COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 8

New readers: To learn more about this story, click here.

Chapter 8

 DEREK CARL’S CHRONOLOGY REPORT

An interview with a top scientist about the possibilities of time travel

DEREK CARL: So, before we talk about the possibilities of time travel, I’d like to ask you straight – are you someone we should be taking really seriously, or are you one of those geeks who likes boasting to the world he’s successfully built a time machine, but then is unable to produce any evidence?

SCIENTIST: You can take me either way. I like to think of myself as a chronologist who’s more than just an expert on cosmological physics. Let’s just say I’m a person who’s familiar with the subject of chronology…

DEREK CARL: Can you explain to us all what chronology is?

SCIENTIST: A chronologist is someone who is an expert on the subject of time, or to give it its correct term, chronology. Now here you can, of course, take me as one of those geeks you describe, but I am perfectly serious about my field. Accordingly, I’d like to think that those who are interested in reading this on the subject of time are also perfectly serious in reading to what I’m going to say. If you’re not interested, then, of course, you don’t have to. But if we go back to 1895 when Lord Kelvin openly declared to the world that heavier than air flying machines were impossible, well, we all know what happened shortly after that. Today, in the 21^st century, there are many eminent scientists who say that time travel is impossible. But I believe it can be done. I’m here today not simply to say to you all ‘Look everyone, I’ve invented a time machine’ or ‘I can build a time machine’, but to draw attention to the possibilities of such a concept.

DEREK CARL: Okay… so, before we go into all the details, perhaps for the benefit of those reading this to be able to understand this… this whole concept, we should perhaps ask you to explain, what exactly is… time?

SCIENTIST: Well, that’s a good question. In fact, scientists still can’t really explain what the concept of time is. Albert Einstein’s interpretation was that time is simply what a clock reads, and this was a belief that was held well into the twentieth century. But that clock could be the rotation of a planet, a metronome, water falling at a constant speed from one container to another with measurements, a digital or analog watch, or simply your pulse.

DEREK CARL: So time is a constant – it’s fixed. It’s not a thing that we can control, alter or manipulate to our own devices.

SCIENTIST: Only if it’s not subject to external forces.

DEREK CARL: Could you explain what you mean by that?

SCIENTIST: Certainly. You have to believe that time is well and truly linked with the three dimensions of space. There’s length – how long something is; breadth – how wide something is; and thickness. The fourth dimension – well, we would call time that fourth dimension. Anything that happens, any kind of activity however big or small, however miniscule or gargantuan it is that is conducted at any given point, happens at a particular point in space and a particular point in time. We call this space-time. Now, this space-time can be distorted by the gravity of large objects such as stars, and as a result it moves more slowly. As I mentioned earlier, until comparatively recently, everyone believed that time was simply just there – it exists, it’s constant, it’s absolute. One second that passes for me is the same second that passes for you. But it was proved that time is simply relative. That means that your time and my time are not the same, as we occupy different positions in space and we move differently.

DEREK CARL: Hang on, don’t we both occupy this same room? And at the very same time? And what about our readers? They’re all reading this at the very same time, aren’t they?

SCIENTIST: Well, you and I do occupy the same room, of course, but we are sitting in two different positions, just as everyone else around us today is occupying a different position around the world. But as far as looking at it in terms of actual space, well, they’re all at different points. We, for example, are not actually occupying the same space. You are over there, and I’m over here.

DEREK CARL: Could you give us an example that would be better understood? Can you prove that my time and your time, my space and your space, are really that different?

SCIENTIST: Yes. For example, if I were to take a plane from San Francisco to Sydney and back, and put an atomic clock on board – the most accurate timekeeping device we have on this planet which is accurate to several milliseconds – and someone in San Francisco also had a similar clock fixed there, and we had them both set at exactly the same time just before I departed, I would find that, when comparing those same clocks upon my return, I would discover that I had, in fact, actually lost a few nanoseconds of time. This shows that the time interval between two events is not fixed. This is what we call ‘time-warping’!

DEREK CARL: Well, flying by plane to lose just a few fractions of a second doesn’t amount to much as regards time travel, does it? And certainly you couldn’t surely measure the difference between the two of us sitting here in this room?

SCIENTIST: Obviously not – you’re really talking about absolute milliseconds, nanoseconds, in that situation, a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a second as far as difference is concerned. But what the plane experiment proved is that Einstein’s theory of relatively – perhaps the most famous equation ever, E = mc squared, was absolutely correct. Your time and mine can get out of step if we move differently. The effect becomes greater the faster we travel. For example, if we were able to approach the speed of light which travels at around 186,000 miles a second, the time dilation effect on the ship would mean that, on a one-year trip, you’d return many years further into the Earth’s future. This does mean, in effect, that it is theoretically possible to travel forward in time, but not backwards.

DEREK CARL: So you’re saying that if we want to travel around the galaxy like in Star Trek, for example, it’s impossible because every time we go to warp speed we only end up traveling into the future?

SCIENTIST: That’s basically correct as far as known physics is concerned. And as far as known physics is concerned, it is impossible to travel faster than light.

DEREK CARL: So you are saying that time travel is impossible.

SCIENTIST: Many eminent scientists say it’s only theory. There are many who say it can be done.

DEREK CARL: And what about traveling beyond light speed?

SCIENTIST: As I said, the facts say we can’t, but scientists have learned never to say can’t as far as physics is concerned.

DEREK CARL: So are you about to tell us that you believe you could build a faster-than-light space ship or even a time machine?

SCIENTIST: Not a ship as we would understand it that can travel at such speeds, no. As I said, it would close to impossible.

