History Shattered

“The bottom line is that time travel is allowed by the laws of physics.” Brian Greene, American theoretical physicist, string theorist and professor at Columbia University

The final ten minutes before the particle collision were almost surreal in that they were completely uneventful and routine, as impossible a notion as that seemed to all involved. The countdown proceeded without interruption or even delay. A malfunctioning indicator on one of the electromagnetic readouts was the closest to a glitch that appeared, and it was resolved within fifteen seconds with over seven minutes left in the countdown. Tyler was humming some completely unrecognizable tune and his off-pitch noise served as the musical accompaniment to the last minute of the countdown.

Just as had occurred in the earlier collision test, the shift from the apprehension and excitement of the countdown morphed instantly into an attempt by all involved to determine what had or hadn’t just happened. This time, the lights within the entire facility flickered at the crucial moment. It was as if the particle collision understood that it needed just a bit more power than had been supplied through the gradual build up and wrestled it from the rest of the facility. Computer screens hiccupped and then instantly resumed their displays.

This time, the twin energy waves emanating from the collision were expected. The reporting proceeded as it had previously, in numerical order around both sides of the ring. The power of the energy waves was less than the amount in the prior scenario. Despite drawing from the rest of the facility, the waves this time registered only 17.8 TeV in strength. While it was still the second most powerful burst of energy ever produced and greater than the maximum capability of any other facility in the world, it was still almost 3 TeV weaker than the energy surge which had produced the wormhole just under a week earlier. Would this surge be powerful enough? Even if a wormhole could be recreated, would the almost fifteen percent decline in power change the destination or other critical elements of the wormhole? The brilliant scientific minds could only guess at the answers to such questions for the moment.

It was finally Station 28’s turn to report. The call went out to the most remote of the monitoring stations, but the only one that really mattered today. The reply was silence, or more correctly the static that had first been heard five days ago when the scenario being acted upon today had first been thrown into motion.

“Station 28…, do you read me? Over…”

Again the comm link produced nothing but the eerie scratchy silence.

“Tyler…, you there, man?”

If Tyler was still within the confines of Station 28, he was at best unable to respond. Everyone hoped that was not the case. Monica shifted gears.

“Stations 26 and 27…, are either of you reading any returning energy coming from 28’s direction?”

“26 here, Director. I am reading no direct return of energy coming from 28 through the ring, but I am picking up what looks like some kind of energy bleed.”

“27 here. I’m seeing the same thing. Nothing’s coming through the tunnel, but it does look like there’s a leak. I’d liken it to someone punching a pin hole in a giant water balloon. It’s more like a really small leak rather than an energy return, but it seems to be steady. I’m not sure what that means exactly…, maybe there’s a breach in the lead shielding around 28. I’m not saying that’s what it is, but it kinda looks like that.”

Monica turned to Colonel James. “Mike, is there any way to get your men down there to see if we’ve got either an energy leak or any kind of radiation or contagion exposure issue going on?”

“As soon as your folks can assure me that the levels are stable, I can mobilize a team.”

“OK, then let’s give it another ten minutes. 26 and 27…, continue monitoring the flow from 28. If it remains stable or begins dissipating, I want to know that. If there are spikes, we need to know that, too. Understood?”

