History Shattered

“In Einstein’s equation, time is a river. It speeds up, meanders, and slows down. The new wrinkle is that it has whirlpools and forks into two rivers. So, if the river of time can be bent into a pretzel, create whirlpools or fork into two rivers, then time travel cannot be ruled out.” Michio Kaku, American theoretical physicist and Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at City College of New York

It was still dark when Tyler awakened on the hillside. He felt chilled in the cold, damp winter air of the Crimean countryside, but no more so than he had felt while fighting his fever of the past several days. He felt around in the darkness for his flashlight. He was hesitant to flip it on. Despite packing extra batteries, he believed it wise to practice conserving his resources right from the start of this visit of indeterminate duration. He flipped it on momentarily and flashed it on his watch dial. It was just a moment before he realized that his watch was still set on Dallas time, and that it was likely completely useless in Caffa given the apparent distortion in time’s behavior at the opposite ends of the wormhole. He flipped his flashlight back off and decided to attempt to get as much additional rest as he could until dawn arrived when he could better assess his surroundings.

He must’ve fallen back asleep, because the appearance of the sun startled him rather than any kind of gradual brightening occurring in his world. He stood stiffly, the hard ground he had been sleeping on accentuating the aches his body was already producing in mass quantities. He chuckled as he thought to himself that he was moving like a seven hundred year old man rather than like someone who wouldn’t be born for almost that length of time. He wandered down the hillside to the road. Curiosity brought him to the edge as he peered down into the rock-lined depression. He expected the wormhole to have diminished a bit in size. Perhaps the surface might be less active. He was definitely unprepared for the sight he was witnessing.

The energy field was probably less than half the size it had been when he had departed Caffa after his previous visit. It was certainly less than a third the size it had been when he had regained consciousness after arrival. Something was terribly wrong. Had he been so ill and so exhausted from the stresses of preparing for the second particle collision that he had somehow slept through an entire day? That was the only logical explanation if everything had been properly duplicated from the first particle collision to the second. He checked the date function on his watch. No, today was yesterday’s tomorrow. He hadn’t misplaced a day. That really left him with only one seemingly reasonable explanation for the shrinkage of the anomaly. Some malfunction had to have occurred either during or after the particle collision at PD. That glitch could be caused by any one of thousands of technical reasons, most of which he wouldn’t even understand. The how and why of the malfunction didn’t really matter anyway. What was of ultimate concern to Tyler was that for whatever reason, the anomaly was dissipating rapidly…, far too rapidly to be able to provide him with a round trip time travel experience. Either he would need to leave now and abort this hastily conceived and executed humanitarian mission into the pages of history, or he would need to reconcile with the reality that he would not be leaving fourteenth century Caffa, or at least not for the destination he had in mind.

He immediately realized that he wasn’t even sure he was in the fourteenth century. If a malfunction had occurred, the wormhole could’ve sent him anywhere. Hell…, it might’ve done so even without a malfunction. The countryside looked familiar, but he hadn’t studied it that closely before. These trees were bare and these hills were brown. They were nothing like the lush green landscape he had visited five days earlier. Maybe he had just hoped he was back in the same spot at approximately the same time. There was no way to know without exploring his surroundings. Leaving to accomplish that task would seem to guarantee that there would be no anomaly to return to. Either he was all in or he needed to get completely out. He made his decision in an instant.

He scrambled back up the hill to his makeshift campsite. He grabbed the second video camera and walked back down to the edge of the dirt road. If he wasn’t able to make it back, at least he could send an additional message back to PD. He turned the camera on and began to record.

