A Breath of Fresh Air: My XPRIZE Seat 14C Story

In 2017, XPRIZE held a short story competition called Seat 14C. I submitted the following, titled A Breath of Fresh Air. Although I didn’t win the competition, I still wanted to share my ideas for an optimistic future both here and on my blog.

If you’d like to read the competition’s story prompt as well as the winning submissions, you can find them at the Seat 14C website. While you don’t have to read the prompt to appreciate mine or the others’ stories, you might enjoy reading the winning story as well as the runner-ups.

Anywhooo… here it is:

My stomach lurches. A tremor of disquiet, felt more than seen or heard, ripples through the cabin. Passengers shift in their seats, confused murmurs buzz like disturbed bees.

Something has happened.

This isn’t San Francisco. I rationalize — We’ve already landed. We can’t crash to our deaths if we’re not in the air. No reason to panic.

Have we landed in a field? Overgrown ruins in the South Pacific? There is water on one side of the plane, something else on the other. Jade, lime, and emerald towers enclose the field.

I lean into the aisle, watching the captain exit the cockpit. Muffled conversation stirs the air. I catch the eye of the woman in seat 14E. She shrugs, perplexed. In her British accent, she says, “I did think it odd we’d been circling for so long. But I couldn’t see out the window very well.”

“I’d been sleeping,” I reply.

A crackle erupts overhead, “This is your captain speaking. We were forced to make an emergency landing. Please remain in your seats while we work to resolve the situation. I assure you that as soon as possible, you will be able to deplane.”

The crowd’s uproar surges and then settles into a steady, fuming black cloud. We wait. Hours pass. The captain and most of the crew have long since left, met by a uniformed crew on the ground and carted away. Soon, we’re told we can also leave the plane. A bus will shuttle us to the correct terminal. I’m relieved but my fear and frustration do not wane.

I step down the mobile stairway. My hand shrinks away from the banister. It feels strange and looks like no material I’ve seen before. I step into the field and stare down. I’m not standing on grass. A hard, vibrant green asphalt serves as a runway. Within it are tiny capillary-like tendrils, like jellyfish tentacles in amber.

“Ma’am, the bus is that way.” A tall man points, commanding us in an American accent. We’re surrounded by people in uniform, their eyes wide, brows knit. The palpable tension intensifies between the passengers and the black-clothed officials. They stare at us as if we’re Martians.

Wheels like spider webs weaved from fat pipes carry the bus. Its walls are of the same mysterious material as the stairway, its windows neither glass nor plastic. I sit and find the seat more comfortable than my first class spot on the plane.

The bus begins moving without a driver. The officials have to calm the crowd. We are all on edge and self-driving shuttles don’t help.

Someone asks one of the officials, “Is this a military base?”

“There’s been a navigation error, it will all be explained in the terminal.” She points out the window of the bus. I don’t like her tone — fear and shock. Bile rises in my belly.

My eyes follow the direction of the woman’s outstretched index finger. A mass of organic shapes forms structures the color of the “runway”. It’s one of the jade towers I’d seen earlier. That is the terminal?

I dare a glance over my shoulder toward the plane. Crews with trucks surround both engines, spraying a thick substance over them. Soon, they encase the engines and the tires in foam. I’m too afraid to ask why.

We enter the terminal. Some of the passengers ask again where we are, but no one will answer.

“Is anyone thirsty? Would anyone like something to eat?” One of the officials is ushering us into a small room. Rows of chairs face a wall of floor to ceiling windows. I sit and take in the sprawling runway before me, the distant ocean on the horizon.

Many accept food and water, but I don’t. These people in uniform are afraid of us. I don’t trust them.

The man fills small, blue cups from a faucet in the hall and hands them out. I watch closely as the passengers drink and take their seats. No one passes out, no poison chokes their lives away. I relax a hair’s breadth.

The man now stands before us and clears his throat, “I know you all have a lot of questions, but please wait until I’m finished explaining before asking them. We’ll tell you everything in due time.” He clasps his hands and looks at his feet, perhaps deciding where to start. “First off, my name is Jonathan Thompson, I’m with the Federal Aviation Administration and -”

“When are we leaving for San Francisco?” A man shouts. I recognize him — the belligerent schmuck from seat 13A. He’d drunk champagne all night and yelled at a TV show on his phone.

His disruption butterflies another uproar through the crowd. “What is this place? Why can’t we fly to San Francisco?” They ask. I lean back in my chair, staring at the ceiling. Rays of sunlight shine through tiny windows scattered like stars across the vaults — a cathedral carved in clay.

“Please. Please! I’ll explain it all!” His face flushes. The thunder of panicked shrieks heeds no one. He whistles between two fingers, squelching the storm. “This is San Francisco! This is the year 2037!”

