The Recording Company

[Grandiagod]

Just a little sci fi idea that I'm tossing around. It definitely needs refinement though.

Introduction

Bullets whizzed overhead like flies. The sergeant was yelling orders to no avail. We were outgunned and outmanned. RPG fire had taken out two of our three Humvees. Mine was stuck between the two smoldering metal carcasses. Sarge was trying to get us to move away but it was our first time in combat. We were huddled inside trying to shoot out the windows when the RPG hit us. A blast of heat and shrapnel tore through my body. Everything went black.

Being killed was never a fun experience. The feeling of everything up to the point of death echoed around for a few minutes until I was resurrected in the Lobby. You see, my job probably has the highest mortality rate of any. I am a Recorder.
Born with the name Hunter Thrasis in the year 2019. I was leading a pretty normal life until the Earth came under a rather unstoppable threat. A rogue gas giant planet had decided to sneak its way through the solar system in 2046. This rouge planet or “Wanderer” had most likely been thrown from its orbit around another star and had been lazily floating through space until Sol system decided to get in its way. Wanderers predicted path through Sol would put it in close proximity with Earth. If Humanity was to survive the extreme tidal forces that would rupture the tectonic plates and make Earth a giant smoldering wreckage. Then Humanity would surely die after Wanderers gravity changed Earths orbital path turning it into a desert with an average temperature of one-hundred-thirty degrees Celsius. So Humanity died out. Except for Hunter Thrasis and a few others.

Me and about seven hundred other humans were taken from Earth before Wanderer Came too close. We were saved by what is simply known as The Recording Company. The Recording Company is composed of several highly advanced races from about thirteen different galaxies. Now, these races, having solved the problem of superluminal travel and other physical impossibilities would not seem to need a humans service. That is probably true. But these beings, besides being practical gods, are also great philanthropists.

Every once in a while a race comes to an end. The Recording Company takes a diverse gene pool from the dying race and gives them a second chance. But only if they learn for their mistakes. The Recording Company makes these beings go back in time and observe various conflicts and events of their race, in order to keep that race from making the same mistake. We are the Recorders. The Recording Company also studies the information, or so I’m told. I have only met one higher being in my life. A curious being made completely of what seems like a ball of about twelve gray tentacles with morphing ends that could change to any shape that was needed. It speaks English and greets me after each assignment I complete. It said it has no gender or name, but if I wanted to I could call it 121, which was apparently the numerical order it took in it’s family.
121 told me all I needed to know on how to be a recorder and then gives me my assignments, going back in time in no particular order to watch sometimes important events and sometimes mundane ones. I was equipped with a “watcher”, a palm pilot sized device that was somehow connected to my brain or eyes and recorded everything I saw. 121 insisted that there was an order to my assignments and that I would find out at the end of Recording what that meaning was.

When I was not in assignment I stayed in the Lobby. A giant communal living area where me an the other humans stayed. It was a relatively peaceful place considering that there was slightly over seven hundred people living in the same area. The whole area was outdoors in a small continuously green and sunshiny valley. There were human style houses for each individual person. However some were left empty as the inevitable pairing off happened. Strange thing was, after three years there had been no births. When asked 121 said that infants were not needed and could not be supported in the Lobby. When asked about the methods of the birth control 121 was not forthcoming.

In our assignments we took the visage of a person connected with the event in a minor way, and watched until we were either transported back to the Lobby by some sort of Star Trek like beaming technology. Or until we died, wherein we woke up whole in our personal dwellings. We lived like this for three years and two months until I happened upon a little fact that changed everything.