“Hey guys, Tyler here again. It’s the next morning, and I’m afraid I’ve got a pretty large dose of bad news to share. Not the worst news like the mission was a complete failure, so don’t panic right off the top, but bad news nonetheless. I’m going to pan the camera over to the wormhole. This video is being taken from almost the exact spot I shot the one I sent back in the camera yesterday. As you can see, the wormhole has shrunk in size by roughly two-thirds to three-quarters. That’s in about half a day. In fact, I’ve been on the ground and conscious here for about thirteen hours, so I figure I’m recording this about an hour and a half after the particle collision in your time, not allowing for the time I might’ve been unconscious. The anomaly’s roughly half the size it was when I returned to PD from my last trip to the past, and that was after almost two days rather than less than one. I can only imagine that something went wrong at your end, and Pat and his team are all assholes and elbows trying to figure out what in the fuck went wrong. Good luck, Pat, but at least know I made it somewhere. That, unfortunately, is the best of any of the news I have to share with you guys.

The way I see it, I have two choices. Either I leave now, and in that case, this expedition would’ve accomplished a giant nothing beyond proving that we could recreate a time travel scenario…, I guess that’s not inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a minor aspect of what I intended to do, anyway…, I digress. Either I leave now, or I stay with the understanding that I won’t be coming back. Since all I’m sending back is an SD card, I guess my choice is pretty obvious to all of you. That brings up the other bit of bad news. I have no way of knowing whether or not I’m in 14th century Crimea. The countryside and the depression containing the anomaly look right, but it could be right place, wrong time and there’s no way for me to know that yet. By the time I find out, it looks like it’ll be too late for me to either let you know or for me to return to your now. It’s weird to think that I might be changing things here, and that will affect whether I’m ever there with all of you at all. Man, this time travel can really screw with your mind.

At any rate, my plan is to send this message back to you, pack up my gear and head out. With any luck, I’ll be in Caffa this afternoon, and I’ll be able to begin assessing the state of affairs here, and whether or not I can reverse the damage I did a week ago. So…, I guess this looks like it’ll be my final report. I’ll do my best. I’ll try to make you guys proud. Monica, I love you. I hope to see all of you again in about seven hundred years…, if that’s the way this whole notion of time travel really works. Man, oh man…, wouldn’t that be wild!”

Tyler turned the video camera off and removed the SD card from it. He was counting on the fact that the first camera had made it safely back to Station 28. If either Colonel James’ troops or his fellow scientists found the camera, they would undoubtedly conduct a thorough search which would reveal the presence of the second tiny SD memory card as well. Both messages should be sufficiently self-explanatory. He once again walked to the far edge of the anomaly and waited for the wave pattern to be moving in the proper direction. He tossed the SD card into the energy field and watched as it disappeared beneath the surface. It seemed to float downward for a few seconds before it gained momentum moving toward the edge of the wormhole. Ten seconds later it had completely disappeared.

“OK, Tyler, old buddy, old pal…, you’ve done it now. Let’s pack up and see what kind of trouble we can cause today, shall we?”

