Day 203: The worst thing that could happen

I staggered into the room and started wrapping the cord around the handles. I could hear the shouting in the distance, but they were heading toward the Armoury. They thought I was heading for the weapons.

They were wrong.

I figure I’ve got about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes until they find the tape recorder shouting messages from behind the barrels in the corridor. Maybe ten if they realised that the gun was always hitting the same spot in the wall behind them. Hopefully they’d be too busy avoiding getting shot to realise it.

Hopefully.

I looked at the machine ahead of me. All wires and lights, blinking and winking in the darkness of the room. A single screen with green letters on it, asking an immortal question.

DO YOU WANT TO GO BACK?

“Yes,” I whispered to myself. I walked up to the console and pulled the keyboard out from beneath it. Richtus had built this thing well.

He calls it RESET in his journals. Says it’s the cure. He says it can access the other routes that history could have taken, that with the right worldseed it can fix everything. It’ll stop Oscar and Discali from ever accessing SOURCE.

Or, with the wrong worldseed, it’ll lead to devastation. Nuclear war, plague, zombies. If it is possible, RESET can lead to it.

Worst case scenario, we end up in a bad future where RESET was never built. But I’ve got the worldseed. Richtus’s last page. He disguised the worldseeds well, scattered throughout all of his writings. Why did he write them all down? I don’t know. Maybe he just wanted to leave us all with anything that wasn’t this world.

I started typing, feeling the plastic yield to my touch. This keyboard had never been used before, still fresh and unworn.

DO YOU WANT TO GO BACK? 

“Under the bravado, the small boy still craves the approval of his father.” Take the first letter of the first, the second letter of the second. For common use words, use the number of letters instead. If the word ends with a vowel, reverse the sequence.

I can hear them hammering at the door now. I guess they’ve finished with my distraction. There’s a couple of gunshots, ricochets. “Even in the summer, the holly fights through.” Sequence after sequence, falling beneath my fingers. They’ve got cutters on the door now. But I’m nearly done. I can actually get this done.

DO YOU WANT TO GO BACK?

“In the end, all it comes down to is the flip of a switch.” There was a clang behind me as the door fell in. “Without another word…”

It felt like somebody punching me in the spine. I lost all feeling in my arms and legs, sprawling forwards and slumping over the keyboard. A random string of letters appeared on the screen.

WORLDSEED ACCEPTED. 

I smiled as the darkness crept in around the edges of my vision. Where I was going, I wouldn’t care. It wouldn’t exist anymore. One way or another, everything was going to change.

I started to laugh as the blood bubbled from my mouth. We were going back.

The Idiot in Tin Foil

 

Aside: Thoughts on parallel worlds

If a new parallel world is created every time a choice is made, what happens if two separate parallel worlds conceive a feasible concept for time travel, travel back to the point at which their worlds diverged and attempted to change it? 

I’m sure there’s some paradox kicking around here, but I can’t work it at the moment. Any ideas?

The Idiot in Tin Foil

Day 132: You have a time machine, but it can only go back two days. What would you change?

I could bore you with the details of quantum circuits, tachyon carriers and the Friedrich equation, but I’m sure that you have better things to do. Having a life, perhaps. Instead, I’ll give it to you in layman’s terms.

I’ve created a time machine. Yes, I’m talking an HG Wells, Back to the Future, causing issues with the future time machine. Admittedly, mine isn’t quite as impressive as a Delorean, or a blue police box. Mine is more… Rustic. Homemade. It does look impressive though. Lots of blinking lights and LED displays.

But, still, it works. Not quite as well as it did at the start…

It was incredible. I have to be honest, I can’t explain how it feels to go back to the Jurassic, the Triassic. I saw the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Once.

Seems to be a rule in that you can only go anywhere once. If you key in the coordinates of sometime you’ve already been, the machine refuses to work. The lights die and it seems to act like a petulant child, having to be coaxed out of its room to come to dinner. Thankfully, the machine did start to work again, but only after a week of apologising.

Or maybe it was just a week delay. I’m still working out the particulars on that one.

Then there’s the treacle effect. It appears that small changes can be absorbed by the rivers of history, but try to make any large effects, such as an assassination or advancing human nature, means that history fights you. Your movements slow. Events conspire against you, such as carts wheeling in front of you, or roads being closed. It’s a harsh, harsh environment.

There is of course, one final issue.  I started with the ability to go all the way back to Prehistory, then the various empires. I’ve seen the fall of Rome, the building of the pyramids. I watched Tutankhamun being embalmed and entombed.

That’s when I realised. I tried to go back to the rise of Babylon in 18th Century BC and it refused. Every time I try to go further back, it gives up.

The last time I made a trip, I got a week. I’ve been working with Garner on the decline and we reckon it’s down to two days. I can go two days back.

I should probably use it wisely.

Doctor Catherine Wallis, 13th December 2016

***

It’s time.

I write this as my last will and testament. Should this trip fail, you will read this. I suggest you use the last fifteen minutes in the device wisely.

Karen, my darling baby girl, I hope that you never have to read these words.

I have two days of time. Two days to get across the globe and put a stop to Domino. Two days of fighting against Domino’s veritable army, time and the forces of History. Treacle or no, this is going to change.

With hope that you never have to read this,

Doctor Catherine Wallis, 23rd May 2017

***

Mum,

I know you’re never going to read this, but it had to be addressed to you. You’re the only person who could ever understand. I’ve got a brilliant plan.

The Tempust is in a fixed location. Garner gave me the idea while he was teaching me to play guitar. I never gave it up. I know you loved to hear me play and sing. He taught me about feedback.

Then we came up with the idea of the Tempust feeding into itself. Going back fifteen minutes and using the fifteen minute ago version to go back another fifteen minutes. A feedback loop until we’re back where it began.

Mum, you’re never going to read this but if it all goes well, I’ll see you soon. Or technically

I’ll already have seen you. 21st May 2017. I hope you’re ready.

I love you Mum.

Karen Wallis, 12th June 2020

***

It worked.

Catherine Wallis, 21st May 2017 / Karen Wallis, 21st May 2017

So, today’s tale had my own head spinning and I wrote the thing. What would you use your two days for? 

The Idiot in Tin Foil