“Roger that, Director.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After ten minutes had passed, the energy flow coming from Station 28 had remained constant. Also consistent was the lack of any human response from inside the facility. Just as had happened in the first collision, the multiple communication and data feeds from 28 appeared to have been at least partially damaged by the energy surge. Colonel James tasked a team to restore communications and a second team to investigate and identify the source of what appeared to be an energy leak. Today looked to be another in a string of days that had started early and would end late. At this point, it was impossible to determine if their attempts to recreate the anomaly had been a success or a failure. For that matter, there was currently no way to know if Tyler was dead, alive, still with them in the present or gone to an unknown destination somewhere else in both space and time.

~~~~o~~~~

Tyler found himself in a semi-seated position. Technically, he was lying on his back, but due to the bulk of the Hazmat suit and all the supplies stuffed inside it and his backpack with every pocket filled with some item he thought he might need, he was propped up enough to feel like he was sitting in a bean bag chair. He looked around. Once again he was on a dirt road. If he had returned to the proper destination, then the sun appeared to be just about to set over the mountains to the west. The surrounding hills looked far less green than the ones from his memory and the trees were bare. Was this the same place? Had he travelled back in time to fourteenth century Caffa? The straw colored hills and the barren trees suggested that there was no way it was only five days after his prior visit. Could it be the forty or so days he had estimated it might be? Had autumn melted into early winter? Or was he in a completely different time? He stood with some difficulty and removed his backpack. He walked over to the edge of the road and peered down into the depression, expecting to find the wormhole shimmering below him.

What he saw was different. Instead of a tightly contained gray field, this looked much larger and denser. It appeared more liquid, with waves dancing across the upper surface and what he could only imagine were droplets of energy splashing up and then being re-absorbed by the larger mass. It was then that he realized this must have been the wormhole’s appearance when he had first exited it during his original accidental trip through time. He hadn’t seen or known to look for it last time. He had only discovered it after it had been dissipating for almost two days. The fluidity of the anomaly was fascinating. He recalled Monica telling him that Einstein had thought of time as something akin to a river. The liquid appearance of the wormhole’s exterior certainly seemed to align with that rationale.

Tyler scrambled back to the road and spent the next few minutes taking off the Hazmat suit and checking all his supplies to make sure nothing had been damaged during the journey. Amazingly, it appeared as if everything had survived the ordeal. He needed to move quickly before he found himself in total darkness. The temperature was markedly cooler than during his earlier visit, and Tyler pulled on a pair of red warm-up pants and an orange wind jacket, the only colors of each such item he could find inside Station 28. He chuckled to himself as he considered his attire. He wasn’t going to impress anyone in the fourteenth century with his sense of fashion. He next grabbed one of the two video cameras he had brought with him. He hit its ‘ON’ button and was relieved that it came immediately to life. He had been worried that it might not work in this distant past before the invention of batteries and the discovery of electricity or video photography. He hoped that meant that everything else he had thought to pack and bring with him would work similarly. He also then reminded himself that he might not even be in the past. He had no way of being sure about that yet. All he could be certain of was that he was no longer inside Station 28…, or he was having a delusion yet again.

Those answers would reveal themselves in fairly short order. He had work to do while he still had the energy to move. He was feeling better than he had since returning from Caffa, but the exertion of preparing for the particle collision and this second attempt at time travel had exhausted what little energy his body had scraped together. He knew he would hit the wall soon physically, and he needed to accomplish at least a couple of tasks before that occurred and the darkness swallowed the world. He pointed the camera at himself and began speaking.

“Hi, guys. It’s me…, Tyler…, and I have once again successfully time travelled out of Station 28. For the record, my surroundings look vaguely familiar, but the hillside is now brown instead of green, and the trees here appear to have lost their leaves. If I was forced to assess where I am, and I guess that’s what I’m doing, then I’d say I’m hoping that I’ve returned to just outside Caffa, and that autumn has turned to winter. At this point, I’ve just regained consciousness, all my medical supplies appear to be intact, and all equipment seems functional. I am recording this video as a piece of evidence in the hopes that I can make it somehow return to Station 28 and serve as documentation of at least the partial success of our attempt to recreate the wormhole. What you are about to see is the exterior view of the wormhole from outside it. I don’t believe it would be possible for any of you to get a view like this back in Station 28. I’m walking over to the edge of the road and am now panning the camera down to show you the anomaly.

As you can see, it’s contained in a cavern-like depression next to the road. I’m sorry that I don’t know the dimensions of the hole or any other useful info like that. Notice how much the anomaly resembles a liquid in its behavior. It appears to roll from one end to the other, and it has waves and even releases splashes of what I assume are droplets of energy into the air before re-absorbing them. It’s my theory that when the waves roll to the end nearest the camera, the wormhole is permitting travel from Station 28 to here, and when the waves roll back in the opposite direction it allows for the return to the present. That would be your present, not mine. I need to keep reminding myself that time needs to be perceived from the perspective of the viewer, so your present and mine no longer align.

At any rate, I will be attempting to deliver this camera back to your present and to Station 28 as my first act here in wherever and whenever I am. I have a second video camera with me, so once I’m able to learn more, I’ll attempt to record and pass along additional data regarding my success or failure in terms of not only where and when I now am, but also whether or not my attempts to reverse the effects of my earlier visit to history are successful. Wish me luck. Oh, and one more thing…, Monica, I love you! Tyler out.”

He turned off the video camera. He questioned his decision to make a declarative statement regarding his feelings for Monica on an electronic document likely to become part of the historical record of the period, but then he decided that there was no place more appropriate to do so. Future generations would realize scientists weren’t just cool and heroic, but they were also capable of great love. It was time to send his video message back to PD. He scrambled down the side of the embankment and kneeled close to the edge of the anomaly. Tyler was unsure how exactly to get the video camera back to Station 28 without having the anomaly take him back at the same time. After about thirty seconds of thought, he stood up and looked around. He found a loose stone, suitable for throwing. He made a wind-milling motion with his right arm in an attempt to loosen the muscles and waited. When the wave of energy began flowing away from him he threw the stone almost to the far end of the wormhole. He then watched and waited. The stone made a splash as it penetrated the surface of the anomaly and was then quickly absorbed by the mass. He saw it drift downward slightly, but it was clearly being swept toward the far end of the energy field. A few moments later, it was gone. That just might work.

He scrambled back to the road and grabbed one of the two extra shirts he had packed. He wrapped it around the camera in an attempt to provide some protection in case the energy field ejected the camera into Station 28 with some force. He ruefully remembered the concussion it had delivered to him when it had deposited him back inside 28. He knotted the shirt as best he could and then scrambled to the far end of the anomaly and waited for the wave pattern to move in the proper direction. He watched two complete cycles, wanting to make sure he didn’t screw up this opportunity to deliver this vital bit of video evidence. Once he felt confidence in the timing, he waited for just the right moment and gently tossed the camera into the field. It danced momentarily on the surface, as if it was weightless, but then it was gradually taken in. Tyler watched it move inexorably closer to the edge of the anomaly until it suddenly vanished. It had to have been taken back to Station 28. If not there, then Tyler was incapable of imagining where in time and space it might end up. That was simply too much for the exhausted scientist to contemplate.

He couldn’t walk to Caffa now. He simply lacked the strength and darkness was rapidly descending. The severity of the disease, coupled with a lack of sleep and the stress of his current dilemma had resulted in almost total exhaustion. He would need to ride out the night here. No other option was physically possible. Tyler gathered all his gear and moved about a hundred yards up the hillside under the protection and cover of a large tree. He decided to use his Hazmat suit as a tent of sorts. He mixed one of his MRE’s with a small amount of the water he had brought with him and took some additional meds. Looking back down toward the road, Tyler was able to see the shimmering upper surface of the anomaly on the far side. It was the last image he recalled seeing before sleep, darkness and exhaustion claimed him.

