Tag: past

Wormhole Part Four

Timothy Price58 Comments

At the end of Wormhole Part Three, Captain Fremont was overwhelmed by El’s technology and his unbelievable stories about the future. It gets worse.

“Please sit down, Sir? I need to explain a few events that will happen in the future to put this satellite map into context,” El explained as he sat back in the chair looking at the bewildered captain.

“In the future, the USA and many other countries launch what are called satellites into orbit above the earth’s atmosphere…”

“Launch?” The captain interrupted. “How are they ‘launched’?”

“They are launched on rockets,” El answered. “Rockets become very useful beyond wars in the future. Satellites are mostly used for communications, spying, and taking pictures of the earth from space. The image you see on the screen is a picture taken by a satellite and a map put on top of the picture.”

“How did you get the picture onto the screen?” The captain asked. “I downloaded it from Google Earth…” “Google Earth? What kind of name is that? It sounds ridiculous.” The captain replied. “Indeed it does!” El answered. “Google is a search engine, and it has an app called ‘Google Earth’ that allows users to search for satellite maps all over the world in 2016.”

“You make my head spin with all the incomprehensible words you use. I do not understand all this.” The captain explained, exasperated over El’s strange vocabulary.

“I can see how difficult this is, but I don’t know how to explain this stuff in 1943 terms.” El showed frustration trying to explain concepts that the captain had never imagined. “Satellites are the result of ‘The Space Race’. In 1957, the Soviet Union will launch the first satellite into space on a rocket called ‘Sputnik’. A few years later, the Soviet Union launches the first man into space…”

“A man in Space?” The captain interrupted. “You are getting more and more unbelievable!”

“And it gets even more unbelievable,” El continues. “The USA starts trying to catch up to the Russians, and in the 1960s we send men into space and by the end of the ‘60s, we send astronauts to the moon.” The captain just shook his head in disbelief. “You are correct. What you are telling me is unbelievable. Now you are going to tell me that people can go and live on the moon in 2016?” “Ha! Ha!” El shook his head. “That’s what they were thinking in the 1960s, but the space program was cut back in the 1970s, due to civil unrest over the Vietnam war, the oil shock, and cultural and political changes from the 1960s into the 1970s. We continue developing satellites and launching them into orbit. By 2016 there are literally tons of ‘space junk’ orbiting the earth. Anyway, this map on the screen is the product of those satellites.”

El closes the image on the screen and opens another folder with photos in it. “The photo I want to show you is in this batch of photos” El explained. “Now I’m doing what we call ‘scrolling down’ through the images to find the particular photo I want to show you. Here it is.” El double-clicked on a photo of the Sandias, and the photo opened up into a larger window. “See all those towers on the Sandias? That’s what I was referring to when I told you that after I came through the wormhole, I noticed there were no towers on the Sandias.”

“I see the towers. There are so many of them. What are they for?” The captain asked.

“They include radio towers, TV towers, cell towers, and towers for wireless Internet service. KOB radio was one of the first stations to put a tower on the Crest.”

Sergeant Prescott came back in and announced that Major Pierce would be joining them shortly.

“Prescott! Come over here and look at these photographs!” Capitan Fremont commanded. Prescott walked over and looked bewildered at the screen and asked about all the towers on the Sandias.”Those are the towers he said he noticed were not on the mountains when he came through the time warp.” The captain told Prescott.

“I can’t believe the color and detail in the photograph.” Sergeant Prescott noted as he stared at the screen. “What is this ‘device’ I am looking at?” He asked.

“It’s a personal computer in the form of what we call a ‘laptop, notebook or portable computer. Specifically, this is an Apple Macbook Pro.” El explained. “You might have heard of IBM? They made one of the first personal computers, which evolved from what will be called ‘Main Frame’ computers. The closest thing you may have to a computer in 1943 would be an ‘adding machine’ I believe?”

Prescott and Fremont looked at each other “Adding machine?” Fremont said. “Do you know what that is, Prescott?”

“I think I saw them in accounting once, Sir. The accountants had machines with punch keys like a typewriter but laid out differently. I can’t say for sure if they were ‘adding machines,’ but they probably were. But thinking about them now, they were primitive compared to this ‘device’ as he calls it.”

A tall, slender man walked into the room. Prescott and Fremont turned and saluted him.
“At ease,” he told them. “What’s all this about security clearances and labs that you were talking to me on the phone about Prescott?”

“Excuse me, Sir!” El interrupted, “I can explain the security clearance issue.”

“You must be the man from the future? Prescott told me unbelievable things about you.”

“Yes, Sir! I have a lot of unbelievable things here, but more importantly, I know about what’s happening with the war effort, plus the top-secret goings-on here and in Los Alamos.”

“How do you know about Los Alamos?” Major Pierce looked very surprised at the mention of Los Alamos. “Nobody is supposed to know about Los Alamos.”

“I’ve been thrown back in time, or into a parallel universe, from 73 years in the future. I can tell you a lot about what’s going on right now and what will happen in the future up to 2016.” El explained. “But when I mentioned the labs and the Manhattan Project to Sergeant Prescott and Captain Fremont, I realized they didn’t have the proper clearances to know about them. So I asked if they knew of anyone I could talk to with a top-secret clearance, and Sergeant Prescott called you. I hope I haven’t already got them in trouble.”

