Out of Time by Ryan Matthew Harker (ebooks online reader txt) 📕

I look around frantically for my waitress and spot her coming with my meal. Thank God because if I drink any more of my Long Beach I’m going to feel a little too drunk for the circumstances. I definitely don’t need to be drunk right now.

Wolfman sees her as well and waits for my plate and water to be set on the table (the Imbrium Omelet looks and smells amazing) before further illuminating his former statements while my appetite rejuvenates and I helplessly dig in. Hey, I’m hungry and it gives me something to do besides play ‘Who’ll Blink First from Across the Table’.

“Mr. Jones you have to understand there is fundamentally so much more to the universe than space and time; possibility for instance. Your concept of the physical world combines time and space into a single entity called space/time but it is in reality a combination of time, space and possibility. Of course possibility is dictated by probability, probability being a phenomenon which uses mathematics to predict odds. The more probable something is the more likely it is to become possible. Possibility can be depicted as a stream or line in the same way as time is depicted. Take any possible moment and work away from it in two directions, the more probable one way and the least probable the other.”

Pausing and producing a pen seemingly from thin air Wolfman grabs a napkin and sketches a picture on it. The picture is three vertical lines with four dots spaced at equal distances, even with each other down the length of each line. He then draws four more lines perpendicular to the three lines across each row of dots. When he’s done the pen vanishes and he slides the napkin across for my inspection.

Pointing out the vertical lines Wolman explains, “These lines represent timelines, the dots each represent a moment or choice in time, and the other four lines represent paths of possibility. If you choose any one of the dots on any one of the timelines and follow along the corresponding line of possibility you find yourself in another timeline, less probable existences to one side of it and more probable the other side. For the sake of simplicity this is only a linear description though, you must understand that these lines cross and converge from an infinite number of points in all directions, weaving a complex and confusing tapestry of realities that, although seemingly singular and separate according to the senses of their inhabitants, are in all actuality completely interconnected and intrinsically apart of each other.

My head’s spinning and all I can think is my old Physics professor would love to talk to this guy (he was known for his dead man’s stare as well). I nod my understanding, swallow a mouthful of egg, then grab my Long Beach and take another pull. Whoopsy doo, that isn’t water, may as well finish it now.

I’m not entirely sure where it’s leading or what it has to do with me being the harbinger of doom for all of humanity but it’s one of the more interesting conversations I’ve had in quite a while. TRU may make a good companion but a conversationalist she’s not. My omelet is done, my drink is gone but I think I can probably suffer Wolfman’s company at least until my water is gone. Who knows he might wrap this lecture up by then.

“You see Mr. Jones, you may have been worried about creating a paradox by altering your own timeline but your vision was not broad enough. Your timeline is safe and has been from the very first moment you used the SEAID. You cannot alter it except through the absence of your presence, in which instant it ceased to be your timeline.”

“What exactly are you saying?” I ask him while pushing away my empty plate.

“You are in a universe quite removed from the one of your birth.”

Hmmm, my mind blanks at this remark and I order my composure to wait for Wolfman to finish before it shatters like tempered glass. I was trying to avoid traveling beyond my own timestream but it seems a miscalculation may’ve occurred on my part.

“I’m saying your actions are creating a paradox throughout the multiverse, known or otherwise. Every moment of your existence, since you landed in that forest, has created a new universe and each of those universes are compiling their differences to the point of tipping the scales of possibility until the probability of mankind’s continued existence becomes an improbability.” Wolfman steeples his fingers in front of his unblinking grey eyes and wins the contest. I blink first.

I don’t know what to say to these accusations so I ask, “What should I do?”

Now I’m not entirely sure about it but it seems his unblinking eyes are narrowing a touch and his thin lips are curling ever so slightly at the corners but then again it could be me being paranoid about his response.

“There is only one thing you can do,” Wolfman informs. “Turn the SEAID over to me, before it is too late.”

Just because your paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. “TRU, TRAVEL!”

Stretch, snap, I’m sitting in the same booth the following day, next to Adoc Raheem.

“Hello Traveler,” he greets my stupid surprise coolly and pistol whips me.

It’s the apartment. The equipment I’ve packed into the living room sits exactly where I remember it. After unpacking the crates I set it up so it would. The bedroom hasn’t become the cluttered wreck that I remember, yet, but the potential is definitely there. I’ve only been here a week but forget a bed, it’s already full of filing cabinets. I’m sure as soon as they’re full I’ll start piling paperwork on every available open surface.

