Read Typeractive Tales: A Collection of Clean Short Fiction Page 13

  Time Enough to Die

  by Randy Lindsay

  Taken from the journal of Dr. Henry Fetz.

  13:01 – Monday

  Despite numerous delays the time module is finally ready for testing. My father’s pocket watch will be the first item to travel through time. The choice to use it is a bit of an indulgence on my part. He considered my studies a complete waste of resources, both temporal and cerebral. Even if he were alive to witness all of this, the irony of the situation would be lost on him.

  When the module is activated it will generate a field that will move through fourth-dimensional space. The direction and distance it travels is currently beyond my control, but the data gathered during the trip will allow me to make adjustments to the design.

  The module, and the watch, will continue to travel through the seas of time until the power source on the field generator fails. At that point, a rubber-band effect should automatically return them both to the present.

  Here goes nothing.

  13:31 – Monday

  It worked. Incredibly, it worked.

  For a moment it looked as if there had been an equipment failure with the module. As soon as the unit was activated all the power indicators failed. It wouldn’t have been the first time an energy surge fried the circuits.

  Upon closer examination, however, I noticed a discrepancy between the time on my father’s watch and the clock on the laboratory wall. Both had been carefully synced together. Only now, the pocket watch indicated that 87 minutes had elapsed since I activated the time module, while both the wall clock and the computer showed it had been closer to 30.

  I want to climb up on the roof and shout my victory to the world. I want to take my father’s pocket watch and shove it in the face of all those who mocked my research. Most of all, I want to go over the data that were gathered during the trip and pry open further secrets of the fourth dimension.

  Today, the door to the universe has yielded its biggest treasure to me. With the ability to travel in time, there is no mystery that can remain hidden, there is no affliction that cannot be cured, and there is no injustice that cannot be undone. Mark my words; this is the beginning of greatness.

  09:01 – Wednesday

  It will take years to fully evaluate the data from the first trip. With all of it recorded and safely stored away, I am free to continue my experiments and return to the drudgery of data analysis at some later date.

  Two days have passed since the first trip and my father’s pocket watch remains solid and in perfect working order. I polished it up a bit to return it to the condition in which my father had always kept it.

  Although I had originally planned to send a sampling of materials with the time module so as to evaluate the effects of traveling through the fourth dimension, the excitement of my success has prompted me to transport a live creature next.

  An ordinary white lab rat will have the honor of being the first time traveler. It seems a rather mundane and unimaginative choice for a test subject, but I cannot stifle my enthusiasm long enough to wait for a more appropriate substitute. As a lesser gesture I have named the rat George, after the fictional time traveler in the story by H. G. Wells.

  How I envy you, George.

  9:52 – Wednesday

  George has returned from his historic journey alive and well. At least, that is the finding of my initial examination. Several weeks of careful observation will be necessary to ensure that there are no ill effects from the trip.

  I cannot be sure, but George seems to show a little more life in his movements. It could be no more than a heightened state of mental agitation from experiencing the fourth-dimension in its quintessential state. Although, I harbor the suspicion that contact with Crono-Ether may have had a rejuvenative effect on the rat.

  Pardon the pun, but only time will tell how this trip has affected George.