The third rule of time t.., p.8
The Third Rule of Time Travel, page 8
BW: I’m sorry, I’m no physicist and I mean no offense, but that doesn’t sound very impressive. I can close my eyes and remember my first kiss. Does that make me a time traveler? Will someone give me a billion-dollar patent?
DARLOW: But it’s not a memory. It’s real. You’re there. Physically there in every way possible. Smell. Touch. You are a traveler inside your own mind. And yes, while it may not seem practical, especially to a business magazine like yours, its potential is, well, limitless. We’re doing this now, in 2044, with tech that didn’t exist ten years ago. Ten years from now there will be more power, faster computing, advanced materials. This is me telling you we’ve created a solution for time travel. The applications will come once the world catches up.
BW: Okay, now you’re giving me goose bumps. Consider me on board.
DARLOW: (laughs) Great.
BW: Not that you haven’t thought of this, and I’m sure you have backup power somewhere in the structure, but as a hypothetical, what would happen if the power went down while your consciousness was, you know, traveling? If that wormhole door slams shut, as you said, are you trapped somewhere other than here? Would your body essentially become a vegetable?
DARLOW: You’re right, that won’t happen. But to consider your hypothetical, my honest answer is that I don’t really know. Frankly, I’m less interested in what would become of my body, and more curious about what would become of my consciousness.
BW: The true definition of a free spirit.
DARLOW: My husband would have loved that idea.
Darlow slides off the steel bed and we step carefully outside the machine’s reach, back to the main section of the lab. Part of me feels a wave of relief, and it helps me understand the stress it must cause someone who travels. There’s something awe-inspiring about being able to stand beneath this metal monster that is waiting to turn my brain, my humanity, into bits and bytes, then suck the whole thing away, beam it to another time, another place.
Being so close to something that powerful is, to be frank… scary.
BW: Okay, so assuming the lights stay on, I think I understand the general idea of the mechanics here, but the software is still a mystery. And really, that’s what drives this machine of yours, right?
DARLOW: I suppose.
BW: So, if you’ll allow my layman’s science, I want to ask if part of the secret sauce has to do with quantum entanglement. I’ve heard we’re years away from that science having practical, real-world applications, but now I’m curious if you know something the rest of us don’t.
DARLOW: (after a brief hesitation) I’ll have to take the Fifth on that one.
BW: Fair enough. I only have one more question about the act of traveling itself. How do you tell the machine where to take your mind, or consciousness? How do you choose the destination?
DARLOW: Great question. Sadly, I don’t have a great answer. What you’re describing is what we call the arrival point. And the short answer is we don’t get to choose. Not yet. That’s one of the primary things we are heavily focused on as we move forward. After each travel, we spend months crunching data and running analysis on every second the consciousness was part of the past, try to figure out why the machine picks the arrival points it does.
BW: Months?
DARLOW: Oh yeah. Believe me, that ninety seconds creates a tremendous amount of data to sort through. Especially now that we’re, well, a little shorthanded. Besides, the traveler—whether it was Colson or myself—needs that time to sort of, I don’t know, regroup. Traveling can be incredibly taxing, psychologically and physically. Regardless, discovering how the arrival point is chosen is of utmost importance to the future practical viability of the machine. Sadly, it’s one of the mysteries we haven’t solved. But we’re working on it.
BW: So what, it’s just… chance?
DARLOW: My husband would have said “fate,” but either answer applies depending on, you know, your beliefs.
BW: Interesting. Fate and science as lab partners. Who’d have thought. So this is the Wild West of time travel, so to speak. A bit of danger. A bit of anything goes, am I right?
DARLOW: Well, I don’t know about that. There are controllers… and rules. In fact, for my machine, there are three unbreakable rules for traveling.
BW: Great. Hit me.
DARLOW: First rule. Travel can occur only at destination points during the previous lifetime of the traveler.
BW: And why’s that? You can’t go into the future? Can’t go back and check out the dinosaurs?
