“Delete that ad immediately!”
“Why don’t I just raise the price a few hundred bucks, or maybe list it at $1,000?”
“This time machine of yours work?”
“Of course it works. You’ve seen my other inventions.” He sounded a bit indignant. “Everything I build works.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about self-driving vacuum cleaners, a beer mug/water bong/breathalyzer combination, edible spray paint, and a tie flask. Those things don’t defy physics and screw with the time/space continuum. You’re talking about inventing the impossible.”
“It’s not impossible because I did it. I just want to sell it and make a few bucks. The patent on it is pending, but I doubt I’ll make another one. Move on to something else as usual.”
“Now wait a minute. You like to get laid, right?” He looked at me as if I had just asked if the earth was round or the sky blue. “Doncha think this machine could be used to get the ladies?”
“I don’t have any problems with the ladies. It’s the twenty-first century – nerds and geeks are sexy.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. But, there’s probably plenty of MILFs, models, and girls-next-door who have resisted the temptation to sleep with you.”
“I suppose. And your point is?”
“The time machine. For those who can resist your charms, whatever they may be, it gives you another charm to tempt them with. And, it can also be used to make money.”
“Which is it, money or women?”
“They aren’t mutually exclusive. Money and sex – it doesn’t get any better than that! Who says we can’t have both?”
“We?”
That’s when I had to use my power of persuasion to convince him that my business acumen and his scientific mind were a perfect fit. It took only a few beers and the promise of a 70/30 split (70 for him, 30 for me) to make him see the promise of a future in which the chances of getting laid and making money would greatly increase.
The business I had in mind was like an amusement park ride or a rave with tons of mind-altering drugs. It would be a thrill and a rush, but you wouldn’t be hanging upside down eight feet in the air or dancing to crappy electronic music in a warehouse.
Was this legal? I doubted there were any laws on the books pertaining to time machines and the offering of services for said time machines, but I figured it would be better to keep everything on the down low - underground and away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.
Max Quarryman deleted his ad and went to work on his time machine, ensuring that it could offer quick and exciting rides back to the future.
“Two-day limit.” I said.
“Why two days?”
“How far do you think you can send someone?”
“Not sure. I only tested it for an hour or so, but the potential is probably endless.”
“You don’t actually want to send someone away - you know, disappear them, do you?”
“If they want, why not?”
“Jesus Max, then you’ll really be risking the wrath of the fun police.”
“Well, I’ll definitely start slowly and see what happens.”
“Can you make it any more attractive? It looks like some rusted out old vehicle from Mad Max or something.”
I didn’t know how he made all these machines and contraptions, and I certainly had no idea how he built a time machine, but I wished he had made it a bit more inviting.
“Why didn’t you build a hot tub time machine like in that movie?”
“Not possible.”
“Or, how about a DeLorean?”
“Already done. And old DeLoreans are too expensive. I used scrap metal, junk, duct tape, super glue, PVC pipe, old computer motherboards, and spray paint. I used the real money for the important components like titanium gyroscopes, cesium and GPS devices that can withstand high g-forces.
“Well, this thing is ugly.”
“Science isn’t always pretty.”
“As long as it works.”
“It will.”
And it did. After he tinkered with his creation for a few days, it was ready.
“I’m gonna go two hours ahead.” Max declared.
“Two hours? Start slowly.”
“I already went an hour before I made the modifications and improvements.
We set it for two hours and I waited a full one hundred and twenty minutes for Max to suddenly appear in the large open room of my downtown loft. He did – intact and missing two hours in his timeline. Then I went for four hours. After I returned, Max cranked up the machine to two days. He made sure the duct tape was still intact, and disappeared at exactly 3:48 PM on a Monday. I waited an excruciating forty-eight hours for him to appear, which he did at exactly 3:48 PM on Wednesday.
“Two days?”
“Exactly.”
So, we listed it on Craigslist, but this time, instead of posting in the “For Sale” section we posted in the science discussion forum. We were offering rides into the future and we believed our sales pitch would be best suited to science freaks and geeks. We figured it would take time to get some takers, and the first day proved us right as we received a few expletive-filled rants and diatribes about scammers and junk science. However, the second day brought us three requests. Of course, we had to play this out like some second-rate film noir movie and meet in a dark public place to scope out our potential time travelers. We met each of the three, and none of them seemed like undercover time travel police or fraud investigators. We booked their travel appointments on the next three successive days – at $200 per trip!
We had sixty more responses by the time we were ready for the first time travel rider. Joe - at least that was the name he gave us, was ready to go. He signed the waiver and non-disclosure forms, which made it clear that we weren’t responsible for anything that went wrong, that he had been duly advised of the risks, and that he had better keep his mouth shut because this was a secret government test and prison would be his next home if he blabbed. I doubted he believed the government mumbo-jumbo, but he didn’t look like a time travel narc, nor did he look like someone who had many close friends, so we felt our secret would be safe with him.
