Chapter One: Another Failure
Cale sat behind his desk, furiously typing on the glass table in front of him, the letters on the keyboard lighting with every touch. The screen in front of him filled with graphs, charts and measurements and the whole room around him flickering with light and energy. He was nearly there, he had nearly made the discovery that his people had been trying to make for over three hundred years. At last he paused, looking over the screen in front of him. He pushed back from the desk, his chair gliding over to the opposite table, he touched the screen, filling it with different information, scanning over it once more he reached down and hit 'execute'. The room filled with a harsh blue glow, the sound of electricity cracking filled the laboratory which he sat in. The machines around him began to whir and buzz as they came to life, he watched as on the screen all of his calculations came into place, 'phase one complete' the screen flashed green as the message displayed before returning to more data. Cale sat in front of the screen, fists clenched as another messaged appeared, 'phase two complete'. He pushed the chair from under him and stood up, looking around he could see all of his work coming into place, just one last push, the last phase and he would have done it. He leaned down to the screen as the final line of data entered the system, the screen paused, the whole room seemed to dim for just a moment, before the screen displayed the final message. 'SYSTEM FAILURE: PHASE THREE ABORTED'. Cale sank back into his seat, the room around him now filled with only the hum of the now shutting down machinery.
"So close" he said to himself. He rested his head on the desk, tears forming in his eyes. He had come so close but still nothing. He stood up and walked to the door of the lab, looking over at all of the computers and machine which moments ago held all of his hopes and dreams. He pushed the small glass panel on the wall beside him, as he did so the room sank into darkness, the computer screens fading and the glass door slid open.
"Goodbye Dr. Cale" a robotic voice said from within the walls.
Cale left the lab, the door sliding closed behind him as he walked down the white corridor.
The calculations and formulae whizzed around his head as he walked through the long silent corridors, how had he gotten it wrong again, he had been sure, he had looked over every single detail for the past month and still, he had failed. Maybe it was impossible, maybe for all of these years they had all been researching in vein. But somewhere deep inside him, he knew it had to be possible, he knew that one day he would be the one who would discover how it would be done. He would be the first to travel through time.
"Doctor Cale!" a voice shouted from behind him
Cale turned around to see a young man with dark ginger hair running towards him.
"Ryan, what are you doing in the labs this late?" Cale replied
"Just catching up on some research. I think I'm close to figuring out how we can finally get through the plasma barrier"
"Well that would be revolutionary and I'm sure you will get there" Cale replied, at best he was feigning interest, at the moment all that filled his head was his own experiments and his own failures. Breaking the plasma barrier would result in making life a little bit easier for a small number of people. Time travel, now would change the entire world and more so.
"How are you studies going? I know you keep your research close to your chest but I heard you were close to a breakthrough"
"Yes, still close. Just the final tweaks" Cale lied.
They reached the end of the hall, the pair of glass doors in front of them lead out of the facility. Cale raised his hand to the glass panel, a small light flickered in his palm, he winced, his hand flinching as the small chip registered and opened the doors in front of him.
"Goodnight Doctor Cale" Ryan smiled as he walked out of the doors and down a small alleyway, fading into the darkness of the night. Cale stood outside the facility, he pulled up his white hood and tied the long lab coat he was wearing around himself before starting to walk through the dark street. The city was always so peaceful at this time of night, everybody was at home and the only noise on the streets were those authorised to be out after curfew and the roaming drones who kept the city safe at night. Cale walked his usual route, crossing empty streets and walking past closed down stores towards the towering apartment block which he called home. As he reached the final long street, the block looming ahead of him, a small drone flew out from a side street and stopped in front of him. The small spherical metal droid hovered in mid air in front of Cale's face. Cale has been questioned by them many times before and was ready for the 'usual procedure'.
"A record has been created, you have been found on Edmond Street at 2:16:34am. Following the public curfew act of 2482 citizens are prohibited from being on the streets after 10:00:00pm." The droid said in a monotone, robotic voice.
"I have privileges. I am a doctor at the Central Scientific Facility. Here, check my palm chip" Cale mumbled before raising his hand to the drone. A panel at the front of the drone opened up, revealing a blue light. Cale winced again as the light on his palm flickered.
