Ru
En

Before: A short story series. Part 1.

Notes from the future about the technologies of the emerging civilization.
The work on the first ten stories of the ‘Before’ series—Notes from the future about the technologies of an emerging civilization is finished.
The stories describe events taking place about 100-150 years later on, in the second half of the twenty-second century. Actions unfold in different countries around the world and not only on Earth—in Russia, the USA, Japan, Germany, Luxembourg…, on the Earth Orbital international space station and on the Moon (the Earth satellite). The heroes of the stories often draw parallels with the past, that is, with the way we live today at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

All the stories are available for reading either on the website or for download in ePub format:
Works ...>>
Before: Destiny.
“The secret for me to share with the world is simple: we ourselves are responsible for our destinies, we ourselves choose a path to follow. The wisdom of gathered knowledge is a priceless energy, which everyone can obtain and use for others’ sake.” The barbarians did not believe Mr Fuji, they thought he was deceiving them, as the secret he had just told was absolutely worthless, had no profit, and there was no-one it could be sold to. They left the free wanderer alone without food or water in a deep well and told him, “When you can fill this hole with your stories in such a way that your so-called priceless energy of life would lift you up to the ground, only then would you become free. Or else you can tell us the truth and uncover the secrets you are currently keeping—then we will set you free.”
Read
Before: Journey.
‘A gift for you. A small souvenir from America.’
‘Wow! We love some surprises,’ Susan shook the box. ‘What is it there? Tell me!?’
‘Open it and have a look.’
‘Well, okay, then’, the friend started tearing up the package.
Having dealt with the box finally, Susan almost screamed.
‘Ah-ah! isn’t it charming! Oh my God! What a beauty!’
‘Quiet, please! We’re going to be fired straight away!’ hushed her Elena.
‘Not both of us together! Someone has to do the job! Ah? That’s it!’ reasonably objected Susan, carefully examining a small bell.
Read
Before: Politics.
‘The Parliament is very beautiful and certainly grand, my dear friend. It’s very kind of you to invite us here for tea.’ Heng nodded, smiling slightly, confirming with a gesture his readiness to carry on a dialogue. His thick and grey hair stood out unruly and a little funny on his head. Both Heng and the young girl accompanying him were dressed in formal business suits. Moreover, it seems that they’ve bought them quite recently, they were new.’
Read
Before: Weather.
‘The peaks of the snow-capped mountains, bathed in the pink sunset light, framed the perimeter behind the houses, safeguarding the homefront. The villagers could feel safe. It would not be easy to conquer the highest ridge on Earth unnoticed. The clouds, as if stuck on the rocky peaks, were hiding the exact indicator of the inaccessible height, leaving the brave souls who miscalculated their strength, face-to-face with their fate.
Following the setting sun, the temperature was going down as well. Puddles on the road confirmed the coming cold spell with a thin film of ice covering them.’
Read
Before: The Moon.
‘For over an hour Lewis has been carefully studying information on the website of the New Horizons company, offering space travel services. Detailed video clips, the training program and the flight itself, the Lunar base visits program, cross-surface riding trips on the satellite, reviews by space tourists who had decided to travel—everything on the website of the travel agency was convincing you of the simplicity and affordability of space travel. Your dream is one step away from realization—just click the Buy button.’
Read
Before: Elections.
‘The election procedure itself was no more complicated than ordering a sandwich in the Food app on the communicator. The digital passport or otherwise Tracker was responsible for the unique authorization and identification of a citizen. Some people tried to fraud its operation, but, it should be noted, such efforts were not crowned with anything good for them.

The whole administrative system was working in a simple and straightforward way, as two times two makes four.’
Read
Before: Interview.
‘Thomas entered his little office that looked more like an aquarium: 2×3 metres, all made of glass, located in a corner of its floor. He was proud of his office and he would constantly boast it to all his friends and colleagues. Corner offices were reserved for the most important and valuable publishing house employees, those who had been working with Bild for more than ten years. Surely there were exceptions to this: a number of shallow romantic intrigues, a couple of bosses’ relatives, one or two protégés of significant sponsors, and other eternal signs of social injustice. But that was not Thomas’ case: he had achieved everything by his own merit.’
Read
Before: The Red Button.
‘It would be safe to assume that bearing the functions of the tracker so critical for a person, the counterpart of the PAX system, responsible for identification and interaction with a person, has to be reliable as a must. For a smooth functioning of the system with a high degree of probability, close to 100%, any built-in scanning system even for the least critical public infrastructure at the very least has a double for back-up. And in critical applications, for example, in automatic control systems of a high-speed mainline shuttle, the system has a four-fold redundancy.’
Read
Before: Taxi.
‘The capsule was just following a taxi with a pronounced orange stripe in the middle of the car. Speeding up, the cars descended into the tunnel leading towards the capital, where the main transport hub of Luxembourg was located. A minute later, the capsule joined the traffic flow and was already rushing along the main highway at the speed of 350 km/h in the leftmost lane, where there was no speed limit.’
Read
Before: The Pill.
‘A proud and peaceful view of majestic mountain peaks, veiled with sparkling snow, a little prickly sun, piercingly deaf silence and the air that is not to be confused with any other, clean and without a pronounced smell. Such remote places were chosen for the construction of specialized clinics. Nothing should disturb the peace and privacy of patients. No casual tourists would suddenly happen to wander into the protected area, constantly patrolled by private security detachments to guarantee the safety of guests.’
Read
Back to top