DARLOW: Remember, I’m the time machine. That thing (Darlow points to the actual machine) is a conduit. A doorway. An expansion of the hippocampus. So no, I can’t travel outside my own memories, my own timeline. It’s just not possible, theoretically or otherwise. Since it’s my consciousness going through the wormhole, I can only land where I’ve existed. Period. That wormhole leads to another part of me.
BW: I’m not sure I’m fully understanding the science, but I get the spirit of it.
DARLOW: Close enough. Second rule. The traveler has only enough energy to maintain contact with the arrival world for ninety seconds.
BW: Right. You need more power to keep the wormhole intact.
DARLOW: Very good. A-plus. Third, the traveler does not have the ability to interact with the arrival world. The traveler can only observe.
Darlow smiles, but she appears tired. I can’t help but wonder if explaining all this to me has somehow emptied her out. Taken away something that was once hers—hers and her deceased husband’s—exclusively. There’s a silence, as if we’re both taking a moment to mourn the end of this incredible tour.
Then I remember her first question.
BW: Thank you, Beth, for doing this with me. Before we wrap up for today, let’s circle back to that opening question. Why did you ask me if I believed in a god?
DARLOW: Because to know what this is, what I’ve created, only makes sense if you understand my husband as well. And I guess I wanted him to be here for this interview. This first reveal of what we created together.
Darlow smiles, nostalgic. I notice her lone assistant, who’s been keeping his distance at a remote workstation, lift his head to watch us. As if, after explaining the creation of time travel, she’s finally said something interesting.
DARLOW: Colson liked to think it was the soul that travels through the wormhole, not a bunch of recorded electromagnetic waves. He often said that we were screwing with the natural order of things, that we were pissing off God.
BW: Very philosophic, but strange thinking for a scientist.
DARLOW: (nods in agreement) He was always the more… spiritual of us. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you to answer the question, because it’s none of my goddamn business. But I will ask you to think about what my husband said when writing your article or when thinking about what we’re doing here. Messing with nature. Angering the universe. Fucking with fate.
BW: I have to say, I think your husband makes some interesting points. What do you think?
Darlow looks at me, and for the first time since we’ve met, I see something dark in her eyes. An underlying anger, or hate. Maybe even a sort of brilliant, terrifying madness.
DARLOW: I think that my husband is dead. And no machine is going to change that.
TWELVE
Beth walks the reporter back to the main lobby, where they shake hands.
She feels dazed, emptied.
Sharing the intimate details of the machine with a stranger—the intricacies of the research, the backbreaking, mind-bending science that has consumed her adult life, her marriage—was simultaneously thrilling and terrifying beyond reason. Speaking, out loud, the details of what her machine can do, is capable of—things she hasn’t shared with her family, her best friend—has left her feeling raw and strangely vulnerable.
With a pang of desperate longing, she wishes Colson had been there for it. She imagines him holding her hand as he giddily discussed the feat of engineering, the harnessing of an energy as elusive as dark matter. Controlling it. Pointing it like a gun, ordering it to tear into the fabric of space-time itself. To create a gateway the likes of which the world had never seen.
But Colson isn’t there, and so it’s Beth who must carry the burden of elation, the quickly dimming shimmer of finally revealing all they created together; she alone left standing on the stage while the curtains are pulled back, pinned by a spotlight, revealing the impossible.
“I can’t thank you enough,” Chiyo is saying. “That was… beyond incredible.”
Beth takes back her hand, stuffs it into the pocket of her lab coat. “I’m glad. I know it’s a lot to take in.”
“Oh my God, that’s an understatement,” the young woman says, laughing.
As they walk toward the glass-walled exit, passing closed door after closed door, Chiyo touches Beth’s arm, halting her. “Can I ask you something? Off the record?”
“Sure.”
“Well, as cool as it is to be here, the infamous Langan Corporation, right? No reporter’s ever had this kind of access before… so I’m flattered. But frankly, it’s not what I expected.”
