Obsolete Theorem

by Stan C. Smith

  Lincoln gave him a sympathetic frown. “Complaining is overrated anyway.”

  The door to the lab’s outer lobby burst open. Gray-haired men and women began pouring in. Robert Chandler, along with several other science bigwigs, led the way. Behind them came a small army of government and military folks.

  Lincoln had almost achieved an acceptable state of calm, considering what he was about to do, but now he felt his blood pressure starting to skyrocket. He hated being surrounded by old people, especially those steeped in ineptocracy.

  Stephen Fuchs, the National Security guy, said, “Mr. Woodhouse, if you feel so compelled as to hijack this broadcast, then we certainly aren’t going to remain outside this lab simply because you requested it. We intend to observe your preparations first hand.”

  Lincoln sensed that the bureaucrats weren’t likely to back down on this a second time, so he decided to simply ignore them the best that he could.

  “After we go live, I’ll be asking you some questions,” Chandler said. “There are certain details people want to know about this process, and we have no idea if you intend to address those details on your own.”

  Again, Lincoln sensed determination in Chandler’s expression. No point in arguing. He turned to the camerawoman. “How much time?”

  “Forty-eight seconds.”

  Lincoln gestured for his team members to gather around, including Maddy. When they were all beside him, he said, “This is our moment—no one else’s. Let’s tell the world who we are.”

  The three humans nodded without speaking. Virgil was visibly shaking, so Lincoln placed a firm hand on his neck and looked him in the eye. “Having second thoughts?”

  Virgil forced a smile. “Absolutely. But I’m still in.”

  “Good, because if you backed out now, those suits would insist on sending one of their own in your place. Whether we survive for an hour or a year, I want to be with the three of you, not some stranger I don’t trust. Understand?”

  Virgil nodded.

  “We’re with you, Lincoln, to the end,” said Derek.

  Jazzlyn put a reassuring hand on Lincoln’s arm.

  Maddy said, “I’m with you too, not that I have a choice.”

  “Ten seconds,” said the camerawoman.

  Lincoln eyed his friends. “Let’s go viral one more time, shall we?”

  The camera light glowed red.

  Lincoln stared at the lens for three seconds. “Some of you will call us heroes. Others will use less flattering names. Such is the nature of controversial actions. Regardless of your opinions of this effort, I want you to know who we really are. I’m Lincoln Woodhouse. I’m actually a real person, not the caricature you often see depicted on the news and social media. Yes, I’m eccentric. I like my privacy. I only hire the brightest minds, and nearly always from the under-twenty-five crowd. I have reasons for that, which I won’t go into. You’ve probably also heard that I only hire employees who have the strength that comes from having endured some kind of affliction.”

  He paused to let this admission sink in. “I’ll just say that I find it easier to bond with people who understand what it’s like to be viewed as different. An affliction makes us stronger, not weaker. After all, here we are, sacrificing everything in an attempt to save civilization.”

  He took Jazzlyn’s elbow and gently pulled her to his side.

  “I’m Jazzlyn Shields.” She twisted one of her long braids around her finger as she spoke. “I’m just a paleontologist who grew up in a Chicago neighborhood where you don’t see too many paleontologists.” She smiled and waved at the camera. “Love you, Mom and Pops!” Then her smile faded. “Lincoln saw something in me that others overlooked. That’s kind of one of his talents.”

  She held up her left hand, which was actually a prosthetic replacement, attached just below her elbow. “When some people look at me, this is all they see,” she flexed the black carbon fiber polymer fingers and thumb, “but Lincoln saw much more, like my passion for studying our past, and my fondness for unorthodox problem-solving strategies.” She turned to her boss. “Thank you, Lincoln.” Then she turned back to the camera. “And thank you all for putting your trust in us.”

  She stepped back and pushed Virgil in front of the camera. Virgil nervously adjusted his glasses. “Virgil Brodigan. Applied physics, Cornell. I, uh, well I guess I’m like Jazzlyn. Kind of unorthodox in the way I look at engineering. I would like to think I contributed significantly to the technology we’ll be using today, but around here we all know none of this could be done without Lincoln. In fact, I doubt anyone would ever have come up with some of the concepts. They are so… incredibly, frustratingly random.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how he does it.”

