Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 1

The STU had been powered down since its arrival in April. Since it knew its current coordinates, it had used its holographic features to give itself the appearance of a mid-20th century wristwatch. It was an obvious good choice. Something suitable for the era. The kind of watch that used clockwork components and had a mechanical winder on the side. With a brown leather strap. But it had seen no-one since its arrival. Not until today.

A couple were walking along the cliff top. They appeared to be in their late twenties, perhaps early thirties. The man was holding the woman’s hand. The STU could tell that the man had a distant look, as though he was vaguely unaware of his surroundings. His walk was almost mechanical. It was as though he was being led along. The STU was surprised when the man looked down and saw the ‘watch’.

The woman picked up the watch. She strapped it onto the man’s wrist.

The STU began running diagnostics.

It could tell why the man was so distant. He appeared to have a variant of the state of catatonia, a state of psychogenic motor immobility and behavioural abnormality manifested by stupor. Karl Ludwig Kahlbaum had first described the state in 1874.

The STU felt sorry for the man, in that he had probably lived to his current age with an illness that was readily curable. Several treatments existed (but not in this current era), usually by the delivery of a drug that produced its therapeutic effect by producing glutamate antagonism via modulation of AMPA receptors. The STU imagined that it’s capacity to receive requests from the ACME-STORES still worked, and this would enable it to pull back the necessary medication, but did the STU have any such right to do this. The man (John the girl called him) was probably fully aware of the world around him, and could probably even speak, but his condition meant that he had no capacity to show that awareness. John’s family and friends (this girl included) would have become accustomed to his capacities (or lack of them).

The STU had an inbuilt protocol to look after its client, and John had (by dint of wearing the STU) assumed the role of a client, but did the STU have any right to make such a significant change to a person who was in no position to agree to the medication being administered. The STU resolved to monitor the situation, in the hope that further information would help to provide an answer.