Finding Time 01

First a shout out for the editor: Finchley.

What would happen if we discovered an omniscience device?

Finding Time

Chapter 1

Stars in my Eyes

It was a fuzzy black ball of mystery. When we poked our sensors into it, they all came back frozen. The containers we sent into it captured vacuum, while the camera showed what looked like a rapidly shifting star-field, we were also disappointed to discover that while we could safely insert non biological objects, it killed all forms of life, from the higher forms right down to viruses." I explained, looking over the few new faces."

"Eventually we consulted with the astronomers," I went on. "It was a bit distorted and from a strange perspective but they were able to identify the prominent stars. With the help of the astronomers, we developed the understanding that looking into it was actually looking out. Our little fuzzy ball had somehow twisted inside out into a sphere that would normally be light-years across out in the depths of space.

I was telling the tale for what seemed like the hundredth time, or at least an edited version of it. I'd been investigating the nature of the Higgs field and its relationship with gravity when I'd made my serendipitous discovery - they didn't need to know that though.

The development came when I switched the frequency range up to the next. The instruments went crazy and the monitor showed random snow. I thought we'd had some sort of failure but when I looked into the booth, the fuzzy black ball was there.

First and foremost, it seemed to guarantee a Nobel Prize. I'd stumbled onto a new branch of physics by collapsing a crystal of iron into a quasi-temporal wormhole.

That was, of course, only the start. It didn't give off any measurable radiation; there was no measurable resistance from its surface to probes. We all recognised that we'd stepped into the unknown, and as a result, I don't think any of us had more than a few hours' sleep over the next week.

News of my discovery was an unofficial secret at the Head of Department's insistence, but the grapevine had me talking to physicists from some of the most prestigious institutes as they sought to understand its implications for quantum mechanics.

Even though I was well versed in my branch of physics I was completely out of my depth with most of the mathematics they were using and fielded most of the questions off to our Head of Department who was basking in the reflected glory of the discovery his department had made.

With the help of the astronomers, we developed the understanding that looking into it was actually looking out. Our little fuzzy ball had somehow twisted inside out into a sphere that would normally be light-years across out in the depths of space.

We discovered by varying the parameters that the frequency shift controlled the time displacement and the amplitude of the signal correlated with distance, we now had the means to see across time and space.

With the astronomers' help, I adapted a telescope mount to give us precise control and a stable focus, then we began a series of calibration experiments. I saw them push the boundary out millions of miles, then tens of millions, then out to hundreds of millions of miles as the amplitude of the wave increased.

The theory behind my discovery was way beyond my understanding but its applications were interesting. We could gaze through the camera lens and zoom in on all of the suns and planets inside of the sphere.

I built another device, in part to check that we could replicate it, and in part to tidy it up a bit, but mainly so I could conduct my own experiments. There was no one as delighted or excited as I when we fired it up and an identical fuzzy black sphere appeared.

It was then that the intelligence community took an interest in my findings. How they found out I don't know, but someone there with the smarts figured out that its lower limit of around two hundred miles was ample to covertly observe your enemies. The agent had me give up my notes and explain the construction to a very excited American scientist. I was cautioned against talking about their visit, and they encouraged me to brand it as an astronomical instrument.

The focus on direct viewing started me thinking along different path. While they were interested in using it to see current events, I wondered how far back into history it could go. I got out my phone and made a few searches on Wolfram Alpha. It worked out that our sun moved just over half a billion miles a year in its orbit around our galaxy.

The factors limiting our picture resolution were going to be how small a step size we could get in adjusting both the frequency and the power output of the generator. The Tunnel was also going to need a complex program to keep it focused on one spot. Though my training in physics had included some programming, writing a program for that was well beyond my capabilities.

If I was going to pursue the concept, I would to need to find a suitable collaborator. The logical person to ask would be Sally, the undergrad student who wrote the program that stabilised the time tunnel the Astronomy department was using. I stopped by the next morning and found her observing the live feed with the others. Walking over I slipped into the seat next to her.

