The Silent Age
Summary
It’s 1972. Love is free. Flipflops, English leather and bandanas are the height of fashion. Meanwhile the Cold War is more than lukewarm and a real one is going on overseas. Movements are happening. Environmentalists, the female liberties movement, and on the dance floors an entirely different kind of movement is overtaking the underground clubs. The winds of change are certainly blowing over the country.Somewhere in the big city, in a tall, faceless government building someone left a window open. All the winds of change are doing here is blowing leaves all over Joe’s newly-swept floor. He’s been there for two years now. Working a dead-end attendant job making sure the building is as spotless as the suits walking the halls. It’s been like this for years, going from one soul-devouring job to the next.Our protagonist is Joe in more than just name. He is quite literally Joe Average. Average height, average weight, average IQ. In fact, the only thing remotely remarkable about him is exactly how much he conforms to the median of the hypothetical everyman, and up until this point, Joe’s life hasn’t exactly been biography material. This is all about to change.One morning while tending the floors, Joe is suddenly confronted by a mysterious dying man who is seemingly appearing out of nowhere. The man warns him that a terrible event is about to occur and pleads him to save mankind. As the man draws his last breath, he hands Joe a portable time travel device to aid him on his quest.It isn’t long before Joe activates the device and is confronted by the truth. The mysterious man was right: 40 years into the future mankind has become extinct. Stuck between a desolate future and a present where he is largely ignored, it is now up to our accidental hero to find out what has happened and how to prevent it in order to save mankind.
