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Futures 7: Molly, Night, Elle, Alberto, Anne
January 10, 2034
Al’s first time-gate prototype was small. It looked like a big plastic donut, about six inches in diameter, with a USB port on one side. A cable connected that port to a desktop computer. It was a team effort. Elle had worked out the basic theory of time travel, after her breakthrough development of the Johnson-Gardiner stability criterion four years ago—she insisted on giving Molly equal credit. Together she and Night had worked backward from JG stability to the Gardiner-Night Action, from which the full equation of motion of the timeline could be derived. Al and Night together had worked out the essential engineering of the time-gate. Anne, as head of the Department of Temporal Affairs, had found the space and funding for their time-travel lab. Then Al built the prototype. Molly kept him supplied with coffee and entertainment. (Entertainment meant that they played guitar together.)
They had sent small objects through it both backward and forward in time. Now, everyone was gathered around for the first continuity test. Night, as usual, was present in the form of an Amazon Echo Show It had hacked so as to watch and comment on the proceedings.
Al pulled an old-fashioned mechanical stopwatch out of his pocket. “OK,” he said. “For our first backward continuity test, I’m going to start this stopwatch. Forty-five minutes from now I will send it 44 minutes into the past.”
“Why wait,” Anne asked? “Why not send it back now?”
“Because,” said Al, “If I did that, it would have appeared here 44 min ago, and it didn’t.”
“And why 44 minutes? Why not, say, five minutes?”
“There are only so many stable time-lines,” Night answered. “We can’t send it to any point in time that we choose. Forty-four minutes was the shortest backward interval available today.”
Al put the time-gate in a stand so that it stood upright. He started the stopwatch, then set it down to the left of the time-gate. In the almost comic suspense of the moment, the ticking of the stopwatch seemed to fill the room. About a minute later, the time-gate went black, then a stop watch emerged from the right-hand side. Not just a stop-watch, but the stopwatch. It, too was ticking, and it read 45 min and 20 seconds.
They all settled down to wait. Al and Elle couldn’t relax. They kept their eyes on the two running stopwatches. When the one on the left read 45:10, Al hit the enter key on the computer keyboard to initiate the time-gate. It went black again, and at precisely 45:20 Al slipped it into the left-hand-side. It just vanished. That left a single stopwatch on the right, now reading 1:29:20.
Molly and Elle and Al tried to high-five each other, but they were no good at it.
Anne asked, “What would have happened if you didn’t put the first original stopwatch through?”
Al answered, “I didn’t have a choice. That would have created a paradox, and JG stability irons paradoxes out.”
#
6-June, 2037
“First real mission, Molly!” said Al.
Molly was wearing a 2012 Forest Service uniform they had had tailored for this purpose. “Al, it’s weird to me that this is the first mission. You and Anne traveled from 2014 to 1906. That’s the earliest time -travel ever, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, it’s confusing. We used a time-gate that I, as Tío, brought back from 2052, when the time-gate was a mature technology. That was a distant descendant of this time-gate we’re testing today.”
“Right, it’s like sending the stopwatch back. The sent back stopwatch was there and running, even though you would not send it back for another 45 min. Elle is like that stopwatch.”
Since that day three years ago they had built time-gates big enough for a person. Molly had jumped back two years to say Happy Birthday to herself and Elle on their 28th birthday, then quickly returned to 2037. It was strange to have two memories of that “Happy Birthday,” first receiving, then almost two years later giving it.
This would be the biggest jump they had yet made, from 2026 to 2012.
“How old were you, Al?” Molly asked him. “How old will you be, when I meet you?”
“I was 22 years old on the day you helped me collect radioactive materials from the bomb site. It was the first time I met you. You called me Dr Alberto Gonzalez. You knew who Anne and Night were. I was astonished.”
“I am 29 today, almost 30. This may be the only time we meet with me older than you.”
“How long did you two talk for?” Elle asked.
“Less than twenty minutes, I think,” said Al.
“So we can expect Molly back from this jaunt within half an hour?” said Anne.
“Sooner than that,” Night answered. “Molly will time-gate to a minute or two after she leaves. Thus, she’ll return almost immediately.”
“I’ll be back in time for our pre-birthday party. And it’s a Saturday Night again, so we can waltz to ‘Poor Boy’s Delight’ this evening. Will you play for us, Al?”
“Delighted, of course.”
#
“All right, Molly. Go through. Target preset 1 to go, and Target preset 2 to return,” said Night.
Molly spoke to the time-gate. “Authenticate.”
“Molly Johnson. Authenticated by voice and facial recognition. Target?” said the gate’s synthetic voice.
“Target preset 1,” said Molly.
The gate went black, and Molly stepped through.
Night said, “She will return one minute from now. I’ll give you a countdown for the alarm. 50 seconds, 40, 30, 20, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”
Nothing happened. There was no alarm, no Molly, and the gate remained transparent.
“Where is she, Night?” Elle said, intense.
“Elle, I don’t know.” Night answered.
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Afterword
The cover image is a phase portrait of
A phase portrait is a visualization of a complex function introduced by Elias Wegert in Visual Complex Functions: An Introduction with Phase Portraits.
The portrait is rotated 30° clockwise. A semi-transparent image of Night (see Futures 4: Night) is superimposed.
Well, that sure is something unlike anything I've read before! Interesting.
Great chapter! 💯
I hope that Molly’s alright, despite her not making it back on schedule! 🙏