I had to stop her from getting on that bus. Every day for the last twelve years, I had played the events of that morning over and over in my head, analyzing in great detail what I could have done, and what I should've done that would have prevented my wife's accident.
The one memory that tore me apart was the pleading look in her eyes, and that ever adorable pout after she'd ask me to stay. She'd wanted us to shower together, and as she put it, "See where the day takes us." I declined and she'd given me that look. The only thing on my mind was work, and I didn't want to be late. If I had just taken that shower, things would be different today.
Instead, she had taken a bus downtown for some shopping. The 9:15 bus to be exact. It had taken a routine and predictable route. The unpredictable thing was the failed brakes on the semi. I didn't receive a call until 10:30. When I got to the hospital, I was immediately given dire news. It was news I didn't want to believe.
In the first few weeks following the accident, I had remained hopeful despite the doctors' warnings. I had hoped and prayed that something, anything would work, but nothing did. She was alive, but completely unresponsive; catatonic.
After two months and lost hope for some miracle cure, I moved her to a long term care facility. I visited her every day, but her condition, the doctors stated repeatedly, was permanent. I just couldn't accept that.
I quit my job, cashed in every cent I had and called in more than a few favors to start my own lab with the sole and laughable purpose of going back in time. On the surface, it was a ridiculous notion. I knew that, of course, and the few close colleagues I had discussed the idea with tried their best to discourage me.
They all told me that, while theoretically possible, science was decades or longer from possessing the technology or understanding necessary to even test a workable hypothesis.
So, stubbornly fixated and alone, I stopped talking to them about it and began my labor in solitude. From the outside, my lab produced a rather benign but lucrative product. I used the proceeds to fund my wife's care and my research. Isolated in my private, sub-level basement, I had only one goal.
For the first two years, I did nothing but immerse myself in the theory of relativity, time dilation, and the math behind carving space-time. Then there was the time paradox. There would be consequences, altered destinies, and any number of other potential after-effects, all uncharted and all but impossible to predict. If I actually succeeded in building a machine, I'd just have to risk it.
Satisfied I had done all I could with theory, I moved on to the biggest problem, which was actually developing an engine capable of generating the warp required to create the necessary curvature of time-space. And not just any random curvature, but one precisely driven to an exact point in the past. For the next ten years, I did nothing but work on that engine.
Failure after failure nearly drove me mad, but almost twelve years to the day of her accident, I stood in front my Space-time-acceleration-and-curvature-engine, or S.T.A.C.E, for short; named unapologetically after my beautiful wife. Countless hours had led me to this point, and for the first time in a dozen years, I actually felt peace. I'd ran hundreds of calculations and simulation algorithms, with the last 29 showing a repeatable 97% chance of success. It was time for the first non-simulated test, and I prayed that it worked.
In spite of all the complexity of my machine, the designed test was very simple. If my calculations and simulated data proved correct, the machine would travel from one point in space to the exact same point in space, only in the past. I just needed proof.
I loaded S.T.A.C.E into a trailer and drove to the local park. It had remained largely unchanged, and the digital sign at the entrance always displayed the time and date. I unloaded S.T.A.C.E in front of the sign, and made sure the camera inside had a clear view. If the trip proved successful, the images would show would August 16, 2012, at 12:00am; the date of her accident nine hours and fifteen minutes before her bus. I checked and rechecked the settings, said a prayer, activated the auto-pilot, and and clicked my stopwatch. In ten seconds, I would know.