"Sally," I asked, attracting her attention. "If I have a word with your HOD, would you help me write a program to track the solar system?"

"Yeah sure, we've got a few programs I can adapt, what do you want?" she replied, turning to me.

"Let's go grab a coffee and I'll explain it?" I parried. "I don't want to broadcast my plans here,"

"Okay, you've got me intrigued now," she replied, starting to stand.

"What I'm thinking of," I began as we strolled out into the empty corridor. "Is something a lot more complex than the one you've already done. I want to focus on our solar system, and use the temporal controls to view it in the past."

Her brows furrowed in thought. "Temporal--" she queried, then, as understanding dawned. "You mean find the spatial location of earth in the past?"

"Yes, we know the sphere extends out fifty light years, so if we tweak the frequency to look back thirty thousand years and focus on those coordinates -- we'd see earth as it was then."

"Yes," she exclaimed, "We'd see a good portion of mankind's adolescence - his change from hunter gatherer to the first settlements."

"History in 3D, solving the riddle of Atlantis, the first Olympic Games, building the pyramids, everything." I added.

She nodded as she realised the possibilities.

"That will delight the historians: exploring Greek and Roman culture, following Genghis Khan, Napoleon...," She said thoughtfully.

"There's a downside too," I cautioned. "History is also about the truths of the Bible. Either the atheists or the believers are in for a shock."

Her eyes widened as she parsed the thought. "Oh God, it'll show they're all fake. Joseph Smith finding his golden tablets, the miracles of the saints - even ghosts and spirits."

"You can also say goodbye to privacy. With this anyone can peek anywhere they want to, They can see into bedrooms, bathrooms: there'll be nowhere to hide," I said flatly.

"They can't allow that," she said, her voice betraying her growing alarm."

"That's going to be their major argument: they're going to claim that the minuscule proportion who will misuse it make it too dangerous for the rest of us to have. I am more afraid of the government than I am of voyeurs."

"No!" she said firmly, taking a half step away from me.

"I don't like it either, but for that loss of privacy we are gaining so much that will be of benefit to society. This is going to mean total transparency. We can watch every move the police and politicians make, listen in on all those back room meetings. It will literally force everyone—politicians, police, hardened criminals, school kids, everyone,—to be completely honest."

"Yes, but everything you say or do can be spied on, even in the toilet."

"I know. There will be a few who'll abuse it, but you'd have to be pretty unlucky to pick up a personal stalker. I imagine most people will focus on the celebrities, the rich and famous will probable pick up stalkers; I don't think anyone will want to be famous in the future," I said with a chuckle, trying to calm her.

She still looked unconvinced so I continued. "Let's look at it logically. Stalkers and voyeurs make up a very small percentage of the population. Now I don't mean this personally, but there are a lot of young, attractive people out there to pick from; neither of us would make a top ten. That leaves a voyeur picking your bedroom at random; the chances of that happening are very slim."

A thoughtful look formed as she digested what I was telling her. "It's the thought that disturbs me. Someone from the future could be watching and listening to us right now."

I nodded as I started us walking again. I didn't want to mention it, but I was pretty sure we were probably being spied on by future historians even now. This was going to be a key to a turning point in history. My whole life was going to be under the microscope, even the way I wanked in the past would probably get commented on.

It was better they got into the hands of ordinary folk despite the disruption it would cause. If the government had it, the people needed to have it, or it would become the ultimate 'Big Brother'.

I was sure I wasn't the only one considering the implications either; the scientists with the intelligence people should have thought it through by now. Hopefully they'd be more focused on catching their baddies than thinking through all the ramifications, but I couldn't expect that to last.

"Yes, they could," I agreed. "A one in a million that's not looking for historical sex or violence. Think of the Roman games and orgies, or a Greek Bacchanalia. We'd be as much competition to them as watching paint dry."

