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Enough said, enough done |
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| Written by John Thorley | |
| Tuesday, 29 January 2008 | |
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Share it:      Enough said, enough done
Horace Tate was twenty nine years old. He was a drug addict and an alcoholic and of no use to anyone he had ever met. He had never held down a job, never even tried. He had spent six of the last nine years in various prisons. He was violent, a robber and a burglar. He was what most law enforcement officers that have ever had dealings with him have described as ‘a waste of skin'. He would do anything to get money for his next fix.....anything. To society he was a parasite, a pariah with no redeeming qualities. On 22nd February 2011, Horace Tate saved the human race from extinction.
Alex's 6' 3" frame burst through the swing doors with a force that made them clatter against the wall. He came abruptly to a halt in the blinking, blood red half light of the laboratory. His olfactory senses exploded, burning rubber and a pungent acidic smell attacked him instantly forcing his hand up against his nose and mouth. A faint blue haze hung under the flickering ceiling lights. Alex heaved the windows open to the quadrangle letting icy air flood the room. He stood silently gazing at the monolith in the centre of the floor. Alex slowly circled the foreign object as though he suspected his overworked mind to be hallucinating. He was gazing at an archway, gun metal grey, seven feet tall with a square floor open to both back and front. Small green and orange lights twinkled on a panel and a strange mist like cigarette smoke swirled gently around its base. The figure lay motionless in the foetal position. He was long and thin, almost skinny with unkempt dark hair and a grey pallor that made him look like putty. Alex stepped forward just as the naked figure twitched and slowly lifted himself up on one elbow. His eyes were open and scanned the room anxiously. Alex stooped and fearing the visitor might be injured reached out a hand. He looked into Alex's face. Alex winced and sucked in air noisily putting his hand over his open mouth. "How?" he muttered. Alex's mirror image simply smiled back at him putting an index finger to his throat. Alex dropped to his knees then sat on the floor cross legged in front of the arch. His temporal visitor slowly rose to the same position. After a few moments searching for orientation the visitor mouthed words but no sound emerged from his attempt. Alex nodded. "Is it usually like this?" The visitor nodded then made a noise like a scraping cough. He started to speak in a whisper that became louder with each word. "Yes, each time I am reconstituted it's like having a new voice box that's never been used and don't stare, you look like a goldfish. There's no need to be dramatic; you knew this was going to happen." He looked up as the flashing red lights ceased. "Can I have a drink or are you just going to stand there and watch me die of thirst?" Alex stood and spoke as he made his way to a locker retrieving a pair of track suit bottoms and a bottle of Evian. "It's nice to know I haven't mellowed with age. What's it like?" "What, growing old? It's still **** or do you mean travelling in time?" From an old face a boyish smile spread. "Believe me it isn't the romantic adventure that you might imagine. It's hard to explain other than it hurts like hell all over and you are conscious through out, even though your brain is reduced to a stream of its component atoms. It really is the original ‘out of body experience'. Don't ask me how that works, I'll leave that to the philosophers. This is my seventh time" Alex cocked his head slightly. "This is ridiculous. The laws of physics say that this shouldn't be happening; I mean me and you in the same time, the same room. It's matter being created out of nothing, that's impossible." "You will find that this is only the first of many things that will have to be re written. It's all to do with my quantum signature changing during the process. I'm not me anymore, not the one I left anyway and I'm not you either. We are now different people, different entities although it's quite obvious that we share the same imprinted neurons.......memories! I know, it's a little heavy to get your head around. " "This is deep" Alex sighed. "How long from in front have you come?" "Nine years. We still look pretty good, don't you think?" "You look thin and your breath smells like ****, are you eating properly?" Alex said with a sardonic smile. "Don't tell me I've travelled nine years back through time to be met by my mother." The traveller slowly rose to his feet. Alex reached forward to help but the traveller held the palm of his hand up politely refusing. "I'll be OK in a minute" he muttered eventually reaching his full height. He looked at Alex slowly nodding. "While we're engaged in small talk, you haven't asked me the obvious question yet." Alex smiled. "I don't know which question you mean is the obvious one. I can think of several thousand I want to ask but I just want to make sure you're OK first. The fact that you're here at all answers my first question." "And that would be what?" "Well I've had the idea in my head for some time how this machine would work but the biggest stumbling block was the processing power needed. A quantum computer was the only solution; even hooking up all the computers in every government department in the country wouldn't be enough. Parallel processing with molecule size processors had to be the answer " "Correct. You...... me.......whatever.....we found that the theory was accurate. We created an artificial black hole around which the space / time continuum could be contorted and eventually controlled. Time and space could be wrapped up and moved around for us to observe any point. But, of course you already know this; you are just beginning to work it out for yourself." "Jesus Christ," Alex mouthed. "It actually works." "Yes, of course it works. Einstein was right all along. The future, the fourth dimension is already there, mapped out. All this machine does is to drag any point of it we like into focus so we can see it. It really is not that difficult." "My God, you talk as though you've just found a way to make a better screwdriver. We're talking about the most pivotal moment in the history of our species." Alex flopped onto a nearby stool. The enormity of the conversation began to overwhelm him. The grey man tried to stretch his arms but grimaced clenching his fists. "This will pass in a few minutes; it's something to do with the level of lactic acid in the muscles. You wouldn't credit it would you. The most