Armageddon--2419 A. D. Original Text

MY first glimpse of a human being of the 25th Century was obtained through a portionof woodland where the trees were thinly scattered, with a dense forest beyond.I had been wandering along aimlessly, and hopelessly, musing over my strange fate,when I noticed a figure that cautiously backed out of the dense growth across the glade.I was about to call out joyfully, but there was something furtive about the figure thatprevented me. The boy's attention (for it seemed to be a lad of fifteen or sixteen) wascentered tensely on the heavy growth of trees from which he had just emerged.He was clad in rather tight-fitting garments entirely of green, and wore a helmet-like capof the same color. High around his waist he wore a broad, thick belt, which bulked up inthe back across the shoulders, into something of the proportions of a knapsack.As I was taking in these details, there came a vivid flash and heavy detonation, like thatof a hand grenade, not far to the left of him. He threw up an arm and staggered a bit in aqueer, gliding way; then he recovered himself and slipped cautiously away from theplace of the explosion, crouching slightly, and still facing the denser part of the forest.Every few steps he would raise his arm, and point into the forest with something he heldin his hand. Wherever he pointed there was a terrific explosion, deeper in among thetrees. It came to me then that he was shooting with some form of pistol, though therewas neither flash nor detonation from the muzzle of the weapon itself.After firing several times, he seemed to come to a sudden resolution, and turning in mygeneral direction, leaped--to my amazement sailing through the air between thesparsely scattered trees in such a jump as I had never in my life seen before. That leapmust have carried him a full fifty feet, although at the height of his arc, he was not morethan ten or twelve feet from the ground.