by Ray Deeg
He dropped the Edison Medal into a slot on the machine and watched the alien machine take on a blue-white glow. The station filled with waves of energy, and weightlessness followed. Loose papers began to float, as if in water. Tom sank into the chair positioned in front of the wheel. Bright light danced around him until a corona formed. Tom’s mind filled with energy, vision, and access to infinity. The connection was intoxicating. His eyes widened, but they were empty. He thought about his life, his mother and father, his friends, the neighborhoods he knew—all those moments. He thought about Gwen. He steadied himself and then pushed the needle into his vein, pressing the plunger down.
Tom felt the cold fluid in his arm and sensed his own death. Suddenly another tactical agent stormed into the main entrance and hopped onto Chandran. An army of tactical agents stormed through the door and filled the platform. Still more entered the station from the tunnel. As they did, the machine’s energy enveloped the entire station, and the new arrivals were halted in their tracks. The light they saw bent reality, and they shielded their eyes. As the machine drew more power, the lights inside the hotel wavered. Tom stared into the Gulf. He felt infinity populate his self as his body jerked in reaction to the cyanide. His head tilted to one side, and he relaxed, allowing himself to be taken. His heart stopped, and his thoughts tumbled and spun. The neurons in his brain stopped firing; the microtubules shut down. He was quickly drawn through the corona and into the collective.
Tom could see everything now. He saw a technician in Geneva adjusting the powerful magnets that would control the particles’ trajectories around the Large Hadron Collider. The magnets altered the course of the two protons ever so slightly, just enough to place them into each other’s path. As they collided, all of Tom’s guilt disappeared and the great mysteries of the universe came flooding in through the eye of God. He saw a young Phillip Hartger, his face perfectly unharmed, staring back at him through a corona on the other side of the Gulf. Tom saw the wave of energy created by the collision at the LHC spill into the collective. He saw what Phillip saw: a chance to correct the mistake by composing a single letter with the intention of warning key players about the future, showing them how they could avoid fusing those two moments and creating what would become this self-imposed purgatory. But each time the event repeated, Phillip saw precisely how his last attempt had failed. And with each new attempt, he saw his intention pushed closer toward its intended goal.
Cause and effect is a strange thing, and humans are unpredictable—they’re anything but logical. Tom Hartger now understood the framework, like tiny notes of music created in the vastness of imagination. As he took inventory of his new power, he understood that he could make changes. He could adjust what needed adjusting, repair what Phillip could not. But there was a responsibility now, too. The ripples he would cause couldn’t rise too fast or move too far. The changes had to fit; that was just the way it was. Causality had to add up—it was all just math, and, after all, rules are rules. He could uncouple the time loop, but history could only be changed so much. His grandfather would still have to be injured. If he wasn’t, Phillip’s life would be different. Tom’s father wouldn’t be born, and Tom wouldn’t either. The accident had to happen, Empyrean ventures—all of it.
But he could block the two events from fusing now; he could smooth the path and get them out of this loop. He could stop the machine from being used again and prevent another tragedy. He would plant an idea into the minds of Loomis and Tesla, an idea to help them see the truth. The copper-alloy machine would need to be repurposed, the schematics for the machine buried until mankind was ready.
Tom looked for a path to that possibility. He saw Tesla and his connection to the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. He saw an opening that would change what needed changing. Tom wasn’t God, not at all. He was only at the outer layer—and like an onion, there were so many layers. Much like a request, he telegraphed his calculation into that bright place at the center.
Slowly, the light around him faded, and he found himself alone on a dark stage. He accepted his journey, and in that final moment before everything went black, he knew that his intentions had been good, that he’d loved and been loved, that everything has a beginning and an end.
Epilogue
BLACKNESS TURNED TO spots of light and then color. Tom recognized the familiar fractal patterns whirling and dissolving as light passed through his eyelids. He opened his eyes, and the world came into focus. He took a moment to orient himself. His body felt grounded, but his soul and thoughts were still buoyant. His mind sensed history ebbing and flowing across time—reshaping, if ever so slightly, all the stories of the living and the dead.
He found himself sitting at a rather modest desk in a rather modest office, with hardwood floors and exposed pipes overhead. Familiar people sat at identical desks around him, staring into computer screens. He noticed a mirror on the far wall and spotted his likeness staring back. His hair was flatter, but that wasn’t it. There was something different—a new hope, or perhaps just less cynicism. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and that was a good start. To his left, a man’s face was familiar. There, typing intently among the others, sat Conrad Perth. He was wearing striped red pants, which appeared uncomfortably tight. He glanced over at Tom and smiled. “How do you spell solipsism?” he asked.
“S-O-L-I-P-S-I-S-M,” Tom supplied, staring at Conrad’s matching red suspenders.
“How about a little animal talk?”
Tom’s mouth turned down at the idea of having to perform in Conrad’s infantile rituals. Then, suddenly, the details of his life came flooding back. “I can’t; I have a date.”
