James Sanders was startled to find himself standing outside a vast megalopolis with towering curvy structures reminiscent of the giant pyramid-like buildings of the Los Angeles of the movie Blade Runner. Yet this was a much sunnier world, with hundreds of sleek shiny skycars whooshing to and fro as he wathced. He turned and saw a spaceport, complete with various squat boosters with retractable legs.
"This looks magnificent, EVA ... EVA?"
Jim turned, and felt betrayed. For a long while now he had existed in a limbo of theory; now, without warning, he was actually plunked down ito the world of his imagining. What was happening?
Someone tapped his shoulder. "Look lively, Sanders! Come with me."
Jim realized that he was at the open window of a large neat white complex, and that he himself wore the classic white uniform of a research scientist. He followed the older man who had reprimanded him to an area of the building marked CHRONONIC PRESERVATION.
"Now here, Sanders, is where we keep superheavy elements with ultraquick half-lives in stasis by using chrononic supension. The new element is frozen in the very instant when it was ceated, until it's needed later."
Jim studied the apparatus being discussed. "You mean, it's as simple as placing a container in that room and flicking the switch on this remote control box?"
"It looks simpler than it is, but yes, that's how it works. The science of chrononics, literally particles of time, is still a young one, but rich with promise."
Jim nearly laughed at a passing thought. "You know, some rich old movie star could rent this place out to slow down her aging process."
"Now, Jim, chrononics is much too serious a power to be abused as a personal luxury. It will be decades yet before we can entrust it to the general public, and waste it on a single individual's vanity."
"Dr. Constable!" came a call over the PA system. "You are wanted at Security HQ."
Jim guessed that this man was in fact Dr. Constable, because he grumbled at the message. "Guess I'd better go. Feel free to familiarize yourself some more, I'll be back soon."
Jim could only stand and gawk at the deceptively simple equipment around him. Particles of time!? The equation of less war and more Tesla had paid off beyond his wildest hopes.
Just then, screeching sirens filled the air, and the lights began to flash red. Concerned, Jim rushed out, then down the hallway back to the large window where he had first appeared.
He was immediately horrified by the new panorama. A vast steel saucer-shaped airship which had to be miles in diameter blotted out the sun, and bright death beams, like lightning straightened flat, stabbed out from the airship and sliced and exploded their way through the proud curvy skyscrapers.
"Get away from the window!" a woman screamed.
Jim obeyed, and went over to her, a nice enough person also in a white uniform. "Thanks! What's going on?"
"It's the Red Han! They're all over the radio, they're attacking everywhere -- their airships arrived by laser-equipped iron mole, no one saw them coming! Oh, my God, it's the end!"
"Take it easy, please! What's your name?"
"D-Dorothy."
"Dorothy, I'm Jim. Listen ... I think I have an idea -- "
"I've got to go, I've got to find my family!"
"But -- " Jim watched in futility as Dorothy ran off.
The airship was coming closer to the research complex, blasting a good half of everything in its past. As it approached, Jim made a desperate decision.
He went back to the lab and swtiched off the chrononicpreservation field, caring very little at this point about a microscopic sample of a superheavy element remaining radioactive. He picked up the remote control, then glanced up at a mechnaical calendar: 1999. Why 1999? Perhaps simply because there was a nice apocalyptic ring to it. He entered the room, shut the door, then hit the switch on the remote box.
Only after he hit it did it occur to him to wonder if he had just madea date with Eternity itself, for if the suspension was perfect and absolute then the boiling away of the oceans beneath a larger redder sun a billion years in the future might be coming right up. He got his answer, though, when the room's window showed a whole side of the building instantly torn away, permitting a new view of the devastation outside.
There was endless flickering as Jim watched, but after a while he realized not only was the original American civilization destroyed, bringing no one whosoever to immediately rebuild upon the ruins, but that much time was zipping by. Trees sprang from out of nothing within seconds, and Jim realized he was much like Rod Taylor in the movie The Time Machine. (Despite the presence of Samantha Mumba, Jim refused to give any credit to the Guy Pearce remake.)
Time was whooshing by at years per second, but was it safe to step out? Still deeply terrified by the spectacle of the city-destroying Red Han megaship, Jim kept waiting for any sign of rebuilding. Finally, the panorama was blocked from him as fresh walls appeared -- what was more, they bore signs in English. If the Red Han were in charge, they at least permitted native languages. Jim dared to venture out.
No one was about. Why rebuild the facility, then not staff it properly? Yet it seemed utterly abandoned.
He checked the mechanical claendar, which was still going strong -- 2499. His fears and doubts had kept him out of the world for 500 years.
Jim stepped out of the building, then faced the forests where a spaceport and a city once stood, and wondered about the lesson to be drawn from this -- for hopefully the hundred year limit that he recalled referred to his personal experience only. The Red Han -- Maoists? Had a technological revolution in the West only served to embolden the more ignoble ambitions to be found in the East?
Jim would have pondered the situation further, had he not --
Wed Feb 11 13:34:47 2004