DEREK CARL: Why is that?

SCIENTIST: Well, the problem is, that, when the mass of anything – our time machine, space craft, or even a simple atom – has to travel at such speeds, it requires additional power from somewhere to power it to that speed. That, in turn, would increase its mass – that’s the amount of physical matter that it is made up of. The faster you go, the more power you will need, and the more the mass of your machine will increase as you take on board the extra energy required to get that extra power. As you approach the speed of light you would require an enormous power source. And as we further increase the power, we further increase the mass, and by the time we reach the speed of light we’d need an infinite amount of power stored in an infinitely large mass. In a nutshell, light speed requires an infinite amount of power. To put it in more laymen’s terms, even if we were able to reach 99 per cent of light speed we would need around 2000 years output from the Earth’s entire energy supply!

DEREK CARL: So you’re saying that traveling across space to other planets and galaxies in a short time is impossible.

SCIENTIST: As regards our current thinking and the known physical laws are concerned, I’m afraid so.

DEREK CARL: And the same for time travel?

SCIENTIST: We can do that, if you remember–

DEREK CARL: Ah yes, that it’s theoretically possible to travel a very short distance forward in time with what we have today – a few milliseconds. But not back, right?

SCIENTIST: By this means, correct, but I believe not impossible by another means.

DEREK CARL: Another method? So you are saying a time machine is in fact possible?

SCIENTIST: Theoretically, yes.

DEREK CARL: So how would such a machine work?

SCIENTIST: Well, I’ve been studying this subject for some considerable time now, and I’ve also made copious notes about it. I honestly believe the theory behind such a machine is sound. The problem is that there are elements missing. There are parts of the overall equation that I alone am unable to solve. It’s difficult to go into those finer points but if there’s anyone out there, reading this blog who is serious enough to assist me further, well, I’ll certainly show them some of the details. I would be interested to talk to them.

DEREK CARL: But surely you can give us some idea as to how such a machine would work, even if it’s not by traveling at light speed?

SCIENTIST: Well, we have to go back to this notion of interstellar travel. I believe it is possible to do it through a wormhole in space – a gateway, or stargate, if you like, a bridge, a tunnel that links two separate parts of the universe and time.

DEREK CARL: A wormhole?

SCIENTIST: Yes. It’s a particular kind of black hole – well, two black holes, in fact, that are linked together by a bridge. If you enter the right one, it can take you to another time – or even another part of our universe.

DEREK CARL: And what is a black hole?

SCIENTIST: Well, it’s the result of the death of a very large star, a star that’s so big its gravity is several times stronger than our sun. When it dies, that immense gravity it has will make it collapse in on itself, making itself smaller and smaller until eventually it has a finite thickness – it’s like having a pancake so thin it’s impossible to measure. This has now become a black hole. Now, that black hole’s gravity is so powerful even light can’t escape from it. Some of those holes are spinning: these are holes that haven’t collapsed to a point, but have become ‘spinning rings’, with centrifugal forces that keep it from collapsing totally.

DEREK CARL: So where can we find these particular… spinning black holes?

SCIENTIST: That’s one of those subjects I still have to try and find out. But cosmological scientists are certain they do exist, but they’re not what you’d imagine. It’ll take a while to explain.

DEREK CARL: So are you going to build a machine that’s able to cross one of these wormholes… one of these bridges? To basically travel through time?

SCIENTIST: I’d like to think that it would be possible. I’m not saying I’m the man who can build such a thing or that I would even do so. I’m not one of those people who claim to have built time machines and actually traveled, but certainly no one has done so by the methods I’ve mentioned.

DEREK CARL: So why haven’t these guys who claim to have built successful time machines saying anything, then?

SCIENTIST: Derek, am I someone you should take seriously or some kind of crazy fantasist? Perhaps there are people out there who really did invent such a device, and perhaps they have attempted to tell the world. But no journalist in their right mind would believe them without absolute proof. It's rather like claiming you've seen aliens. And frankly, I don’t think any of them have managed to prove anything because I don’t believe they have absolute proof… I don’t know, I haven’t spoken to any of them about it, I haven’t honestly met anyone with a creditable name who’s claimed to have done so.

DEREK CARL: Do you plan to build such a machine?

SCIENTIST: To be frank, if you really want me to give you an absolutely affirmative answer, then I may as well cart myself off to some kind of secure institution. I‘m still several years away from even constructing such a device – should I decide to do so - maybe even in my entire lifetime I might not get that far. But I might be able to help those to get closer to the answer.

DEREK CARL: Well, I can’t say I’ve managed to actually grasp all that you’ve said today, and I’d love to talk to you more on the subject, but thank you very much for allowing me to talk to you.

SCIENTIST: My pleasure.

And with that, after reading it aloud to himself from his laptop, Carl Pickover pressed publish. His blog, featuring a mock interview with himself, was now available for the world to read. As to how many would read it, he would have thought that was probably going to be pretty minimal. After all, he felt, he wrote this just to get a few things off his chest even if it was not particularly important. But he liked the title, Derek Carl’s Chronology Report, using his first two names as a synonym. It would be at least a week before many of the Internet search engines would find it, so if he expected any kind of response, it would not be for some time yet.

Chapter 9 >

COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 7

New readers: To learn more about this story, click here.

Chapter 7

David Lutman sat slouched in his chair, doing nothing but stare at a pile of stationary brochures that had been unceremoniously dumped on his desk prior to his arrival at the office that morning.

