by Helen Thomas
My leisurely stroll through the archive’s server room was interrupted by the pounding footsteps of my boss’s assistant. I moved to the side so they could run past, but they halted when they reached me.
‘I’m glad I found you before you reached your office. I have something exciting for you.’
‘Well, send it over.’ I activated my transmitter. My boss had already sent through an Instagram profile and a collection of photos for us to sort through. I waited, wondering why the assistant had tracked me down when they could send links from anywhere in the building.
‘I can’t. It’s something physical.’
I quickly took a step back. ‘Is it safe?’
They nodded and produced a tightly sealed package. ‘Yes, but it’s fragile. We need you to digitise it for us.’
As a precaution, I applied my protective field before taking the package. I was hoping to walk freely for a few more minutes, but getting physical evidence into my office was now my top priority.
I flung the door open, startling Talin. They lifted their visor. ‘What’s causing you to rush?’
‘We received a special delivery from the boss.’ I gently placed the package down. ‘Have you looked at the files yet?’
They nodded. ‘I can’t access them. The files are incompatible with our technology. I need to take out,’ they shuddered, ‘the laptop.’
I grimaced. The researchers must have dug far into the internet’s history to find these. ‘Make sure to attach the laptop to a power source so it doesn’t shut down immediately.’
Talin turned on their own field before carefully removing the old piece of technology from its containment. They plugged it in, then backed away, allowing me to take the lead. I’d studied this time period’s technology, so navigating it was familiar but infuriating. Load times, advertisements for extinct companies, and requests for updates that would kill the laptop if I agreed to them all plagued me as I navigated to the first file. I opened the Instagram profile, and a wall of images appeared. Talin peered over my shoulder.
‘It’s just food,’ they said, awe saturating their voice. I also stared. Meals from different cultures, times, and places were documented with an efficiency that rivalled our archives. Talin gently shook my shoulder. ‘Are there descriptions?’
I clicked on the picture at the top of the screen, then expanded the text underneath to see a list of ingredients and instructions for preparation. I didn’t recognise most of the ingredients like cocoa powder, vanilla extract, and frosting. They must’ve been phased out of our diets. I surveyed the vast amount of lost knowledge sitting before us. The profile had over 3500 posts and made at least three posts a day, each about a meal they had eaten, recreated, or made from scratch.
‘How did this account survive? I thought most had disappeared,’ Talin said.
The public had forgotten about the social platform long before we began researching and archiving the digital and physical lives of people in the 2020s. It was unfortunate that not much remained as systems quickly went out of date and were replaced. But sometimes, when we were lucky, sections of the almost forgotten past managed to sneak their way back in.
‘I have no idea. I’m going to need you to start transferring the images, their descriptions, and timestamps into our systems for organisation. If possible, keep them all in one section so we can refer to them as a group.’
‘On it!’ Their eyes slid over to the package. ‘When are we going to open that?’
‘After I look through the next file. It should be straightforward,’ I said.
I opened the iCloud Drive my boss sent and looked at the photos section. The information at the bottom of the screen said there were 8290 photos and 499 videos. I turned to Talin.
‘When was the iPhone invented?’ I watched as they processed the numbers.
‘2007. Why?’
‘I think we might be dealing with a time traveller,’ I grinned. ‘There’s a video that was taken in 1970.’
Talin groaned. ‘Why would they send us a corrupted file?’
‘I still think it’s time travel.’ I saw Talin try to bury a smile. ‘However, there must be something important in here.’ We both knew that our boss would want us to put everything back together and that it would take a while to fix the broken timestamps. I noted down any other photos that appeared out of place, and looked for evidence of the photographer’s daily life and interests as Talin finished uploading the profile into our systems. I felt them look in my direction again.
‘Fine, we can look at the physical evidence,’ I said. Talin clapped their hands, their smile officially returning.
I placed my hands on the scanner and opened the box. Inside was a faded pink rectangle. I carefully picked it up and turned it on its side. Between the two pink rectangles was paper.
‘It’s… a book. A physical book.’
Talin stared at me in silence before bursting into motion. ‘That is insane! What’s it called? We might have a digital version already in our system. When I scan it, I can put it in the same category.’
‘No.’ I gingerly opened a page. The writing was slightly faded, but distinctly handwritten. Each page began with the date and time it was written. ‘This is a personal book. I’ve only heard of them in passing. Most were digital or only had a few entries before the author stopped writing. This…’ I continued turning pages. The entire book was full. ‘I’ve never seen anything like this before.’
‘What does it say?’
I squinted, trying to read the scrawled writing. I was tempted to immediately digitise it to make the reading process easier, but I didn’t want to wait.
‘Friday the 10th of April 2026, 11:23 am. I finally sent my first draft in. I now have time to play more Silksong!’
Author Bio:
Hi, I’m Helen (they/them)! I’m following my passions as a third-year creative writing student at QUT. I love reading and writing fantasy, romance, and science fiction, as well as any kind of queer stories. I also love playing video games and watching games I cannot get (thank you, Switch 2) on YouTube, along with discussions of films and psychology.