Beth finds herself glancing toward the exit, as if wanting to be sure no one is standing there. Listening. “How do you mean?” she says, keeping her voice low in the noiseless, padded hallway.
“I mean it’s like a fricking ghost town,” Chiyo says, also lowering her voice, following Beth’s lead. “I expected… I don’t know, the Pentagon, I guess. And while the security is appropriately…”
“Threatening?”
Chiyo gives a half smile. “Right. It’s like all of the security, none of the people. The parking lot is half-full at best, and aside from the gorillas with guns at the entrance, I haven’t seen a soul except you and Tariq.”
Beth shrugs, feeling it’s not the time, and certainly not the place. “The groups are separated for a reason. Everything that happens here is very proprietary, and all of it top secret. It’s a big building, bigger than it appears since most of it’s underground, and they like to keep us spread out.”
“Sure, that makes sense,” Chiyo replies. “Still, if we’re being honest, Langan hasn’t had a hit in a while, a decade at least, and the massive failure of his light-propulsion tech hit the company hard. Which explains his eagerness to see you succeed. I mean, come on, what could possibly grab bigger headlines than time travel?”
Beth doesn’t know how to respond, so she turns and keeps walking, wanting to be rid of the reporter, the feelings she’s stirred up inside her mind, her heart, and get back to work.
“Anyway, I can’t wait to see it in action,” Chiyo says as she falls into step with Beth.
Spider legs of anxiety tickle up the nape of Beth’s neck.
“Well,” she says, keeping her tone light, jocular. Uncaring. “That will be a while. Years, I’d guess, before there’s a public experiment.”
The reporter stops walking, and Beth turns back to face her. “What?”
“Oh, Beth. I’m sorry. But I think there’s some confusion here.”
Beth shakes her head. “How so?”
Chiyo looks away as if embarrassed, awkwardly trapped with delivering bad news. “Look, I think you better talk to Langan. He obviously didn’t fill you in, and I don’t want to speak out of turn.”
Beth takes a step closer, lowers her voice. “Tell me.”
Chiyo sighs. “I’m coming back here tomorrow.”
“For what? A photo op? You can’t photograph the lab—”
“No, Beth. I’m coming back to watch the machine in action,” she says. “I’m coming back to watch you travel.”
Beth marches into Jim’s office, leaves the door sagging open behind her like a fresh wound. “You unbelievable bastard.”
Martha, Jim’s septuagenarian (and noticeably distraught) secretary, looks in, her face an amalgam of alarm and embarrassment. “Should I call security, Mr. Langan?”
Jim continues to sit calmly behind his desk, shuffling through a stack of papers. “No, no, Mrs. Gimley. It’s fine. And not, uh”—he glances up at Beth quickly—“wholly unexpected.”
After Martha exits (glaring daggers at Beth as she goes) and closes the door gently behind her, Jim finally sets down the papers, giving Beth his full attention from across the lake of plush navy-blue carpeting.
The CEO’s office is obscenely large. There are no windows—the space lit only by hidden bulbs recessed into the ceiling—but the room is stately in its decor, littered with antique furniture and cocooned by dark oak walls that were rumored to have been transported from the captain’s room of an ancient cruise ship, the Olympic. One of the two sister ships of the Titanic.
“I think you pissed off Martha,” Jim says, and Beth feels a wash of shame. She actually likes the older woman, with whom she’d had lunch dozens of times over the years, and who took every opportunity to tell Beth some anecdote concerning one of her many grandchildren.
But then she recalls the conversation with the reporter, and the flare of anger returns fully formed, burning the shame to cinders.
“What the fuck, Jim?”
Langan stands, pushes down the rolled-up sleeves of his dress shirt as he steps out from behind his desk. “Take it easy, Beth. Let’s talk. Sit down, please. You want a drink?” Jim says, chuckling wearily, pointing toward the well-stocked wet bar stationed along the wall.
Beth sits on a frail-looking Victorian-era couch, complete with carved mahogany legs and refurbished crimson fabric. “It’s ten thirty in the morning.”
