Tag Archives: time travel

Escape

submarine

From the 1968 film “Ice Station Zebra”.

“I’ve got a headache, Ashe.”

“Small wonder, Murdock. The virtual interface takes some getting used to. Plugs right into your brain, like that old movie ‘The Matrix,’ but without the spike in your skull.”

Gordon Ashe was just a few inches shorter than Ross Murdock, but his skin was much darker and looked almost like it was weathered to leather. The archeologist was in his forties but looked older. He was a veteran at Operation Retrograde and was supposed to have five jumps to his credit. He even helped set up the trading post to which, on Ashe’s next jump to Bronze Age Britain, would find Murdock accompanying him.

But only if they had absolute proof that this was the right location and time.

“Martial arts, interactive language classes, cultural classes, hell, the cafeteria here only serves me food that those traders ate four-thousand years ago.”

“It’s only been a week, Murdock. Give it time.”

“Time. Is that a joke?”

“If you don’t learn, you’ll end up like Hardy. He got careless and paid the price.”

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The Recruit

time traders

From the Audiobooks Unleashed YouTube channel

Ross Murdock sat in his cell, which for him had become pretty much the norm. There was only one bed, a toilet, a sink, a locked door, and no windows. A single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling out of his reach was the only illumination.

Was it only two days ago when he was scheduled to come before Judge Hawke in Los Angeles County Superior Court, about to be sentenced as an habitual criminal? Murdock was a professional thief for hire. He was good at it and it paid well, which is why he shunned more traditional careers. The consequence was that he faced twenty-five years in prison, and not all of his wealth, hidden in offshore accounts, was going to save him from it. Certainly his high priced attorney hadn’t.

When Murdock was led to the courtroom for his sentencing hearing by a Sheriff’s Deputy, the courtroom was empty. “In back, Murdock.” If Murdock hadn’t been cuffed and the courthouse hadn’t been filled with dozens of cops, he’d have slugged the fat bastard in the face and made a run for it.

Instead, he let himself be half-guided, half-pushed behind the judge’s bench and through the door into Hawke’s chambers.

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Fluid Prophesies

the old city

© Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

David spent so much of his life deciding between a career in physics or theology and here he was in Jerusalem’s Old City embracing both. It was called the City of David, and Yeshua himself taught here and would later rule, but Moses and Aaron laid the foundation. Of course, that’s not how everyone remembers it, but after David’s invention of the quantum portal, he realized that the prophesies of Hashem were fluid, adaptable to man’s free will. He wasn’t sure how he’d changed the world with that last trip, but when he turned the corner, he’d find out.

Written for Rochelle Wisoff-Fields’ Friday Fictioneers photo writing challenge. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction, based on the photo above, of no more than 100 words. My word count is 99.

I’m toying with the idea of expanding the concept of how Biblical history could have changed depending on human free will and still be within the will of God. This is just a little taste.

To read other stories based on the prompt, visit InLinkz.com.

A Time to Go Home

winchers stance

© C E Ayr

Colin wasn’t the only one to stop and admire Winchers Stance at Glasgow’s Buchanan Bus Station, but it had a meaning to him no one else would understand. He too was hoping for a tender reunion after being away from home so long. The late John Clinch had captured the young man’s emotions in this bronze sculpture all too well. Colin held back his tears as he turned away. He had to make the bus to the Edinburgh Airport if he ever wanted to get back to where he belonged.

Sitting by a window near the back of the bus, he tolerated the nearly hour long ride imagining how she’d be there to greet him. He couldn’t get a message to her, but the date and time of his return had been established long ago. Once he arrived at Heathrow, it would be a simple matter to make it to Holborn’s abandoned Aldwych platform. The gate back to his own time was there. It was time for the historian to go home to his wife.

I wrote this for the Sunday Photo Fiction challenge for June 4th, 2017. The idea is to write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 200 words based on the image above. My word count is 175. Once I looked up the image, I was able to get enough background information to craft my wee tale. I’ve put links in the body of the story to help readers see what I discovered.

To read other stories based on the prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Experiment

shadow

© Jellico’s Stationhouse

“Johnson, apply more power. I think an image is forming in the Temporalscope.”

“I see it too, Reynolds. Applying power.” Henry Johnson slowly pushed the lever up a bit more. Screaming transformers almost deafened them.

“There it is. It’s just a shadow. but…”

“You’re right, Reynolds. It’s a picture from another time.”

“Counters are settling in, Johnson…twelve years into the future.”

The video projection destabilized before Emmett Reynolds recognized the man about to mount the 1907 RaCycle Pace Maker was his currently ten-year-old son, He almost had proof that little Charles would survive his severe case of diphtheria.

I wrote this in response to the Friday Fictioneers Photo Writing Challenge hosted by Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The idea is to use the photo above as a prompt to write a piece of flash fiction no more than 100 words long. Mine came in at 97. It was an excuse to indulge myself in another time travel, or rather, time imaging story with a hopefully unpredictable twist.

To read more stories based on the photo, go to InLinkz.com.

Time’s Window Expanded

whale

© Alamy

Physicist and Mission Specialist Jamie Benjamin and her team of three arrived at the orbiting Mars Base Camp exhausted after their nearly two-hundred day trip from Earth to the red planet. But they were astronauts and had to fulfill their grand legacy of being stoic pioneers. Jamie could almost feel Neil Armstrong looking over her shoulder as she stepped through the airlock and boarded the station.

“Welcome to Base Camp, Dr. Benjamin.” Commander Donald Sharp, in operational command of Base Camp and coordinator of Mars Manned Missions smiled and extended his hand.

