3: Acceleration
Winston disseminated every article, gleaning whatever useful information he could find within it. He wished he had thought of this sooner. One section in particular had caught his attention:
"It has been presumed since the creation of Classical Relativity by Einstein that time is tangible, a solid object. I cannot say that I feel the same way. As Relativity is believed to offer the prospect of time travel, and that we understand that to achieve time travel we must break away from a speed defined by light. Time in itself is not a scalar- static within the universe- but a vector, as dynamic as that which surrounds and encompasses it.
It is only once we begin to look at time itself in this way that we shall fully and properly understand its properties: perhaps, one day, we shall master and harness its potential."
Winston put the holoreader down on his desk. It suddenly makes sense! All this time I've been trying to make something stable which is already stable!
He took out the blueprint for the chronal stabiliser once again. He scanned over the equations that he had attempted to use. That explains a lot. The objects aren't dissociated because they're unstable, they're dissociated because they're dropping in and out of the same speed as the rest of the universe.
He erased what had been written there, instead replacing it with one of the equations that formed the theorized relationship between time and relativity. Before he went any further, a though occurred to him. Hold up, what if the speed of time changes naturally, like air pressure, like wind speed, like temperature? Maybe that's why Tracer keeps appearing and disappearing, rather than remaining here or remaining list to the ether.
Winston set about solving this problem. As far as he could tell, without a means of controlling the speed at which this accelerator worked, it would still be useless. It was an arduous task, especially when he kept suffering microburst sleep at almost every blink of his eyes. Almost a day passed as he worked to make the controller work in two ways: Firstly, it has to be able to maintain a constant sync with the time around it; second, he decided that it should have a manual override as well, as the thought had struck him that being able to manipulate time in some way might have its uses.
He was pleased with the end result. There was only one thing left to do: Test the new device.
He opened the chamber door, and placed the new Accelerator next to the destabilized boxes. For this test, he was leaving the controller purely in automatic mode, seeing as how it wasn't attached to anyone who could control it.
He sealed the door and stood at the glass. His palm hovered over the actuation switch as he hesitated. I hope this works. It's my last shot. If it fails, then I...I...
He shook his head, forcing the thought out of his mind. No. I'm not about to give up on her. I'm the reason she needs this now, so it's my responsibility to put her right again somehow. At whatever cost.
He slammed his palm onto the actuator. A blue flash blinded him for a moment, bathing the entire lab in a neon-blue hue. He squinted as the light dimmed slightly. His eyes widened in surprise as he saw that not only was the box next to the accelerator stable once more, but almost every item within the chamber was back in its normal form. Without warning, the blue hue vanished and the lab returned to its dim state. The objects returned to flickering states.
"No. No, No! This can't be!"
He opened the chamber and charged across to the now-dormant device. Turning it over and over, he barely maintained composure as he tried to understand what had gone wrong.
As his hope faded, something dawned on him. Looking at the dial inside the device, he realized that it had run out of energy. Moving it close to an object still had the desired effect, but in this state it could only keep one item at a time locked in the present. Relief and fatigue combined, as Winston's horror at what he thought had been another failed test subsided into relief. Finally. It works! It actually works!
He could barely help but laugh uncontrollably.
"Athena, save the lab footage and record the data from this test for later."
At last, the constant stress and fatigue had taken its toll on Winston, as he collapsed with a resounding thud onto the lab floor and fell asleep, finally at peace in the knowledge that he could undo what he had caused.
Angela opened the door to the lab. She'd seen a spike on the various power anomaly readouts for the facility, and decided to check it out.
"Mein Gott, Winston, what's happened to you?" she gasped, looking at him. Relief washed over her as she heard him snoring and realised that far from being at peril, he was merely exhausted from his non-stop efforts to resolve Tracer's condition.
She glanced at the device he still clasped in his hands, which appeared tiny and dainty compared to the massive size of his hands.
"Athena, call up lab footage."
"Certainly, Doctor Ziegler. You should be pleased with the result."
Angela reviewed the test that Winston had just conducted.
As she was about to take the device from him, she reconsidered. It's his work, after all. It's best that he gives it to Tracer-when he wakes up.
She strode back to the door, almost with a spring in her step at the joy of Winston's success.
"Gute nacht, Athena."
"Goodnight, Doctor Ziegler."
She smiled. "Gute nacht, Winston."
With that, she flicked the lights in the lab off, closed the door and continued on her way back to the control centre, glancing out East over the strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean as the sun begun to materialise on the horizon.
AUTHOR MORE
Well, that's almost this story at a close. I've got one more part to write, and then I think I'll be happy with the end-state. I hope you are as well.
