by J. M. Preiss
Time Jump
By J. M. Preiss
Copyright © 2012 by Jonathan M. Preiss
To Lindsey.
Without her endless support and patience, this dream would never have come true.
Prologue
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Chapter VIII
Chapter IX
Chapter X
Chapter XI
Chapter XII
Chapter XIII
Chapter XIV
Chapter XV
Chapter XVI
Chapter XVII
Chapter XVIII
Chapter XIX
Chapter XX
Chapter XXI
Chapter XXII
Chapter XXIII
Chapter XXIV
Chapter XXV
Chapter XXVI
Chapter XXVII
Chapter XXVIII
Chapter XXIX
Chapter XXX
Chapter XXXI
Chapter XXXII
Chapter XXXIII
Chapter XXXIV
Coming soon...
Prologue
Zero three-thirty. I remember that time as if it were this morning. Well, let's be honest here, it was this morning. When I say it was this morning, I mean it was this morning twenty thousand years ago. Roughly, anyways. Mason and I have no idea exactly how far we have come. All we know is that things went wrong. Horribly wrong.
Now, I'm not saying that it was meant to be a routine mission. Far from it, but it should have gone a lot better. Look at it like this: going to the Moon was a massive undertaking, and it was certainly far from what you would consider routine back in the 1960's; however, it occurred multiple times. Here’s the biggest thing, it worked the first time without a hitch. Of course, they did all of their trials and tests beforehand. We did that too. I guess something was just missed.
Something was missed...
Chapter I
The alarm clock on the wall read 03:30. It was earlier than Jacob had to be awake, but he couldn’t sleep any longer. He was anxious for the big day.
With a slow motion, Jacob edged out of bed so as not to disturb his wife Lisa. It was not a normal marriage. There were stipulations, regulations, and all kinds of rules that brought them together in their union. With a passing thought, Jacob considered that perhaps that was normal in the present day. He shrugged as he went into the living room.
The living room was small. Space was at a premium in the cities, and everyone lived in the cities except for those working the farms that serviced the rich or the rich elite that owned massive land.
Jacob sat down on a stark white couch. He picked up the remote and turned on the vid-screen.
"-day, The Halcyon Project is set to take place. This is a groundbreaking undertaking that will completely change the way we look at history. Lead scientist Doctor Henry Jenkins has this to say about the project." The screen shifted to an image of a man with graying hair and glasses. "Halcyon will completely change the paradigm," he said. "Look at it like this," holding up his hands in front of him, "We have always viewed time as ever going forward - that there is no way to go backwards. The only way to travel is from my right hand to my left hand. Instead, we now can view time like this." He closed his hands in on each other and clasped them tightly together. "Imagine now that there is no space between my hands, and notice that my hands overlap each other in places. This is how we now know time to be. It's complexly entwined with itself."
The view switched to a brunette reporter in her mid-thirties. "So doctor, what exactly does this mean for The Halcyon Project?"
The camera shifted back to the man. He scratched the bit of beard that was showing up on his chin. "Simply put, it means that we can travel anywhere in time." He chuckled. "Of course, it is much more complicated than that, but I will leave the details out for the sake of everyone. It can be pretty boring - even for us scientists." He winked.
Shifting back again, the reporter nodded. "Of course, doctor. So what exactly does Halcyon aim to do?"
"Wonderful question," said Doctor Jenkins. "Our previous experiments simply dealt with sending small packages and notes backwards in time a handful of seconds, then minutes, then hours. We have also succeeded in sending a message back as far as a year. Also experimented with are inanimate objects. We have, amusingly enough," he chuckled again," sent a banana with the note that it was someone's lunch because he remembered being hungry at a certain time we were working." He smiled to himself.
The reporter was back on screen, this time reading a piece of paper. "Doctor, if you would please be so kind as to answer this question from one of our viewers at home." She started reading from the paper. "How does it work? Doesn't traveling back in time and changing something cause the future to change causing you to never go back in time in the first place?"
"Aha. Of course, the question of causality." He fumbled with his hands for a bit, wringing them together. "I had hoped that this was not going to be asked, but that's alright. Short answer, we have no idea. Does what we are doing break causality? Most assuredly. At least, it breaks causality as far as we are knowledgeable about causality. Certainly, what we are doing should not be possible, but it is. This is an instance where the theory has not completely caught up with the science, and that is what we are aiming to figure out with Halcyon."
"And how exactly is that?" asked the reporter from off-screen.
"At 12:00 UTC, Halcyon will be activated sending two men back in time to the beginning of the twenty first century. To be precise, we are aiming for the year two thousand. Once there, their mission will be to approach the scientific community and get another facility built to match our own. Along with what we view as a good political climate in general, the scientific advancement is near enough to being able to create a rudimentary program to mirror ours. Beyond that," he spread his hands wide, "I am unable to comment."