Joe jumped into the wretched looking machine with the glee of a child at the carnival. Off he went. Vibration, lights, wind, g-forces, and poof – he was gone. We figured we would know in two days whether it had worked. The next day, another Joe - probably another fake name - was just as eager to fly the friendly skies, and go forward two days. On the third day, Zeke - probably a real name - was a bit apprehensive and had asked us to review our extensive testing of the machine. Of course, we exaggerated just a bit by talking about the industrial materials we had used, and the stringent laboratory testing that we conducted. We had increased the number of times we ourselves had used it by about three-fold. Zeke believed us and off he went.
For Max, the most difficult part of finalizing the product was creating a GPS system that would deposit time travelers in a specific location. He eventually created one that used the GPS coordinates of each rider’s home, as found in their smartphones. He entered this data into the time travel machine’s computer and each rider would show up two days later in their own home. They would be able to quickly determine whether the ride had been a success by looking at their phones for the current date and time. Most of them came knocking at our door to tell us how cool the experience had been, even though nothing much had happened to them other than the fact that they had jumped two days ahead in time, and therefore, had lost lose days of their lives. Of course, if you jumped ahead frequently, you would end up being much younger than your peers. Would anyone want to be thirty when your friends are sixty? Using our machine several thousand times at two days a pop will do the trick.
Three months in and we had sent sixty-three people into the future and pocketed over $12,000. However, it was becoming a chore to schedule rides for all the people who answered our ad, not to mention all the people who would later show up at our d
oor to tell us how great it had been and who wanted to take another spin. We had a waiting listed of over one hundred adventurous souls, and hundreds more responses we hadn’t even bothered to answer. All these people clamoring for a short ride into the future, one which didn’t provide any remarkable insights or give anyone an advantage in the stock market or sports betting. It provided nothing but a quick jump in time. For the rider it felt like five or ten seconds. It was shocking how many people were just looking for a relatively cheap thrill.
“Can you build another?” I asked Max.
“Sure. Take me a little time, but once you’ve built one, it ain’t that difficult to replicate it. Supplies of cesium may be the issue.”
“Can you take anyone back?”
“According to most theorists, backwards time travel borders on the impossible.”
“Seems to me that we could make a shitload more money if we could bring people back after going forward, or at least bring ourselves back.”
“You’re thinking about the stock market?”
“I am.”
“I’ll work on it. Don’t make no promises, though.”
We continued with our time travel rides and by the end of six months, we had made $28,000. As per our agreement, Max took $19,600 and I took the remainder. Max spent most of his time working on backwards time travel while occasionally taking breaks to go upstairs with the prettier and more impressed female riders.
Three months later and another $14,000 richer, we were ready to test backwards time travel. Max had built a second machine – one that propelled the rider into the future, but was designed to bring that same person back at a specific time from a predesignated set of coordinates. The new machine was just as grotesque and made with the same random collection of materials, but if it worked, it could look like the car from The Munsters for all I cared.
I volunteered to go. There was nothing much to lose – if backwards travel didn’t work, I would just be two days ahead like we’ve been doing for the past nine months. If it worked, we’d be on our way to stock market riches.
I went, I came back, and we celebrated. It had worked. Max had accomplished the impossible, and we were on our way to becoming rich beyond our wildest dreams.
Our first test was a success. I went forward at seven in the morning on Monday. I used the computer terminal in my home to look up stock prices. I found one that had closed on Monday at $3.20 and at mid-morning on Wednesday was trading at $5.20. I found another that had closed on Monday at $6.75 and was trading at mid-morning on Wednesday at $8.10. I wrote the symbols in marker on my hand. As soon as I returned to Monday, I purchased ten thousand shares of each. In total, we made $33.500 minus those pesky broker commissions.
The rides continued while our winning stock trades piled up. We made a few thousand one day, a few hundred the next. One stock went from $3.50 to $5.20 in two days. I had purchased 10,000 shares – that’s $17,000 in profit minus the commissions. Another stock went from $10.80 to $22.00 after a drug trial showed positive results – I had purchased 6,000 shares and we made $67,200. I was on a roll and staring upper class in the face when Max gave me the news.
“So, Max, when should you reveal your invention to the public?”
“We already have. Hundreds of the public have taken rides.”
“No I mean, well, this might be the greatest invention of all time. It’s historic. It’s life-changing. We can use it to trade or a few more weeks or longer, but eventually you’ll have to take your place in the pantheon of greatest inventors. Your invention is history-changing! You’ll be famous.”
“I don’t want no fame.”
“Imagine the girls you’ll get?”
“I have a girl.”
“I know you get plenty of girls. But imagine how the number and quality will go up when you are revealed as the creator of the most significant invention of all time.”
“No. I mean I have a girl now. You remember Melanie?”
“No. I don’t keep track of your ladies.”
“She’s the one.”