Conrad nodded in approval. “Well, since you have so much free time, surely you can spare a little for an old friend. Now, would you prefer a horse, a duck—or perhaps a goose? Yes, a goose. You down?”
Tom tried to ignored Conrad’s assault but then shot back. “Getting a gander at your outfit just made me gaggle—you look like a quack.”
Conrad nodded in acknowledgment of his opponent’s strong opening. “Well, your honker’s no swim in the pond either, my fine feathered friend.”
Tom checked his nose in the mirror. “I’m no Ryan Gosling, but you’re plain fowl.”
Conrad took Tom’s retort like a punch to the gut. “Well, you’re just, just a big turkey; I’m gaggling on you…oh forget it. You win,” Conrad said.
“Great. I’ll send you my bill,” Tom jabbed again.
Conrad stood up and turned to get in one last shot. “Flock you!”
Tom drove down the Long Island Expressway. He looked over at Gwen, sitting at his side. He stole glances while her hair blew around her face. He knew their love was immortal, not immoral. The sun and clouds played the chasing game as the twelve-story stainless steel Unisphere came into view.
“Exactly where is this picnic to take place?” Gwen asked.
“Oh, we’re very close now,” Tom replied excitedly. “As a matter of fact, it’s just past that shiny model of your home planet.”
After parking, Tom retrieved a picnic basket and a checkered blanket from the trunk. The pair strolled down a sidewalk lined with small trees planted symmetrically on either side.
“How’s your practice?” Tom asked, taking Gwen’s hand in his.
“I’m learning to be patient with my patients,” she replied. “They teach me so much that I often wonder who should be paying who.”
“Do you know that when I listen to you, I feel incredibly hopeful?” Tom said.
“Well thank you, darlin,” she replied playfully.
Tom stretched the blanket out on a patch of grass under a tree. He opened the basket and retrieved some containers and a thermos filled with ice and then began mixing drinks.
“This is wonderful,” Gwen said. “Where are we?”
“Well, my dear, this is a very special place. It’s a place where great minds and their ideas coalesced and were shared with the world. We’re in Flushing Meadows, Queens, and
this is Corona Park, the site of the 1939 World’s Fair.”
Gwen glanced around fondly, noticing something out of place. It was a large, cap-shaped mound enclosed in a circular foundation with round benches on either side. “What’s that?” she asked.
“That’s the site of the Time Capsule of Cupaloy. It’s a specially designed copper-alloy time capsule. It was engineered to stay buried right there for the next five thousand years—well, a little less: it’s been there for a few decades already. It was engineered by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation. Their people also managed the collection of what’s inside. It was lowered into its deep concrete shaft and sealed shut back in 1939.”
“And what’s inside this Westinghouse time capsule that’s so important?” she asked.
Tom poured a drink and handed it over. “It’s a message in a bottle, like a fortune cookie,” Tom replied. “It’s a message from our time to the people of 6939, and it will mean something only they’ll understand.” Tom retrieved a small book from the basket and handed it to Gwen. “I bought you a small gift to commemorate our picnic.”
Gwen eyed the book and opened it. “The official book of record for the Time Capsule of Cupaloy,” she said, reading the inside cover. “Shall I read for you?” she asked.
“Yes, please,” he replied, combing the grass with his fingers.
Gwen straightened herself up and cleared her throat. She offered a flirtatious grin, and the wind stopped to stare. “Each age considers itself the pinnacle and final triumph above all eras that have gone before. In our time, many believe that the human race has reached the ultimate in material and social development. Others believe that humanity shall march onward to achievements splendid beyond the imagination of this day, to new worlds of human wealth, power, life, and happiness. We choose, with the latter, to believe that men will solve the problems of the world, that the human race will triumph over its limitations and adversities, that the future will be glorious. To the people of that future we leave this legacy.” Gwen turned toward the time capsule and its white marker top.
She gazed into Tom’s eyes. “Thank you for the book, Tom.”
He admired her there, lying on the grass, the trees swaying behind her. He could see the time capsule’s white top in the distance and sensed its solidity and near-permanence. Vivid white puffs rolled across the sky with just the sound of wind and his heartbeat to keep time. He found himself staring at her, and time beat faster.
She could see the intent in his gaze, and her breathing quickened. The details of her face and skin became all too vivid, imparting some luminous quality. He reached for her, brushing her arms and wrists with his hands and fingers. Slowly, gently, he pulled her in. She stared into his eyes and moved closer. The moment lingered perfectly, and there was patience in that moment. As the distance closed, there was only the sound of their breathing—time had stopped.
Tom was overflowing with gratitude for all the paths that had led him to this one. He felt in his being that the spirit of man had risen up against a damnable fate, righting a wrong and forging a new hope toward his future. And so it was: the soul of prophecy, and man confronting a great new abyss brimming with all its new possibilities, finding himself borne onward toward the fullness of time—man’s spirit and will determined to bring into harmony and order all the depths and knowledge that his coming of age had revealed about himself and his world, all of which he is capable, all of which he has the soul and heart for, its joys and sufferings on the way to his ultimate glory.