~~~~o~~~~

The comm team was the first of the two teams of soldiers to record success. They had already gotten practice at restoring the three feeds coming from Station 28. The other team was proceeding with extreme caution, as they had concerns about energy and radiation leaks as well as pathogen exposure. Elsewhere within PD there was already a growing consensus among the scientific team that Tyler’s mission to the past must’ve been a failure. This theory was popular amongst them because they were all unchanged. They were all still aware of what this particle collision was about, and they were all the same age as they had been prior to the test. All of the same scientists were present, and they all seemed completely unaffected by any of the events which had just transpired. Monica and Jasmine attempted to keep everyone focused, reminding all of them that they were equally unaware of the incredible change which had occurred in history just a few days ago until after the energy field had dissipated, and they had discovered a thirty-four year old Tyler in Station 28. That same scenario could be in place right now and none of them would know it.

Pat’s team was beginning the analysis of the energy field within Station 28. Monica had approached her colleague for an early assessment.

“Monica, I don’t like to make rash judgments, and I don’t think we’ve gathered enough data to be able to properly analyze the anomaly yet.”

“Pat, I promise not to hold you to it…, just give me your initial gut reaction.”

“Well…, I think we created another wormhole. Beyond that, the energy bleed we detected would seem to unavoidably suggest that this anomaly will have a much shorter life than the last one did. Even if we went a little wilder with our speculation and I was to suggest that the wormhole worked perfectly and delivered Tyler to the proper location in terms of both time and space, the energy leak would seem to be quite problematic.”

“Give me a bottom line, and in English, please.”

“Tyler’s mission to repair the damage he’s done is more complicated than his inadvertent trip into history last time. That would seem to me to suggest that he’ll need more time to accomplish such a mission than the day-and-a-half he spent there last time. The energy breach, if that’s what it turns out to be, is going to cause the anomaly to dissipate more quickly. I don’t know exactly how that might impact Tyler’s ability to do what he needs to do to reverse the H2N2 effect, but the clock’s definitely ticking. I don’t want to bet against Tyler, but I think we need to at least begin to prepare ourselves to face the possibility that Tyler isn’t coming back! I know that isn’t what you want to hear, and I hope I’m wrong, but you asked me for a bottom line.”