It was now three weeks since Jeannie’s surprise announcement. His thoughts were becoming much less focused on work, and more on the trip. He was also beginning to feel a little more relaxed, even happy in that he had a sense of purpose as to why he was doing this.

Even so, the holiday was not coming quickly enough. Arrangements had now been made for the car journey to the airport with his parents the following Saturday morning, with Jeannie now added for mutual support. When Lutman asked her whether she had seen or spoken to her old boyfriend, she made it very clear that she did not want to see him ever again. Being single once more was great.

So was all this part of the course of events that were being set up for him? Was it really going to be Jeannie? She loves discos, nightclubs, late nights, all those activities that he utterly despised. Maybe she was going to change…

But sleeping with her? Well...

*

‘You packed yet?’ she chirped that morning, as she had done so every morning so far that week, popping her head around the partition wall.

‘Not yet,’ he would always reply with equal enthusiasm, although this time he added that he would be ordering his dollars later.

‘So how much you taking?’

‘About two hundred pounds’ worth. The rest I'll use my card.’

‘Rich man! Hey - d’you think it’s going to be cold? I know it’s usually hot out there.’

‘Well…’ After having been there before, Lutman considered himself to be reasonably knowledgeable on this subject. ‘I think it’ll be warm on the coast and also in Las Vegas, but when we get to the likes of the Grand Canyon I reckon we’ll need a sweater or two. After all, it’s going to be close to mid-October.’

Jeannie grinned. ‘Especially as we’re camping… Hey David,’ she sniggered, ‘just think, I might need some help keeping warm in the tent!’

‘Er, sorry…?’ Lutman’s heart skipped a beat.

‘Oh Dave,’ she laughed, after reading his expression. ‘I really didn’t know you cared! I’d better go now. See ya!’

Was she being serious? Lutman looked down at the office furniture catalogue he planned to thumb through. He had to think of something else.

Well, she was the playful type. But did she really want him to keep her warm in bed? Share the tent, eventually share the sleeping bags? Eventually have sex?

         Stop it, he kept telling himself. There was no way on earth she would become the future Mrs. Lutman.

*

With just two days to go, Jeannie bought a few more clothes and obtained her dollars, and Lutman collected his tickets and a few other items. He had not really purchased anything of significance towards the trip as experience had taught him to travel economically. Even so, he had deliberately packed more extras than usual. After all, he reasoned, there was a distinct possibility that he would be spending more time in the States than two weeks if things turn out in ways he did not expect, but were in fact to be part of the course of events that would lead him to meeting his wife. And, of course, he made sure he included the most important item of them all – the green baseball cap.

            His daily conversations with Jeannie were now firmly focused on the trip, but these were not nearly as jovial. Since that remark about the tent, she seemed a lot more careful with choosing her words. His feeling was that she was distancing herself slightly; her visits to his work space had become less frequent, and their discussions had become more focused on the serious aspects of their trip. This small change in their relationship convinced him that the possibilities of her being his future wife were becoming more remote, which he felt a little relieved about. After all, he just could not feel that there was a relationship to be had with her. There was no inate desire to do so. But as a consequence he could not help but think that their once good pals/buddies relationship had irrevocably deteriorated. Jeannie was supposed to be a good friend.

Come on, he told himself. There’s no way she was going with him so that he could bed her.

David Lutman now felt stupid and disgusted with himself.

Chapter 8 >

COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 6

Chapter 6

It had now been exactly a week since his future self had paid David Lutman that visit with that message.

On this particular Saturday evening - as he did so on most Saturday evenings - Lutman kept himself shut away in his bedroom from the rest of the world. With his computer connected to his large wall-mounted high-definition TV, he then flung himself on the bed, laid down and settled to watch some television.

His bedroom had seen little change since his teens. Apart from the heaving bookshelves and a rather messy dressing table covered with loose coins, a few magazines, and piles of mail that had been both opened and unopened, it was reasonably tidy. Miscellaneous junk had been placed into neat piles upon whatever spare space existed on the shelves, and there were two orderly piles of magazines stacked in one corner. There was also a thickish layer of dust around the sills, cupboards and wardrobes that perhaps only saw a duster in Lutman’s hand once a month. His mother had long abandoned the idea of keeping his room in order. As far as she was concerned, Lutman was more than old enough to do that job.

As an action-packed drama unfolded on the screen, his mind, not for the first time, wandered back to the events last Sunday afternoon. Maybe his future self might come back and tell him more? Maybe the baseball cap was deliberately left behind. It had that message, and that surely meant something. But Dzizzy-R was all that he said before he disappeared, a phrase that was blurted out with such urgency that it, unquestionably, had to have meant something important.

But what was he supposed to do next? The holiday was now booked - that earlier instruction was clear enough - but he had no clue as to his next course of action. But every ounce of his being was telling him to continue as normal. The scenario had been set, and that there would be no way of turning back.

         He then realized that he had been staring at the TV screen for the past ten minutes with absolutely no idea as to what had been happening.

         So he switched off the TV, deciding that there really was nothing worth watching, and turned on his laptop. He went to a search engine, and once again, began the task of punching in key words and hope he would hit on something useful.

This time he spotted something. One of the results looked like it had something worth reading. He wondered how he had missed it last time around. He clicked on the link.

Headed Time and Time Travel: A Supplement to Temporal Manipulation, the piece began with some complicated and confusing explanations before stating that there were two laws of time. The first law was that no one should be allowed to meet themselves, after which it then stated that it would be impossible for anyone to interfere with their timeline. Lutman grinned, feeling pretty certain that this law had already certainly been broken, thanks to his future self. As regards the second law, the article said that it would be impossible for one to go back to the same point in time and have several attempts to change something in order to get it right. To break these rules would create paradoxical situations.

