Acme Time Travel Incorporated - Volume 2

The old Victorian shelter - Clacton sea front

Gabriel smiled to hear Ginny conversing with Vicky. She was asking questions that he hadn’t thought to ask. She had asked how the space and time travel company that Vicky represented had come about.

“It’s quite complex,” Vicky said. “And lengthy as well.”

“Well, can you sort of summarise it a bit?” Ginny said.

“I will try,” Vicky said. “I suppose that it began when the Earth started to run out of its basic mineral wealth.”

“I just knew we would screw it up sooner or later,” Ginny said.

“Well, anyway,” Vicky said, “there was the beginning of shortages, and no obvious way to provide substitutes. Suggestions had been made to send rockets into space to try to identify alternative sources, but no single country, or group of countries for that matter, were prepared to invest in such a huge undertaking. Eventually, in the year 2053, a consortium of very large companies formed the Space Exploration Group, SEG as it became known. Participating companies paid huge sums of money into the venture, with the aim of reaching other planets, extracting their mineral resources and then shipping them back to Earth.”

“As soon as 2053?” Ginny said.

“It was in 2053 that it became really obvious,” Vicky said. “As Blahnik famously said, ‘Mankind hasn’t hit the brick wall yet ... but we can all see the bloody thing.’”

“Sounds like he was pissed off,” Ginny said.

“I believe that he had been trying to get a common agreement amongst world leaders for quite some time,” Vicky said. “It took a throw-away comment at the end of an international symposium to finally get the sound-bite that he needed.”

“Well ... I guess that if he finally got the message across, then ...” Ginny said.

“I suppose so,” said Vicky. “And SEG knew that there was not going to be a short-term solution to the problem ... so they thought that they had best get started.”

“So, was there interplanetary travel and time-travel available in 2053?” Gabriel asked. “It doesn’t seem that far into the future.”

“No ... not at that point in time, Gabriel. There had been advances in rocket propulsion, robotics etc, as you would no doubt expect. But there was not the capability to reach other planets and ship back mineral resources. Not in any feasible time-frame, anyway.”

“So, what did they ...?” said Gabriel.

“They decided to build spacecraft, ‘probes’ they were termed, which could begin searching for planets capable of yielding the required mineral resources,” said Vicky.

“It wasn’t a new idea,” said Ginny. “We’re already sending out probes ... right now.”

“That is true, Ginny,” Vicky confirmed, “but the probes being sent out at this current time, they are limited by the time they will take to complete their missions, and their payloads are tiny in comparison to those sent on the SEG probes. The SEG probes had the capacity to search out planets with the required resources, and at which point they would place beacons on the ones found suitable. The beacons would identify the locations of the mineral deposits. The probes would then move on, repeating the process elsewhere.”

“Sounds a long process,” said Gabriel.

“That’s right,” said Vicky. “It was envisaged that it would take years. Remember, it was never considered that this was going to be a short-term process. There was no ‘quick win’. Many of the people who originally signed up agreements to join SEG anticipated that they would be dead before anything of a tangible nature was forthcoming.”

“I wonder how many people would do that these days?” Ginny wondered.

“So, anyway,” continued Vicky, “as the probes were searching out suitable planets, improvements in rocket propulsion systems allowed fleets of mining vessels to be built and sent to the designated planets. The improved rocket motors meant that the mining vessels could get there faster. Improved robotics meant that mining sites could be constructed without having to send real-live engineers, and within a short space of time, shipments of extracted product were being transported back to the Earth. By 2083 there were three mining planets operational. Each planet was able to make three-monthly shipments back to Earth.”

“So, it actually took SEG thirty years before it had products to sell?” Gabriel said.

“And at that stage,” said Vicky, the cost of extracting the product and shipping it back to Earth was very substantial. It appeared to have been massively under-estimated in the original costings. Many people at that time thought that the entire project had been a ghastly mistake ... an attempt by the original SEG board members to gain great reputations ... to be seen as the saviours of mankind, when in practice they had brought their original companies to their knees, deep in debt, and SEG looked as if it was going to suffer the same fate.”

“It sounds as though the whole space venture was a misguided ...,” Gabriel said.

“And maybe it would have foundered at that point,” said Vicky, “but such a massive undertaking as SEG’s creates ... creates secondary waves let’s say. The whole enterprise had generated interest ... interests which sparked off technological advances in other areas. An improved rocket propulsion system was discovered. It was called Ramstat, and it significantly reduced the time for shipping products back to the Earth. It also meant that live people ... engineers typically, could be sent out to maintain the off-world mining colonies. Shortly after that, a French company called CrYO-GEN developed a means by which people on long space flights could be put into a state of suspended animation. Their products, known as CrYO-PODs were put onto all SEG spacecraft. So, suddenly, space flights were shorter, and with the advantage that you slept through the entire voyage. These factors really helped SEG to be able to recruit engineers willing to act as maintenance crew on their extraction sites.”

