I'll probably host it over on Google Docs and Spreadsheets when I'm through.
Before you read Part Two, obviously you should read Part One first. Initially I thought I'd finish the story with a "Part Two," but that does not appear to be the case. This story is taking a bit more to full flesh out.
Ready? Then onward and upward!
Science Fiction Story - Part II
The atomic clocks proved it without a doubt - he had jumped forward in time. He quickly scrambled for a pen and started re-running his calculations in order to better calibrate the device. He was still along the very edge of theory and proven facts and it was essential that he make sure everything was as close to accurate as possible.
Now that he had made a jump forward - could he manage a jump back? Theoretically, there was little difference - temporal displacement in itself did not have direction. At least, this is how he understood things. It became a vector and gained direction only in terms of the perspective of the user.
Traveling forward was always easy since it did not alter his current timeline. If anything, going into the future may destroy it since his actions in the present would alter how events would unfold from that point on. He had worked out all the theories beforehand - the challenges of Chaos Theory being applied to changes in time, the dangers of paradox and so on and so forth. Yes, he had factored all that in. But of course as a good scientist, he could not resist the temptation of testing his invention to its full capacity. Again it was a risk, but one he felt was more than worth taking.
He decided it would be best if he changed his location and jumped back a few hours. There was no sense in encountering his past self and muddying things even further. A small jump - no more, no less. He then stepped out the door.
He contented himself with his backyard - the walls were high enough to dissuade the casual on-looker while still keeping him close enough to his lab. He primed the time machine to build-up the necessary charge once more. 53 seconds later, he triggered the device a second time.
Since he was outside this time, the change was a bit more evident. The sun clearly shifted and the clouds changed position. It wasn't like a video tape playing backwards or anything like that - everything just changed position. One moment they were here and the next moment they weren't. It was certainly interesting to observe.
Matthew stepped back into his home and searched for the nearest bank of atomic clocks - he had long decided that such accuracy in time-keeping need not be limited to his workspace. The three clocks in his living room confirmed his success - had had gone back in time approximately 174 minutes, plus or minus 15 seconds. He had gone back in time prior to his initial jump into the future.
Based on his own time travel theories, he needed to be more careful than ever. While he postulated that for the most part, the timeline would remain intact despite minute changes made even considering the implications of Chaos Theory. The question remained in terms of just how small was small in terms of changes and their temporal effects. This was a blind spot for him - an area of experimentation that no level of conjecturing could accurately account for.
The best course of action would have been to return to his "present" or at the very least some time after he had jumped into the future to be sure. However, scientist that he was, he wanted proof of his time traveling experience. The question was how to prove everything - what would count as proof? His gaze settled upon the silver clocks on the wall.
This reminds me so much of Robert Silverberg's short stories. Yup, its a bit raw, but its quite good :D Medjo deepen the plot lang? I'm not asking for guns and goons but I dunno, something... Uh.. Ray Bradburyish? :P I know you can do it.
ReplyDeletei thought you had gone to bed already, haha.
ReplyDeleteunconsciously, i guess i was aiming for Bradbury, hehe. good catch.
this is the first pass - i'll tweak it more when i get the groundwork lain out properly and a tie everything together into one document.
thanks for the feedback, Q.
@rocky- Couldn't sleep eh :P Good luck. Hehe. Btw, this reminds me a lot of one of his stories which I didn't read and became a movie. The sound of thunder? Tama ba? Not sure eh.
ReplyDeleteq the conqueror is right; there was a film ---- a pretty lame one, at that -- the sound of thunder --- based upon one of Bradbury's short stories; I like your story, but I don't believe that time is continuous except in one way --- backwards; the future doesn't exist until it happens, but I'm interested to see how you handle this......
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