"My apologies, Doctor Cale. A record has been made that you were legally allowed to be on Edmond Street at 2:16:34am and that at 2:17:48am you were released by drone Beta43A" The drone said before closing the blue panel and floating past Cale, down the street behind him.
Within a few minutes Cale was inside his apartment building, inside the lift and being lifted up 24 floors. The doors of the lift opened and he walked over to his apartment door. Placing his hand on the glass panel beside the door, the door of the apartment opened and Cale walked inside.
As he did so the lights in the main living room turned on. The room was covered in paperwork, with drawings of machinery which Cale had, or planned to build. Along with piles of papers covered calculations, formulae, graphs and charts around the floor space beside the window. Cale walked past all of the work and stood at the window, from here he could see the whole city. He could see the plasma barrier in the old district, he wondered if Ryan would really find a way getting through the barrier after all this time. After a moment of staring out he turned back to his work, gathering it together in a single pile on a large table in the middle of the room. He took out a file of work from his jacket and balanced it on top of the other work before leaving the room, into his bedroom. As he left the room the lights faded off.
Cale walked through his room, taking off his jacket. He sat down on the bed and began to undress. After, he climbed into bed and closed his eyes, for the first time in over a month he felt relaxed. In a way, today's failure had at least ruled out one more theory and he was, however far away, a step closer. He allowed his eyes to close again as he drifted slowly to sleep.
Chapter Two: Sisters and Bosses
"Cale!" a voice shouted. He could just about hear it at he awoke from his sleep.
"Cale. What time did you get in last night?"
He opened his eyes to see a blurry outline of a person standing over him. As his eyes adjusted to the light he recognised the person as his sister, Roxana.
"Remind me to take away your privileges to my apartment" He groaned as he sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.
"Have you seen the state of this place? I thought you are supposed to be doing your work in the facility, not here"
"Well whenever you are trying to figure out how to travel through the fabric of space time, I think you will probably be allowed to make a bit of mess" Cale joked as he got out of bed and pulled his robe around himself.
"What are you doing here anyway? He asked
"I came to check up on you as always. And I got a report that you were spotted by a drone again last night."
"Yes, I am allowed out after curfew. One of the many perks of being as clever as I am" He said as he nudged his sister and walked into the living room, landing himself on the sofa.
"Whatever. You still need to sleep and so do I. Getting drone reports at past two in the morning, not exactly good for my beauty sleep" Roxana laughed as she joined her older brother on the sofa.
"I can tell"
Roxana shoved Cale with a laugh.
"You do know that you will end up going mad if you keep working like this"
Cale sighed
"Don't sigh at me. You know, this is the first time we have seen each other in a month because you have been too busy with work. It's all good trying to travel in time but how much are you losing while you work on this"
"you know how important this is to me. Three hundred years we have been trying to do this and I am the closest anyone has ever been. But you know as well as I do that I don't have long to get this right before they take me off the project"
Now it was Rox's turn to sigh.
"I know Cale but"
"No but. All I can do is promise that as soon as I figure this out we will spend time together again. And till then you can stay out of my apartment" Cale laughed as he stood up from the sofa and walked with his sister to the front door.
"If I get one more report in the middle of the night I will time travel myself and stop you ever becoming a scientist" Rox said as she walked out of the apartment
"You can't do that! It's a temporal paradox!" Cale shouted after her down the hallway before closing his apartment door and walking back to the living room.
He sat back down on his sofa, leaning over to the glass table in the middle of the room. He placed his palm down on the table, the chip in his hand flashed and a series of images and files appeared on the glass. He tapped a part of the table and a screen appeared in the glass, after a few seconds of white a face appeared in the glass.
"Doctor Cale, how may we help you" The man in the glass wore a black suit and a pair of silver goggles.