The camera shifted to the reporter once more. "Thank you, Doctor Jenkins. I know that we are all waiting with bated breath for the activation of this historic undertaking." She looked directly into the camera. "Back to you, Sally."
The screen went back to a view of the newsroom with the anchor centered in the view and a small picture of the reporter in the corner. "Thank you, Jeanne." Sally looked down at her papers and back up at the camera. "In other news, the parliament of -"
Jacob turned off the vid-screen. The early morning news shows tended to just be a repeat of what was on the evening news, especially this early in the morning. He got up off the couch and wandered into the kitchen unit.
As he approached, the lights automatically came on and appliances appeared from recessed storage areas. He opened the refrigerator and chose a simple package for breakfast, something with egg and bacon substitutes, and activated the cook top.
As far as Jacob was concerned, the mass produced substitutes were just as enjoyable as their real counterparts were, but there were those that said they had more discerning tastes and could always tell the difference between substitute and the real deal.
That was something that bothered Jacob. The introduction of fusion based power generation and advances in renewable energy sources had made energy all but free. Jacob considered it as such because there was so much, but there wasn't anything that could be done with it when it was first developed. The economy remained stable as a result, but then the nano-replicator was developed. Give them a source of resources, ample power, and a template, and they could produce any non-biological object. That is when the economy collapsed. It was turmoil in the 2080’s. A lot
of money became meaningless. That changed the way things worked.
It took at least ten years before the new economy stabilized. Twenty-ninety was the dawning of the golden age, so historians far removed from the truth would say, Jacob considered. While things were great, the introduction of the energy credit to the world, the founding of a global government, and an end to poverty in most of the world - so people said - there were still problems. It took years of construction to finish the new cities that had appeared around the reactors that were now the true lifeblood of the world. During this time, poverty didn't actually disappear, just altered. With the introduction of the energy credit, the global government figured how many credits an average citizen would require to survive. With this energy ration, people never went without food in any part of the civilized world, and they could live relatively comfortably. That, however, did not give them a place to live.
Jacob figured that they would have to find a way to acquire funding once they reached the other side of Halcyon. That could prove to be a potentially troublesome problem.
The cities did not magically spring up overnight. It took many years, and the amount of homeless people on the streets was astounding. They could have all stayed in their original homes, but only the major cities that had received a fusion reactor were able to operate masses of nano-replicators. People had to make trips to get whatever they needed. Some decided they did not need to go home after that.
After about six years, the first group of cities was completed, and the majority of the homeless could be housed. Massive spires of gleaming metal stretched into the sky. Most city planners decided that it was foolish to keep expanding outward unless absolutely necessary. With the nano-replicators - and their larger cousins, nano-facs - it was a simple matter to reach for the sky. Increasing the population density was a beneficial thing in that more people were able to access nano-replicator facilities as well as travel to and from work with a minimum of time spent. Thinking about these facts, Jacob also made a note to be sure to get information on transportation in the time period they were going to. It was easy to go from one place to another in the present day, but that didn’t mean where they were going in the past would be as accommodating.
Mass transit was reborn and became stronger than ever. Even in places where people often had their own vehicle, they were being traded in. There was no reason to own a vehicle anymore if you lived in one of the cities.
As he finished cooking his breakfast, he came back out of his thoughts and looked at the clock. Oh-four-hundred.
Chapter II
After finishing breakfast, Jacob lightly kissed his wife on the forehead before leaving. She rolled over quietly and never woke up. She would be put out at Jacob for leaving like this, but he knew that it was easiest for the both of them.
He left the apartment after one last look towards the sealed bedroom unit. The lights turned off after the door closed, and the apartment was once again plunged into darkness.
Walking slowly down the hallway of his habitat floor, he looked at the doors of his neighbors. They had been good neighbors for as long as he could remember; very kind people.
As he entered the common area, he was greeted with a grand vista of the city out the full height window that dominated one of the walls. It was still early morning, but there was always life in the city. The buildings were alight with activity, and speeding lights could be seen along the tramlines. Off in the distance, the lights of aerotransports could be seen going about their business. It wasn't any different from the cities of old, as he had heard described, he thought to himself.
Passing through the common area, he entered one of the many lifts that serviced the habitation complex and was whisked away to the nearest transportation hub. He emerged from the stark, gray lift into a bustle of activity. People were going about their business as they did every day for the past who knows how many years. People in business suits, jumpers, and run of the mill street clothes crowded the transportation center. All across the city of London, it was much the same. The city never slept. Oh sure, at one time it would be quiet at night, and it could be argued that it was quiet up until the morning rush still. Quiet was very subjective in modern times though, thought Jacob as he shook his head.