Max had met the girl of his dreams and I missed it. I was so immersed in our time travel amusement park and the money it generated that I had failed to notice that Max was taking the same girl upstairs time after time. I had failed to notice that the number of women Max had taken to the bedroom had dwindled to one.
Max had also been working hard to make major adjustments to his machine – something else I had missed. Max was tired of two-day increments. Max was looking to make a quantum leap – backwards!
Max and his new girlfriend had decided that San Francisco in the 1960s was the place and the time to be. They wanted to leave the twenty-first century and start a new life in an older time period.
“I loved to read about the sixties when I was a kid., Science books, time travel stories, and the 60’s. I wasn’t a popular kid in school. My luck with the ladies didn’t start until college when nerds got some measure of respect and I figured out how to impress them with chemical explosions and quirky inventions in the lab. Oh, and my jaw line stiffened and I grew some bangs.”
They did a test run to see if his machine could handle two people, and it worked, though it did use double the fuel. “I think we can do it. Just a few more calculations and adjustments and we’ll be ready.” It sounded impossible to go that far back in time, but I had learned to never underestimate Max and his capabilities.
“What are you gonna do back there, um, then? How you gonna work or make money?”
“Think of all the money I can make with my knowledge of events. I can invent things that have already been invented, but haven’t been invented then. I plan to research the stock market so I know what’s ahead. I got lots of ways to make a living. Also, LSD is still legal, at least until October 1966 in California – it’s gonna be a frigin’ blast.”
“You’re not worried about changing history, you know time travel paradoxes and all?”
“It would be impossible to go back in time and not change things. But, I believe parallel timelines exist. I won’t be changing your timeline, only mine.”
I don’t know how things changed in his timeline. I don’t know if he altered things beyond recognition. don’t know if he is having a blast. I don’t even know if he made it to the sixties or if he made it back before 1966 so he could sample some of that legal LSD. I watched Max and Melanie disappear before my very eyes. Like bubbles from a child’s toy, they were gone in an instant. I figured I would never know what happened. Max Quarryman would be a missing person, though I don’t know too many people who would miss him. Except me.
With Max gone I stopped giving the time travel rides and focused on my stock market efforts. Over the next year I built up a very healthy seven-figure bank account with my stock trading proceeds. Was it legal? Well, there certainly are no laws on the books against traveling into the future to predict stock share prices. Was it ethical? That’s a question I’ll leave for the amateur philosophers in the audience.
With all the stock trading I had been doing, it completely slipped my mind that it was illegal to purchase cesium. The day I contacted one of Max’ suppliers I didn’t realize he had been snagged by the Feds for selling uranium to undercover agents posing as terrorists. To save himself from hard time, he began acting as an informant.
My request to purchase several grams of cesium-137 triggered warnings of possible terrorist activities and caused the Feds to set up a sting operation. So here I sit, in a sterile federal prison, awaiting trial. I can afford the best representation, but I’m not sure if I should waste my money on high-prices attorneys.
The feds are pouring through my financial records, but you and I both know that there’s nothing to find. They’ll never see the forest through the trees, because the forest is an impossibility. Without that forest the trees won’t add up to any broken laws. No illegal trades, no insider knowledge, no connections to terrorist groups or hostile foreign governments; not even a speeding ticket in the last five years.
My stock trades are perfectly legal and my attempted purchase of cesium-137 merely an errand for a friend. But, to save myself too much hassle, I threw my friend under the bus.
When they obtained a warrant, I had already stripped the time machine of many of its parts. It was merely a grotesque shell of itself when the feds came knocking. The minute quantities of cesium-137 remaining in my loft was something Max was playing with. No one had any idea what the machine was for or what it could do. Without proof that the machine did the impossible, they had no federal case.
I figured I could hand them Max on a platter for any suspicious activity.
“So where is this friend of yours, Max Quarryman?”
“Last I heard he was headed to San Francisco with his new girlfriend. I only knew her first name –Melanie.”
I didn’t lie. I merely told the truth and they were off on the wildest most futile goose chase in the history of law enforcement. Max Quarryman will go down as the new DB Cooper.
Well, I sit in Federal lockup, occasionally speaking with my public defender, but I know I won’t be here long – providing none of those crazy freaks who took a ride on the time travel roller coaster violate their non-disclosure form.
It was a good run while it lasted, but not sure how much longer I would have continued anyway – duct tape is cheap, but cesium-137 is off the charts expensive, and illegal.
When I get out of federal lockup and the time machine is returned to me, I’m planning to rebuild it – I think I remember which parts went where and which wires connected this to that. But my days of two-day time traveling are over. I would need a partner for one, and secondly, I think the constant back and forth kills a few brain cells each time. No, I have another plan. If you ever see a used time machine for sale on Craigslist, and you have a sense of adventure, call the number immediately. It’s going to be a little more than the original asking price of $100, but whatever price I select, it will be worth the investment.
Altering the Apocalypse: and Other Short Stories About Humans and Time Travel Page 10