Jamie's Story: A FUTURE UNDONE Backstory
- kurt56836
- Oct 8
- 5 min read
Updated: Nov 7
Readers have asked about Jamie—the person Alex lost before A Future Undone even begins. His death is what drove Alex to join the resistance and ultimately volunteer for the time travel mission. But who was Jamie before that devastating moment? Here's a glimpse into what they had, and what Alex was really fighting for.
The ventilation system in resource distribution bunker never shut off. Its constant hum became background noise after your first week underground, but tonight Alex couldn't tune it out. He lay on his bunk, staring at the concrete ceiling, counting the hours until his next patrol shift.
A shadow fell across his face.
"Can't sleep either?" Jamie kept his voice low. The bunker never truly slept. Someone was always on shift, always monitoring the drones above, always preparing for the next supply run or evacuation drill.
Alex shifted over without a word. The bunks were narrow, designed for one, but they'd learned to fit. Jamie slid in beside him, avoiding Alex's injured shoulder from yesterday's reconnaissance mission.
"How's it feel?" Jamie's fingers hovered over the bandage, not quite touching.
"Like I got shot."
"That's because you did get shot." Jamie's breath was warm against his neck. "You're supposed to say 'fine' so I don't worry."
"Would you believe me?"
"No."
They lay in silence, pressed together in the dark. Around them, the outpost breathed. The ventilation hum, distant footsteps, someone coughing three bunks over. Two hundred people living in a space meant for emergency shelter, not permanent habitation. But permanent was a luxury they couldn't afford.
"My grandmother used to tell stories," Jamie said. His voice carried that distant quality it got when he talked about before. Before the purges. Before the machines. "About going to restaurants. Actual buildings where you'd sit down and someone would bring you food you didn't have to ration or grow yourself."
Jamie paused, his thumb tracing circles on Alex's palm. "She said the hardest part about losing the old world wasn't the big things. It was remembering what it felt like to order dessert."
"What was her favorite?" Alex threaded their fingers together in the darkness.
"Cheesecake. With strawberries."
"Cake with cheese and strawberries?" Alex tried to picture it.
Jamie's quiet laugh vibrated against his chest. "No, not like that. She said it was more like a creamy cake, but made with cheese somehow. Sweet cheese, with strawberry syrup on top."
"I've heard about strawberries." Alex had seen them in old agricultural databases, red and heart-shaped in faded photographs. "Never tasted one. What did she say they were like?"
"Sweet and tart at the same time. She said they tasted like summer." Jamie went quiet for a moment. "I used to think that was just poetry, you know? But now I think maybe summer had a taste, back when seasons meant something other than surveillance patterns."
A pause settled between them, heavy with unspoken understanding.
"She died during a relocation." Jamie's voice dropped lower. "Our outpost's water filtration was failing. We had to move to Outpost Seventeen before the system gave out."
He paused, his grip tightening on Alex's hand.
"We were trying to stay quiet, moving through the old transit tunnels at night. Small groups, staggered timing, minimal light." His breathing grew shallow. "But hunter drones patrol those routes. They found us about halfway through."
Alex stayed silent, letting Jamie get through it.
"She couldn't move fast enough when the drones locked on. Her lungs were bad from years of recycled air. Every breath wheezed." Jamie's voice went hollow. "When the shooting started, she fell behind. My father tried to get to her, but the drones... they were calculating targets in real time. The AI was directing them to the slowest, the weakest first."
He pressed closer to Alex in the darkness.
"Seventy-three years old and she couldn't run. The machines tracked her movement, analyzed her as a target." His voice cracked. "By the time my father got back to her, she was already gone."
The anger in Jamie's voice was old, worn smooth by years of carrying it. They all had that anger. It was fuel. It kept you moving when exhaustion said to stop.
"I'm sorry," Alex said.
"Yeah. Me too." Jamie pressed closer.
Most relationships in the outpost were about survival. Finding someone to share body heat during power conservation hours. Having a partner who'd watch your back on supply runs. Companionship that dulled the edge of fear and isolation. Nobody judged those partnerships. You did what you needed to stay sane, stay human, stay alive.
But this. What they had. It was different.
"She used to tell stories about when she was a girl," Jamie continued, "back when Chicago had real summers instead of just 'drone season' and 'worse drone season.' She'd talk about going to the lake, lying on the beach with the sun on her face, complaining about being bored." He let out a soft breath. "Can you imagine? Being bored because nothing was trying to kill you?"
Alex couldn't imagine it. Neither of them could remember a time before the constant threat, before the calculations of risk versus survival.
"Tell me more," he said.
So Jamie did. He shared his grandmother's stories of a world neither of them could imagine: crowded streets where you didn't have to check for aerial surveillance, grocery stores with entire aisles just for candy, nights when you could walk outside without fear. His voice wrapped around the inherited memories, keeping them alive in the darkness.
Alex listened, memorizing every word. Not because he believed they'd ever see that world. He wasn't naive enough for hope. But because Jamie's stories were a gift. They were proof that humanity had been something more than this. That they'd earned the right to try to be that again.
Jamie was quiet for so long Alex thought he'd fallen asleep. Then: "I'd want to be boring with you."
Alex turned his head.
"Go to some mediocre restaurant and argue about whether the food is overcooked," Jamie said. "Complain about traffic. Waste an entire Sunday doing nothing important." He tightened his grip on Alex's hand. "I'd want to find out who we are when we're not just trying to survive."
"That sounds good."
"Yeah?" Jamie shifted to look at him, though in the darkness they were just shapes and warmth. "You'd want that? The boring life?"
"With you?" Alex pulled him closer, pressing their foreheads together. "I'd want anything with you."
Tomorrow would bring new dangers, new impossible odds, new reasons to question whether humanity had any future at all. But tonight, in a bunk barely wide enough for one person, they had each other.
And in a world where most partnerships were just about not dying alone, what they had was precious.
Three weeks later, during a supply run that went wrong, a drone would find them. Jamie would push Alex behind cover and take the hit meant for both of them. By the time Alex fought his way to Jamie's position, the drone would be destroyed, but Jamie would be dying. Jamie's last words would be lost to alarm sirens and Alex's own screaming.
The next morning, Alex would join the resistance with Jamie's blood still under his fingernails.
And years after that, when Dr. Ann Chen would ask for volunteers for an impossible mission, one that might erase the volunteer from existence, Alex would step forward without hesitation.
Because some things were worth any price. Even if that meant the person you loved most might never exist at all, if it meant saving a world where people could be bored, order dessert, and waste Sundays doing nothing important.
That was what made it precious.
Jaime's end marked the beginning of Alex's journey.
In A Future Undone, follow Alex as he travels back to 2025 to stop the AI that will destroy everything—while falling for Ethan Blake, the very man whose creation becomes humanity's doom. A heart-wrenching tale of sacrifice, time travel, and impossible choices.
Available for preorder now (December 15, 2025 release).
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