All of this was rather interesting, but Lutman then decided to return to the search engine, typing in the letters ‘DCCR’. And just as before, he was faced with a list that included ‘Detroit Catholic Charismatic Renewal’, ‘Division of Commissioned Corps Recruitment’ and the ‘Deaf Connect Chat Room’, along with another 50,000 plus hits. And just as he had done so on that long night after the event, and had been doing so regularly since then, he tried ‘DCCR’ and ‘Time Machine’ together. And not for the first time, the search engine simply told him:

Your search did not match any documents.

Now getting increasingly frustrated, he once more typed in all the obvious words and phrases. Time travel. Time paradoxes. He briefly glanced at those hits that looked promising, but not for the first time got absolutely nowhere, mainly because he soon found himself completely and utterly lost in the scientific language.

*

A very unhappy-looking Jeannie was waiting for Lutman as he arrived at work the following Monday morning. As he plopped himself into his chair, she began to explain that she and her boyfriend had split after a blistering row Friday evening. But what he had not expected to hear was that the following Saturday morning she had rushed to the travel agent, and discovered to her surprise that there had been a cancellation on his trip. She booked the slot. ‘Well, I’m free now,’ she explained cheerfully, ‘and after what you told me, it sounds fun,’ adding, ‘and it’d be a great way to forget about that arsehole.’

Yes, he thought sadly. She's free. She's young. She's single. And she’s three years younger than he is. A good age. In the current scenario, the first potential candidate for a wife.

Don’t be such an idiot, he told himself. Had he forgotten his ‘no colleagues’ rule? There will probably be many more girls to meet in the tour party when he got there. Nevertheless, he thought, who was to say that the girl concerned would come from his tour party?

‘David,’ said a graspy, chain-smoked voice from next door, ‘I’ve got someone from the Hensfield Mercury on my line wanting to talk to you about those planned night shelter spending increases.’

There would be plenty of American girls out there too. So many possibilities. Pleasant though she was, he really hoped Jeannie would remain an outside bet.

‘David! Pick up your bloody phone, will you!’

‘What? Oh, bloody hell!’

‘It’s the Hensfield Mercury!’

‘All right! Okay! Yeah, what do they want?’

‘Didn’t you hear me? For goodness sake, find out yourself!’

Chapter 7 >

COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

For Professor Derek Carl Pickover - or Carl to both his friends and family - the United States was the country for many strange and remarkable things to take place. It was a place that had inspired countless innovative ideas and activities over the years, and leading to some of the most inventive, intelligent, and entrepreneurial individuals on the planet. But with its pretty substantial, cosmopolitan, varied and sizeable population spread across and throughout its fifty states, in Pickover’s view the country has also produced its more than fair share of cranks, oddities, and occasionally dangerous people. He certainly did not consider himself a crank or dangerous, an oddity perhaps, although he often thought he perhaps gave that impression when he considered his scientific interests.

Physically, Pickover did not appear to look particularly different to anybody else. An Afro-American, he was 33, single, and 170 centimeters tall. He had bushy black curly hair that was slightly thinning on top, a black moustache, and he always had at least a days' chin stubble that was already beginning to show some shades of grey.

Influenced by an upbringing in mild poverty in a run-down neighborhood, he was always casually dressed in a tee-shirt and jeans, never once having the desire or incentive to appear more formal. Despite those potentially limiting circumstances, he came from a stable family, his parents actively encouraging him to be independent when it became clear their son was academically brilliant. After supporting him both financially and spiritually, they were rewarded with a son who graduated with honors in physics, and Pickover duly paid them back, helping them financially with enough cash to move into something more respectable. With little time to even consider his next move whilst teaching at the University of Connecticut, Carl Pickover was invited to take over the post of Professor of Modern Sciences. In the ensuing years there he became a highly respected individual.

It was after he arrived at Connecticut that Pickover befriended a brilliant physicist who also taught at the university, Professor Ronald Mallett. He was an individual who had received many distinctions as well as being featured in numerous television documentaries about his work, particularly in a mission inspired from childhood when Mallett’s 33 year-old father died of a massive heart attack. Carl Pickover soon became fascinated in that mission, which turned out to be a time machine project. The young Mallett had resolved to construct a device that would enable him to travel back in time to save his father, and by doing so pursuing everything in his ability to attain the knowledge and theory required.

Although the initial reasons for construction of the machine now had lesser significance, Mallett's line of research had drawn the attention of numerous academics, along with rookie professor Carl Pickover. A short-term collaboration was forged, although Pickover wanted to push the envelope beyond the professor’s original theories, theories which had been centered around a device that focused on the gravitational force of a ring laser. The external gravitational field that had been generated in Mallett’s experiments seemed to indicate that time travel – at least travelling into the past – was a distinct possibility. The drawback was that the device would only work if the machine, if it were switched on now, would still be working in the future. This meant that the only backwards time travel that was possible was for someone in the future to use that machine which, hopefully, would still be working by then, and then to be able to travel back in time. But then that person would only be able to travel back only as far as the point the machine was initially activated. As far as Mallett was concerned, actual activation of the device, let alone its actual construction, was still only an idea and a long way from any form of reality. Pickover sensed Mallett’s unease over his impatience, and graciously withdrew from the project.