The room is as quiet as a church until my laughter echoes across the starry vaults. “Yeah right. And when do you erase our memories with the pen in your pocket?” I am terrified, but I laugh. Not because I am brave, but because I can’t face the black hole eating away at my stomach.

The man ignores me, “Now, we’re still trying to determine exactly what happened to ANA Flight 008, to you. All of you. The best we can guess is your plane passed through a rift in the space-time continuum.”

The disease of true, deep panic begins to spread, digging its black claws into each of us. This is beyond our schedules and pathetic worries and our expectations for this day. It is beyond comprehension. I remember the foam encasing our plane’s engines. What if we were contaminated by something? What if time travel will cause our bodies to slowly decay? How in the hell am I even thinking about time travel right now?

We’re all escorted to separate rooms by people from the NSA. Inside, my escort introduces me to my assigned psychologist, Frederick. I’m told I am here to receive a medical examination. After this, I’ll be sent to housing. I don’t question aloud, Internment camps? In due time I’ll be permitted to contact my loved ones. I don’t protest.

Frederick hands me a small device, “This is a health diagnostic system, it is going to run some tests and provide a health report.”

“You mean it’s going to see if I’m lit up like a nuclear Christmas tree.” It is not a question. We all know the name of the elephant in the room.

Frederick shifts uncomfortably in his chair. “Please place your finger there, it will need to sample your blood. Shouldn’t hurt.”

It doesn’t hurt. The device also takes my temperature and instructs me to place it at various points over my body. Why does it need to smell my breath?

“It’s going to supply a report now,” Frederick says as he takes it out of my hand.

We wait. No one speaks.

“Good news, no radiation.” he is smiling, trying to be funny. I don’t laugh. He clears his throat, “Strong vitals. Looks like… Oh.”

“Oh?” My voice fissures. The escort from the NSA continues looking at the wall. She is a cold statue and I hate her.

“Don’t be alarmed, there’s been a significant advancement in technology since your… um, year. But you have early stage breast cancer. Again, don’t be afraid. The survival rate is over ninety-nine percent. And far better when it is caught early like this. Other than that, you are perfectly healthy.”

“Other than the fact that I’m dying of cancer, I’m totally healthy? Fantastic. How do you even know? You’re a shrink, not a doctor.” My voice cuts like glass. This is the worse news I’ve heard today — graver than being ripped from 2017.

“I’ll make sure you see a medical doctor. I would say whatever happened to bring your plane here today may have saved your life.”

“Or gave me cancer.”

He had already considered the possibility — Frederick is an atrocious actor. “We’ll have to look at the other passengers’ results before we can form any meaningful hypotheses.”

Frederick provides me a psychological evaluation. It is useless. I can do nothing more than stare at the wall, nod, or shake my head. Now there are two lifeless statues in this room. Frederick gives up and leaves for a time. When he returns, he says the other passengers don’t have cancer after all. Either I am a fluke or time traveling has saved my life. Another passenger, a man in his early thirties, was diagnosed with an extremely high likelihood of stroke. Frederick says the disappearance of Flight 008 saved two lives. He doesn’t mention the countless others it destroyed.

My treatment will be short. The doctors will come to my housing. They’ll inject me with a simple chemical which cancer cells consume in place of glucose. Simple. Effective. No nasty side effects.

Escorted, I’m loaded into a car driven by no one. My housing turns out to be an apartment. It’s another of the clay pot buildings, as I’d come to see them. My small entourage — a new psychologist and a guard from the NSA — ride with me on an elevator to the fifth floor. I gawk upward, through the elevator’s clear roof to the tiny square of blue sky above. I think I see a blue jay soar over the skylight.

“San Francisco is one of the first to adopt new technologies. Our city is almost completely independent of fossil fuels and is measurably reversing climate change.” Ana is showing me my new quarters now. I refuse to stop thinking of it as an internment cell.

I’d requested a different psychologist and had been assigned Ana. Frederick annoyed me, with his twitching fingers and averted eye contact. Ana is direct, honest. If she can’t answer my questions, she tells me so.

Ana shows me the kitchen. Herbs, strawberries, and spinach grow out of small terraces on the wall. I pluck a vibrant strawberry and pop it into my mouth.

“Dang!” I exclaim out loud, grabbing a handful more. I dispense water from a tap in the sink while Ana watches patiently. The water tastes pure, not chlorinated.

“The building harvests water from the atmosphere,” she explains.

We move into the living room. I ask, “How is San Fran reversing climate change? These green and brown things everywhere?”

“The green and brown things? You mean the buildings?” I recognize the San Francisco skyline — concrete, steel, and wood. Dispersed among the old architecture, like wildflowers in a field, are the green and brown sculptures. New buildings which look like the airport terminal and this apartment building.

Ana continues, “It’s really exciting, the rapid advancements that have been made. And I love to look at the social aspects, you know, given my profession. The technology is open source, you see. Many small, responsive startups have converted it into countless uses, including high rises as of this year.”