"I suppose you're right, but it's still a creepy thought," she said, looking back at my face. "And you want me to write the program for it?"

I nodded. "Someone will, I want to get in first and get the ball rolling with a demonstration of some of its positive aspects. Solve Kennedy's assassination, find out who kidnapped Lindbergh's child. What happened to Amy --"

"Alright, I'll do it; it's not a difficult program to write. You want it done right now?"

"Yes, the sooner the better. The government will soon realise what a threat to them and big business it is and clamp down on it. All those meetings in the past are suddenly open. Who bribed whom, what shady deals were made. It's going to unveil a lot of corruption, and usher in a quiet revolution."

I paused as she nodded.

"Can you imagine Blair and Bush, and all the secrets they kept? What really happened on the ninth of November and who knew what? We have to get this out so no one can monopolise it. The man in the street should be able to watch the government if the government is watching him. If that means we have to suffer a few voyeurs so be it; it'll make the future even more interesting."

"Well, I'll leave that to the conspiracy nuts, but I'm sold on viewing history." she replied, closing the gap between us. "I've got reservations about how you think it will turn out. I think you'll lose the propaganda war as soon as they catch on. They can hit the privacy factor and say it needs to be in responsible hands."

"Yes, I realise I'll be fighting an uphill battle. My plan is to get a couple of machines out into friendly hands, the Red Cross and the like, NGOs with integrity and respect. I've got the parts for seven more on order," I answered, opening the door to the Students Union for her.

"If you get time," she replied. "If they're smart, they'll be buying up the supplies for their own use."

"Mine are coming from Taiwan, Korea and Germany. They're all off the shelf parts, so they're hopefully on their way as we speak," I said following her into the café.

"Well let's get it done then. I'll need to clear it with my professor but that shouldn't be a problem."

"Okay, I'll have a word with him on our way back to the lab," I said as we reached the counter.

"Ask him if I can be assigned to you as an assistant," she said cheerfully. "I can work full time on it then."

We got our coffee and sat talking about scenes in history we'd like to witness, finding common ground with both of us picking Shakespeare at the Globe. The more we talked, the more my liking for her grew. She was going to be a pleasure to work with.

We stopped by to see her professor on the way to my lab, carefully tailoring the mention of the temporal aspect. He added the requirement that it should cover exploring other planetary systems as well.

It took her until late afternoon to modify the one she first created, then another couple of hours debugging and tweaking it. We didn't have another astronomical mount, so I borrowed an old industrial robot arm. I adapted it, mounting it on a motorized trolley and locking the wheels so it could only run in a fixed circle.

We were too excited by the prospect to leave it there, and we went on to test it by dipping into history. With trial and error, we found that twelve thousand years was the limit of our prototype's stability. The incremental jumps after that made the scene too difficult to keep in focus with our manual control of the frequency generator.

As a last test I set it to view yesterday, looking over my shoulder as the intelligence agent and his pet scientist visited me. I tracked my yester-self for ten minutes while I explained my notes. Watching what happened yesterday was easy; the jitter made trying to read the documents difficult but was unnoticeable in the sound and picture quality.

The manual fiddling with the frequency generator was the major problem. If we could digitise it, and integrate it into the control program she'd created, it would give us much finer control and extend the range.

I walked her home in the early hours of the morning, our excitement still bubbling at having proved that it worked and could be refined to dig deeper into history. We speculated on how much further into history it might go once we'd refined it and digitised the controls.

On the way back to my place I decided to upload a copy of everything to Wikileaks and write a little How To on building a time tunnel to go with it. I was still a little excited about what we'd achieved but that didn't stop me from sleeping, I'd spent a lot of nervous energy and my mind needed the rest.

I was still up early, the problem of interfacing the generator with the alignment program on my mind. Designing an interface was well out of my comfort zone, it might have to wait until I had the ball rolling. I didn't want to expand the circle yet to keep control of the message.

