Homecoming
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
Note: The previous short story "Dreaming of it" ought to be read to better understand this story.
Abby was walking, her hand clasped in Matt's – a friendly embrace, nothing more. All around them the high city of the future laid, sprawling, all white marble stairs and terraces, overgrown with greenery. Abby studied lizards, in botany she could barely differentiate between carrots and apples, tomatoes and lettuces, but even her scant knowledge told her that these plants weren't anything that had ever grown in her times.
"Ah, the wonders of genetic manipulation," Helen Cutter's appearance from behind a particularly luxurious shrub with particularly delicate-looking white blossoms didn't surprise Abby one bit, for she was dreaming. "From the 22nd century onwards humanity reached higher and higher limits in this art," Helen continued, leading Matt and Abby higher and higher up the external stairway of a domed tower, "until the last fifteen decades of the third millennium of the humanity's existence, until..."
Abruptly, dozens, if not hundreds of time anomalies sprung into existence, opening in flares of chromatic white and yellowish colours, releasing jets and gusts of red-hot and golden-white black, as well as equally great gouts of toxic black smoke.
"Until the time anomalies opened up and scourged the face of our planet nearly sterile," Helen continued, without missing a beat even as the city fell to a foe that couldn't be countered not even by the highly advanced genetic manipulation and technology. "Nobody knows what happened, but the humanity is counting on you, Abby Maitland, to help Matt Anderson save the rest of it. Think you're woman enough for the job?"
Abby opened her mouth to question, why her subconsciousness does always brings Helen from whatever mental storerooms Helen lurked in her spare time, but the look of Helen's eyes was darker, stonier, and more serious than Abby had ever seen in real life. Therefore, instead of making a snappy comeback, Abby just nodded just as seriously and grasped both Matt and Helen's hands in her own. "Yes, I am," she spoke out loud.
And then Abby woke up.
End