Pickover remained in Connecticut until some five years later, when he moved to the University of California in San Francisco where he was free to work on a separate set of theories that would take him away from Mallett’s work. By now he was beginning to express his ideas to a much wider audience, namely his students, although he always took great care to ensure that his arguments were presented as well-thought out and reasoned arguments in his lectures. Thanks to his upbringing being a contributing factor, Carl Pickover was a thick-skinned individual and always had a ready, reasoned answer to everything, invariably ensuring that any doubtful individual who felt a need to express themselves forcefully would be leaving the lecture hall with their tails firmly between their legs. On one occasion, one individual gatecrashed such a lecture wielding a tattered bible in his hand, but before he had the chance to vent his anger directly at Pickover he was swiftly escorted out of the hall.

Pickover had no doubt in his mind that it was this particular group of people, the narrow-minded, bible-bashing, creationist-theory peddlers who were the cranks and oddities, the fundamentalists who would prevent the likes of physicists such as he and Mallett from being in the positions and influence they now found themselves in.

*

Sprawled out on a large green cushion on the bare wooden floor in the living room/bedroom of his cramped apartment on the edge of Daly City, Carl Pickover sifted through the countless pages of text and diagrams in a half-hearted attempt to try and place them in some kind of comprehensible order. Although he did possess a computer, a laptop, and a electronic tablet, he still preferred to see everything printed out. After printing out yet another sheet of freshly printed notes to the collection, he placed these with the older sheets that were filed in numerous catalogued cardboard boxes lined up against the walls. He then grabbed a can of beer in one hand, opened it, and picked away at a pizza takeaway.

            Carl Pickover once prided himself in being physically able to five kilometers every morning without pausing for breath. But now with daily sitting at a computer, and spreading himself out on a sofa or bed while relaxing at home, he no longer had any incentive to do something about his weight. He was not attached, his parents had both passed away, and there was no family in the Bay area. He always got around by car, even if it was just to buy a paper from a shop that would be only five hundred meters away. He had recently given up full-time teaching, and now solely concentrated on delivering presentations and lectures to those institutions that wanted him to do so. He was always gratified to see that there were always plenty of people in attendance, mostly students, who were willing to listen to his ideas, although the lecture halls were never full.

            This kind of touring around the halls and colleges had made him a minor celebrity in student circles. To everyone else, however, he was just another harmless and enthusiastic professor. This, and the occasional call for assistance or substitution from the local university, ensured Pickover a reasonable but unremarkable income.

In one presentation, he had put together a mock-up of a time-travel device with an equally enthusiastic student. It consisted of an unlikely collection of bits and pieces of metal, glass, circuits, spaghetti wiring, and several computers. But from this the ideas generated further bolstered Pickover’s interest in the physics of time travel. But a short time after the presentation, and without any warning, the student just simply disappeared. The machine’s main benefactors, San Francisco University, decided that the crudely put together device was technically theirs, and that it should remain with the college until some kind of use for it could be found.

The machine was then stored away, left forgotten amongst the countless spare parts, the numerous contraptions, gizmos, and other objects in a garage that was located deep within the bowels of the Mudrick Institute, a non-descript building named after the late Marvin Mudrick, a professor and essayist at the University of California. This unremarkable brick building would often act as a classroom extension and museum for the university’s projects and objects. It was an institute that very few people in the city knew or were even aware of, let alone be concerned as to whether it had a garage. Virtually forgotten by everybody else, the machine had sat there ever since, with even Pickover himself now having largely forgotten about it. But one day he happened to be in the area, and out of curiosity, he went back to the garage two years ago to be surprised to find it still there and intact.

As further theories and ideas relentlessly flowed from his imagination and onto computer and paper, and having compiled so much material based on a far more logical, scientific, and advanced mathematical approach, Pickover quickly realized that he needed help. He was certain that much of the mechanical theory of his machine was sound, but someone would be required to calculate the complex equations needed to at least make the machine do what was necessary. He also needed someone to help resolve the problem of the phenomenal amount of energy that would be involved in powering such a contraption. It would only work using a substantial power source; only government research laboratories had access to that, and he still was not sure whether even that would be enough.

Searching for inspiration and for possible collaborators, he read endless essays by noted luminaries or keen enthusiasts on similar subjects in hundreds of books, magazines, papers, and websites. He even read texts from those who claimed to have actually built working time machines. These individuals produced plenty of discourse, along with a lot of wasted paper, time and broadband, but virtually nothing in the way of actual or physical proof. No video evidence, and no independent or credible witnesses. They were all just talking a load of bull.

Pickover sincerely believed that he, himself, had cracked the problem. He just needed a couple more like-minded experts to assist.

He was certain he knew how to build a time machine.

Chapter 6 >

COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

            After a few minutes, David Lutman parked his car a short distance away from the agency. He then picked up the baseball cap, and without really thinking why, decided to give it closer examination. It was then that he noticed the cotton lining around the inner rim had come apart, revealing something grey inside. He turned out the rim and saw it: small, thin, and sweat-smudged, but legible black biro lettering.

I WANT THIS TO BE TRUE. He read it again. I WANT THIS TO BE TRUE. What the hell did that mean? He carefully folded the cap in half and placed it inside his front jacket pocket.

*

Lutman entered the small but busy travel agency, and sat down while he waited for a mother’s plane tickets to be sorted. When that was done, the pretty ginger-haired travel agent - Becky, as her name badge identified her - beckoned him over. She smiled. Lutman was one of her regular customers.

He blushed slightly. He knew he could have done all this over the Internet, but Becky was a comforting presence. She was very pretty and had a very pleasant demeanour, but she was also very extrovert, which he knew placed her well out of his league. She removed a StatesTrek brochure from a filing cabinet that was placed in the far corner of the agency, and thumbed through the pages to the booking instructions. Most of her holiday business was standard family packages, so booking trips like this were a welcome change.