“Yeah, I did. Remind me not to do that again.”

Colonel James appeared out of nowhere and walked up to the two scientists. “Am I interrupting a private conversation?”

“Nope. Tell me you’ve got good news.”

“Well, the energy leak doesn’t appear to be generating any significant amount of radiation. At any rate, that’s our assessment from outside of Station 28. We won’t be able to offer too much additional depth or clarity on that subject until we’re inside 28, and we don’t want to do anything to jeopardize the anomaly, like entering the station’s interior, until we know Tyler’s safe. If the Station’s lead lining is functioning as a containment vessel, then entering the facility could destroy the wormhole. We’ll wait until you give us the go ahead before we attempt that.”

“I guess that’s good news. Let me ask you a different question, Mike. Is there a way for your team to pinpoint the breach?”

“Maybe…, what are you thinking?”

“Well, if Pat’s right, the energy leak is shortening the lifespan of the anomaly. All that would be accomplishing is hastening the closing of the window of time during which Tyler would need to accomplish his H2N2 eradication mission. I’d like to find a way to buy him as much time as we can to be successful in that effort. If your guys can find the breach and do something to either plug it or at least lessen the outflow of energy, then that might be a way we can help Tyler.”

“OK…, I get it. I’ll see what we can find. But I also recognize there may be significant risk to my troops in trying something like that. I’ll be looking to somebody on your team to advise us regarding how to proceed. The last thing I wanna do is jeopardize either Tyler’s mission or the lives of my men.”

“I totally concur with that approach. Thanks, Mike. I’ll make sure our energy flow experts are available to consult with your guys.”

The facility’s military leader nodded his head, spun on a heel, and returned in the same direction from which he had approached moments earlier. Pat stared at the man’s back as he rounded the corner.

“How weird is it that one of the people in Tyler’s pictures is his dad, who was also a Colonel?”

“I’m not sure what the odds of that are, but it might be worthy of a lottery ticket purchase.”

“Yeah…, you’re probably right. Monica, I can’t help but wonder right now what the triggering moment might be if Tyler is somehow able to change history.”

“Whaddaya mean by triggering moment?”

“I’m not at all sure, but let me try to explain. Suppose Tyler prevents some key figure in Caffa from getting the Bird Flu. That might be an example of a positive triggering moment. Conversely, let’s say he prevents someone from dying of the plague that should’ve died from it, or he saves someone surgically and one of those events is of historical impact. Those might be triggering moments of a different type…, maybe good, maybe bad. How would we know those moments actually occurred? Would it be instantaneous and imperceptible to us? Would we suddenly change in an instant, and some of us just wouldn’t be here anymore, and it’s now a different year? Does none of it actually take effect until Tyler returns and the wormhole closes? What happens if Tyler is stuck in the past and can’t get back? Even if he fixes whatever problems he caused last time, would they not take effect because he doesn’t return through the wormhole? Is it like some giant cosmic reset button? I guess what I’m saying is that we don’t know enough about any of this to have a clue as to how it works or what we’re doing.”

“I can’t answer any of the questions you just posed, Pat. All I know is that we changed history in an incredibly dramatic and powerful way. And understand I choose ‘we’ as the operative noun here. It wasn’t Tyler. He was merely the unfortunate soul who happened to be in Station 28 at the time that we threw the switch. We’re really quite fortunate that he has the background that he has. What are the odds that we’d have a physician virologist who can speak Latin in the right place at the right time? No, these changes, regardless of whether they’re for better or worse, are on all of us.”

“Look, I’m not blaming Tyler, and I’m not accusing you of looking through rose colored glasses either. But it would be just as easy to argue that if someone else, without Tyler’s ability to speak the language or who didn’t possess his medical skill set or who wasn’t sick, had travelled back in time, then they wouldn’t have been able to make such a dramatic impact on history. Your perspective and that one, and I’m not saying it’s mine…, are opposite sides of the same coin.”

“Geez, Pat…, at the same time you’re reminding me not to ask you for a bottom line assessment, also remind me not to get into a debate with you.”

“It sounds like you’re gonna start avoiding me.”

“Maybe…, if you keep this up!”

Both scientists laughed. Monica couldn’t help but focus on one particularly upsetting aspect of what Pat had shared. What if Tyler’s mission was successful, but he was somehow trapped in the past?