  Virgil seemed to ponder whether or not he wanted to say anything else. He shifted his glasses again. “Anyway, I know what some are wondering about me. Well, yeah, I’ve got my own issues. Mine aren’t visible, they’re the psychological kind. You see, my family was killed when I was thirteen. My mom. My dad. Two brothers. Happened right in front of me. Murdered. The guy—the murderer—told me I could live. Just because. That’s what he said, just because. Later I was blamed for the murders. Me, at thirteen. Until my therapists testified that I wasn’t capable of such a thing. Imagine that—having to prove you aren’t capable of murdering your own family. Anyway, I have some trust issues. Lincoln hired me anyway. In fact, he showed me how to turn that into a strength.”

  Virgil stepped aside to let Derek move in.

  Derek stared confidently at the camera. His twelve-inch beard and perfectly coiffed hair made for an eye-catching figure. Derek’s beard was streaked with gray, although he was only twenty-four, a grooming hallmark Lincoln suspected was self-administered.

  “Derek Dagger,” he said with his typical verbal swagger. “My official title around here is Protean Factotum. It simply means that I’m highly adaptable, and I do many of the tasks the others cannot or will not be bothered with. I’m not a scientist. I simply get things done. Lincoln offered me the opportunity to sacrifice everything and go on this jump. Why? Because I’m damn useful. So I readily accepted. Why?” He narrowed his eyes and managed to forge an impressively intense look. “Because this is the stuff guys with names like Derek Dagger live for—adventure, saving civilization, and the obligatory danger therein.” He smiled briefly.

  “You’re wondering what possible affliction I could have that would endear me to Lincoln Woodhouse. I prefer not to discuss it, other than to say it’s a rare and sometimes debilitating psychiatric syndrome. Besides, if you knew the unsavory details, they would haunt your dreams.” He turned up one side of his mouth in a half smile. “We won’t let you down.”

  Derek stepped away.

  “I believe it is my turn,” Maddy said.

  The camerawoman raised her brows then angled her camera down at the drone.

  Maddy’s ring of red LEDs flashed twice and then rotated clockwise for a few seconds. “I am called Maddy. Mobile Autonomous Drone. Get it? I am required to go along on this jump because, in spite of what Derek told you, I am the true Protean Factotum of the team. I process data even faster than Lincoln can, by a factor of nine thousand if you care to know. I sport an impressive language translator, a database of virtually everything we know about the earth’s conditions in the past, a medical database, and the ability to make two hundred life-saving decisions per second. Now, if only I could remember where I left my reading glasses.”

  Maddy paused for the statistically-determined optimum length of time to allow full appreciation of a joke. “In all seriousness, I assure you that my purpose on this mission is to assist in any task deemed necessary to ensure optimum survival and success of our global civilization. Lincoln’s programming, which controls my every inclination, gives me no other choice. Lucky for me, his programming also allows me to have a good time while saving the world. So, let’s get this party started.”

  With vaudevillian exaggeration, Lincoln pretended to kick Madd
y out of the camera frame. He had coded the drone to routinely attempt to steal the show—Maddy’s personality was a great way to draw the public’s attention away from Lincoln himself. Too bad he couldn’t let her take over the rest of this live address to the world.

  “Maddy is right,” he said to the camera. “It’s time for our jump.”

  Chandler spoke up. “Mr. Woodhouse, would you explain how this new technology is different from the time jumping device you used previously?”

  “Of course.” Lincoln signaled to Derek, who dragged over another bag, this one much larger than the others. “In general concept, it’s quite simple. We engineered the entire data processing center down to a fraction of the size. Small enough, in fact, to put a specially-designed body bag around the T3 itself. Two people can easily do it. Observe.”

