It was 1875– No!
It was 1968– NO!
It was 2036– NO!!
STOP! Just Stop! I was panting hard, as if I had run for miles but all I did was try to remember when I was. My brain felt scrambled. I had no idea where I was or even if I was.
Amidst the frantic chaotic mess, a clear voice broke through:
“I told you not to sign up for this, Sue! I told you it was too risky!”
Relief flooded through me: My sister’s voice, always so superior, so disapproving ─but right now so beautiful! I half-laugh, half-cry at that thought as my brain begins to right itself, and I love her more than I’ve ever done before, while her voice continued, as it always does:
“There was no good reason for you to do this! You have money; you have a fiancé ─you have a life!”
“So I’m supposed to give up living –because I have a life?” I said with my own brand of arrogance.
“Of course not! Don’t play dumb. You should have waited for human trials!”
“I am the human trial,” again with that condescension.
“Yes, I am quite aware that you’ve taken the job away from someone who actually needs the money.”
“So only poor people should be sacrificed for the betterment of Humanity?”
“The betterment of Humanity!” she exploded. “You are seriously deluding yourself if you think this is anything more than an expensive and dangerous theme park ride!” And with that, she disappeared, having had the last word, as usual.
2068 ─that’s when I’m from!
I was back on track ─or mostly. Enough to proceed with my SOP’s
Step One: Physical check-in
I looked over the board: cardio, blood pressure, respiration, brain activity.
They’d leaped up pretty high for a little while, but were almost back to my usual levels after a jump.
Step Two: Contact lab
It’s weird and wonderful to think that while I am ‘gone’ from the lab I hadn’t actually moved at all, spatially, but I am long gone temporally. And once I’m back in the past, there are of course certain challenges around communicating with those who are now in my future.
Radio waves have existed since the beginning of the Universe, so theoretically I should be able to speak with the lab no matter how far back in time I go, although the delay will become greater and greater the farther I travel. But, since radio waves always come from the past (that’s why there’s that delay sometimes during live TV broadcasts), radio transmissions can’t be used to communicate with me in the past. Instead, a neutrino communication system will be used ─highly experimental, as is everything else about this project.
Obviously, I’m no expert. I’m just a first-year engineering student. So how did I end up traveling through time?
Time travel is low on the University’s list of grant money recipients. The project operates on a shoestring budget ─considering its scope. Which is why I volunteered: they can’t afford to pay for human testing. The cost of insurance and liability coverage alone would have broken the bank. I even had to sign a waiver absolving the university and its staff members of all responsibility for any injury or loss of life I may incur during or as a result of the trials. My sister would have lost her shit had she known that.
“That last one was a pretty rough landing,” I radioed. “But I’m A-Okay. I’ll explain in my report.”
Step Three: Write a comprehensive report
I wrote a full account of my mental and physical reactions during and after the jump. It was an important part of the project. This was my fourth report, the last one before I returned home.
The lab was built at the very edge of the university grounds, where the protected swampland began. An area that had never been inhabited in our known history. The Profs didn’t want to freak people out with the pod’s sudden appearance or come bursting into anyone’s living room.
The pod is fitted with viewing windows on three sides to enable any traveler to observe the changes in their surroundings. But due to possible contamination and the Principle of Causality, we are forbidden from exiting or opening the pod, or communicating in any way. Who could guess at the impact if I were to pass along some bacteria or virus that didn’t exist two hundred or even twenty years ago? Or if I gave information about the future, however innocently, but it triggered the imagination of some bright boy or girl who invents something long before its time ─once again changing history. Which, some might argue, wouldn’t be a bad thing. But change it to what?
My first two jumps were designed to be short: the first one ‘landed’ the pod inside the lab in 2036; a few years after the experiments had begun, but before the first pod was built. Through the windows I could see the much younger professors, some still grad students, who looked up in shock that quickly turned to excitement. I held up a sign, reminding them that no communication was permitted, and they all smiled and gave the thumbs-up in acknowledgment. But I suspect that this was still cheating: they could be heavily influenced by what they were looking at in terms of design, and the fact that their experiment had succeeded.
After the second jump, I was in the year 1964, the lab and its building had disappeared but the university in the distance looked very similar: it was the high season for mosquitoes, so no one was hanging out near the swamp. By the third jump, I was in 1877. The university had been completed the year before; it was much smaller; the architecture quite different. Again, as Professor Halverson predicted, there were no people near the swamp ─thank goodness. The communication lag with the lab had grown to an hour: if anyone had arrived to investigate, it could have been a very uncomfortable sixty minutes.
With this last jump, I was in 1499. The university and its grounds were gone, replaced by a forest with massive trees and thick undergrowth. It began barely twenty feet from the pod and was both beautiful and intimidating. Even the swamp vegetation was denser and larger, the plants reaching out as if trying to touch this strange object that had suddenly appeared.
it would now take hours for my message to reach the lab back in 2068. After finishing my report, I ate some food, used the toilet, and did some stretches. I’d brought music and movies and a few books, so entertained myself with those while trying to shake off the weird little hangover from my landing. Eventually I noticed it was getting dark outside and checked my watch: five hours had passed.
