He released his chute and began his steady decent to the world below, the intermittent cloud cover impeding his vision, his whole body ruffling violently in the drag. In the back of his mind he sensed that something had gone horribly wrong, however he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
He looked for an open area for a drop zone, away from the metropolis and undue attention. After sailing through another series of opaque mists, he spotted a suitable location, nearby what looked like a wooden structure.
Touching down as unobstrusively as possible behind some bushes, the Stranger made quick work of his chute canopy and steering lines, tucking them into his sack and planted them where they could not be found again. He made the gradual trek towards with greater civilization with a feeling of trepidation, what did he forget? He had been through this time and time again? Were his calculations off? They couldn’t be, the hyper-sensitive radiometric dating in the decaying isotopes of the green glass meant that nuclear detonation wouldn’t occur for another 25 years, leaving him in a time where technology had evolved enough to enable industry to allow for broad scale space travel, but yet not too close to zero hour, the point of holocaust.
He had everything he needed with him as far as data packets in his UHPC, or Universal Handheld Personal Computer. After 2 hours of trudging through bushes and clearings, he finally reached the edge of the city. What he saw before him, he had not quite expected, his mind had been preoccupied and he had not been paying attention to the world that was unfolding before him. Every earlier cycle had more beautiful architecture than the last. But this was breath-taking!
He had seen imposing architectonics before, but this left everything he had ever seen in the dust! He couldn’t imagine that a world this beautiful could ever exist. Massive buildings thousands of stories high intertwined and lead into a canopy above which stretched out for miles in the sky. The canopies allowed sunlight to pass onto the gardens below where the light was caught in tranquil lakes and rivers, which represented all colors of the rainbow and even colors he practically didn’t know could even exist. The buildings, if you could even call them that, seemed to be made of gold and being perfectly pristine reflected back the beauty of the floriculture.
The Stranger simply just stood there for the next several moments, absolutely spellbound. He actually considered for a moment never leaving this place. Maybe this was home? Maybe he could find a way to stay here, this was heaven.
After a while he finally seemed to come to and realize he had a job to do. But how could anyone ever destroy a place like this? Wouldn’t these structures be able to withstand nuclear blast? He had kept a piece of the green glass on his person to remind himself of his job. It was his duty to help these people, and there wasn’t much time, 25 years was not a lot of time to both develop and mass produce a brand new technology, not to mention re-introducing time travel to get him back to his own time about 724,000 years from now. But he felt he almost didn’t want to go back, not now.
That nagging feeling in the back of his mind returned and continued as he walked on into the central hub of the metropolis. Man! What beauty, not only the grandeur of it all, but the diversity, every new area was unique and original in design. After having his eyes transfixed to the sky he realized he was amongst people now, a great many people in fact. He looked among them. What was wrong!?
He approached a pedestrian about to walk by, the most amiable one he could find, “Excuse me sir, could you please direct me to a newspaper? I would like to know the current news.”
The man paused and looked at him, he was a friendly older man and took time to render aid any way he could. He said, “Janneth kon leven pur von de Steberen? Doth Kenner kur par-salian ecker von Delerent?”
Oh God! How could he forget, of course they wouldn’t speak the same language as himself tens of thousands of years earlier. He now had to spend the next month or so just picking up the language, but he suspected these people would help him with food and shelter, despite the Strangers inability to work due to the communication barrier. When the friendly old man reached in his pocket to bring forth a device, it was slowly starting to become apparent what had gone wrong. He brought forth what seemed to be the equivalent of a UHPC and held it by the Strangers face. The old man motioned for him to talk into the device.
The Stranger did and of course no current language on this planet would have matched his own, the time differential being too great, but he figured he would oblige him anyways, this universal translator would not work. He spoke into it, he old man made hand gestures indicating for him to keep going. He seemed nice enough so the Stranger did. After several more moments an odd thing happened, recognition started to bloom in the man’s face, as if he was beginning to understanding him. The old man took the device back and started talking into it himself.
“Can doth klerer von Brekken start to plianth dender understand Kephrii?”
Whoa, it was starting to make sense already!
The device was held in front of his face again and the man motioned for him to answer, “Yes I am starting to understand you.” Again he waved his hands to continue talking! It seemed as if the handheld device could learn through repetition, it was heuristic. Which meant it was an extremely powerful self- learning piece of hardware. And it was portable! This poor old man apparently had the wherewithal to procure one, so they must be everywhere, Wow! This is a problem.
This technology was radically advanced! The last time he saw technology like this was in the 5th cycle, and this was only WEEKS before zero hour! He had miscalculated, there wasn’t much time, no there wasn’t any time left! He had entered too late! It was true, this was the longest time span he had ever jumped, but the math had been meticulously checked and crossed checked again and again a hundred times. There couldn’t have been a mistake, but somehow there was! He began to panic.
It was only another 30 minutes before his speech was completely and totally comprehensible to the old man and vice versa, as well as what was now a swelling crowd. Seeing his panic, other passers by took an interest in helping him, clearly this was a good people. The Stranger played a hunch. He suspected that in this cycle, with people being easier to deal with and imbued with a greater intelligence than that of each successive cycle, that he could perhaps be completely and totally forthright with the group of people now surrounding him.