I’ve been in the past for a week. I’m not sure how I got here. I don’t have TRU anymore, I’m sure Adoc does and I suppose it doesn’t matter. He won’t be bothering me anymore, I’m sure of this and I’m sure whatever reality I’m in is free of his disturbing influence now that he has what he wants. He’ll be off into another universe with his first use of TRU.

I wonder if she’ll even cooperate. I guess I always took her loyalty for granted but she is just a machine after all. Can she miss me the way I miss her? I still have all my financial influence; however it means nothing without her, without my TRU friend. She was with me through so much. After all the years with not just her loyal obedience but also her intuitive and patient guidance I’m at a loss as to what I should be doing without her.

So I’ve been working. Almost from the moment I came to, back in 2011 and realizing my trusty SEAIDhead was no longer with me, I’ve been hard at work building a new one. Don’t get me wrong, there is no replacement for TRU, she’s a unique individual even if she is a machine. Artificial intelligence doesn’t mean unintelligent and just because she isn’t wrapped up in protein pajamas like the rest of us doesn’t mean she isn’t a person.

I miss her. I may not be able to build another TRU exactly but I can build another SEAID and it can help me find her.

Since I’m fairly certain I don’t have to worry about Adoc anymore, for the time being anyway, I’ve dug in and fortified myself in this apartment. After all the years of wondering who it was I stole TRU from in the first place I only realized I had stole her from myself when I went searching the classifieds for a discreet place to build my new SEAID. I saw the apartment open for rent and I’ve become savvy enough to the ins and outs of time to know right then and there it was meant to be mine.

So I used my huge temporal paycheck to finance my lab. I feel a little like a mad scientist but that’s to be expected. You see I was smart, less than a year into my adventure I had made enough of my self-sustaining fortune to hire a team of experts from the future to analyze TRU’s every component in absolute detail. Then, of course, I had blueprints and diagrams drawn of everything. I had to be really smart about this though and I never gave any of my researchers enough of her to put the whole puzzle together. Separate teams were given specific pieces in sequence as they were removed from the whole. The blueprints were drawn the same way before she was reassembled. Let me say I was pretty darned anxiety ridden during this process but since all the king’s horses and all the king’s men (I’m the king!) put poor TRU back together again we never had a problem.

And now here I am using the labor of my foresight to rebuild my trusty SEAID. One like her anyway. There’s no way to say for sure whether my new Temporal Reconfiguration Unit will have the same personality as the first one or not. I kinda doubt it. TRU’s personality evolved as a direct result of my treatment of her and the result of all this heart stopping, death dodging, time traveling has definitely made an impression on me. Heck, I’m a completely different person now. My thinking has gone from- Horny little delivery boy who’s idea of adventure was a night in a sleazy strip club followed by sex and video games to- Savvy temporal business man who’s idea of adventure is getting into a shootout over a woman who’s really just a mouthy squawk box and little more than a glorified cell phone.

The work is frustrating; time consuming and frustrating. I get lost on this really small, intricate microchip. It’s actually one of the time circuits, a very important piece of what makes a TRU do what it does. There are three altogether and I’ve been working on them for about eighteen hours. Solder gun in hand I’m so almost done when my hand gives an involuntary shake and a mini waterfall of molten solder cascades across the circuitry.

The look that must be on my face at this mishap could turn coal into diamonds. I’m crushed. It took fourteen of the last eighteen hours to finish the first two and I thought I was making good time for being on the razor edge ridge of exhaustion’s precipice. Let me say, after being Time’s master for so long to feel so stricken from the loss of six hours becomes too much. I’m done, this is hopeless! Why am I chasing this insane dream? I have the money I can disappear anywhere in the world and live out the rest of my days experiencing the sort of lifestyle comfort usually reserved for Saudi kings or Donald Trump. That’s it I’m done, enough of this fantastical fairytale! I’m going to sleep.

When I wake up the next day I don’t even bother to put on a fresh set of clothes (I’ve been wearing the same one for five days) before I leave to find the nearest liquor store and get insanely intoxicated. Three days later I’m holed up in a roach motel puking my guts out for a day and a half. Another day of sleep, then the cycle starts over again. I don’t know what I’m going to do for the rest of my days on this dust ball world humanity claims as its own but staying drunk enough not to think about that, or my gigantic failure to reclaim my temporal property seems good enough for now.

So I’m staggering through the city. If I were sober I’d a known it was the middle of the lower left hand of the upper east side of town, but I’m not. As it is