Jacob stepped onto one of the trams heading to the major transportation hub from which he would board an aerotransport to the Einstein Center for Research, home of Halcyon. He was crammed tightly, but comfortably, into one of the seats as it quickly filled to capacity. Once full, it slowly started to move forward, and then accelerated at a great rate once it left the depot. The tram shot across the suspended monorail towards its destination. Off to the east, the side Jacob was sitting on, the sky was starting to lighten with the coming of day.
The tram wound around the habitation complexes of London and darted through other tramlines. Countless thousands were on the trams at any one time, yet it always ran smoothly. A benefit of modern heuristic programming. As he neared Heathrow, the aerotransports started to resolve into more than dots.
Aerotransports didn't look like things that should be able to fly. They were boxy, angular, and big. Thanks to the advent of gravity control and fusion drives, it didn't matter the geometry of the object other than for re-entry. Jacob studied one of the transports that lumbered closer to the tram.
Looking closely, he could still see some of the marring on the paint from its latest re-entry. The aerotransports were sub-orbital vehicles that were capable of traversing vast distances in a minimal amount of time. Thankfully, as Jacob shuddered at the thought of entering even a sub-orbital trajectory, the Einstein Center was in Ireland. The trip would be relatively short. The only reason for taking an aerotransport is there was not a tramline that went to it.
That was one of the safety measures. Because the research at the Einstein Center tended to be delicate, all transportation was by aerotransport. This allowed security to be tight while also limiting the amount of interference in experiments. When an experiment was on, the transport would land a distance away from the facility and the workers would bike in. What a novel thought, scientists biking in to work after flying on an aerotransport from their respective city of habitation, Jacob considered.
The aerotransport sat down at the main docking facility near the center of the complex. Jacob disembarked with the scientists that were going on shift and passed by those that were just ending their shift. The number ending their shift was small, but that was to be expected with Halcyon just hours away from activating. As he walked down the transport ramp, he looked at the complex one last time.
It was an efficiently designed complex. The central hub was where the powerful fusion reactor was located as well as numerous high charge capacitors. From the central hub, eight spokes extended off towards distant buildings. Straddling the northeastern spoke was the docking facility. Each spoke contained massive superconducting cables, various other necessary infrastructure, and tramlines. Halcyon was located in the northern building of the complex.
Jacob entered the central hub, passed through security by having a retinal scan, and entered the tram heading to Halcyon. The tram ride was a short one. It passed through the sealed northern tunnel that was lit only by a minimal of lighting except where crews were making last minute checks over the infrastructure. Reaching Halcyon, Jacob stepped out into organized chaos beyond the second security checkpoint that he had to pass through before he was able to enter the ready room where he would pass yet another security station.
Scientists were moving back and forth, quickly passing along short messages to their colleagues as they went about their business. The general talk was abuzz with discussion of the activation of Halcyon. There was a palatable excitement on the air.
As Jacob passed through security, none of the scientists paid him mind. At first, this bothered him, but he had learned to accept it. As far as the scientists were concerned, he had stolen this position from somebody better trained, but that was far from the truth. Nobody knew e
xactly what was going to happen on the other side of the wormhole. Sure, there were history books that said what happened back in the early twenty-first century, but all of those would be null and void by the very activation of Halcyon. There was even a sect of scientists that were starting to believe that Halcyon should not be undertaken for fear that the introduction of such a complex entity such as a human being sent back through time would cause a catastrophic cascade and end the universe because of the breaking of causality.
An interesting concept, certainly. It had been posited that causality was not broken by the transporting of data and simple inanimate objects back through time because it was able to heal itself. The backers of this claim were not saying that causality was an aware entity, but rather it had an inherent nature to go back to a steady state. Consider if you will a multi-particle system such as a gas cloud. At the onset, it is stable. Introduce a small disturbance, and there will be a period of turmoil before it settles back into a steady state. The cloud will be slightly changed, but eventually it will return completely if the disturbance was not too great. Now, take the same cloud and introduce a large disturbance. There will be a massive turmoil induced and part of the cloud will cease to be part of the cloud. This will completely change the dynamic of the cloud, and it will no longer be able to return to a similar state to before the disturbance. Jacob didn’t understand any of those theories.
As Jacob continued to mull over the various theories about Halcyon and what could happen when he and Mason passed through the wormhole, he entered the ready room. He approached the security station, passed through another retinal scan, had his DNA scanned, and even underwent a quick neural structure scan to verify his identity. After everything was cleared, he passed from the ready room into the operations preparation center where Mason was waiting.
Mason Smith was a man in his mid-thirties, older than Jacob. His short-cropped hair was graying at the temples, and his faced had the look of blued steel from having shaved that morning. He was not a bulky man by any means, but he was certainly in shape. The military demanded that.