Feeling a bit concerned, but not overly, I ate another snack and thought about it for a bit: If it took an hour for my message to travel about 200 years, then it would increase that time by an hour with each additional two hundred years. Therefore it should have taken about three hours for my message to arrive at the lab ─theoretically. Their reply, by way of the neutrino communicator, should still be close to instantaneous. But these theories were all guess work really. That’s why I was out here, to prove them ─or disprove them.
It was completely dark now and I was starting to get a little nervous. The pod was well insulated, but I could still hear animal sounds in the distance. For the first time it hit me how completely isolated I was. This location was chosen for that very reason, and now it seemed like an utterly stupid idea.
The neutrino communicator gave a little blip, and I yelped in reply. Laughing at my own nervousness, I pressed the button for the readout, and watched it scroll into my hand.
“Greetings from the Future.
Glad to hear that you are hale and hearty…
As, you will need to be….
I’m afraid there’s no way to sugar-coat this…
Since the last jump, we’ve been having trouble at our end…
It could be very dangerous for you to return...
We cannot in any way guarantee your safety…
In fact, you would, in all certainty, die.
After a vote, we decided it would be wiser if you tried to carve out a life back there.
You are probably a two-week walk from the nearest Native settlement, according to historical documents...
If you go directly north, you are sure to bump into somebody, eventually…
So very sorry! You’ve been a real trooper!
Anything we can do?
I looked at the message in my hand, completely staggered: What happened to causality? What happened to contamination? I then made a quick assessment of the food, water, and outerwear I’d brought for my one-day adventure inside a warm, cozy pod. With this in mind, I noticed the complete and utter pitch black of the night. I messaged back:
“I signed the waiver! I am getting the fuck out of here!”
Exactly three hours later, I was rushing through time, my mind and body bending in strange and painful ways; it was much worse than the last jump. I felt turned inside out, my thoughts mushed together. Again, I’d no idea where or when or who I was. My eyeballs were about to pop and my brain was going to explode, and then, suddenly, whatever had me in its grip, spat me out and once again I was back, fully aware, in 2068.
Barely believing I’d survived, I staggered to the door, where the professors waited in amazement. They embraced me enthusiastically, and I kissed the pod, the walls, the calendar.
We had some champagne to celebrate the experiment’s success and my survival. A celebratory spread of cheeses and wines had been planned in one of the university’s conference rooms, with some invited guests ─which the Profs had to cancel due to my impending demise. But the food was still there, so we headed over.
Walking across the university grounds ─and bam! The university changed before my eyes ─I was back in 1877! I stopped in shock –and then bam! I was back with the Profs, who hadn’t noticed ─bam! I was gone! Back in 2036: I knew this because the Profs weren’t next to me ─and then bam! I was back in 1499, in the black woods, walking smack into a tree ─bam! I was back to 2068. “Help!” I shrieked –bam! –gone! But this time they noticed what was happening –bam! –bam! Two jumps I didn’t recognize ―bam! Now another –bam! And another ─bam! And then back to 2068─
“Get back to the pod!” Professor Halverson shouted, and I turned and ran ―slamming into a jump every few steps. But the pod was the constant─always in view─even during the dates I hadn’t landed in. It was only in the woods that I lost sight of that grey piece of machinery ―the vegetation thick and unwieldy, the night black as tar, and I was in danger of losing my way. But the next jump would come, and the pod would be in view again. And I was getting closer with every jump. At times, I could see the Profs with their worried little faces, and I’d feel thankful they were still with me before being forced to jump again. I was nearly to the pod when I jumped ─and ran right into a wall. But I was back in 2068 and the Profs had the pod door open, waiting ─I leapt inside, and they slammed it shut behind me. Relief…
Now, I rarely come out. It’s too difficult. Too risky.
I miss running in the park and being with my cats. A pod is no place for animals. I had to get over the loss of my fiancé, but that didn’t feel as terrible as it probably should have. Perhaps, I was saved from an even bigger mistake? I get to order a lot of takeout, but I do miss the experience of going to a restaurant ─going anywhere actually. I can still work on my engineering degree though, online of course.
The Profs are working diligently to build me a new pod, in the hope of curing my temporal sickness. They visit regularly, and are quite enthused about their progress, especially as money is now pouring into the project due to our human trial. We’ve proven that humans can go into and return from the past –almost unharmed. I know the Profs are feeling guilty about my misfortune ─but not too guilty. After all, they are scientists. The new pod will be fit with a ‘cloaking-type’ technology, so we don’t have to be concerned with being seen. I’m hoping they can cloak a hazmat suit, so that once I’m cured I can safely visit the past outside the pod. Of course, a couple of Profs are writing a paper on my illness, which should prove very helpful to travelers in the future ─no pun intended.
My sister brings me books and clothes and lots of cool stuff to keep me occupied.
She doesn’t criticize or condemn or even say I told you so. Strangely, I miss that most of all.