Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
As a warning for any future scientist: Do not hook up a warp-drive engine to a gravity-generator. you will create a gravity cannon that will obliterate 1/3 of a class zegalbond warship, but also lose 1/3 of you blood without any wounds. – Anon Guest
They called it ‘warp drive’ in flagrant violation of copyright at the time of the wreck’s discovery. What it did was create a temporary 'soft spot’ between real space and the parallel dimensional brane known as 'hyperspace’ in a slightly less dodgy violation of copyright. The experiments were successful in all but one detail - the 'warp’ drive was inexorably tied to the gravity generators.
Gravity drives and hyperspace do not agree. The artificial gravity forces translate into 'deep time’ pockets once inside. It’s basic safety to turn off the gravity drives before entering such a 'soft spot’. We know this now, but sometime between the modern era and three millennia hence, that vital information becomes lost.
Of the survivors, there was one in desperate need of urgent medical care. That survivor, the chief engineer of the experiment, was missing one third of their entire blood mass with no signs of injury. The crew of the Misty Hope were not much better, and very disturbed to learn that they had been thrown three thousand years into the past and some thousands of light years from their point of origin.
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He remembered the portal made out of antimatter and tachyon particles, he tried replicating it multiples times but all ended in failures. Many times and many explosive experiences later he came across a strange matter literally called strange matter from a neutron star. Not only it was still stable but also within the same fabric of spacetime. Years later a woman inserted her hand into a three pronged device while a robotic voice exclaimed “very good, you are now in possession of the Aperture Science handheld portal device” – Anon Guest
[AN: Much though I’d love to ruin my prospects of actually selling an instants anthology for income, I have to decline.]
There had been very much ado about the portal. Five dollars was, indeed, five dollars… and Science was tempted to bet Steve that he couldn’t do it again. They also rather feared that he could do it again. Unfortunately, though Humans will do literally anything to win a five dollar bet, they’re less able to do it for a mind-bogglingly uncountable stipend.
In brief, though he may have been able to build the portal to win a five-buck bet, there was no way Steve could build it for a billion-dollar business investment. All sorts of theories emerged, mostly considering the vast distances between linked portals and what data could be obtained with teams, supplies, and enough stable time loops to theoretically accelerate technological evolution by ten to twenty thousand years.
The structure already there was ‘impossibly old’, data gathered from what cameras viewed through the portal. Living, organic eyes never saw the same thing twice, and didn’t like what they saw looking back at them. That was really how the experiments began.
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The letter appeared on her homework desk, under her second-hand typewriter.
“Nanna! You said you changed things, and I told you to do something about it, and go read the papers from 1940 onwards. And you’ll need 10 pounds to buy that chest in the Junk shop.”
“But! But I’m 14 and still in school!” -Inspired by Casandre Jones. – Knitnan
The letter was printed, and not by any means that she recognised. It certainly hadn’t come from her typewriter. Her letter T was slightly off kilter and the commas always had an extra blob from the key strike. These letters were far too regular, and the paper… Something about it was subtly frightening. Something… more.
It was too white. Too smooth. Too thick. It was almost not of this world. It wasn’t addressed to Polly-Anne or her preferred short form of Pol. It was addressed to Nanna. Which really was odd because… well… she was fourteen. Then there was the matter of ten pounds and the chest in the junk shop. Pol had neither ten pounds nor any idea about the chest in the junk shop. Then there was the overall scolding tone of the note. As if whoever wrote it - made it? - was disappointed that Pol was late in accomplishing some secret mission.
Pol thought about the whole thing on her walk to school. She didn’t have a bicycle because Papa thought that proper girls had no business using them. Bicycles and the riding thereof, he said, caused proper girls to begin improper habits[1], though he never said exactly how. In fact, Pol had begun to wonder if she should try riding a bicycle to see what improper habits they might engender. Then there was the matter of ten pounds and the junk shop. What junk shop?
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There are rules to time travel. Some are invented on the fly, others make more sense than that. First and foremost is no excessive interaction. One cannot, for example, go back in time to tell Freddie Mercury or David Bowie how influential they become. Especially towards the start of their careers. One cannot also travel back in time and leave an iPhone in Steve Jobs’ office.
One cannot also go back and take things unless they are famous for going missing. Even then, a duplicate must be fabricated and left in its place. Filled with tracing agents in case the object is ever found again.
In time travel, information is the most valuable treasure. What happened to the relics of the past is more important than the relics themselves. Of course, recovering them is a bonus, but knowing is more than half the battle against the sum tides of ignorance and spite.
The oddest thing about the early twentieth century had to be the colours. Followed closely by what people willingly put in their mouths. It was just… odd… to see any era before the nineteen fifties in any other tones but black and white.
The past is another country, indeed. The food is peculiar, the air smells funny, everyone talks a completely different language and you can’t trust the water. And in this era, the tail end of the Roaring Twenties, all those rules applied. Included therein was the corollary, everyone dresses funny.
Curves were forbidden in this era. But that didn’t much matter because the one costume that was rarely changing and accepted anywhen was that of Religious Orders. All one had to do was be certain of the local flavour. Certainly, people stared at nuns or priests in their cassocks, but they certainly didn’t want to interact with them, and that was the important part.
Time travel was a bitch. Sorting out the mistakes of life retroactively was never a fun thing. Making sure she would pay attention to her own warnings to herself had been the work of several journeys. And multiple encounters. She could not talk to herself. Both brains shut down for that sort of thing. Leaving notes, however, was perfect.
Her teenaged self was asleep in bed. Sleeping the sleep of the unaware.
She put her note in the jewelry box, where she had always left it. She had always had the only key. And then she left. Back to her own time and to the decompression suite where she would wait in isolation for time and her memories to resynchronise.
Pam walked around the corner into another world. At least, that was what she thought to begin with. The very air smelled different. Disgusting, in its own way. None of the buildings were familiar. And everyone was dressed really weird. And everyone was staring at her. Pam clung to her purse and tried to be discreet in digging out her self-defense stuff. It had, of course, settled to the very bottom of her bag.
She flinched away from someone approaching on her left. It was a man with a huge jacket and an honest face. “You’re all right, now, ma'am,” he said in a keep-calm tone of voice. “We’re going to get you somewhere safe and you can talk all about it, okay?”
They thought she was underdressed? What? But she was wearing the perfect outfit. Jeggings and a bikini top with a cut-down, loose wife-beater with a glittery “Cheeky” written across the front. But then again, everyone was dressed like they were all going to this super-formal event. Of the women she saw, none of them had a skirt above their calves, let alone their knees. None of them had an exposed elbow. And most of them were wearing pearls.