I had a quick breakfast and headed over to the lab to do some tinkering. The odd angles caused by the difference in rotational orientation were a pain in the neck, fortunately the solution was as simple as getting a tilt and pan head for the camera. It was a pleasant start to the day, and added a spring to my step as I took the stairs to my lab.

The note on the door from Sally drove those thoughts from my mind. She'd left me her extension number with a request to ring her. I quelled the momentary panic I felt. It had to be to be important for her to go to this trouble but had it been bad news she probably would have waited.

I used the phone in the staff lounge, perhaps being a bit too paranoid, but I felt better being safe than sorry. "Sally?" I asked.

"Yes," she answered. "Is that you Steve?"

"Yes, I got your message, is there a problem?" I asked with a trace of concern.

"No, I might have a solution for how to integrate the time tunnel's functions. Emily, one of my dorm mates, is doing a Computer Aided Design degree, she's looking for things to design to pad her portfolio. I can ask her if you want."

"Do you trust her?" I asked instinctively. "I mean, can she keep it quiet for a few days?"

"Yes, but she doesn't need all the details. I can tell her it's for my department," she replied a little defensively.

"No it's alright. I am planning to let the secret out to our history department; I just want to control the message. I know I'm acting a little paranoid, but I want to do this right."

"She's just a normal girl," she reassured me. "I think it's the way to go."

"Okay, let's go for it then," I agreed.

We talked on about exploring the other planets, arranging for her to come over later to work on an idea she had. After a few minutes chat, she excused herself and hung up because she had to get back to work. I happily returned to the lab, intent on getting all my routine tasks done to free up time to spend with her.

I was planning a confidential 'preview' for the head of the history department, Professor George Lopez. Though the prototype was still a little crude, it would have him drooling with the thought of a working model in the near future.

This was going to be a revolution for historians and 'modern' archaeologists; it was all going to be open, anyone could go back and watch Caesar say 'Et tu, Brute?' They would all become interpreters of real facts now, no more theories or deductions needed.

As I sat and booted up my laptop an odd thought struck me. None of us here yesterday had seen a camera hanging in mid-air. It had to be invisible somehow. As a kind of experiment, I checked all round me to make sure. When I had time later, I'd come back for a look and confirm the theory.

It made moot the thought of trying to retrieve objects through it-- no going back to save the books of the Alexandrian Library. The paradox of changing time must be at work somewhere. Another curious kink for the theorists to puzzle out.

I opened the University Intranet and clicked through to check Professor Lopez out and find his area of expertise. I was surprised to find he was an expert on the Vikings, an easy target time-wise with the added bonus of fairly good stability.

I doubted that I was being watched yet. I knew that when they decided to look, they could scoop up my history. Things like contact with the history department would be common knowledge soon anyway, so that didn't matter too much. The piece of insurance I'd squirrelled away last night I hoped to keep secret, using a Tor link to anonymously dump the encoded data onto their server via the FTP link.

Setting the equipment up, I recorded various times and places in the Viking era and transferred them onto a memory stick. This was my bait; he could listen and watch real Vikings. It should be intriguing enough for him to meet me for coffee in the McDonald's just off campus.

I dropped the letter in the internal mail on my way to dinner. I hoped that I was judging things right by maintaining my anonymity for the moment; there were way too many ways that I could be stopped. I still needed time to get my machines built and out.

I went back to my place for something to eat. With two machines allocated, I had another five to go. There were plenty of groups here on campus who would love to expose the powers that be, but I doubted that all the members were genuine activists. If I were going to recruit any of them, it would be at the last minute and as a last resort.

When I got back to the lab, Sally was waiting for me.

I walked up behind her as she took my seat and started the computer up. Yesterday she had worn a baggy top and loose jeans. Today's look was a whole lot sexier with a tailored floral top and a mid-thigh skirt.

As I stood behind her, I caught the subtle fragrance of her shampoo, a spicy apple aroma that was evocative of Halloween. I had the urge to bend and bury my nose in her chestnut hair as she industriously tapped at the keyboard.