of the Galweb.

Genny adored time traveling back to the era of her ancestors. Her friends loved time traveling into the future, which by now was a common practice. Looking forward was OK for some, but not for her. The past was her forte. She was eternally thankful to those who had made time travel possible, by recording their artful pieces on Blingbooks.Com.

Genny was a slim five-foot eight-inch woman. And a beauty she was! Even beyond most other women of her time. It was common to modify the fetus's DNA to yield many physical factors of the newborn. Manipulation of DNA over the centuries had resulted in all human skin being within a few shades of each other. Light tan had proven to be the most pleasing and acceptable to humans.

In Gramp Gene's era, skin color ranged from solid black to pure white, and many shades between. This resulted in one of the most controversial social dilemmas of the time: human discrimination, according to the color of one's skin. In the 24th Century, there was still discrimination, but it was based on economic conditions and other factors, such as aliens from outer space who had settled on earth. Rarely was skin color a factor. Oh, yes there were still a few purely black or white people. These were created by "owners" of a fetus who had elected to modify their off spring's DNA accordingly.

Not only medical technology would have been strange to Gramp Gene, but also the profession of writing had vastly changed. The latest advancements brought with them a vernacular that would be foreign to most. Thanks to his association with colleagues at the Virginia Beach Writers, he knew the next few generations would bring things unrecognizable to the present civilization. One of Gene’s fellow members, Ron Hudson, seemed to be on the edge of technology. Ron had already developed and maintained several internet web sites, one of which he called, BlingBooks.Com.

BlingBooks.Com was an old-fashioned web site for selling ebooks. In 2019, ebooks had already begun to replace paper books. A few innovative thinkers of the time predicted that one-day eBooks would replace all paper. As always, there were doubters. Ron Hudson wasn’t one of them. He knew it would happen and encouraged his fellow writers to store their products on Blingbooks.Com. Gene Lempert was one of the few who took Ron’s radical advice.

Contrary to Gene, most of the Virginia Beach Writers hoarded their cherished and laborious creations, printed them on paper and stored away in trunks, along with old letters and other memorabilia. They were content to feel that maybe their great-grandchildren would someday enjoy their creations. A few had visions beyond a few generations. They knew their hard work and creativity would live in infamy when they put it on Blingbooks.com. Of course, many didn't write for the posterity anyway, but simply for self-enlightenment.

As Genny relaxed and viewed the antiquated Blingbooks.Com web site, she "Right ticked" to the "SHORTS" link. There she saw many articles on humor. These old guys and gals seemed to have a penchant for humor. Then she reflected...not much humor in today's culture...all we hear is how to reach the next unknown star in our universe or who has just discovered a new cosmos. Yes, it seemed that humor had been overcome by war, natural catastrophes, intergalactic conflict, alien invasion, and other unimaginable horrors among the human races.

What a rewarding time Gramp Gene and his peers must have lived in! Creating prose...and recording it for future generations. What more could a humanoid want?