He picked the video camera up off the ground and began trudging back up the hillside to pack his gear back up. “Next stop Caffa…, or at least I sure as hell hope so!”

~~~~o~~~~

The Colonel’s physical damage team was completing their initial examination of Station 28’s exterior. The Lieutenant heading up the squad had been trained as a structural engineer. He called in to report to Colonel James.

“Colonel, I wish I had better news. It looks like one of the lead plates has been split completely open.”

“Can it be fixed?”

“Well, yeah…, eventually.”

“Let me rephrase the question, Belio-Lopez…, can it be fixed now?”

“That depends, sir. To fix it the way we would need to on a permanent basis, we’d need something capable of supporting a two ton sheet of lead and a new panel. To perform a temporary repair, I might be able to get away with just a five hundred pound piece of lead or some other structural material like steel and an acetylene torch.”

“So assuming you could get the proper materials, how long would it take you to make repairs?”

“I don’t know for sure. I’ve never tried to cut through lead before…, but I’m guessing a coupla hours.”

“Would that contain the energy leak?”

“It won’t do what the permanent lead shield would, but the bleed of energy should be nominal with proper repairs.”

“Is there anything else that could be done to stop the leak in the interim?”

“Colonel, the energy burst punched a hole through a lead casing that’s an inch-and-a-half thick. The hole is now misshaped and jagged. We might be able to put a box of some kind over the whole thing, but it would need to be a coupla feet wide and six feet long and made of steel or some similar structural material.”

“That sounds like you could be describing a tool box for the bed of a pick-up truck.”

“Yeah…, something like that could serve as a temporary patch.”

“I’ve got a tool box on my truck. We could get that to you at 28 in fifteen or twenty minutes.”

“Colonel, just so we’re clear, I’m just talking about placing that over the breach. I’m not talking about welding it into place or anything.”

“Wouldn’t you at least tack weld it or something?”

“Colonel, can you or one of our scientific friends assure me that the energy field wouldn’t react with the acetylene?”

“I see your point, Lieutenant. I’ll send some sand bags with the box. Maybe you can just weigh it down with those.”

“I’m happy to try that, sir, but you might want to think of this like a cork in a bottle. If there’s any build-up of pressure, or in this case energy, then this tool box is going flying…, I don’t care how many sand bags we put on top of it. I hope you aren’t attached to that tool box.”

“It was a Christmas present from my parents-in-law. If I told them it was damaged in service to this country they’d be thrilled. Don’t worry about the tool box.”

“Roger that, Colonel.”

“We’ll get that to you, now. Just so I understand, how much do you think that’ll slow the flow of energy.”

“Well, if it’s a typical toolbox, it’s probably about a sixteenth of an inch thick. Steel is a conductor of electricity, so it will be far less effective as a containment shield than lead. I’m just guessing, Sir, but I’d say we might be fifty per cent effective in slowing the energy outflow.”

“Half? That’s all? A man’s life is at stake, Lieutenant.”

“Sir…, I can’t change the laws of physics.”

“Why does every fucking thing around here have to involve physics? That’s a rhetorical question, Lieutenant. Don’t feel the need to respond.”

“No, sir.”

“OK, well, if you come up with any other potential solutions, I wanna hear ‘em. In the meantime, await your repair supplies.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

Mike handed the headset back to the corporal seated at the comm console and left in search of Monica. Their ability to repair the breach would seem to offer little additional time to Tyler, if the man was even alive. He was a trained soldier, and used to the destructive capabilities of weapons systems. He had a difficult time reconciling that an energy force capable of punching a huge hole in thick lead shielding could leave delicate human life unviolated, and yet that seemed to be exactly what this wormhole’s capabilities were…, that and the minor added feature of the ability to travel through both time and space, seemingly instantaneously.

He spotted Monica grabbing a bite to eat in the cafeteria. He slid into a chair next to her.

“We’re doing what we can to provide a temporary fix on the energy breach. Evidently your little particle collision punched a pretty big hole through one of my inch-and-a-half thick lead plates.”

“Send the bill to Pat. That’s great news, Mike. How long before it’s fixed?”

“Well…, what we’re doing is extremely temporary and only partially effective. Lieutenant Belio-Lopez, who’s a structural engineer by training, estimates we’ll only be able to reduce the energy leak by about fifty percent.”

“I guess that’s better than nothing. At this point, every second we can buy Tyler is a second more than we had before.”

“I guess that’s right. I’m sure he’s fine, Monica. He’s tough…, and not just for a scientist. The way he’s hung together this past week has been amazing. He’s a credit to all of us.”

“Thanks, Mike…, and thanks for everything your guys have been doing. I know I don’t say that often enough.”

“We’re just doing our duty. There’s no need for thanks, Monica.”

“There’s always a need for that, Mike. None of us say it often enough.”