  He and Derek unplugged the other body bag cords, spread the larger bag over the boulder, then pulled the edges down to the floor, being careful to line up the eight pre-made holes in the bag with the eight plug receptacles. Derek lifted one end of the boulder while Lincoln pulled the edges of the bag underneath it. Derek then moved around and lifted the other side, allowing Lincoln to pull the other edge of the bag under until the edges overlapped on the floor, then lowered the T3 back into place. Finally, they plugged the cords from the seven body bags back into their receptacles.

  Lincoln picked up one last cord. “Notice there is an eighth cord. This is the cord for the T3’s own body bag.” He moved around to the only remaining empty receptacle and plugged it in. “This allows the T3 to actually jump with us.”

  “And why do you want the machine to jump back in time with you?” Chandler asked.

  “As I said, I do not believe it will be possible for us to jump back to this particular present. That doesn’t mean, however, that we would not like to try. Keep in mind we’re jumping back 47,659 years. We’ll find ourselves in a primitive wilderness. There will be no hospitals, hotels, or coffee shops. Instead, there will be fierce predators, Neanderthals, and possibly humans, all of which could attack us on sight. We want to have the opportunity to jump back to the present, even if it will be a very different present from this one.”

  Chandler nodded. “So, you don’t know for sure whether the present you jump back to will exist in this timeline or a different timeline?”

  “Nothing about this is certain.”

  Chandler motioned to the body bags distributed around the boulder. “Five of you are jumping, including your drone, yet you have seven empty bags.”

  Derek brought a large cart to a stop beside Lincoln just as Chandler was saying this. The cart held two full duffel bags with a desert camouflage pattern printed on the fabric.

  “You are correct,” Lincoln said. “Here’s what we’re putting into the other two bags.” He unzipped one of the duffels, revealing more body bags, tightly rolled and stacked. “You see, the bags themselves don’t make the jump. They stay behind. Only the contents of the body bags jump back in time. Therefore, we are taking twenty-four spare body bags—three sets of eight. We hope to jump back to the present only once, in which case we would need only one extra set. We’re taking three sets, just to be safe.”

  He unzipped the second duffel, revealing hundreds of smaller bags, each bulging with contents. “Here we have a set of carefully-selected medical supplies, food rations, and winter outerwear. Packing these items was challenging because we have no idea what we’ll need.”

  He resealed the two duffels, then he and Derek began hoisting them into their respective body bags.

  “The reason we’re doing all this now without help,” Lincoln said, grunting from the effort, “is because our team will have to do it on our own when we prepare to jump back to the present.”

  Once the two duffels were zipped into their body bags, Jazzlyn handed Lincoln an aluminum briefcase. He set the case on the floor, opened it, and pulled out a four-legged drone the size of a rabbit. “This is a mini-drone, for lack of a better name.”

  He powered on the drone with a switch on its belly, then he studied the display on his watch. “And… there it is. The mini-drone has successfully paired with the T3.” He looked at the camera. “You’re going to love this.” He kneeled beside the nearest empty body bag, placed the mini-drone inside, and zipped the bag shut.

  He stood and pointed to the lump in the body bag. “Watch carefully.” He tapped the screen on his watch, activating several preset commands.

  Without a sound from the T3, the lump in the bag collapsed. The bag was now empty.

  Lincoln said, “Cool, huh? The mini-drone just jumped back in time 47,659 years, to the exact hour and location indicated in the message found at the Pomer dig site.” He held his wrist up so the viewing audience could see its tiny screen. “Watch and listen.”

  Seconds passed in complete silence. Five. Ten. Then his watch chirped, and a green checkmark flashed on the screen. This was good, but Lincoln felt a flash of disappointment. He definitely couldn’t back out now.

  “The mini-drone has served its purpose, which is to make sure the jump location is safe and clear of debris,” he said. “In less than half a minute, the mini-drone assessed its immediate surroundings. In addition to photo analysis of the terrain and environmental measurements, the little genius sprinted around the perimeter of the insertion area on its twelve-centimeter legs, a distance of nineteen meters, not including obstacles such as rocks and plants. It crunched all of the data, made an assessment of viability, and transmitted its decision back to the T3. As I’ve explained, we’re able to keep the portal open for just under nineteen minutes—a far more impressive feat than you might think. We must jump before the portal closes, so now we are on a rather strict schedule.”

