Month: April 2022

Wormhole Part Three

Timothy Price38 Comments

Wormhole part two left us knowing the year that El ended up in after driving through a wormhole.

A large, loud man with many medals on his chest burst into the room. “What the Hell is that parked outside the building?” he boomed. He continued looking at El. “It must belong to you. You must be the man from the future?”

“Yes! That’s…” El started to answer. “That’s yes, Sir!” Captain Fremont interrupted. “Yes, Sir!” El continued. “Captain Fremont, I presume? That is my car. It’s a 2009 Mazda RX-8 with a 1.3-liter rotary engine…”

“What are you talking about?” he interrupted. “You hardly spoke a single word that made sense to me… Prescott!”

“Yes, Sir!” Prescott answered, standing at attention. “Do you understand this man?” pointing at El. “Hardly a word, Sir. He speaks English, but he uses so many words I have never heard before that I don’t understand.” Prescott handed Captain Fremont El’s license. Fremont examined it for a moment.

“At ease Prescott.” Turning to El, “Can you explain how you got here in plain, simple English that I can understand?”

“I will do my best, Sir. I was driving home from the office on Coors Road…”

“Coors Road?” the captain interrupted. “That’s just a dirt road on the other side of the river practically in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yes, Sir! It’s dirt in 1943, but in 2016 it’s paved with six lanes and multiple traffic lights at various crossroads that serve shopping centers along Coors Road. The crossroads lead up to housing developments on the West Mesa…”

“2016? Did you say 2016? That’s…” the captain paused to calculate the time years.

“73 years in the future, Sir! And Albuquerque changes a lot in 73 years from now. There’s a million people living in Albuquerque in 2016”

“I can’t begin to imagine that. A million people you say?” The captain waved for El to continue, giving El a not-too-sure look. El continued: “While driving home on Coors… “

“In that car parked outside?” the captain interrupted. “Of course, carry on.”

“I saw what looked like heat waves rising off the pavement. I drove through the waves, and my car felt like the brakes came on as I came out from the other side of the waves. When everything cleared, I was no longer on a six-lane, paved road. I was on a sandy dirt road, in a bare mesa, looking at the Sandias without a single tower on top of it. I knew I had either driven through what we call a ‘worm hole’ or a ‘time warp,’ and I ended up at some time in the past. But at that point, I didn’t know what year it was.”

“How did you end up here?” the captain asked.

“Luckily, I didn’t get stuck in the sand, so I turned the car around (I was heading north before the time warp) and drove south, knowing Coors would connect with Central. I presumed Kirtland and the labs were the safest places to go, so I drove down Central to get across the river, made it over to Gibson, and drove up to the gate. The guards didn’t know what to think of the car, but I told them I was here to show the car to scientists at the lab. They seemed puzzled but made calls, and Sergeant Prescott came out and escorted me here.”

“Labs? What labs are you talking about?” asked the captain.

“That’s right. Sandia Labs might not be very well developed at the moment. I believe they start to develop the labs after the war. But I know what becomes Sandia Labs is on Kirtland, and they are doing work to support the Manhattan Project…”

“What are you talking about?” interrupted the captain “Sandia Labs, Manhattan Project? Never heard of them, but you say they exist, now, in 1943?”

“Yes! What kind of security clearances do you and the sergeant have? If you don’t have top-secret clearances, or whatever level they call it in 1943, you probably wouldn’t know about the labs or the Manhattan Project. I don’t know if I can tell you anymore without the possibility of getting all of us in trouble. Can you find someone with a top-secret clearance I can talk to?”

The captain looked at the sergeant for a moment while he was thinking. “Go make some calls and see if you can locate Major Pierce. I know he has been working in those new temporary buildings they have put out east of here — the ones they won’t let the rest of us go near. Those buildings may have something to do with the ‘labs’ he’s talking about.”

“Yes, Sir!” The sergeant walked out the door after saluting the captain.

The captain looked at El. “What do you have on the table?” They walked over to the table and El show the captain the three cameras, cables, and adapters for the computer. “I carry these three cameras everywhere I go. That’s how I happen to have them. The cameras are all what we call ‘digital.’ No film.” El explained, “however, once the batteries run down the cameras will be of no use because I don’t have chargers to charge their batteries.” El looked inside his computer bag. “I do have the charger for the computer.”

The captain looked and the cameras, cables, and charger with much confusion. “I don’t really know what to say about these things. They are all so strange.”

El asked the captain to pull up a chair. “I want to show you some photos you will find interesting.” They sat down at the table, and El set his Macbook Pro in front of them and opened it up.

“I thought you were going to show me photographs?” the captain asked, giving the black screen a puzzled look.

“I am. I need to wake this thing up first.” El clicked the trackpad, and the Macbook’s screen lit up with a browser in the foreground on a page from his blog titled “Kissy Kats” showing a photo of two cats that look like they are kissing.

“What the Hell am I looking at?” the captain yelled as he jumped up out of his chair and stared at the screen.