Worryingly for Lutman, his original choice of trip, The Indian Adventure, was booked up for the next four weeks. Becky added that there was one place left on the trip for the fifth week, which flew out October 8th, and that the trip itself was starting the following morning. It was the last such trip of the year, and if he did not book it now, she warned, it would almost certainly be gone by the morning. Lutman accepted it without hesitation. If anything, booking that far ahead would ensure that there would be no problems getting time off work.

Things were starting to happen. He was going to the United States. He was comfortable with the decision and about why he was going. He took the cap out of his pocket, now feeling some kind of assurance that he was on his way to solving its riddles and the considerable number of others that it had provided.

*

His regular car park full, David Lutman was forced to park his car in a metered area two minutes walk from his office. But as he dreamily turned the corner towards his rooms, a disturbance just a few meters away swiftly brought him back to reality. Down a quiet side street he could see a skinhead dressed in a leather jacket and jeans, assaulting an old woman and trying to snatch her handbag. Although she was putting up a pretty good fight, the thug eventually forced her to the ground. Lutman’s initial instinct was to walk away as if nothing was happening, but something compelled him from doing so. Despite her cries, and being clearly visible to everyone who happened to be crossing the road, she was ignored. Then he swallowed hard in horror as her attacker produced a large knife. He found himself backing away, anxious not to be seen.

When he did summon up the courage to look, the old lady was sitting up on the pavement, dazed and sobbing, shouting for help, but otherwise looked uninjured. It was only now that when he ran towards her, he was relieved to see that the thug had got out the knife to cut the strap of her bag, and so removing it from her arm. He called the police on his cell phone; the lady thanked him and told him it was a pity he could not have got to her earlier.

But Lutman knew he could have done. Just like everybody else who walked away, he thought, he was a coward.

*

The mugging incident had somewhat curbed his enthusiasm for anything else, even any temptation to close his eyes. Tiredness had been replaced by regret, not the first time he had had this feeling. In his workstation, he felt like doing little else but staring at the computer monitor.

‘Nothing to do?’

Lutman sat up suddenly. A slightly plumpish, but petite, attractive blonde popped her head around the corner and strolled casually into his cubicle. She was dressed in a blue blouse that teasingly revealed the start of her cleavage, and a pair of loose fitting jeans.

Jeannie Cattrell had joined the council only three months previously, and in that short time had quickly built up a friendly rapport with Lutman. He was not interested in pursuing any kind of romantic relationship with her, and it seemed that she was giving him the same impression. Besides, he knew she already had a boyfriend and was co-habiting with him, and she was quite happy telling him this. She loved going out and clubbing. Safe that there was no way she was going to be his type or be at all interested in him personally, Lutman felt very comfortable and relaxed in her presence.

In fact, he was relieved of her relaxed company with him. His confidence with the opposite sex had been shattered ever since he tried to chat up her predecessor, in his eyes, a lovely shoulder-length brunette named Caroline. That relationship had begun in a similar way, developing to the point that they would occasionally go out together, if only to have a casual drink in local bars. Although he liked her – and, he had thought, she liked him – he wanted it to be so much more. Six months later, she started to get romantically involved with someone else who worked in one of the two council blocks. Despite the fact that she was firmly in the belief that they were only meant to be friends, Lutman felt betrayed and decided immediately upon confrontation.

Shortly after 1.00pm when everybody had left their desks and gone out to lunch, he complained bitterly to her face about her dating someone else after all the numerous occasions he had taken her out. Shocked and livid, she told him in no uncertain terms what he could do with himself. It was a reponse that he had been totally unprepared for, and he was absolutely distraught. She then immediately left the office, marched to the car park, started up her old Ford Fiesta and headed towards the centre of town. Five minutes later, she went straight into the back of a truck that was waiting at a red light next to the Rugby ground.

Within seconds, the car was completely engulfed in flames. Crash Investigators would find very little evidence to establish what had exactly happened; many witnesses who were standing at a bus stop nearby claimed that she was driving excessively fast, and was unable to stop. There was very little left to work with, and there was no way of determining what exactly happened to the car and driver.

As a matter of routine, police interviewed all her colleagues, Lutman included. He admitted that he was in the office when she left and that he was the last person she had spoken to; although they asked him what they had talked about, he could not bring himself to admit the quarrel, simply saying that she had to leave the office quickly, but not stating why. In the eyes of everybody, the Caroline/David relationship had been purely platonic; in addition, she had not been at the office long enough for anyone to get to know her properly. There were no suspicious circumstances, and so an open verdict was given. But this was no comfort to Lutman. He felt responsible, and vowed never to attempt a relationship with a work colleague again.

*

‘Hi, gone a little quiet now on the inputting,’ Jeannie chirped, ‘so I’ve got a spare couple of hours or so. What’s happening this end then, Dave?’

‘Well,’ Lutman began, thankful for the interruption, ‘apart from the usual boring press releases and the bloody phone calls preventing me dedicating a hundred per cent concentration to the job, I’ve gone and booked myself a holiday.’

Jeannie looked surprised. ‘Oh yeah? When for? Next summer?’

‘Nope, in a few weeks. I’m off to the States.’

            ‘Again?’ She sounded genuinely puzzled. ‘Didn’t you tell me you went last year? Oh yeah, it’s a trek again, isn’t it. How many of these things did you say you’d been on? Weren’t it two or three–?’

