The Light of Other Days

Part 1: THE GOLDFISH BOWL PROLOGUE
Bobby could see the Earth, complete and serene, within its cage of silver light.

Fingers of green and blue pushed into the new deserts of Asia and the North American Midwest. Artificial reefs glimmered in the Caribbean, pale blue against the deeper ocean. Great wispy machines labored over the poles to repair the atmosphere. The air was clear as glass, for now mankind drew its energy from the core of Earth itself.

And Bobby knew that if he chose, with a mere effort of will, he could look back into time.

He could watch cities bloom on Earth's patient surface, to dwindle and vanish like rusty dew. He could see species shrivel and devolve like leaves curling into their buds. He could watch the slow dance of the continents as Earth gathered its primordial heat back into its iron heart. The present was a glimmering, expanding bubble of life and awareness, with the past locked within, trapped unmoving like an insect in amber.

For a long time, on this rich, growing Earth, embedded in knowledge, an enhanced humankind had been at peace: a peace unimaginable when he was born.

And all of this had derived from the ambition of one man - a venal, flawed man, a man who had never even understood where his dreams would lead.

How remarkable, he thought.

Bobby looked into his past, and into his heart.