If I could time travel into the future, my first port of call

Host: The night was electric — a sea of neon veins pulsing through the city skyline. Flying drones traced light trails across the sky, like glowing fireflies programmed by perfection. Below, the streets hummed with the low throb of machines, advertisements, and the ever-present sound of rain on metal.

Inside a dim rooftop bar, surrounded by the reflection of the city’s pulse, sat Jack and Jeeny. The glass walls shimmered with distorted colors — amber, blue, violet — shifting like the emotions neither could name.

Jack leaned against the counter, his grey eyes glinting under the LED glow. Jeeny sat across from him, a drink in hand, the light outlining her hair like ink on silk.

The rain outside was relentless. The future, as always, looked close enough to touch and yet impossibly far.

Jeeny: “Neal Asher once said, ‘If I could time travel into the future, my first port of call would be the point where medical technology is at its best because, like most people on this planet, I have this aversion to dying.’”

Host: Jack’s lips curled into a quiet, knowing smile — the kind that came from somewhere between irony and truth.

Jack: “An aversion to dying. That’s the most universal confession there is.”

Jeeny: “You sound like you don’t share it.”

Jack: “Oh, I do. I just don’t dress it up in dreams of medical miracles. People love to think the future will save them — that technology will be the new god. But death isn’t a bug you can patch.”

Jeeny: “And yet, every invention we’ve made has been an argument against it. Medicine, science, faith — all of it is humanity screaming, ‘Not yet.’”

Host: The bartender wiped the counter, silent and robotic, his movements precise, emotionless. A screen behind him streamed an ad — “CryoLife: Live beyond limits.”

Jack’s gaze drifted to it, then back to Jeeny.

Jack: “That’s exactly what I mean. We’re obsessed. We build machines to outsmart mortality, upload minds into servers, freeze bodies in the hope of a better tomorrow. It’s pathetic, really. We can’t accept that endings are natural.”

Jeeny: “And why should we? What’s noble about decay? Every breath is borrowed — isn’t it logical to try to extend the loan?”

Jack: “It’s not a loan, Jeeny. It’s the price of existence. You can’t buy time without spending meaning. If death disappears, life becomes a waiting room with no exit.”

Jeeny: “That’s poetic, but I think you’re scared — not of death, but of the idea that maybe we could beat it. Because if we could, all your beautiful philosophies about acceptance would collapse.”

Host: Her words landed like a quiet knife, sharp and slow. Jack looked away, his jaw tightening, his reflection staring back at him from the glass wall — older, wearier, and for a moment, frightened.

Jack: “You think eternal life would make us better?”

Jeeny: “Not better. But freer. Imagine a future where the fear of dying doesn’t dictate every decision. Where people create not out of desperation, but out of pure curiosity.”

Jack: “Curiosity dies without urgency. People create because they know the clock is ticking. Mozart composed faster because he knew he was dying. Steve Jobs built empires because time was short. Pressure is the mother of purpose.”

Jeeny: “Or the killer of peace. You think fear of death makes life meaningful — I think it makes it frantic. Every achievement born from panic is still panic in disguise.”

Host: The rain intensified, blurring the cityscape into a wash of lights and motion. Jack lifted his drink, staring into its surface like it might hold the past.

Jack: “So what — we upload ourselves into the cloud and call it evolution?”

Jeeny: “Maybe. Maybe consciousness doesn’t need the body forever. Maybe immortality isn’t a sin, it’s just the next update.”

Jack: “That’s not life. That’s simulation. A bodyless existence stripped of failure, hunger, touch — what’s left to make it human?”

Jeeny: “Awareness. Memory. Love. Aren’t those the real constants? You don’t need skin for a soul.”

Jack: “You say that like the soul’s a file you can save. You can’t code redemption, Jeeny.”

Host: The lightning flashed briefly, washing the bar in white. For a second, the silhouettes of Jack and Jeeny looked carved from glass — two ghosts arguing about who deserved to haunt the future.

Jeeny: “Jack, people have been fighting death since the beginning. The ancient Egyptians built pyramids to reach eternity. The alchemists searched for the elixir of life. We’re no different — just more sophisticated in our delusions.”

Jack: “Exactly. That’s what terrifies me. We’ve upgraded our delusions. We used to believe in heaven. Now we believe in hard drives.”

Jeeny: “Is it really delusion if it works? If someone in the next century wakes from cryosleep, cured of disease, walking under the same sun — haven’t they beaten death, at least for a while?”

Jack: “For a while, yes. But not forever. Time is undefeated. Even the stars burn out.”

Jeeny: “Then why not dance before the light goes out? Isn’t the pursuit itself what makes us alive?”

Jack: “Or what keeps us from living at all.”

Host: The air between them shimmered — the faint hum of the city harmonizing with the quiet storm in their eyes. Jack’s hands were still, his breathing slow. Jeeny’s fingers tapped the rim of her glass — steady, deliberate.

Jack: “You really think we should try to outlive death?”

Jeeny: “I think we already do — every time we love, every time we remember, every time we create something that outlasts us.”

Jack: “That’s legacy, not immortality.”

Jeeny: “Legacy is immortality dressed in humility.”

Host: He looked at her then — really looked — as if her words had opened a small crack in his defenses. The lights from the skyscrapers painted her face in soft blue glow, her eyes steady, almost eternal.

Jack: “You’re not afraid of dying, are you?”

Jeeny: “I am. I just refuse to worship it.”

Host: Outside, the rain eased, leaving behind a mirror world of reflections — towers glowing upside down, as if heaven itself had fallen into the puddles. Jack stood, moving toward the window, staring at the city’s pulse below.

Jack: “Maybe the real curse isn’t dying. Maybe it’s wanting too much to live.”

Jeeny: “No, Jack. The curse is forgetting how.”

Host: For a moment, neither spoke. The bar was filled only with the faint buzz of electricity and the soft heartbeat of the city beyond. Then Jack turned, his expression gentler, his voice lower, almost confessional.

Jack: “If I could time travel to the future like Asher said, I don’t think I’d go to see medical technology. I’d go to see if people still write poems. If they still cry when someone leaves. If they still fall in love knowing it will end.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the cure we’ve been chasing all along — not to live forever, but to love something that makes death feel small.”

Host: The camera would have lingered on their reflections in the glass — two figures suspended between the future and the finite, between circuitry and heartbeat. The city lights flickered once, then steadied, like the final beat of a patient refusing to die.

And outside, the rain stopped, leaving behind a silence so vast it felt almost eternal —
as if, for one fragile second, the future had paused to listen.