The 9/11 Machine

by Greg Enslen

  Don pinched the bridge of his nose, something he did when he was tired. He wondered if anyone else ever noticed. “Good, good.” Don said, nodding at the screen. “This margin of variance is much lower than on our last five experiments, and those were all positive, so I’d say we’re on the right track.”

  Don was referring to the five earlier times that they had operated the machine with positive outcomes. They had actually powered up and fired the machine on twenty-seven occasions over the past nine weeks, but only five of those “events” could be construed as positive.

  In each of those cases, an item was retrieved from the future.

  Actually, in each case, a test item was sent into the future and then retrieved successfully. All five events had been recorded and documented, and now the items were stored away in a safe in Don’s office.

  “Did you update your research notes?” Don asked, looking up at Terry. “It’s very important that everything be written down, or we’ll never be able to prove our work for the patent office. We need to catalog every step of our work, especially the failures.” The five successful events had been interspersed with failures—in fact, they had experimented with so many different wave forms and tweaks to the machine that, until last night, they had gone two weeks since the last success.

  “Did you send anything through?” Don asked.

  Terry shook his head. “No, I’d never do that without you here. We were just verifying the wave form and the field variance, trying to get it down to zero.”

  Don nodded. “I don’t think it’ll ever get down to zero, but we’re close. Close enough, I think.”

  Terry nodded. “That’s why I was up late—the notes are all up to date, including last night’s testing numbers and the solution to the wave formation issues.”

  Don nodded. They were ready, or as ready as they would ever be. “Good. Let’s set up for another test. Can you get it ready?”

  Terry smiled and left the computer lab as Don went back to the computer, verifying that the latest lab notes and every other scrap of information that he had gathered over the last five years was saved on the mainframe and in three other locations, including a cloud-based encrypted backup system. He’d have to remember to delete all of the data sets and backups before he left—

  “Excuse me, Dr. Ellis?”

  Don looked up to see Peter Burg, the head of security, peeking his head inside the computer lab. Burg was the perfect person to be in charge of security: huge, bald, burly, and without a shred of curiosity about what Ellis and his team were building.

  “Yes?” Don asked.

  Burg waved his walkie-talkie—all the guards carried them.

  “You better turn on the news, sir.” he said. “Thomas outside said he heard something on the radio that you need to know about.”

  Don thanked him and walked into his office, switching on the news. Images of fire appeared on the screen, with the CNN logo in the bottom right corner, and a news anchor spoke over the video from a helicopter flying over the city.

  “That appears to be a bus or truck of some sort, but I can’t see any buildings yet. There is too much dust and debris. Just to repeat our top story, it appears that a massive bomb, possibly nuclear or radioactive in nature, has been detonated in the airspace above Houston, Texas.”

  Oh, God, Don thought. Not again. Not another attack.

  “Initial reports indicate that a small plane had been flying above the city, and air traffic controllers at George Bush Intercontinental Airport had been unable to raise the pilot. What you are seeing now are the first pictures we’re getting—apparently, the device aboard the plane was detonated over the Garden Oaks area of greater Houston, the northwestern portion of the city.”

  Terry and another technician ran into the room to see the news report, joined by several others.

  “Homeland security officials are just reacting to the event, and a press conference is scheduled in the next few minutes. It may be some time before we start to receive initial casualty estimates, especially because of the need to factor in wind patterns. If the weapon does turn out to be chemical or nuclear, the device may have been intentionally detonated upwind from downtown Houston to increase the number of casualties. We’re joined now by…”

  Don switched it off.

  Terry and the other technicians looked at him, incredulous.

  “What are you doing? Don’t you want to find out—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Don said tersely, looking at Terry and the others, who were confused. “We need to keep working on the machine.”

  Don turned and walked out of the office, heading back to the computer lab. Behind him, he heard the TV switch back on. The other technicians stayed in his office to watch the news, but Terry followed him.

  “It doesn’t matter?” Terry asked, his voice low as they entered the lab. “How can it not matter? There might be 100,000 people dead by the end of the week. How can that not matter?”

  Don ignored him, sitting back down at the computer.

  After a few long moments, Terry shook his head and walked away.

  Don didn’t blame him. Terry had no idea what they were working on here, really. None of them did—they were all under the impression that they were working on a particle accelerator that was capable of transmitting objects and items over distances. If Terry knew what they were really working on, he might’ve understood what Don meant.

  He didn’t see Terry for the rest of the day—Don poured over the results from last night’s tests, trying to pinpoint the reason for the 0.52 percent variation. It was within acceptable parameters, but any variation meant a problem in the machine, something that Don needed to solve.

  Of course, if things started to go south in a hurry, Don was comfortable enough to use the machine, even with the variance.

  1.4

  Late Hours

  Don looked up some time later and realized that the warehouse was silent. Above his head, the windows were dark—it was nighttime. He’d worked nine hours straight without noticing it or noticing that everyone else had left.