“It looks like something is wrong, are you okay sir? Is there anything we can do to help?” said one of the men, his concerned look reflected in the eyes of every other soul with him now.
“Thank you for asking. Yes as a matter of fact. I’m not okay and I need help. I’m in a state of shock. I am a traveler from the future. I came to your people to help you, to keep you from destroying yourselves. I just arrived a couple of hours ago, but it seems I arrived too late. Your cycle is about to end.” The stranger started to breathe irregularly, “I should’ve come 25 years earlier, and now all is lost!”
Almost as one the crowd paused. Then a man stepped forward, the crowd seemed to elect him as a spokesman, “My name is Aaiden and I will help you. However I need more data because time travel is impossible. In order for us to better understand, you give us all a grounding in the basic theory of time travel so that we can properly judge whether or not what you say is true and then act accordingly?” His hand fell on the Stranger’s shoulder, “But first take this, this is a natural remedy and it will help calm your nerves, we want you to feel better.”
He held out the leaf of a plant. The stranger was unsure what to do with a leaf and he looked up at the man just as he started hyperventilating. Aaiden noticed his noncomprehension, “Just put it under your tongue, or you could chew it, it will work either way.”
The Stranger did and almost immediately he began to breathe normally again. The leaf had a menthol taste to it and a soothing feeling started pervading throughout his whole body. He looked up at Aaiden and the crowd which was growing even further now, apparently seeing someone in distress was not somet
hing that was a common occurrence and everyone genuinely wanted to help, Wow!
After regaining his composure the Stranger spoke, “Time travel is possible in the future. I have the technology right here in my UHPC, but essentially it works like this. You need a geodesic particle accelerator directed at a prisbane chassis made primarily of (zsddddqq). Wait the translator is not working, made primarily of (Tri-ddddqqq).. made of Tritium. There, that word was too uncommon in your language for the computer to recognize it. Then you have to…”
“Wait. We don’t know what Tritium is, give me your device.”
The Stranger handed it over to him. Aaiden took out his own device and tried to connect a cable to it to port with it. The cable he held was malleable at one end seemed to sculpt itself to fit perfectly into the Strangers device, which was a completely foreign piece of hardware to this time. Wow!
After a few more moments Aaiden spoke, “There seems to be a problem, we can’t assimilate your data because your device is either too foreign or too antiquated. I don’t know which. However we can tell that you are truly distressed. Tell me at what frequency you would be operating the particle accelerator?”
“It would max out at 4.5 nano-seconds, approximately.”
“Hmmm, what you say has credence. That is very interesting.” The crowd behind him all seemed to nod in agreement.
The Stranger watched them and thought it over, so that meant everyone there not only understood all of his highly technical nomenclature, but could also think with it on the spot. Wow! These people were amazing! An entire people’s filled with geniuses, no wonder the architecture was so overwhelming. What other surprises did they hold for him? He felt almost as if suspended in a mass of relaxing pillows, his every movement eased into an equilibrium of comfort, except the pillows were the people around him, and the movements were his thoughts, easing into an intellectual serenity. He could actually be himself here. No more double talk, or watering down of truth because he felt others couldn’t handle what is the actual.
Aaiden cut through the Stranger’s reverie again with speech, “If what you say is true then your problem is urgent. Please tell us of the nature of our self-destruction so we may bring you to the proper level of government as to deter us from doing so.”
Now that was right where the Stranger lived! These people are awesome! “According to my somewhat possibly inaccurate calculations your people will be destroyed in about a week or two from a from Nuclear Holocaust. Several hydrogen bombs will explode, one on each major continent simultaneously, as if in an act of war.”
“Well that’s very interesting.” said Aaiden, “If you don’t mind could you tell me please the atomic number of Tritium?”
“It has an atomic number of 14.”
“Ah yes as I suspected. It is a radioactive element isn’t it? Perhaps a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, is that right?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“Well that would explain why our translator had some trouble translating that word. You see anything and everything involving unstable substances, the likes of which could cause mass pollution and detonation are strictly and rigorously outlawed on our planet. We don’t even teach about them in our schools. This would also explain why we have not developed time travel. We would never experiment with any radioactive isotope of any kind. Therefore we can neither confirm nor deny whether you truly are from the future. However everything you said so far seems to be true and we can tell your emotions are genuine.” The expanding crowd behind him all concurred with a nod of their heads.
“But that’s impossible.” cried the Stranger, “You all die from nuclear Armageddon! You mean you have no radioactive elements at all on this entire planet? No weapons? Nothing!?” For once the tables were turned, he dealing with someone who had data that was almost too much the HIM to grasp, for ages it had been the other way to.
“No, nothing at all, we know that fooling with such substances in an atmosphere as shallow as ours would eventually be fatal. Now do you have some kind of proof of our destruction?”
The Stranger thought it over for a minute. “Wait! YES! I DO!”
