‘Doctor Chowdry, can you sign this to say you agree to this interview being filmed?’

‘With that tiny thing you call a phone, however many things does it do?’

‘If you claim to be from the future, surely you are acquainted with far more advanced technology than this?’

‘No, no, that’s what I have been trying to tell everyone for the past two months, all gone, everything that you take for granted gone. Where does the power come from for your phone, it’s not plugged in like your kettle and toaster and all those strange things in the kitchen.’

‘Battery… well obviously I plug it in to charge the battery.’

‘Mr Cummings, you seem like a fairly intelligent chap; how would your society work if the power disappeared completely?’

‘Um well, I cycle to work and do a great BBQ…’

‘And do you work in a building, does it have electricity, computers?’

‘Okay, point taken, the best thing you can do is to explain to me and the important people who are going to see this interview, what on earth happened between now and 2099.’

Doctor Chowdry does not wish to reveal his given names. Interviewed by Findlay Cummings, HM’s private office, Saturday 22^nd July 2023.

‘Can you tell me your age and describe where you were living in 2099?’

‘In the same place I have lived all my thirty five years, in a large bunker beneath what was London. What I am going to tell you is incomplete, passed down to me by my parents and others by word of mouth. When communication, as you Mr. Cummings know it, has been destroyed, it is hard to know what happened to the city, my country, let alone the rest of the world. But as no one has come to find us except The Hunters, we can presume a world wide civilisation no longer exists.

You are all in a panic about the future, without doing much about it. Is artificial intelligence going to take over, is climate change going to destroy the planet, will wars ever stop? Artificial Intelligence will take over for a while, until the power cuts out, by which time AI has ensured that wars continue. Programmed to send missiles to destroy cities and power hubs it kept seeking out new targets.  The planet, Gaia, will be fine, it can look after itself, always has, while humans swarm around in panic like the ants and rats that live in our bunker.

A perfect storm of events occurred. In a city flattened by war or natural disaster and you already have plenty of those, people can’t access clean water or food or medical help. If the whole world was like that, who would send help? Are you getting the picture now?’

‘Yes, yes, but we wouldn’t have let it get like that…’

‘Well apparently you did. Add to that the fires and floods that you already have with regularity, bringing lost food production, we can presume lives were lost in the billions.’

‘But how did your people survive?’

‘My grandparents and others thought it a temporary measure, a wartime situation, shelter in the many underground networks, stock up on food and essentials to tide them over. It evolved into living underground, only creeping out to try and salvage what they could. Nature took over, quicker than they expected. You might think that sounds good, but for us nature is dangerous, certainly the way it developed. As nature encroached so did the animals and following them were the hunters.’

‘I thought no one had survived, how could they, but Lauren Smith has told us about the hunters…’

‘I have seen your so called ‘survival programmes’ and news about wars. Soldiers, mountaineers, people who love trekking around in the wild, those who hunted for fun, criminals as well perhaps; anybody who was tough, used to surviving out in the open, could handle a gun. Those people retreated to the wildest parts, shot animals for food, found abandoned farms, rode abandoned horses, they became the hunters. They were not bothered that they couldn’t read a book, go to the theatre, watch the news on television. Many of these tough ones would still have succumbed to natural disasters, but we know there are networks of hunters across our land. They bring us meat in return for medical help, such as we can offer.’

‘Are you a medical doctor?’

‘I don’t think I would get a job with your NHS. My grandfather was a doctor, a surgeon and I have his precious books, but not the means to carry out most of the procedures. I think of myself more as a scientist, preserving what has been passed down to me, trying my best to gain new knowledge.’

‘I will find medical people who will be very interested to talk to you. But I also want to know why you think nature is so dangerous, with war over why haven’t you moved outside, started growing food?’

‘Talking of food, it’s lunchtime and I’m tired and hungry, perhaps we will talk off record while we eat.’

Interview part one ended for refreshment break.