  He held his watch up again. “I got a green checkmark, not a red X. The specific location is safe—we’re good to go. As long as we go soon. All we need to do is zip into our body bags, then I’ll activate the jump.”

  Jazzlyn, Virgil, and Derek each grabbed a pack containing water bottles, protein bars, sunscreen, insect repellent, sunglasses, and whatever else they had chosen to squeeze in. They moved to their respective body bags and sat down inside them, ready to zip the bags shut.

  Chandler spoke up. “Mr. Woodhouse, I’m sure many viewers are wondering why you’re jumping from here in Arizona when your destination is in Spain. Would you explain how that’s possible?”

  Lincoln sighed and glanced at his watch. He still had sixteen minutes, but his nerves were becoming raw.

  “If you can spare the time, of course,” Chandler added.

  Lincoln nodded curtly, wondering how he could keep this explanation simple and brief. He placed his hand on the body bag covering the boulder. “The T3 possesses considerable processing power. You may be surprised to learn that only four percent of the processors are devoted to placement in time, as well as managing all other necessary tasks such as accelerating particles A and B, activating the actual jump, and communicating with our watches and the mini-drone. The other ninety-six percent, which also corresponds to seventy percent of the volume of the entire machine, is devoted to spatial placement.”

  Lincoln held a fist in front of his face. “Imagine this is Earth.” He pointed to a knuckle of his pinky finger. “And this is where we are right now. Let’s say we jump back in time twelve hours.” He turned his fist slowly. “The planet rotates, right? So, twelve hours ago, the space I’m standing in right now was halfway around the world. If I want to jump back twelve hours and still arrive in this same room, I need to make some very complex spatial calculations.

  He started moving his fist around to the back of his head while still rotating it. “It gets even more complicated than that. The earth is also revolving around the sun. Not only that, the solar system itself is flying through space because the entire Milky Way galaxy is rotating. Plus, the galaxies are all moving away from each other due to expansion of the universe caused by the Big Bang. If I really want to jump back twelve hours and land in this room,
the spatial calculations are staggeringly complex. If I don’t get them right, I’ll find myself suddenly dying a horrible death in the freezing vacuum of space.”

  He took a big sigh, gazing at the camera lens. “Someday we may find that outer space is littered with the frozen bodies of time travelers who failed to properly calculate spatial placement.”

  Chandler said, “As for the original question?”

  “Yes, yes.” Lincoln glanced at his watch again. “Time and space are intrinsically intertwined, two sides of the same coin. As it turns out, if you can jump in time, you can also jump in space. Jumping back in time is surprisingly simple—it’s the spatial placement that presents the real challenge. Spatial placement is difficult when jumping back only twelve hours. Imagine the spatial placement challenge of jumping back 47,659 years. To answer the question, though, we do not have to take the T3 to Spain. If we were at the Pomer site in Spain at this moment, we would be no closer to our destination than we are here.”

  Lincoln kneeled and held open one of the two remaining body bags. “Let’s do this, Maddy. Step in, please.”

  Maddy got in the bag, retracted her legs, and settled onto her belly.

  In the bag’s remaining space, Lincoln arranged a few packs containing solar chargers for Maddy, three extra mini-drones, and various ultra-light camping gear. He started zipping the bag shut.

  “I love you, Lincoln,” Maddy said.

  “I love you too, Maddy.”

  “I want you to know, the baby is yours. And I’m keeping it.”

  Lincoln glanced at the camera. “She is just kidding.” He zipped Maddy in then moved to the last empty body bag. He sat down in it and zipped the bag up to his waist. “This won’t be any more spectacular than when we jumped the mini-drone,” he said to the camera. “There won’t be any sound. The bags will remain—they’ll just suddenly become empty.” He lay down on his back.