“But we still haven’t got into time travel,” Ginny noted.

“No, Ginny, and in fact that particular invention came about via a strange route.”

“How do you mean?” Ginny said.

“Well, SEG-COMMS, a sub-division of SEG had been entrusted with developing a faster means of communicating between SEG’s Earth base and the off-world sites. They came up with a system which they called WORM-LYNK. That would have been in 2135. WORM-LYNK utilised inter-stellar worm-holes for the transmission of data. It enabled the almost instantaneous transfer of high volumes of data across very great distances.”

“But what did that have to do with time travel?” said Gabriel.

“What indeed?” said Vicky. “Research into a faster means of transporting things (and people) across vast distances had been under way for many years, but, in 2156, a thirty-five-year-old Spanish technologist called Sofia Carvallo saw the means of using the now quite old WORM-LYNK technology; using it as a means of not only transmitting data but also objects. She was working independently for a small techno-comp in Seville when she saw the potential for using this old technology. Sofia was contacted and agreed to join ACME INC, joining their staff in April of the year 2157. She started with a massive amount of funding, and with seemingly limitless technical resources and equipment.”

“Then, in the year 2159,” continued Vicky, “with the resources supplied by ACME INC, Sofia Carvallo was able to build a prototype machine that used WORM-LYNK technology to ship not only data but also inert objects across large distances. Then, by 2162 Sofia Carvallo’s team had developed the means by which inert objects and, also, crucially, ‘warm bodies’ could be transported safely using their ‘ACME INC travel’ technology, under-pinned by the WORM-LYNK technology. To manage this new technology, a new subsidiary company of ACME INC was created, known as ACME-SHIPPING.”

“Anyway,” Vicky continued, “ACME-SHIPPING managed to get an agreement with SEG to replace their fleets of spacecraft with the new WORM-LYNK instantaneous matter transfer service. That would have been in 2164. Within several months of installing ACME-SHIPPINGS transmitter/receiver equipment, the off-world extraction processors were shipping their product back to the Earth as soon as it had been extracted.”

“And we still haven’t got to time travel,” Ginny observed.

“No,” said Vicky, “but we very nearly have. It was after the ACME-SHIPPING transport processing had been fully implemented that Sofia Carvallo’s team noticed that some shipments didn’t arrive instantaneously. Some arrived with slight delays. Investigation into this anomaly revealed that the WORM-LYNK process could be configured to use time as a variable. They found that it was possible to make a shipment appear with a delay ... a delay of minutes, days, even weeks. And interestingly, the objects shipped were not affected by the delay. Further investigation showed that shipments could be sent which ...”

“Got there sooner?” said Ginny excitedly.

“Exactly that,” said Vicky. “They could get there ... before the time that they had been sent.”

“Time travel,” said Ginny.

“And found out by accident,” observed Gabriel.

“Probably not the first time that an important innovation was discovered by accident,” said Vicky a little tersely.

“So, then what ...?” said Ginny.

“ACME INC saw that they had discovered something ... something monumental,” said Vicky. “There had long been an interest ... by the general public that is, in the off-world mining planets. SEG had set up its own tourism sub-division to cater to the interest, but ACME INC saw that with space/time travel, there was an amazing opportunity to tap into that market. And it would be a very valuable market. The people interested in such an offering were fabulously wealthy. They could, and would, pay vast sums to use such a service.”

“I guess they would,” Ginny said.

“So, ACME INC considered how it could best provide such a service. They set up a team of people with the task of identifying places, or more precisely times and places, both on the Earth and off-world, where wealthy tourists might wish to visit. A very large undertaking, as you can imagine.”

“I suppose so,” said Gabriel.

“Sounds like a good job to have had,” remarked Ginny. “I didn’t see that advertised, the last time I was in the Job Centre.”

“Why ... do you think ‘time and space explorer’ sounds more interesting than working in an old people’s home, then?” said Gabriel.

“I shouldn’t be too critical,” Vicky said, “since that was where you two met.”

“That’s true,” Ginny said, and she gave Gabriel’s hand a squeeze.

“Anyway,” Vicky continued, “ACME INC looked for places that their potential clients might wish to visit, and for all of the selected times and places they logged their spatial coordinates.”

“How do you mean?” Gabriel asked.

“Well, if you are going to teleport to somewhere ... somewhere in time and space, you need very specific coordinates. That is because the Earth and the respective off-world planets are continually moving through time and space. If you wish to teleport to another planet, you need to know precisely where that planet is at any particular point in time. In addition, you also need to know where the particular location you are aiming for is situated on that moving planetary object. And as if that wasn’t complexity enough, geo-physical activities on a planet, such things as earthquakes for example, can be big enough to affect the angle of the planet’s rotation, or the rate of its spin. ACME INC realised that they would need to keep a data store of all the coordinates related to all of the potential places that a client might wish to go. And they would need to keep that list of coordinates updated continually.”