"Hello, would I be able to get a ride from my apartment to the CSR"
"Of course, transport will be with you in a few minutes" the man replied
A few minutes later Cale was downstairs in his lab coat holding a file of work. He walked out of the apartment block and onto the street. He stood by the side of the road waiting for his transport to arrive. The city was so different now, in the middle of the day the streets were busy and noisy, filled with people and vehicles. Cale preferred the silent streets he walked at night back to his apartment, there was no hustle and bustle there was just him, and the occasional curfew drone. A small blue metallic car pulled up in from of Cale. The front window of the car slid down and a woman inside turned and spoke
"Doctor Cale"
"Yes, thank you"
Cale opened the back door of the car and climbed into the car
"Drop off at the Central Scientific Facility" she said smiling
"Yes please" Cale replied.
The car sped off down the street towards the CSF. Cale watched out of the window, he could see the different people going about their business. The chip in Cale's hand began to flash and beep, he pushed down on his palm and raised it to his face.
"Hello, Doctor Cale" he said
"Hello sir, it's James. We have been getting the lab ready for today and we just wanted to know what test setting we are using today"
"Well, test setting t3y7 is a failure so we will move on to g7o9. I will be in the labs in a few minutes. Prepare my desk"
"Yes sir" James said, hanging up the call.
Cale stepped out of the car and into the research facility. He walked down the long white corridors and opened the glass door to his lab. He walked into the lab and sat down at his desk which had be cleared by his assistant.
"Good afternoon Doctor Cale" James said
"Good afternoon" Cale replied
Cale looked at his computer screen and began to type away, tapping the screen to open his new files.
"Okay James, let's try the same arrangement as last night again, but alter the energy output levels to 84.3%. That should hopefully balance the overcharge problems which we have been having in the past few tests."
"I will prepare the system Doctor" James said before walking over to his desk on the opposite side of the room.
Cale went back to his computer and typing at his research.
"Hello Mister Cale" A loud voice said from behind him
Cale turned around to see his boss standing at the door of his lab. Just the sight of his boss in his lab made him angry, he hated the man. Zachery Aiken was the acting executive manager of the CSF and therefore in charge of all of the research happening at the facility. Unluckily for Cale, he was not as open minded as some of the scientists and didn't think the research into time travel and the advantages it could give them were worth the time and more importantly the money.
"How are we all in the magical land of time travel science?" Zachery jeered as he stroll into the office
"We are all fine and very close to having a working chance of time travel" Cale said without looking away from his screen
"Oh haven't we heard that one before. I'm sure every executive manager of this base has been told that their scientists are close to discovering the secret of time travel"
"Most probably. But none of those scientists were me" Cale replied sarcastically
"Well that's good, because we have a meeting with the committee in a few weeks to see whether the funding to your so called 'time travel' science is worthwhile"
"But Mr Aiken we are so close you can't just shut down the project now?"
"Yet, I can" He smiled before turning to leave the lab
"See you soon Mr Cale"
"Doctor!" Cale snapped, shouting as his boss left the lab and disappeared into the facility.
They can't just cut the funding to the project. He was so close to finally breaking the last wall and being able to prove that time travel was possible. He had to re-double his efforts, now he only had a few weeks to either complete his research or lose everything he had worked his whole life for.
"Sir the test is ready" James said as he walked over to Cale's desk.
"Okay, clear the lab, I will initiate the test from my desk" Cale said.
James left the lab while Cale sat at his desk, about to do what he had done so many times before, he looked over the figures but this time, he didn't start the test, something was wrong. He sat and stared at the figures and readings in front of him. He thought back to last night, he thought back to what had happened when he tested the system, something had gone wrong, but what?
"Sir, what happened?" James asked
Cale turned around from his desk to face James
"I told you to clear the lab while I tested" Cale barked
"I did sir. That was 15 minutes ago. I thought it would be best for me to check that everything was okay" James replied, a puzzled look in his eyes.
"Yes, everything is fine." Cale said
"Fifteen minutes?"
"Yes sir"
"I must have just lost track of time. But there is something wrong with our calculations, no more testing until I decide. We can't afford any more mistakes, the next time we test it has to be right"
James nodded and went back to his desk.
Cale looked at his desk, fifteen minutes, had he really been sitting here that long, he felt as if it had only been a few seconds at most. Cale turned back to his studies, focussing on his work he couldn't help but keep thinking back to those fifteen minutes, what had happened.
Chapter Three