I sit down on the sky blue couch, sinking pleasantly into its cloud of cushions. “Wait, how about telling me what all the weird buildings are made of?”

Ana sits in the chair across from me, crossing her legs. “The buildings are bacterial colonies. Biofilms, if you will.”

Two days ago, I’d been a chemical engineer. Or was it twenty years ago? Whatever — in 2017. I know what a biofilm is — a slimy mass of bacteria, living in cooperation within a micro-city of extracellular material. Like the goo which grows on top of a pond.

“I’m familiar with biofilms, but not like… this.” I reach out and touch the wall behind me, it’s dry and hard.

“Yep. Of course. The biofilms forming your new home are genetically engineered. You see, the bacteria can be programmed, so to speak. Including forming a structure in the shape of a building and to produce a sort of… exoskeleton. Currently, there are tens of thousands of different species, all created for specific purposes.”

“My house is made of a giant city of genetically engineered bacteria?” I ask as if she’d just told me I’d sat in a giant pile of dog poo.

“Yes. And that couch is made of bacterial waste. And this coffee table between us, and the gas used by your stove over there.” Ana points into the kitchen. “You see, they can be engineered to produce materials and fuels too. Dead materials, is what we call these.” She knocks on the coffee table. “This house is a live material, an active bacterial colony.”

“Bacteria are living organisms. What do these eat?” I struggle to wrap my mind around this.

“Right. These houses require maintenance, like any other. They require sunlight and water. Nutrients are delivered via human waste and something we call painting. Buildings are painted once a year.”

I glance over her shoulder into the bathroom, a scowl on my lips. She laughs, “The sewer in San Francisco is being phased out. Same story for drinking water and the electric grid.”

I look up at the high ceilings and the soft, clean lines. It is lovely in here, despite being a crap-eating bug colony. “They’re beautiful.”

“It’s called modern bioarchitecture.”

We’re quiet for a long time while Ana waits for me to ask more questions. I stare out the window, biting my lip. “What’s going to happen to me, Ana?”

Ana’s face falls. “I honestly don’t know. I’ll tell you this, though. They wouldn’t be providing you medical treatment and housing if they intended any harm for you or the other passengers. You’re being called time travel refugees. As far as going back home, to the past, I don’t think anyone knows. A lot of smart people are working on this, even NASA and the private space companies. They want you all to get back home, and of course, crack the code for time travel.”

“What if I don’t want to go?”

She sits back in her chair and fumbles for a response, “Why not? What about your family? Friends?”

“I don’t have anyone, Ana, my parents are gone — both from cancer.” I had been dwelling on them since my diagnosis. Why couldn’t they have waited until 2037 to get sick? “I have a few friends here and there. I’m sure they are still around. I just quit my job because it wasn’t a good fit. I don’t have a great life. Didn’t, I mean. What I do have now, is a fresh start.”

“I would be willing to bet you’ll have a choice.”

I would beg them if I have to.

Ana promises she’ll return tomorrow before leaving me alone in the apartment. I spend hours poking around before losing interest. There is no television and my phone has long died. I can’t find an outlet anywhere. I look out the window.

The apartment has a nice view of the street below and the temptation is too strong to resist. Ana hadn’t told me not to leave, exactly. What’s the worse that could happen?

Once outside, I notice something is different, unexpected. I’d noticed it when I’d first step foot on the tarmac at SFO — the smell of the city. It’s like a small, seaside town. No smog, no garbage, no stench of a typical polluted city. Only pure, unadulterated fresh air.

I stand in the shade of a sycamore, watching in wonderment. Bicyclists and silent, electric cars glide past on the emerald street. Birds chirp overhead, pedestrians patter along. I inhale the fresh, earthy air deep into my lungs.

I start walking in no particular direction, curious and amused by every detail. Some people seem to be talking to no one. Ana had told me the smartphone had been replaced by artificial assistants. In jewelry or implanted in the body, these had become wallets, phones, internet browsers, and personal assistants.

I spot a coffee shop and decide to check it out. Other than the bioarchitecture, it is as cute, cozy, and comfortable as my favorite coffee place in 2017. I step up to the counter, hoping they’ll accept cash.

“Hey, I lost my… um, assistant this morning. Do you accept cash?”

The young man behind the register is thin, clean shaven and wears his hair glued into a strange coif. He arches an eyebrow. “Cash? Like dollar bills?”

Ugh, the only thing worse than a hipster is a hipster from the future.

“Yeah?” I cringe.

“Uh, no. Who even uses cash these days?”

“I’ll buy her drink,” says a man behind me.

I spin around. Standing above me is one of the officials I’d seen at the airport today.

“Are you supposed to be out by yourself?” He whispers.

