Hello there, my name is Kai.

If you are lost, I can show you the way.

Technology may yet save us.

Listen and you will see.

The story is Collapse, written by Nancy Cress, performed by Alfred Molina.

008 is brought to you in partnership with X-Prize.

At 458 AM on June 28, 2020, the passengers on board A&A Flight 008, on route from Tokyo to San Francisco,

are cruising at an altitude of 37,000 feet, approximately 1500 nautical miles off the west coast of the United States.

A small bump, otherwise noted as a barely perceptible bout of turbulence, passes flight 008 through a temporary wrinkle in the local region of spacetime.

What these passengers will soon find out, as they descend into SFO, is that the wrinkle has transported them 20 years into the future.

And the year is now 2040.

This is the story of the passenger in seat 12C.

Matthew McAllister, rigid in seat 12C, watched SFO security personnel work their way down the aisles of A&A Flight 008, Tokyo to San Francisco.

Security looked as baffled and frightened as the passengers, but hid it better.

There the resemblance ended. Security didn't even resemble their A&A counterparts on the flight, pilots and attendants.

They wore different uniforms in different colors. Fuchsia? Really?

And two of the men had hair shaved in fanciful swirls, with scouts dyed to match their uniforms.

They held long slim ones, placed parallel to each passenger's face.

Get away from me! The woman in 11C screamed.

She shoved the man with the wand, who said only, sorry man, I finished now and moved on.

When it was his turn, McAllister said quietly, camera.

Maybe it was McAllister's quietness or his expensive suit or the friendliness he injected into his voice.

...