“That’s my blog page with a photo of two of my cats grooming each other. The page is cached, so it still shows the pictures and writing.” El explained as he scrolled down the page. “If I refreshed the page, the page would go blank, and I would get a ‘Page not found!’ error or ‘Cannot connect to the Internet!’ error.”

“‘Cashed?’ That’s what we do with checks!” The captain commented, still glued to the screen. “You are not making sense. I see the colored photographs and the words. I hear you speaking, all in English, but I don’t understand anything I’m seeing or what you just said.”

“I don’t expect you to. This is not what I wanted to show you anyway.” El pressed ‘command H’ to hide the browser and then opened Adobe Bridge from the dock.

“What did you do? Where did it go?” The captain asked, completely bewildered.

“I hid the browser, and I’m opening a file manager that I use to organize my photos. See the icon with ‘Br’ bouncing in the dock? I hope it doesn’t try to authenticate over the Internet since there is no Internet.” A moment later, Bridge opened, and a grid of thumbnail photos covered the screen. “Phew! It opened!”

“Look at all those pictures. They are in color and so clear. How did you do that?” the captain asked, captivated by the screen.

“These photos are from the smaller of the three cameras we were just looking at, but I’m changing directories to photos from the camera with the big white lens on it. See how the screen only shows icons that look like folders with different names under each folder. When I double click on this folder, you will see a different set of photos.”

“Wait!” The Captain said looking at the screen. “What’s that?” pointing to an image that was not in a folder.

“Oh! That! Are you ready for this?” El asked as he double-clicked on the image. “Probably not!” The Captain replied. “What is that? It looks like a map, but not?” As the satellite map of Albuquerque opened on the screen. “It’s a satellite image of Albuquerque in 2016 with a map layer on top of it!” El explained.

“You are not making sense, but I can see what you are doing and the changes taking place. I can see that strange ‘Satel..’ whatever you called it.” The Captain said as he stared at the screen. “This is fantastic. It’s like magic!”

Flicka Dahling

Timothy Price59 Comments

A flicker stayed still long enough for me to photograph him.

Mama Owl peeking over the edge.

Daddy Owl preening and proud of it.

Peek-a-Daddy-Owl-Boo. What’s up, Daddy Owl?

Talons

Hanging on in the wind

The Invitation

Timothy Price44 Comments

Venus, Mars, and Saturn.

The Invitation
By Timothy Price

Jake was high as a kite when he walked into the convenience store. After looking around nervously to assure himself there was no one there besides the clerk, he walked up to the counter, pulled out a pistol, and demanded all the cash in the drawer. Before the clerk could react, Jake heard a voice to his right ask, “Are you sure you want to do this?” He turned and saw a rather nondescript man standing about six feet from him. “What did you say?” Jake asked, jerking his head nervously between the mysterious man and the clerk. The man didn’t answer Jake. He asked the clerk how much cash was in the till. “Less than one hundred dollars,” the clerk told the man. The man turned back to Jake and asked, “You want to commit a felony and possibly murder for less than a hundred bucks?” Jake stood dumbstruck, trying to think of something to say.

The man continued, “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you two hundred dollars if you put your gun away and go to the coffee shop across the street with me. Over there you can tell me your story over a cup of coffee, on me, of course. If I find you suitable, I might offer you a job.” Thoroughly confused by the man and his offer, Jake continued looking back and forth between the clerk and the man before he pointed his pistol at the man and said, “You’re messing with my head, man! Are you like a cop, man? Or maybe the Devil? Or what? Well, it’s like it doesn’t matter, man…”

Jake started to squeeze the trigger when he felt his finger breaking against the trigger guard as the pistol was ripped from his hand before he felt the back of his pistol tearing at his face. He only heard the first of three shots that sent bullets ripping through his heart. He hovered over his body that was slumped on the floor at the feet of the man holding his pistol. He heard a voice say, “Never turn down an invitation from the Devil.” Darkness fell all around.

The man ejected the magazine from Jake’s pistol and racked the slide, sending the chambered round tumbling through the air before it bounced off Jake and splashed into his blood pooling on the floor around him. The man stepped over Jake’s body as he laid the magazine and pistol on the counter in front of the clerk, who stood like a statue in shock from the scene that had unfolded before him. “The police will want these for evidence.” The man told the clerk as he turned and walked out of the store, disappearing into the street.

Wormhole Part Two

Timothy Price41 Comments

Wormhole part one left off with El clarifying that he had ended up in the past by driving through a wormhole or timewarp.

Wormhole
By Timothy Price

Part Two

“A wormhole or time warp,” he explained to the Captain. “No, sir, I’m not crazy, sir. Everything he has with him is nothing like I have ever seen before.