“No one told me not to leave my cell,” I say with full volume before spinning around. “I’ll take a chai tea with… hemp milk. Light on the sweetener.”

“We don’t put sweetener in our chai tea.”

“Good.” I turn back towards the man behind me, speaking without hostility this time, “Thank you.”

He nods, orders his drink, and invites me to sit with him at a table by the window. His name is James. I sit across from him where I can people watch and smell the lavender growing from the wall.

“Nobody takes cash anymore. It kind of screams drug dealer when you try to pay for something in cash.”

“That’s extreme.”

“Times change.”

“You’re telling me?” I arch an eyebrow, my voice icy.

“Are you always this way or are you having a hard time adjusting to the new decade?” He’s amused.

I decline to answer. I sip my tea and look out the window. “I’m glad coffee shops haven’t changed. I could spend all day in my favorite one back home.”

“SF?”

“Yes. Why are you here? Don’t you work for the airport?”

“I work for the FAA, for now. I’m on my way home.”

“For now?”

“I’ve been offered a position with Plymouth Rocket. I’m accepting.”

I laugh out loud. “Plymouth Rocket? Like the first rocket to land on… what? Mars?”

“Um, yeah, exactly. Actually to build the first colony on Mars.”

I stare, mouth agape.

James tells me how in five years, the company will send the first wave of colonists to the neighboring planet. There, they will carry on mining, improving the atmosphere, and building a city. James will manage the colony’s airport.

I am quiet while I absorb all of this. He switches subjects, “You’re almost famous. Did you know that? Possibly the biggest news story of this century.”

“What about news of the plane from 2017? Did ANA Flight 008 just vanish?”

“Yes. But can we re-write history? That’s the big question. A lot of people on your flight are devastated. So again, how are you holding up?”

I shrug, “Honestly, I’m just curious right now, James. I have so many questions! This has been exciting for me, for the most part. Other than the whole cancer thing.” I try not to wince, “And being told not to leave my cell.” I toss my hair, eyes blazing.

He laughs, “It’s not a cell! People want to help you, help all of the passengers.” He sips his tiny macchiato. “You don’t seem too concerned with returning to 2017?”

“Nope.”

“So… what? You start your life fresh?”

“Exactly. I was a chemical engineer before. I could get a master’s degree, bioengineering maybe? If that’s still what it’s called.”

“If you did, you may be able to land a position with Plymouth Rocket. Well, I’m not sure if it’s something you would be interested in, but it is an option.”

I stare at James, cupping my warm tea between both palms. “Uh, wow. Yeah, like hell yeah! Do you think the odds are good I could get the job?”

“I don’t know, but I can talk to someone if you’d like.”

“Yes. Definitely. Thank you!”

We’re silent a long time while the wheels in my head turn. I could go to Mars! Actually be a part of the first interplanetary human colony!

James breaks the silence. “I’d like to give you a tour of the city. We could rent bikes?”

“Okay.”

Not long after, I’m picking out a red beach cruiser. “Just like the old days,” I say.

“Who doesn’t love an antique?” He winks and grabs a matching bike.

Single file, we weave and bob through the streets of San Francisco. We fly by a colorful quilt of historic row houses, concrete relics, and biostructures.

“There’s less traffic!” I shout while we wait at a red light. I’m surprised to find the city no longer chaotic and choked.

He nods, “I can’t imagine commuting like you had to.”

“Me neither,” I smirk.

James narrates when we stop at viewpoints. He tells me how the world has changed. Globalization is now waning, sputtering out after running its course. The wealth it spread to far corners of the Earth brought global conflict, poverty, and hunger to the lowest levels in history. The new biotechnology is carrying its work much further. It has brought on what some call the post-electronics era.

James is optimistic in many regards but demoralized in others. “There are so many giant problems in the world.”

As he puts it, politicians are still garbage. Addiction shows no sign of disappearing. Murder and rape continue to haunt society. Ideological and religious conflict are still the primary sources of violence around the globe. So many of the social wounds tore open in past decades festered and became gangrenous, global infections.

We are on a hillside park looking out over the bay. James’ knuckles turn white as he digs his fingers into the bike’s handles, “Sometimes, I can’t stand it! Why do we even bother?” His neck reddens with anger.

I level my eyes with James, my voice tense, “Try looking at it through my eyes. Most of the biggest problems from twenty years ago have been solved. Don’t you see? We’ll keep moving forward. Humanity will always keep moving forward.”

His face softens and I see in him a feeling which has been growing within me for the past few hours. We look back out at the horizon. The jade-specked city twinkles as the setting sun’s shadows reach for unseen, distant places.

It’s still the same San Francisco I know and love. We can see the Golden Gate Bridge from here. Mist lingers on its towers. It is the ever-present symbol of this city. Old world meets new, old ideas birth new beginnings. The icon of beauty in change, of serendipitous growth.

I take a deep breath, excited for tomorrow.