‘Two,’ said Lutman, ‘but I’m rather excited about this one.’ He got the brochure from his case and opened it up on top of the piles of unopened correspondence. ‘Here, look. The Indian Adventure. I fly out from Gatwick to Los Angeles, and from there we go into the desert, visit Phoenix, Mesa Verde, go to the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley in the heart of Indian country, visit Canyonlands, go canoeing on the Colorado river, spend a couple of days at a ranch in Utah, see Bryce and Zion canyons, spend a couple of days in Las Vegas and then return to Los Angeles. Can’t wait!’

‘But haven’t you been to some of those places?’ Jeannie asked curiously, ‘I mean, I remember you telling me only the other week you were thinking about Florida, or going somewhere different…’

‘Well, I was,’ said Lutman uncertainly, ‘but, well, I don’t know. I like the West.’

‘Must be a very nice place if you’re going back. So, how much is that going to set you back then?’

‘It’s, er… about eight hundred pounds.’

‘Hey, that ain’t bad.’

Lutman forced a grin. ‘Are you interested in going then, Jeannie?’

She laughed. ‘Only if the other half lets me!’

‘Well,’ smiled Lutman, ‘you’ve got no chance anyway. I just got hold of the last slot!’

‘Oh…okay.’ Her voice went quiet for a moment, but then quickly reverted to its chirpy, bubbly tone. ‘It’ll be great… thinking about it, I think it’d be a super trip! Go for it, Dave!’ She glanced at her watch. ‘Well, now you’ve given me the idea,’ she laughed, ‘I might well check up on what else they’ve got, if not now, then next year: At least it’ll get the other half off his arse all day and do something!’

They both laughed. As he finally became relaxed again, Lutman stifled a yawn as weariness set in.

But then Jeannie noticed her boss wandering around the partitioned workspaces. ‘Here’s Trouble. Better get back to my desk. See ya!’

Chapter 5 >

COMPLETE THE CIRCLE - Chapter 3

Chapter 3

‘Morning, David.’

David Lutman wearily plodded down the stairs the following morning, fully dressed for work in his obligatory office attire. His black briefcase was hanging loosely in his right hand, with the green baseball cap gripped tightly in his left. He had tried to grab whatever sleep he could with the time left over from last night after his lengthy stint on his laptop, but trying to find the relevant information proved nigh on impossible.

He traipsed into the kitchen, placing together the case and cap on the working surface that lay underneath the wall-mounted TV, which he automatically switched on. He then opened the nearest of the several cupboards that lined the walls just below his eye-level. A huge yawn rendered mobility momentarily impossible, after which he took out a box of breakfast cereal. The kettle had already boiled, so he removed a tea-bag from a small brown pot that was placed in a corner of the working surface. From another nearby cupboard, he removed a mug that was big enough to fill two average tea cups, filled it with boiling water, and plopped the teabag inside. He then helped himself to milk and sugar for both his cereal and tea, and then quietly sat down on one of the dining chairs that surrounded the small corner table. He stared wearily at his dish, his cereal not looking particularly appealing this morning.

‘Er, morning, David! Hello?’

David Lutman suddenly looked up. ‘Oh, sorry, dad.’ It was not that often that he appeared in the kitchen after his father did so.

Dennis Lutman looked at his son’s face. He could not help noticing there were bags under the eyes, and his hair had clearly not been brushed properly. ‘You look like you had an interesting night last night. Not hungry this morning?’

His retired father was a sprightly and youthful-looking sixty-year old who, despite a few grey streaks, was proud of having kept a full head of black hair. He also kept himself in trim by regularly working in his garden and doing plenty of walking. And he rigidly stuck to a ritual that, on weekdays, at 7.30am every morning, and always dressed in his navy night-gown and slippers, he would appear in the kitchen in order to make tea for himself and his wife, Janice.

Lutman looked up wearily from his still-full breakfast bowl. ‘I was just thinking,’ he murmured quietly.

‘Just thinking?’ asked Lutman senior, making a half-hearted attempt to sound interested. ‘About what?’

‘Erm… yeah, well…’ Lutman suddenly decided he needed to end the gestation of a potentially difficult conversation quickly. ‘Well, dad, I’ve decided I’m going back to the States for another holiday.’

His father tried to look surprised. ‘Oh yes? So whereabouts are you off to now, then?’

Lutman smiled. ‘Well, I decided on California. There’s a trip in the latest trek brochure called the Indian Adventure.’

Lutman senior was genuinely surprised. ‘Haven’t you already been to California?’

It then occurred to David Lutman that he usually had this kind of holiday already meticulously planned out and arranged within minutes of making such a decision. He would have had all the permutations of getting there examined and costed, the dates sorted, the e-mails written to confirm time off work, the practicalities of transportation to the airport arranged, and collected the various books and maps before announcing such a trip. So there was no ready answer to the question.

So his father changed his question. ‘So… when’re you flying then?’

After a short pause, his son replied quietly, ‘I don’t know yet.’ He tried to sound cheerful. ‘But I’m popping down to the travel agent during my lunch break to see when the next trip is.’

‘Next trip? So when d’you hope?’

‘As soon as possible.’

‘Must be quite a trip.’

‘If all goes to plan, it may well be.’

His father smiled. ‘David, you look shattered. What time did you get to bed last night, then?’

‘Oh, well, too late, I suppose.’

‘What exactly were you doing all night?’

‘Just erm… getting and reading info on the trip.’

Lutman senior was not too sure whether to believe this, and was about to let it drop when he noticed the baseball cap placed on top of the briefcase. ‘Hey, see bought yourself a new hat! That for the trip too?’