He removed his duffel bag and rifled through the contents. Moments later he found what he was looking for and held it up for all to see. The light from the canopy above shone down to illuminate in magnificent color a piece of glass, swallowing the entire area in a brilliant shade of emerald green . It was quite an impressive display and almost seemed to act as an alarm to what was now a throng of onlookers.
“This is proof!”
“Is that Trinitite?”
“Yes!”
The next few moments were a little startling to the Stranger. The entire crowd, every man woman and child began murmuring to each other. This went on for several minutes. How anybody had the ability to hear anybody was beyond the Stranger. He just stood there waiting apprehensively. Then as quickly as the they had begun, they suddenly stopped in unison.
“Is this piece of Trinitite from the future and can it be dated accurately?”
“Yes and yes.” replied the Stranger.
The spokesman, a clean shaven man dressed in a three piece suit with a sleek deep purple vest, took his personal device out of a hip pocket and spoke into it rapidly. Moments later, the crowd parted to let an oval metallic vehicle pass through and pull up right next to the Stranger.
“This is one of our personal transporters. It is fully automated and will take you to our planet’s Capital with great haste. You must speak with our ruling class, we must solve this problem immediately. This is extremely urgent!” The doors to the vehicle, in one crisp motion, flipped up. There were several people inside already waiting for him to enter, “The people inside will question you further and any and all information you give will be recorded onto a holovid replay module which will for forwarded directly to Quandrar, our planet’s Capital to reviewed by our ruling class before you get there. Please be very frank with you answers. Sir, it was very nice to have met you and we wish you Godspeed in your travels. Thank you for helping us and if this is successful, be assured we will reward you far beyond your wildest dreams.” The Stranger liked the sound of that.
“Thank you too. We will make it through this if we work together.”
The spokesman indicated for him to enter and the Stranger did. The inside of the vehicle was surprisingly spacious and filled with amenities. There were five other people inside, watching his every move intently. He glanced them over, one of them seemed vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it.
The one with the fanciest uniform and accoutrements, a man with a thick and impressive yet greying beard spoke up first, “Good afternoon sir. My name is Captain Brandor, next to me to Lieutenant Sanders, Lieutenant Halverson, Commander Harlan and Deputy Officer Jesperios. We came in response to an alert A1. Before we get into urgent matters, we see that you are greatly physically and mentally stressed, would you care for some of our food and beverages?” His hand waved towards a platter of what appeared to be delicious, yet completely alien looking food.
“Yes, I think that would be a good idea. Thank you.”
The Stranger began wolfing down what was the most pleasing and delectable food he had ever enjoyed in his life. Forget the emergencies and oncoming doomsdays for a minute, this was more important. Wow! These people never ceased to amaze him. This was almost too much, how can anyone make food this good? What was this stuff? For the next 10 minutes, the Stranger forgot all about his audience, he didn’t care, he only thing he cared about was filling himself to the brim with the most exquisite sensations he had ever felt! He was probably making a mess of himself but he didn’t care. As he continued eating he noticed an automatic napkin would clean him so effortlessly he hardly recognized that it was even there until he looked for it. What was this? Was this Heaven? These people needed to be saved just for the virtue of their food alone! Oh my God! Now he really didn’t want to travel back to his present time.
“Pretty good isn’t
it?” said the Captain with a smirk, “Some of our best chefs prepared it just for you after scanning your body and finding exactly what nutrients it needed, with some embellishments on taste of course.” He opened up into a smile, in fact all of the vehicles passengers were now smiling.
The Stanger didn’t answer right away, that would be wasting precious moments which could be spent devouring these offerings of the Gods.
The napkin did away with the final bits of leftovers and he realized that he had eaten a bit too much too fast. The Captain laughed, “Here try this.” He handed him a leaf, “This will help your digestion.”
The Stranger looked over it, again he was at a bit of a loss with what to do with a leaf from a plant, but again the Captain could practically read his thoughts, “You can either put it under your tongue, or just chew it, either will work.”
He did and again relief washed over him in waves. Wow! He was really beginning to be overwhelmed now. I mean these people were practically perfect!
“What is your name, friend?” All the passengers seemed to ask as one.
“I ahh, well, I don’t really have a name. I travel between times enough for myself not to want to get too attached to anybody. I go without name. You can call me anything you like.”
The Captain was intrigued, “Oh. Okay, then how about we call you “Future Man”?”
“Works for me.”
“All right, now if you don’t mind, we have to cover the business at hand.” said Captain Brandor, “An A-1 Alert is a very serious matter. Would you care to reiterate the emergency in simple terms that we may deal with it accordingly?”
Looking out the window was very disorienting, the speed of the craft was frighteningly rapid and it’s movements gruesomely precise, every other second it appeared they were all going to die in a horrible crash, only for the course to be corrected by the computer at the last possible moment, leading to another imminent crash, only to be saved again. No human could have been capable of such laser quick motion. It was absolutely horrifying, the best course of action was simply to try not to look out the window.
Epic Page 3