  No one had said goodbye, either—probably a reaction to his odd behavior. He needed to watch himself. He needed to keep it all under control. It was only for a short time, anyway.

  Don walked to the front security doors and found a guard seated at the main desk, watching a small TV. On the screen, Don saw a news report.

  “Everyone gone home?”

  The guard looked up from his desk, nodding. “Yes, Dr. Ellis. Most—well, most of them went home to watch the news. And to be with their families, sir,” the man added quietly.

  Don nodded. “Thanks for staying. When is your relief?”

  “6:00 a.m., sir.”

  Don nodded again and turned, heading back inside.

  Hours of work, alone, and he hadn’t noticed. On his walk back to the lab, he decided to try another test and then knock off early tonight. He would head home before his usual quitting time of 8:00 or 9:00 p.m.

  In the computer lab, he ran another computer simulation then walked out to the machine. Don leaned over the main terminal, tapping in his credentials and powering up the machine—it took almost twenty minutes for the capacitors to prepare to fire—and left, heading back to his office, closing and locking the door behind him.

  Opening the large safe, he took out the small pad of yellow Post-its and the five notes with writing on them. He ignored the large duffel bag and a strange, drum-like device.

  He’d run the other tests at night, after everyone had gone home, and these five small notes were the proof of his successful tests.

  The first night, back in July, he’d tried the first experiment. He had taken one of the Post-its and placed it on the machine’s primary target area, below the particle accelerator. On the paper, he had written “7/9/11: Top NYSE percentage gainer for the day.” Below those words, he’d drawn a box and signed his name inside.

  He’d stepped back to the computer terminal that operated the machine
and typed, “Send +86440 seconds,” or 24 hours. After a second of hovering his mouse over the red Execute button on the screen, he had clicked it.

  At first, he thought something had gone wrong—the machine emitted a sound that sounded like breaking ice on a frozen pond. He thought something was breaking loose from the machine.

  The machine worked primarily by using a wave formation, combined with advanced quantum entanglement, to collapse space and time in a very small area into a series of synchronized and entangled energy waves. The particle accelerator then, using massive amounts of power, pushed the object or objects inside the target area into the wave space. Conversely, the accelerator could “interrogate” the coordinated wave space anywhere along a finite time period for the object and return it to this reality.

  The theory was that, due to the proclivities of quantum entanglement, the wave in this universe and the identical wave in a universe moving parallel to our own would be connected momentarily, allowing the object to pass through. The variance issue made it difficult—only when they had been able to get the wave formation variance below 0.5 percent were they able to generate a stable enough field for the waves to “sync up” and allow an exchange of physical objects. And the mass of the object passing through determined the amount of energy required—so far, they had only sent through and retrieved tiny objects. When Don started to experiment with increased time differences between the synchronized wave spaces, his power consumption rates would probably increase exponentially.

  As he watched, the small square of yellow in the target area faded out of existence.

  He got up and walked over, running his hand over the flat metal area right under the particle accelerator aperture—the machine created a wave form and directed it through the accelerator and down onto this small metal platform. Anything sitting on the platform would be affected by the wave formation, but the metal platform, as it was part of the machine, was not affected.

  Now, the note was gone.

  He walked back over to the terminal and began typing:

  “Retrieve +172880 seconds.”

  After another second, he clicked Execute.

  Immediately, the cracking sounds filled the air, and Don looked around as the lights flickered in the warehouse. The machine was drawing massive amounts of power from the capacitors, which drank up power slowly from the local utility and discharged it all at once to power the hungry machine. He was using enough power to light up the entire neighborhood for a day, and all in just a few milliseconds.

  The note faded back into existence.

  He walked around and looked at the blank Post-it for a long moment before reaching out with a Geiger counter, waving the wand over the small object. The readings were low but showed some residual radiation, something that his theories had predicted.

  He set the counter aside and picked up the piece of paper, flipping it over.

  “Gap shares, up 18 percent, 7/9/2011, 6:00 p.m.”

  It was in his own handwriting. And it was dated tomorrow night.

  The other notes were similar—in each case, he’d sent Post-it notes into the future, getting stock tips. It was a ridiculous use for the first operational time machine. But it proved that the machine worked.

  The investments made on the knowledge had paid off very well. He’d disguised the stock purchases by buying blocks of several stocks at a time—none did as well as the “target” stock of the day, of course. In some cases, he’d bought groups of random stocks that had gone down, but the stock always paid off handsomely. Power Blossom’s accounts were growing quickly.

  Don had tried sending the notes farther into the future, and they had always come back with no problems.

  Tonight, he asked the future version of himself for the top ten stocks for September 13, 2011, forty-eight hours in the future.

