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The ButterCream was large and somehow both vacant and thoroughly exhaustive. There was something “other” about it that cannot be defined. It holds the rejects, the retired entertainment, the salvage that could not be salvaged. It was quiet and cold, in a way that only happens when you’re alone. Every now and then one could hear the distant sound of laughter from above or below - but maybe that was just the imagination.
Montrose turned a corner and saw the doors to a circular theater. The paint had chipped and faded, but from it could still be read: The Future is You . Hanging over a wide entrance is a curtain, faded and torn with time, and Montrose can’t help but pull it aside.
The Future is You is a very old attraction. A circular moving stage, revolutionary for its time, that followed a family throughout different decades. Unlike the intangible Hardlight projections, this attraction was composed of State of the Arc (for the time) animatronics. Their skin had slightly yellowed from the lack of light, dust clung to their clothes and to their rubber skin. The lights on their stage were dimmed and they stood motionless in the dark.
Montrose looked at it. Call it curiosity, call it morbid, or the draw to seeing yourself in something that is not yourself - but Montrose was drawn to them.
He stared for a moment, taking in their uncanny domesticity.
Suddenly, the smallest of the animatronics seemed to stutter. The son at the breakfast table turned his head toward Montrose.
“Hello?” It said high pitched and statically.
A pause as Montrose stares at it. “Hello,” he finally says.
“Hello!” It says again. “My momma makes the best waffles!”
Montrose walks closer to the stage, inspecting not only the boy but also the room. “Oh, I believe you. I’d ask for some, but-” He began to respond as he surveyed the area. It was broken from disuse, there really isn’t another way to put it. A ceiling tile hung loosely above the fake kitchenette. The set looked to be from the 1950s, but it was all wrong. The microwave was too bulky. The clothes were too dated.
It was and it wasn’t.
Then, as if aware of Montrose, a large animatronic from the couch began to speak. It did not turn its head, and it did not move. In fact, the words seemed to emanate from somewhere deep within the machine.
“This is my son, Dougie!”
Montrose looked at the large animatronic and then began to look around their home for a chair. It looked like an inviting place to rest, and he was, as Dougie said, an excellent listener.
He went to pull out the empty dining chair but found that it was stapled to the ground. He should have suspected that, and so instead backed down to the audience chairs.
He took a seat.
“This is my son, Dougie!” The larger animatronic said again. “He’s a handful!”
Montrose laughed, at ease for the first time today. “I imagine. I can already tell from what we’ve discussed-.”
“This is my son, Dougie!” It said again. “Things sure have changed, haven’t they stranger?”
This last statement catches Montrose off guard for a moment. Of course, The Future is You is about the ever changing ways we live our lives. Yet Montrose feels as though the animatronic means something else.
But how could it know? How could it possibly know?
Finally, as though finally sensing his unease, the larger animatronic moves its head toward center stage. Or, at least, it tries to. The sound that emanates is nothing short of a screech, the sound of rusty metal grinding against rusty metal. Its faux eyes are unseeing, and for some reason, this doesn’t bother Montrose.
He’s spent far too long looking at himself in the mirror to be frightened.
Then the larger animatronic freezes and Dougie speaks.
“Do you wanna hear my sister play? She has a recital next week!”
Montrose leans forward, elbows resting on his knees, trying to get as close as possible to the robotic family.
“Why of course, Dougie.”
Then the stage lurches, or rather, the audience does. The sound of metal on metal resumes, but this time it is so much worse. In the background, the dissonant noise of a jingle long-forgotten plays. It’s a great big beautiful tomorrow, and the future is you every day.
The entire theater probably runs on a timer, but over time its efficacy has diminished. The music is warbled, mixing with the grinding noise of the stage and the bitter sound of animatronics resetting.
Soon the family of the 50s disappears, and in their wake is the same family twenty years later. Though for them, no time seems to have passed at all.
“This is my son, Dougie!”
Montrose settles back to watch.