incredible journey man has ever undertaken and it has to be undertaken in bloody agony. HG Wells wouldn't have thought of that. I mean his hero aching like mad and vomiting all over the place every five minutes." "The question you mentioned, a few minutes ago, the question I haven't asked yet; it's why? Why are you here?" Alex suddenly shivered, awful thoughts and foreboding washed over him. "You know the answer don't you?" Alex swallowed hard. "I always had a notion that if this actually worked and a way could be found to move around inter-dimensionally then I would come back if things went to ****. I gather that's what has happened." "**** with a capital S my friend. Yet it shouldn't have been like this. We could have had it all; if they had just left us alone. We could have answered all the great mysteries, we could have explored the galaxy from this laboratory, we could have cured all disease but no, they had to screw it up. They had to have it all right away; no patience, no understanding, just plain greed." "The military?" "The military and the government, they're both the same. Nobody was interested in the science; they just wanted the strategic advantage it gave us. Bloody ridiculous, they could have had everything. There was no place in time or space that we couldn't have examined. It took us two years to learn how to calibrate it but when we did we could dial up anywhere or anytime. We could have known everything; we could have been kings....... but no. All they wanted us to do was spy on people and spin the truth to fit their own warped view of humanity and history." "How far did we get?" "It was wonderful. We saw the pyramids being built, we watched the great fire of London, we saw gladiators performing in the Coliseum and we watched herbivores grazing on Mars 130 million years ago. The potential of this was astonishing, limitless." The visitor seemed animated. His eyes shone as his mind's eye itemised again unforgettable events he had absorbed. His face for moments seemed immersed in wonder until reality once again slapped him. "But no........it is not to be." He sighed and gazed at the floor. "But why?" asked Alex almost pleading. After only minutes he was desperate to share the secrets of this wondrous device. "Because my friend whoever controls this technology controls the world.......and everybody knows it." "So its existence got out. You couldn't keep the lid on?" "No chance. The place was leaking like a sieve. The world went mad. Governments all over the world demanded that America hand over the technology. They were willing to go to war to get it. They had to they had no choice. They would kill to get it and those with it would kill to keep it. It was a recipe for catastrophe." "So how is it when you left? How close is catastrophe? " "The whole world is pointing missiles at each other and half the human race is hiding under their beds. It's going up any minute and no one seems able to stop it." The visitor sat slowly shaking his head. He fixed Alex with a vacant stare. "You know what I've got to ask you, don't you? But, before I do there's something else I've got to tell you, something that I did. I shouldn't have done it but I couldn't help it. It made things worse." Alex looked crestfallen. "Hard to imagine it could be any worse but I know what you're going to say. I know because I thought about it in my dreams. You looked back didn't you?.... Christianity?.... The beginning?" "Yes. Not just Christianity, I went back to Medina also, 1400 years ago. I met them both. Believe me nothing is as anyone thought, none of it." "My God. That must have gone down well. You're lucky you didn't get burned at the stake." "There are a few who are still trying." An uncomfortable watery smile stretched across the visitor's face. "Alex the world is coming apart and it's our fault. The world isn't ready for what we did, for what you are about to do. You mustn't do it. I know it's going to kill you but you must end your research." Alex was suddenly angry. His life's work sat on the floor before him, the crowning glory of man's mastery of the physical universe, the most important event in the evolution of the species and for Alex, immortality. He knew he couldn't simply abandon it. He spat back "No......no, I can't. We can build in safeguards; we can ensure total security and secrecy. I can hand pick the team. We can make this work safely, I know we can. Anyway the very fact that you are here, doesn't that mean that this project goes ahead. I mean if it didn't you wouldn't exist, isn't that correct? "Yes, that's correct but the future can be changed." Alex walked over to the end of the laboratory talking as he did. "I can approach the right people now; we can set up a dummy front, laser research, something like that. We can re-locate to a more isolated area. We can at least start planning. How can we stop now we know it can work? " Alex pulled a towel and another bottle of water out of his locker before turning back towards his guest. He wiped his face before stopping dead in his tracks. He spent several moments examining the empty lab, his mind somersaulting. He walked to the middle of the floor and stood on the spot where moments before the archway had occupied. Now there was just empty space. Alex sat alone, in silence, for an hour. His mind couldn't handle the questions. Did this mean he didn't proceed? But he was determined to do it, nothing would stop it.... nothing. So why had what happened...happened? He didn't understand. The rest of Alex's afternoon was conducted in a trance. Colleagues were met with little more than a catatonic stare and a mind so overwhelmed that it seemed the rest of his cognitive functions had frozen. His short journey home in the twilight of an early evening in February was punctuated by having to stop at every red light along the route. Alex barely heard the two tone sirens as he sat in the centre lane of crossroads. The whine of the emergency vehicle grew louder as Alex saw the light in front of him change to green. The proximity of the whaling siren to Alex's right was lost in his world of black holes and gravity wells. The stolen 4x4 T boned Alex's car at over 60 mph. Horace Tate lay uncomfortably across the bonnet of the police car. His hands were cuffed behind his back and his face was pressed hard against the warm metal. One of the two police officers standing over him pulled him to his feet and glanced over at the smouldering wreckage. "Do we know who he was in the car?" His colleague replied sadly. "One of the government bods from the research centre. Couldn't have known what hit him." Horace Tate was bundled roughly into the back of the police car.
Copyright 2008 |
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