“Yeah…, you’re probably right. So what’s next, Director?”

Monica picked up on the subtle transition the military man had made from a semi-personal conversational tone back to a strictly business posture.

“I guess we need to try to factor in the changes your repairs are making to the bleed rate of the anomaly. That will tell us two things. First, we’ll know whether we can expect Tyler to be returning to us, or…, that he won’t be returning to us. Second, once it has dissipated, we’ll be able to get our first look inside Station 28 since before the first particle collision. I really want to assess the impact of what I’ll call the two anomalies on the interior of that station.”

“Have you started to think about what’s next yet?”

“Not beyond Tyler’s return or failure to return and examining 28. Anything else would be premature at this point.”

“OK, Director. I’ll let you know when we’ve finished our repairs. Then you can turn your wizards loose on figuring out how much more time we’ve bought Tyler.”

“Thanks…, Colonel.”

The repairs took a bit longer to accomplish than originally predicted. The tool box wasn’t quite the right fit for the hole in the lead shielding. The repair team ended up going above ground to do some cutting on the tool box with the acetylene torch. In all, it took almost an hour for them to secure the tool box in place. Immediately, the energy bleed lessened to roughly forty percent of what it had been prior to placing the steel cap over the breach in Station 28’s lead hull.

Once Monica was notified, she tasked her scientists to recalculate the rate of dissipation. The news was not favorable. Despite the reduction in the bleed rate, her team estimated that the anomaly would be gone completely within the next three to four hours. Even if Tyler’s belief that there was an eight-to-one ratio in terms of time distortion between the respective ends of the wormhole, that would mean Tyler had little more than a day at most to accomplish everything necessary to allow him to return from fourteenth century Caffa…, even assuming that he had been successfully delivered to that destination by the anomaly.

The next three hours went by in slow and agonizing fashion. Monica did the rounds, walking amongst her various scientific teams and also checking in with the military comm link. It seemed to her that time was playing a cruel trick on her. It seemed to be barely moving, yet it continued to creep inexorably forward, narrowing to a sliver the chance that Tyler would be returning to PD. Finally, the anomaly completely dissipated. There were now only latent energy readings coming from inside Station 28. The entire facility crew, both scientists and military personnel alike, was faced with the reality that they had lost a man today, and he had been lost in a way that would be virtually impossible to explain to anyone not directly involved with the activities being conducted within PD.

Another hour passed before it was deemed safe to attempt to enter Station 28. Even at this point, with the energy emission readings normal, there was still a concern about exposure to possible contagions. Only hours earlier, Tyler had been virtually everywhere within the station while infected with both H2N2 and the bubonic plague. Precautions had to be taken. After a hastily conducted private meeting, Monica and Mike decided that a joint team of soldiers and scientists would enter the facility. All would be outfitted in Hazmat suits, and all were instructed to merely observe their surroundings until a full scale decontamination of the Station’s interior could be performed.

Between the time it took to travel to the remote Station and appropriately outfit the entry team, it was another forty-five minutes before any PD personnel actually set foot inside 28. Aside from the unemptied trash bins and the assortment of discarded medical supply wrappers and containers, their initial observations were surprising in their normalcy. Colonel James had expected there to be evidence of physical carnage. Any energy capable of piercing the station’s lead outer structure should be leaving some evidence of its destructive power in the station’s interior. The team, other than identifying the appearance of the hole in the lead lining, as it exited the contained space, could find no such damaging evidence. How could an energy be so simultaneously destructive and benign?

The scientists were swabbing surfaces and performing as many contamination control procedures as they could, while the military members of the team looked for signs of additional breaches and at the structural integrity of the facility’s interior. After about ten minutes, they reported finding a video camera wrapped in a t-shirt on the floor of the facility. About ten feet away from it, there was a small SD card lying on the floor. The team bagged both items at Monica’s request, and exited the facility with them in tow. Tyler had taken two of the station’s portable video cameras with him in his cache of supplies, or at least that had been his stated intention. Monica could only hope that the camera and the SD card were signs that Tyler had at least survived the second event and was somehow attempting to communicate with his colleagues at PD. She hoped it wasn’t merely a case of wishful thinking on her part. She offered up a silent prayer that Tyler had somehow survived, and that he had been able to send a message to them from the distant past.