Every prediction in Artifact 1 had come true, so claimed the undisclosed government agency that abducted me two years ago. I call them predictions, but the agency refers to them as "Level Epsilon Intelligence Items." They would never say this directly, but Artifact 1 was a magazine publication from the future.
Apparently I only know what they've deemed that I absolutely have to know. For some reason, I had to know that a privately run research facility had accidentally created a temporal anomaly in their lab at one point. The experiment would never again be possible to reproduce, no matter how many billions of dollars the government would later throw at it.
In this one-off anomaly, a magazine clipping had floated through a rift and onto the lab floor. The experimenters filed it away and ignored it until June 9, 2016. That's when the first prediction came true. Metralla Tech Inc. announced it had developed a new type of nanotechnology capable of a broad range of applications.
After that, the undisclosed government agency took over the lab. That was also when they payed my workplace a visit and escorted me to their black Denali with tinted windows. Since then, I've been locked up and interrogated in an undisclosed facility.
I suppose I can't be too angry with them. A year in, people started getting sick. At first, it was called "the super flu." Then, it was called "the next plague." Lately, as I understand it, it's being called "end of world flu," or just EOW. Lucky for me, I'm considered a top secret government asset. I was assured I'll be safe within the confines of the undisclosed facility. Unfortunately for me, I got kicked out.
You see, "Level Epsilon Intelligence Item #5" indicated that I would discover a cure for EOW on October 12 of this year. That's in two weeks. Did I mention I don't know the first thing about biology? I'm a software engineer. I write algorithms. I haven't the faintest clue of how to cure EOW, and that's why they kicked me out.
The higher ups got it into their heads that they had to let me out into the wild in order for the prediction to come true. I kept telling them they'd got the wrong guy. I haven't a clue how to cure EOW, but they didn't care.
I've gone over it in my head a hundred times, and I've decided that I don't care either. If Artifact 1 is the real deal, then it won't matter what I do, right? They won't let me go back to my home. Goodbye girlfriend, goodbye family, goodbye job. Well fuck you, undisclosed government agency. You can die with everyone else. I don't care.
So here I am, sitting in this dump of an apartment they've set me up with, wondering how I'm going to make enough money to get out of this place. The stipend they gave me was a joke.
That's interesting. Matrella Tech Inc. is offering $30 million for an algorithm that can use their nanotech to fight EOW. It's worth a shot, I guess.