And Gone Tomorrow

"And Gone Tomorrow" by Andrew J. Offutt is a science fiction tale about a college student who travels one hundred years into the future and discovers a world controlled by a single, oppressive government, like a modern-day Roman Empire. The story follows Jay Welch as he grapples with a society that has traded freedom for order, where everyone speaks the same language and follows the same rules, but dissent is crushed and entire groups of people have been erased. Amidst this controlled society, Jay finds that rebellion is secretly growing, which brings up important themes of power, control, and the weaknesses found even in the most seemingly perfect civilizations, which leads to a conflict that causes the reader to consider the costs of freedom versus order.