“Hold on a second!” El interrupted as he pulled out his wallet, took out his driver’s license, and handed it to Sergeant Prescott. “Hold on Sir!” He said as he looked at the license with furrowed brows. “Sir. He just handed me a New Mexico driver’s license that looks like nothing I have ever seen. It has a clear coating on it, it’s in color, and it shows that it was issued on 10/15/2015. It expires 10/25/2023. No Sir. I’m serious. You need to come to Building J and look at his things. He told me we should get a scientist and mathematician to come here and see these things. Yes Sir. We will be waiting, Sir.” He hung up the phone and stood up. “We will go back to the conference room and wait for Captain Fremont.”

They walked back through the gray/green hall to the conference room, which was more spacious, with natural light from several windows on one wall, a large table in the center, and chairs sitting neatly around the table except for the four chairs they had pulled away from the table on the side that faced the window wall.

Sergeant Prescott was still examining El’s driver’s license. “What does ‘Donor’ with the read heart mean?” He asked. “I’m an organ donor,” El answered. “If I was killed in an accident when I was in the future, the medics would remove my organs, kidneys, heart, etc., and transplant them into a person who had renal failure or heart disease and needed more healthy kidneys or heart.” He stared at El for a while trying to arrange his thoughts. “Are you telling me they can transplant organs from one person to another in the future?” El answered in the affirmative. “There is much greater demand for organs than there are organs available” El continued. “There is a global black market that deals in organs illegally harvested from people in the 21st Century. Sometimes people are drugged and one kidney is removed, and the person might survive, but mostly, people are murdered for their organs which are worth a lot of money on the black market.” Seargent Prescott looked at El with a puzzled shocked look in his eyes. “That is horrible. I don’t understand all your talk about the future. I can’t imagine such things.”

They stood in silence for a few minutes as Seargent Prescott tried to process the strange talk he’d heard from El. “I could sure use a cup of coffee or something stronger to clear my head listening to you talk about the future” Sergeant Prescott stated breaking the silence. El picked up his Nissan Stainless thermos and shook it. “It’s about half full. Go get that cup that’s sitting on your desk, and you can try some of my coffee.”

Prescott looked a little weary at the offer but turned back and walked through the door. Less than a minute later he walked back through the door with his coffee cup in hand. “I will probably regret this…” he said as he held out his cup, “but I’m really curious about your coffee from the future.”

El poured a little bit into his cup. “It’s very strong. You should try just a taste to see if you like it before I give you more. It’s probably only lukewarm, and since microwave ovens haven’t been invented yet, we can’t heat it.”

He rocked his cup, making the coffee swirl at the bottom of the cup while he pondered it. “Microwave ovens? I’m not going to ask, but your coffee is very dark and black. It looks thick.” He sniffed at the cup. “It smells like coffee. Here goes.” He took a sip, and his eyes widened. “Wow! That is very strong, but the taste is very good.” He held out the cup, and El filled it about half full.

“It’s Italian Roast, “ El explained. “The beans are roasted until they are very dark and oily. I grind the beans to a fine powder before brewing the coffee, which makes the coffee strong. The finer powder runs through the filter, making the coffee ‘thick’ before the sediment settles to the bottom of the cup.”

“I don’t believe I have ever seen coffee beans” the sergeant replied. “Coffee comes in a can already ground.”

“People still buy ground coffee in a can in the future, but there are all kinds of ‘designer’ coffees available as whole bean or ground. There are ’Starbucks’ coffee shops on almost every corner, with drive-through windows. Coffee is a big deal and big business in the future.”

“Coffee is rather scarce here, as most commodities with the war effort.” The sergeant explained. “I don’t understand most anything you say. Did you say ‘drive through the window’? You can drive through a window and get coffee?” The sergeant asked.

“They are really ‘drive up’ windows, where you drive your car up to a window on one side of a building, you pay the clerk for your order, and the clerk hands you the order.”

“How does the clerk know what you ordered?” Prescott asked.

“Generally, several car links before the window, there is a two-way speaker or screen on a kiosk where you place your order. “Key-osk?” Prescott interrupted. “You have the strangest words for things. What does a ‘key-osk” look like?” El thought for a few seconds. “I don’t really know how to describe it. They are like the posts that have the speakers on them at drive-in movie theaters or a TV on a pole” El looked at Prescott to see if any of his explanations made sense. “I’m trying to imagine it,” Prescott answered El’s look. “Continue with ordering coffee.” “Where was I?” El continued. “Oh yes. I think people can order coffee using apps on their mobile phones, also. Since I make my own coffee, I don’t know all the ins and outs of the coffee culture.”

“Can you get other things like food from a window in your future?” Prescott asked.

“Yes. Almost all fast-food restaurants have drive-up windows. You can get hamburgers, French fries, burritos, chicken fillets, and soft drinks from all kinds of fast-food restaurants without getting out of your car. Although, I don’t believe anything like it has been introduced yet. What year did you say it was?”

“1943!” answered Prescott. “You just listed off more words describing foods that I have never heard of. I hear you speak English, but I don’t understand much of what you say?”

Dawn was pretty in pink this morning.