It’s about time

It’s about time

“Red wire to yellow node and white wire to blue node. Or is the other way around? Maybe, maybe. But to hell with mayhap, I don’t have time for this. No, no. I need more time. More time to think.”

He repeated those words, over and over like a broken record eager to get things done. His hands which were smirched with oil inserted the wires into the circuit, placing them carefully. The scent of burned solder was in the air, fresh yet unpleasant. But to him, it was nothing compared to what he was going to do. It was just a small setback, nothing major. Just a small problem.

He winced as a small spark scalded his fingers, all marked with scars and even bleeding cuts. Some droplets of blood fell on the table as they trickled down his fingers, but it seemed he wasn’t paying much attention to himself. It was rather the device he was working on that caught most of his interest. It wasn’t finished yet, obviously. There some missing parts, some left uncompleted on his working table. He could perfect its design in one week, fully-functional and surely higher rate of success. Winter was almost near and he couldn’t take any chances. Even a slight change in temperature will affect its result and if it fails...well, let’s just say failure is not an option.

There were two LED lights attached to its side. One was blinking red, showing signs of problem, but the other was just dark and empty. There were two cylinders placed in the compartment, both labeled ‘flux capacitor’. They were crudely made as there were markings resulted from the blowtorch he used to weld the pieces together. It wasn’t exactly a beauty, but it would suffice for now.

“Cooling port A into main circuit. Beam amplifier into circuit C. Time adjuster into circuit D.A few twigs here and there. And...voilà!” As he said those words, a soft humming began, softly at first. The LED lights were blinking madly, trying to process whatever information it was suppose to know. In the beginning, he expected it to fail by simply dying out with smoke seeping through its casing. But it worked! All was left now was the-

The fluorescent light above him blacked out, just as he expected. But his work now was done. All that was left now was a test run and tomorrow will be that day. “Look out everyone.” he spoke to the darkness. “I’m about to rewrite history”. He grinned with a delighted look on his face, aware that he meant it literally.

* * *

“Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen...”

He mumbled the elements according to the ascending order of the proton number under his breath as the wind rushed against him. He did this ever since he was introduced to science at the ripe age of eight whenever he felt worried or scared. Right now, he wasn’t sure whether it was fear or doubt that made him nervous. Maybe it was both. No, there is no turning back now, he thought to himself. Years of research will be wasted if he did. It was easy to get up to the top of the empire state building. You just have to show a fake ID with a tool box in your hand and the next thing you know, you’ll be in the elevator heading towards the highest floor with no one to watch you. The device in the backpack was, however, a slight problem to the plan. But it was nothing he couldn’t handle.

He placed the device on the steel roof, producing a slight ‘thud’ due to its weight. He calibrated the time circuit by turning a few knobs and pressed some buttons written in Roman number which he favored. If he had calculated correctly, at exactly 201 miles per hour with the exact momentum of 10,452kg m/s, exception of the frictional force, at the height of 10 meters above sea level, a small wormhole will appear for a short time period of 1.24s before the part of the torn fabric of universe heals itself, just enough for him to travel through the tunnel and into a completely new universe with a different timeline, assuming he had enough energy and speed to make it through. However, all of this precise calculations and assurance were simply based on pure theory that he made in his head. So, if the theory that he carefully and gently constructed is wrong, then the impulse force which would be probably around 174.2N, assuming that the time taken for him to reach the ground is 60s, will crush every single bone in his body and organs, resulting an immediate death. On the bright side, even if he failed, he wouldn’t feel any pain at all.

“…Rubidium, Rhodium, Palladium, Silver, Cadmium, Indium, Tin…”

Why a backpack? Why not make a time traveling machine out of a car or a jet if you simply need to go fast in order to go through the wormhole? Good question. The problem was that if you take an object with a lower mass and another with a higher mass, and throw them into a wormhole, the molecules of the larger mass will have a harder time to arrange themselves back into their lattice when the objects appeared on other end of the tunnel. Well, that’s what his theory says after all. He slung the device over his back, strapped it and walked towards the edge. He had calibrated the time circuit to take him to 20 November 1963 at 21:24:03PM. If not, God help him.

“…Livermorium, Ununseptium and the last but not least, Ununoctium.”

He took a deep breath, careful of his footing, and looked at the view before him. He could see the streets congested with cars and trucks. Lights in buildings shining brightly like sunlight reflected off a diamond. It was beautiful scenery and if he ever died from this experiment, he would be happy to at least enjoy this moment.

“Roads? Where I’m going, I don’t need roads.” he said to the sky, chuckling a little before taking a leap of faith with his hands extended to each side, reaching for the heavens and plunging down to the ground below.