It is the year 2931. Mankind has
finally woken up to see what was being done to the planet. All vehicular traffic except for that which
was provided by extremely expensive solar-powered hovercrafts has been banned. New
transportation technology in the form the travellator system has replaced cars,
motorcycles, boats, trains and aircraft. Only bicycles remained. What were once
roads were now pedestrian walkways and bike paths, lined with all manner of
trees and other forms of plant life. Racism, bigotry, sexism, virtually all
forms of prejudice has been eliminated. Even crime had been abolished.
Quite by accident an
unexpected side effect of using the travellator system was discovered. Working
off the little-understood tesseract theory, it came to light that the system
could not only transport a person from one place to another, but also from the
present time to any point in the past, and possibly to some point in the
future. This astonishing discovery created quite a controversy.
Most people saw it as
a way to go back in time and witness historical events first hand as they
happened. There was a group of people, however, who saw it as a way to go back
and change events by preventing the attack on Pearl Harbor or the attack on the
World Trade Center and other major events. What this group never considered is
what effect altering historical events would have on present time.
As this group became
more and more aggressive, the government recognized the need for a way to
police the timeline, preventing any changes in it, for even the most seemingly
insignificant change could have disastrous consequences. Drawing from top law
enforcement officials, military Special Forces members and leaders of the
scientific community, the Timeline Preservation Commission, or TPC, which was
responsible only to the Department of Justice, was created.
₪₪₪₪₪
Ryan Edwards woke up
from a fitful sleep. It was the dream again. The same dream he had over and
over again. An unfamiliar, strangely dressed man was reaching out for him,
calling out for help. The surroundings looked like something you’d see in an
old movie. Weird. He shook his head, trying to clear the remnants of the dream
from his head. I think I might need to
talk to somebody about this. When I first joined TPC I was warned that I might
start having strange dreams. Now I am. He thought to himself as he
reluctantly pulled his body out from under the warm covers and padded to the
bathroom for a shit, shower and shave.
An hour later he
placed his hand on the scanner and entered Timeline Control. “What have you got
for me today, Liam?”
Liam Reynolds, the
Timeline Surveillance Technician on duty scanned the various computer readouts.
“Everything is quiet at the moment, Ryan.”
Damn; so much for getting out of the morning meeting. What a total
waste of time. He thought. Giving Liam a pat on the back he turned to head
to the morning meeting. “Please call me if you get anything. And I mean anything.”
“Will do,” Liam
turned to watch Ryan walk towards the door. It was all he could do to keep from
whistling at the six-foot-two-inch muscle-bound redhead who filled out his
uniform well enough to make a dead person fill with lust.
Ryan’s day proceeded
at a snail’s pace from meeting to reports to lunch and back to more reports. Ryan was a man who lived for the action. Sitting around in meetings or in his
office drove him nuts. By mid-afternoon
he was ready to pay someone to go back and make a tiny alteration in history
just so he could get out of the office and do
something. Suddenly the paging system came to life.
“Timeline alteration! Timeline alteration! Ryan Edwards report to
Timeline Control.”
“Yes!” Ryan cried out as he jumped up and ran to Timeline Control,
literally running into the doors as he forgot to place his hand on the scanner
to gain entrance; he was so excited.
₪₪₪₪₪
Ethan Evans was a
woodcraftsman who specialized in the restoration of antique furniture and
occasionally helped his brother Troy restore old houses. Walking into his shop
he looked at the pieces of furniture awaiting his magic touch. He loved working
with his hands, using old, antique tools as often as he could, the older the
tool the better. He was extremely good at what he did and took a great deal of
pride in his work. He was just about to start on an old dresser when a woman
came into his shop. Turning and smiling, he greeted her. “Hi. I’m Ethan.
Welcome to my shop. What can I do for you today?”
In a quiet voice, the
woman said, “I have an old roll-top desk that’s in pretty bad shape. I was told
you were the best at restoring old furniture. I was wondering if you’d be able
to take a look at it and possibly give me an estimate as to how much it would
cost to restore it. It’s outside in the back of my husband’s hover truck.”
“I’d be happy to.
Let’s go take a look.” They went outside to the hover truck. The old desk was
indeed in very poor shape, but Ethan had seen – and restored – worse. “I’ve
seen desks in worse shape than this.” Looking it over very carefully,
experimenting with the roll top and the drawers, he said “it’d probably cost
between four hundred and five hundred credits for the materials and labor.” The
woman quickly agreed. All the paperwork was signed, the desk loaded into the
shop and the woman on her way.
Rubbing his hands
together gleefully, Ethan started examining every inch of the desk when
something caught his eye. Something he had never seen before, something strange
that definitely didn’t belong to the desk. What
the hell is that? He wondered. Touching the strange object sent him flying
across the room; knocking him unconscious.
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