  The sixth experiment went uneventfully—the Post-it disappeared, but this time he had attached it to a one-foot square metal cage, containing a sedated mouse. He then sent it forward, waited a few seconds, and retrieved it with no problems. The additional mass had required more power, which he made note of—he would need to calculate the power needed to project himself in time and ensure that the machine’s capacitors could handle the energy output.

  As usual, the note came back filled in with the pertinent information, in his own handwriting, attached to the cage. The mouse returned alive and awake, running around the cage. There was a half-eaten carrot in the bottom of the cage. Evidently, someone had seen fit to feed the little guy.

  He returned to his office and, after locking away the Post-it notes, he logged into his brokerage account and bought stocks. He used the list of top ten gainers from today and the list from the future, buying substantial amounts of twenty different stocks. By buying them ahead of the large gains to come in two days, he hoped it wouldn’t look too suspicious. He had also bought today’s gainers, which were statistically likely to go down over the next two days. A loss was fine, especially if it turned curious eyes away. Either way, he should be able to turn his last major profit. Or prophet, depending on how you wanted to spell it.

  According to his latest theory of branching timelines, every time Don sent a Post-it into the future, the future version of him that found the note remembered only having sent it to himself in the future—he never received a note of his own. When the note came back, it reentered the original timeline and returned to the previous location on the time machine.

  But as soon as someone, such as himself, found the note and acted upon it, a new timeline was created. That meant that every time Don read a note and acted upon it, he was creating a new timeline. The item from the future was just an object out of time. It didn’t create a break in space-time or form a branching timeline—only his actions, or someone else taking an active interest in the Post-it, could create a new timeline.

  It was hard to imagine that he had the power to create whole new universes, but it seemed to be the case.

  So far, he had not received or filled in any Post-its from days past. That meant that each time, they were going “uptime” to his future, but when they came back “downtime” and he saw the note, a new timeline was created.

  So much power, contained within a stupid yellow square.

  But if an alternate timeline were created every time he successfully communicated with the future, then he was now in a seventh timeline. Every other timeline involved him sending a note into the future, finding it the next day, filling it out, and watching it disappear as the machine retrieved it from the future. In those other six timelines, the other Dr. Ellis’ would never know if the machine worked or not, because once a person had proof that the machine worked, it would create a new timeline.

  And if his branching timelines theory was correct, then he was concerned. If he was able to travel through time, projecting himself backwards, then whenever he acted in a way contrary to original events, he would be creating alternate timelines. If that were true, then he would never be able to actually improve things in this world, his only reality. In this version, he had lost his wife and child.

  Because as soon as he went back in time, a new branching universe would be created. Nothing could ever affect the original timeline. Nothing he did could ever save his wife and child. But it was just a theory, at this point. He would need to be sure.

  Don shook his head, all of the timelines and Post-it notes and alternating theories filling his head. He needed a good night’s sleep, but he didn’t feel like sleeping at the warehouse again. Instead, he gathered up his things from the office and headed out.

  He locked up the double doors to the lab and waved at the guard as he walked to his car. He glanced up at the skyline, as he always did. It was just a reflex now, an impulse, but the Trade Center was always gone. No matter how many times he looked, it was always missing.

  The news on the radio from Houston had gotten even worse, if that could be imagined. Apparently, the air burst over the sprawling city had contaminated a larger por
tion of the city than previously expected. CNN had the initial casualty count at 21,000, but their numbers were changing by the hour as new reports came in.

  Don slowed at the checkpoint to get onto the LIE—three Humvees full of Marines were checking cars before they were allowed to get onto the highway, east or westbound. He saw other Humvees racing into the city, full of troops—they were probably increasing security on the bridges and tunnels, just in case. The additional security meant a slower checkpoint.

  He knew better than to be impatient. Today’s events in Houston, along with the significance of the day, had put everyone on edge, he assumed, and the military would be extra diligent. An efficient organization would have two lines of cars, with one for people like Don who were heading to Long Island and the other for cars headed downtown. But, as he’d been reminded a thousand times over the past nine years, the U.S. military was designed for efficacy, not efficiency.

  Don rolled his window down as he finally made it to the front of the line of cars, waving his USID.

  “Evening, sir,” the soldier said, his hand resting casually on the butt of his rifle as he leaned over. “Heading into the city tonight?” the young man asked, his eyes roaming Don’s face, the plastic card, and the interior of the car with one long, practiced glance.

  Don shook his head. “No, just headed home. Jericho, on Long Island.”

  The soldier looked at him for a moment and then smiled, standing. “You have a good night, sir,” the young man said, waving him through. Don directed his car onto the expressway, heading for home.

  It had been this way since 9/11. The U.S. military had been obliged to take on an expanded role in homeland security during the chaos that followed the attacks on New York and Washington. People understood, with Congress essentially wiped out and the Pentagon half destroyed, that the country was on the edge of anarchy. President Bush had made the difficult decision to suspend the time-honored rule of posse comitatus, which prevented the use of U.S. military troops for law enforcement on U.S. soil.