“This is a precarious situation,” said Pierce. “You obviously have information that regular people, especially civilians, are not supposed to have. You are obviously not from around here by the way you talk…”

“I was born and raised in the Albuquerque area, Sir, I may be more native than any of you!” El interrupted. “It’s not that I’m not from around ‘Here’; I’m not from this time,” El explained. “The situation is this, Sir. I have the technology on that computer over there to speed up and advance the whole atomic effort. I can do many of the calculations that are painfully done by hand in seconds on that computer. Since I know what happens in the future, we can possibly change the future. Unless I can find another wormhole or time warp to put me back into the time I came from, which I have no idea how to do, I’m stuck here, and I have no problem trying to influence and change the future.”

Major Pierce stood and thought for a while. He got a look of resolve, and said, “Let’s see if we can change the future!”

The End

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.

Wormhole

Timothy Price55 Comments

And now for something completely different, I’m presenting a serial fictional short story. This is the first of four installments in the series.

Wormhole
By Timothy Price

Part One

“I Phone? You mean to tell me this is a telephone?” Asked the sergeant, surprised at the small device he held in his hand.

“It’s what we call a ‘cell phone,’ ‘mobile phone,’ ‘hand-held device’… But of course, I can’t make a call here because I have no service, cell coverage, Internet, or wifi…”

“You seem to speak English,” the Sergeant interrupted. “But I hardly understood a word you just said. Cell phone, Internet, wifi, what are you talking about?”

“The time I come from the whole world communicates with cell phones and the Internet. Here let me show you some of the other things a cell phone can do.” El took the iPhone and woke it up, “It doesn’t have much battery left, and I don’t think I have a charging cable…”

“Wow! That thing is in color! How did you do that?” Asked the sergeant, “I’ve never seen anything like that before…”

“And you won’t see much of anything with color screens for several years when color TVs become the norm.”

“Color TV? You mean television in color?”

“Yes. Nothing stays black and white for long in the future. Let’s see here… I’ll put this on ‘airplane mode’ and low power mode, so it doesn’t use up the battery searching for non-existent networks. You see, this little device is really a computer with programs, applications, games, music, a camera…”

“A camera?” asked the sergeant looking surprised. “Where do you put the film?”

“Oh! There is no film. The images are digital, and they are stored electronically on the device. I can take a picture of you, and you can see it on the screen. Hold still. It also has a lens on this side of the device. Come over here and stand next to me. See how we can see both of us on the screen? Smile! There I just took what we call a ‘selfie’…”

“Self… what? Did you say selfie? What kind of stupid word is that?” the sergeant interrupted.

“One of many stupid words associated with social media. See, here’s the first photo I did of you, and here is the ‘selfie’ of the two of us.”

The sergeant stood there, mouth open, looking at the images of himself on the device, completely dumbfounded and at a loss for words. “I, I don’t know what to say. How does it do that? The pictures are so clear, and they are in color.”

“I can record video with it, also. Here. Look at me, move around, and talk to me.”

The sergeant stood in front of the phone, frozen. “What do you want me to say and do?” he asked.

“Walk over to the window and tell me what you see.”

He walked over to the window and said, “I see a red car the likes of which I have never seen before…”

“That’s good. Come over here and watch.”

As if in shock, the sergeant stood still as he watched himself walk to the window and mention the car on the little screen in front of him.

“What did you say that is? It’s like a movie,” he said as he stared at the screen.

“It is a movie, but we call it video. I’m not sure when the word ‘video’ came into the English language, but it’s what we ascribe to moving pictures on tape, CDs, DVDs, and other digital media, as opposed to movies on film, I suppose.”

“There you go using words I don’t understand again.”

“You can listen to music, also. Although, I doubt I have anything that will sound anything like you have heard before.”

The sergeant looked puzzled but was interested.

“Let’s see. Oh, ‘Wall of Voodoo’ is first on the playlist.” Selecting the “Call of the West,” the beat of electronic drums came out of the phone, followed by the twangy electric guitar typical of Wall of Voodoo.

“That’s music?” The sergeant asked. “You are correct. I have never heard anything like that before.”

“I think I need to get some more people here to talk to you and see this thing.”

“I suggest you get scientists and mathematicians along with any other military personnel. I think they will find the rest of this stuff we have spread out on the table interesting and possibly useful.”

“Follow me.” the sergeant motioned as he turned toward the door. “I’m not letting you out of my sight. You could probably make yourself disappear with one of those ‘devices,’ isn’t that what you called them?”

“Devices. Yes, but, unfortunately, none of them can make me disappear. I’m afraid I’m stuck here.”

They walked down a gray/green hallway into a rather sparse and drab looking office with only a couple of chairs, a filing cabinet, a large metal desk with a few papers and a coffee cup on it, and a black rotary dial phone sitting on the left side of the desk.

“Have a seat.” The sergeant said, motioning to the chair on the side of the desk closest to the door as he took a seat behind the desk. He opened a drawer in the desk, pulled out a folder, and flipped through pages with handwritten names and numbers. He picked up the phone and dialed a couple of numbers.

“This is Sergeant Prescott. Please connect me with Captain Fremont’s office at 356.” He waited for several seconds while he was being connected. “Yes, Private, this is Prescott. Is Captain Fremont in?” A few seconds later “Captain Fremont, Sir, this is Prescott. Yes sir. I have a man here who says he is from the future. Yes sir. I said ‘future.’ He told me he got here by driving through a… hold on a second.”

Turning to El, he asked, “What did you tell me you drove through?” El answered, “A ‘worm hole’ or some kind of time warp.”

To be continued…