Jim continues around the desk, glides past the bar, and sits down across from Beth in a rosewood chair—more utilitarian than ornate—that is apparently a companion piece to the couch she tries to get comfortable on, the stiff wood backing and dainty red upholstery reminding her of swollen gums. A round coffee table completes the makeshift seating area set away from the CEO’s primary workspace.
As if triggered by his movement, the sunken ceiling lights shift from milky white to sky blue, drenching the room in the color of a shallow sea. “Of course, of course,” he says, feigning embarrassment. “One loses a sense of time without the daylight.”
“Buy a watch,” Beth snaps.
Jim chuckles again, waves his hand at her as if they were simply bullshitting about old times. “Okay, okay. No small talk. I got it. So, what’s wrong? Why the drama?”
Beth leans forward, elbows on knees, fingers intertwined. “Your ringer of a reporter just informed me she was popping by again tomorrow to see the machine in action. To see me travel.”
Jim’s smile softens into well-lined cheeks, but his eyes stay focused on Beth. He gives a small nod. “Yes, that’s correct.”
“Jim, that’s ridiculous,” she says, doing her best to keep her voice level, her shaking hands tightly clenched. “You know this, Jim. I literally just traveled. My God, even you were saying I needed time to recover. We’ve barely started the analysis…”
“I know that, Beth. I work here, too.”
“Then what the hell? How am I—”
“I never said it was you who’d be traveling, did I?” he says, eyebrows raised. “I told Ms. Nakada that she could watch one of our tests, and that was all.”
“Tomorrow.”
“Correct.”
“Well, I don’t mean to sound like a broken record here, Jim, but I guess I need to say it again. No one goes through that wormhole but me.”
Jim exhales loudly, lowers his eyes to his hands, which he inspects closely, as if looking for dirt. Or blood. When he speaks, his tone is even, controlled.
Threatening.
“I’m sorry, Beth. But someone is going through that wormhole on Tuesday morning at ten AM. It’s all set up. Most of the board will be attending as well.”
Beth falls backward into the couch, the hard decorative wood digging into her upper back. “Oh, that’s just great. Anyone else? Maybe Martha wants to invite her goddamn grandkids? I’m sure they’d get a kick out of it. We could sell tickets—”
“Enough!”
Jim’s cheeks quake with rage; his blue eyes blaze.
Beth smiles, unfazed at the old man’s threatening demeanor. A lot of things intimidate her, but male bluster isn’t one of them. She leans forward, meeting his glare. “You don’t want to piss me off, Jim. I might suddenly get very, very stupid.”
He points a meaty finger at her. “Don’t threaten me, Beth.”
“And don’t fuck with me, Jim.”
They lock eyes for a moment before, finally, Jim stands, huffing in annoyance. He stuffs his hands into his pockets, paces for a few moments. When he stops, he lowers his head, keeping his back to her.
“I need this, Beth,” he says, looking away, as if focused on a distant spot of the office, away from her furious glare. The room’s lights shift from blue to white as he turns halfway back toward her, still not meeting her eyes. “And I’m sorry to say… you need this, too.” He sighs heavily, shrugs the shoulders of his expensive suit. “If we don’t get more funding, you’ll be done before the end of the year.”
Beth stands, hands curling into fists. “Bullshit,” she says, a choked whisper.
Jim lifts his gaze to her, features soft once more, the fire tempered, a frown on his lips. “No, Beth. Not bullshit. Reality. Colson’s death set us back months—”
Beth scoffs. “I’m sorry it inconvenienced you.”
Jim doesn’t waver. “Not me. Us. You’ve been doing the work of two project leaders, and it’s admirable as hell. But we need to accelerate things or we die, Beth. Now, the article will go a long way. It’ll get the financiers riding the fence to cave. Hell, they’ll be fighting over shares. And look, I respect you. I think you know that, deep down. So, I’m telling you now that the machine will be sending someone through tomorrow, with live monitoring.”