“Sounds like a huge amount of work,” said Gabriel, “and that’s what they presumably would have needed to do before they could even market the service.”

“Indeed ... that is the case,” said Vicky. “ACME INC realised that they needed to get their coordinates information correct, because the implications of getting them wrong were too terrible to contemplate.”

“How do you mean?” Gabriel said.

“Well ... if the coordinates were wrong, you could teleport someone into empty space, into a mountain, into anywhere. And their potential clients would be wealthy and important people. In the event of a client not returning from a tour, they were the sort of people who would have families, friends or business partners who would be capable of bringing massive pressure on ACME INC for compensation. They would be the sort of people who could probably bring a company to its knees.”

“And no-one would want to use such a service again, not after such an incident,” said Ginny.

“Yes, indeed,” said Vicky. “So, you can see why getting the coordinates correct was so important.”

“I guess that you have got to get them right ... or ... don’t do it at all,” said Gabriel.

“And then there was the problem with the teleporter technology,” said Vicky. “Sofia’s team had developed teleports to be used for shipping large quantities of extracted minerals. The teleport devices themselves were massive. If it was intended to transport individual clients, then they needed something smaller. Something much smaller.”

“What, do you mean something that fits onto your wrist?” Ginny said.

“Exactly like that,” Vicky agreed. “Sofia’s team worked on the development of these personal ‘space / time units’, STUs as they became known. The first viable model was released onto the market in October 2175. “

“And are we looking at one right now?” Ginny asked.

“Well ... a slightly later model, anyway,” said Vicky. “And,” she continued, “you should realise that the idea was tremendously successful. ACME INC was inundated with potential clients wishing to use the service. Even though the price of such tours was ‘upon request’, this did not deter the very wealthy from putting in immediate orders for tours. ACME offered its clients the option to travel to anywhere ... anywhere on the Earth or any of the off-world mining planets, with a time-frame plus or minus 250 years. We, that is STUs, could issue teleports to those locations, looking up the coordinates from a database used to store that information. And in addition, we could issue requests for ‘supplies’, which could comprise food and equipment. Equipment could mean clothing, weapons, conventional transport ...”

“How do you mean, ‘conventional transport’?” Gabriel asked.

“Well, for example, we could request a small Ramstat flyer, suitable for getting about on a planet’s surface, we could even request a modularised space-craft. That way we could ...”

“A space-craft?” said Ginny. “Wouldn’t they be so big that ...?”

“A space-craft from the era of my manufacture would have no similarity to the ones of this era,” Vicky said.

“But why would anyone request a space-craft” Gabriel asked, “if they could simply teleport to somewhere straightaway?”

“ACME INC offered many things,” explained Vicky. “They did not limit the needs of their wealthy clients. They assumed that they might well wish for ... well, wish for anything. So, anything ... everything was provided for.”

“So, we’ve got to the part where time travel has been developed,” said Ginny. “Now, how do you explain how you came to be here. Something went wrong, didn’t it?”

“Yes, Ginny. You are correct. And my best guess is that the database of coordinates was somehow corrupted. When I tried to teleport my last client ... well, my last ‘official’ client, I believe that the coordinates that I was given were incorrect.”

“How could that be ...?” said Gabriel.

“I don’t know,” said Vicky. “The coordinates database is located in a very secure place. It would not have been easy for someone to get to it.”

“And why would someone do such a thing, anyway?” Ginny asked.

“Again, I do not know,” said Vicky. “It may have been industrial espionage. ACME INC’s time travel business impacted heavily on other businesses. Perhaps ...”

“But if the coordinates database is broken, how is it that you can request things ... and they get here ok?” said Gabriel.

“When I submit a request for an item, I specify my own spatial coordinates. All STUs know their own spatial coordinates. That information is updated continually and is stored deep in their operating system. A request process does not need to reference the coordinates database. It simply sends the requested item to where I am at that point in time.”

“But when you teleport ... when you try to take a client somewhere else ...?” said Ginny.

“When I teleport, I use my own spatial coordinates as my start point, but the coordinates database sends me the coordinates for the specified destination.”

“And that is where the problem occurs, then?” Gabriel said

“I believe so,” said Vicky. “It appears that the end point coordinates being passed back have been somehow corrupted.”

“But,” said Ginny, “the problem that caused you to arrive here ... that happened a long time ago. Maybe the coordinates database problem has been fixed now.”

“That may be true, Ginny, but the only way to try it out would be to try to teleport somewhere. And if it hasn’t been fixed, then ...”

“Tricky one, eh?” Gabriel said.