Suddenly aware that he had not discreetly kept the cap out of sight, David Lutman grabbed it. ‘Jesus, is that the time? Better shift. See you, Dad!’

*

That morning had a distinctively autumn feel about it as Lutman witnessed many of his neighbours scraping the first frost off the windows of their cars after summer.

David Lutman and his parents lived in a leafy suburb of Hensfield, a large town in the English East Midlands. The house was set back in a cul-de-sac where just about everyone kept themselves to themselves, blissfully unaware of each others' existence. Indeed, the family knew very little, if anything at all, about anyone in their particular road, save for those immediately next door. They would, out of courtesy, politely talk over the fence if their immediate neighbours happened to be present, but in all that time they had never stepped into each others’ gardens, let alone inside their houses. Lutman murmured a quiet ‘hello’ to Miss Forsyth, a business lady in her mid-thirties who lived roughly opposite. She was wrapped up in a thick mock-fur coat that covered everything above the knee to only reveal a pair of black tights and some awkward looking black high-heels. She smiled back, continuing to scrape the ice from the windscreen of her MG. That was the limit of their neighbourly relationship, along with just about everyone else in the street.

*

For those that did know something about David Lutman, he was a clean-shaven, black-haired, reasonably handsome young man, some 170 centimeters tall. But he was slightly plumpish, a consequence of being in a largely sedentary profession. He worked as a press officer for the Hensfield council, a job that he did not particularly enjoy. His position there had been gained through being an extremely diligent member of staff who had worked his way up in the various positions and departments to eventually reach his current standing. This was helped by the fact that he was a very articulate and well spoken individual, making him particularly suited to media contact. But the position demanded that he always wore a jacket, shirt and tie, things that he had always been very uncomfortable with. Every day, as soon he got home, he would always change into something as casual as possible.

The Hensfield council job was his nine-to-five Monday to Friday routine, a position he had now held for almost four years, and a role that he now found suitably depressing. But thanks to his length of service with the council, Lutman had accumulated a considerable amount of annual free time. Such blocks were always taken full advantage of, and he would often take regular breaks away from the job and the town and helping him, he felt, to retain his sanity. He would block off these days into two week breaks and pursue an activity holiday. Two of these would be taken every year.

Recently, many of these breaks had taken him out of the country altogether. He loved visiting the United States, in particular those trips that included touring, pitching tents, washing up and hiking, along with the contrasting, fascinating, and always breathtaking scenery that always accompanied such adventures. All these visits had long made up his mind that the English East Midlands, a predominantly flat region, just did not compare with the natural wonders across the Atlantic. For Lutman, those excursions were a complete and utter contrast to UK life, and he enjoyed them to the full. To his mind, these trips were, in effect, his chance to be someone else, a different David Lutman. A David Lutman unknown to everyone else. A better David Lutman. A more outgoing David Lutman.

A new David Lutman.

*

Half an hour after leaving home in his white Corsa, Lutman soon found himself crawling along the main road into the town, along with the rest of the Hensfield rush-hour traffic. He knew that it would be another twenty minutes before he would arrive at work, but today he did not feel particularly concerned at this. Important though his position was, his bosses felt it did not merit an office within the two large and very familiar high-rise blocks in the town that made up the main council offices. In fact, his workplace was in a leased set of small rooms located on the fourth floor in a side street, five minutes walk away from both the blocks and the small multi-storey where he regularly left his car.

He entered his offices at ten minutes to nine, greeted the reception staff of two unsmiling middle-aged women, and then went through a small wooden door into a large open-plan area. Here housed several workspaces that were surrounded by old-fashioned, faded orange padded-cloth partitions. Lutman made straight for his space and plopped himself into his office chair, flinging his case onto the desk and staring at the mess next to it that, as far as he was concerned, was half the Amazon rainforest. As he sat still, in silence, glaring at the mass of paper, he let his mind wander elsewhere. Why would my future self tell me that I was going to meet my wife? Am I really that sad that it had to take myself, travelling from a few months or so in the future, to tell me all this?

*

It would be another fifteen minutes before he finally turned his attention to the job at hand.

First, he switched on his mobile and quickly flitted through the missed calls and text messages. Next, he spent two minutes wearily scouring around last week’s accumulated clutter of paper, post-it notes, letters, printed e-mails and various other bits of paper scattered across his desk, before he eventually found the piece of paper he was looking for. He then went into his case to retrieve a pendrive which was promptly slammed into the side of his computer.

He turned to his monitor and started typing out another response to an ongoing and seemingly endless public enquiry on the state of the roads within a local council estate. Sending out these replies both by e-mail and normal post had been occupying him over the last two working days, and he was now wearily trying to search in his mind for the vocabulary for an appropriate formal response. This was now especially difficult as the toll of last night was now catching up with him. The telephone, however, ensured that any accidental dropping off to sleep would be impossible, its guitar-riff ringtone regularly shaking him back to the present. He had to deal with several enquiries on both his mobile and normal phone; the first call of the day being a misdirected call in which his valuable time was spent putting it through to the right connection. The next was a tirade from someone blaming him - and solely him because he worked for the council, even though he had absolutely nothing to do with the problem itself - for planting a bus stop outside her leafy suburban residence. This latter call took up fifteen minutes of his time. Lutman had learned to be patient with difficult calls, but this morning was getting increasingly wearing.

He persevered until it was almost one o’clock when finally, he could wrap his mind around more important matters - the visit to the travel agent.

Chapter 4 >