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Time’s Window

gale crater

Gale Crater – Mars

“Temporal Shift Unit is powered up, Commander Sharp.” Physicist Jamie Benjamin and her team had spent a week assembling the complex machinery in Gale Crater, which was believed to be one of Mars’ long dried up lakes.

“If this device works as well as it did in the tests on Earth, we could very well see what this crater looked like over three billion years in the past, Benjamin.”

“I suggest we all anchor ourselves to a specific spot, Commander.” She was speaking to the entire team who had been living out of their twin solar-powered rovers for the past ten days. “When the unit activates, it will seem like we’re 5,000 meters underwater.”

“Proceed.”

“Activating projector…now.”

The thin air around them rippled and twisted, and then it was as if they were at the bottom of the ocean, which was expected. The true marvel was that they weren’t alone.

“Life.”

The What Pegman Saw flash fiction writing challenge was an unusual one this week. Normally, writers are prompted to craft a story no more than 150 words long based on some Google Maps view on Earth. Today, J. Hardy Carroll uses a virtual reality tour to take us to the planet Mars. I ended up somewhere in Gale Crater, scanning a 360 degree view provided by the Curiosity Rover.

Approximately 3.5 billion years ago, it is strongly believed the crater was a water-filled lake. I decided to manufacture a little “virtual reality” of my own to give astronauts a look at what the crater was like all those billions of years in the past. As you can see, they found something startling and wonderful.

To read other stories inspired by this prompt, go to InLinkz.com My story is 150 words long.

Pointing Out the Road Homeward

uganda

© Google – June 2015

Thursday, April 30, 1970, Kampala, Uganda.

“Rabbi Sizomu, you have a year to get the Jews out of Kampala before Idi Amin gains power.”

“How can you be so certain of this, my friend?”

“Do you trust me?”

Both men were standing on a lonely road, untamed brush to the right, a large hothouse farm to the left.

“I have learned to trust you in the time you’ve spent among us. You know things I cannot explain.

“Trust me, Gershom. President Obote will be overthrown in a military coup. Amin will attack the Jews living in Kampala. Convince them to make Aliyah, emigrate to Israel.”

“Why are you warning us?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Then it’s a matter of faith. Very well, I will do as you say.”

Time Traveler Martin Fields watched Rabbi Gershom Sizomu walk back to Kampala before returning home to 2017, his mission accomplished.

I wrote this small tale in response to K. Rawson’s What Pegman Saw writing challenge. The idea is to use the image above, taken from Google maps, and craft a piece of flash fiction no more than 150 words long. Mine is 149, and it’s a difficult tale to tell in so few words. I once again employed my time traveler Martin Fields because it’s true. In 1971, Idi Amin took control of Uganda, deposing President Milton Obote in a military coup. Amin exiled all the Asians and viciously attacked the Jewish population of Kampala.

I couldn’t find any information about any Rabbis in Uganda in 1970, so I “borrowed” Rabbi Gershom Sizomu, who in February of last year, was elected to the Ugandan Parliament. You can read his story at Haaretz.com.

To read other stories based on this prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

The Lost Steinway

piano

© Mike Vore

Of all places, she found it in the first floor public men’s room in a deserted hotel in upstate New York. It was Monday, September 2, 1985, 4:35 a.m. In less than two hours, the demolition crew would be here to level the place. They would have destroyed this priceless treasure.

NaCumbea placed her hand gently on the tarp covering the old Steinway. “I know a couple who would love to take care of you, beautiful.”

She expanded the field radius of her time jump suit to include the piano and set her coordinates for the distant future in a parallel quantum reality. Wyatt Ellison and Josue Hunter were protectors of rare historical artifacts. NaCumbea knew they’d take good care of the last piano Bill Evans played before he died.

It didn’t exist in their reality, but it did in hers, so she agreed to find it for them. After all, she owed them one.

I’m probably cheating a bit since these flash fiction stories are supposed to be stand-alones, but I couldn’t help leveraging not only my Martin Fields and NaCumbea time travel stories, but also a separate series involving the characters Wyatt Ellison and Josue Hunter, who I also referenced in my recent story Unraveling.

The photo prompt is from FFfAW Challenge-Week of March 07, 2017 hosted by Priceless Joy. The idea is to use the prompt above to create a story between 100 and 175 words, with 150 being the ideal target. My story is 156 words long.

To read other stories based on this prompt, go to InLinkz.com.

Unraveling

explosion

Image: giantbomb.com

A Martin Fields and NaCumbea Time Travel Story

Martin thought, “If we ever get out of this mess, I’m going to have to bring NaCumbea here. This must be the ultimate time tourist’s destination.”

The Temple of Karnak. Even the sacred enclosure of Amun alone could contain ten average-sized European Cathedrals.

“So here I am. Martin Fields, Time Traveler disguised as a priest. I’m so scared, I’ve left my jump suit’s stealth mode active so I shouldn’t be noticed. I’m in Egypt somewhere around 1958 BCE, although exact measurements get a little splashy when mapping them to a 21st century CE calendar.”

It was getting close to the climax of this year’s Opet Festival, the twenty-seven day period when Egyptians believed their gods and the earth required a recharge of chaotic energy from the cosmos.

Martin headed to the storage chamber where the accessories for the god Amun were kept. The most prized of the gold and silver jewelry used to adorn the god for the climatic ceremony that’s supposed to regenerate him are kept there. The key gold encrusted ruby is missing. The priests just don’t know it yet.

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