They were dead. They were all dead.
His hands shook, making the printout all but impossible to read. What had he done? What will he do?
Conley walked back into the room. She was holding a clipboard and didn’t even bother glancing at him. “Another interview later today,” she said. “At four.” She glanced up, flashing a mischievous smile. “It didn’t happen to do anything yet, did it?”
Gibson blanched, and he closed his fist over the paper. The future of the world is quite literally in the palm of my hand, he thought grimly. “No. No, not yet.” He looked at the Machine, and the Machine looked back at him.
It didn’t seem like anything special on the outside, just a large black box, five by five feet the whole way around. A few slots opened up for keyboards, and a few others for maintenance, but they were relatively useless. Inside the box was his masterpiece, his magnum opus—a web of light, a spiral of lasers so tightly wound, so burning hot and blindingly bright, they transcended time itself. It was a time machine. A one-way radio to the past.
“You think we should test it?” Conley was sitting down now, watching the Machine with a sort of bored fascination.
“And risk creating a paradox?”
“Well, if it’s already on, I think the whole paradox thing is a given.” She glanced to the side, at nothing in particular. “You know, if you think about it, it’s kind of impossible to get a message from us unless we actually send one. But if we send one, they we would have already gotten it in the past, so that would be pointless to send. So even if you tell your past self to remember to buy eggs next time you go grocery shopping, you, the present you, still wouldn’t have the eggs. Maybe alternate timeline you does, but not the you that matters. Does that make any sense at all, Gibson, or am I just rambling? Gibson?”
He grunted. Still absorbing the message, he had paid little attention to his graduate student. But she had a point. Unless this was an alternate timeline from the future, he couldn’t have sent it. If it was an alternate timeline, than which one was real? His? The future one? Both? Or were neither real?
“What was that paper anyway? The one you crumpled when I came in here?” She crossed her arms. “Eh, professor?”
“Just—” His voice cracked. “Just a letter from my ex. You know. One of those things.”
“Must have been pretty bad if you’re that pale.” She laughed. “Well, I’m sure she’ll feel like an idiot when she sees you on CNN being called the most brilliant man since Bell. I smell a Nobel Prize coming your way, Professor Gibson.”
He tried to chuckle, unsuccessfully. He was never one for chuckling, especially when the world could implode at any second.
“Did I ever tell you about a dream I had?” he muttered. “Where the different timelines collapsed in on themselves?”
She ignored him, or didn’t hear. “Have you heard the layman’s term for this thing yet? It’s being called the GP, the Gibson Phone. I’m still a bit partial to chronograph, myself, but it is less of a mouthful. Must be great, having your name immortalized. You could end up like Einstein. A household phrase, only more practical. Probably less than one percent of the population even knows what the Theory of Relativity is, anyway. Everyone knows what this thing could do. Imagine, one day everyone could have one of these. Leave a message to your grandmother as a girl, to your future husband or wife.”
He continued to watch the red blinking lights, on and off, on and off. They were safety lights. That’s what they were created for, to tell you if everything was working fine. When designing them, he never considered they would lie to him. Safety lights that blinked when nothing was safe.
“And what if we find out someday how to make it two-ways? We could ask the future president what it was like to grow up in such and such a town. Or ask ourselves to question mistakes before we make them.”
She heard a thud.
Gibson hit the floor. “I can’t.” He knelt on the ground like a man in deep penance, like a figure from Dante’s Inferno begging for a forgiveness that would never come. He tore at his hair, clawed at his scalp. He bit his lip until he tasted blood. “I can’t do this, Iris. It—my god… my god…”
“Professor!” Conley rushed to him, tossing the clipboard behind her. She tore his hands away and noticed blood and bits of flesh in his nails. “Professor!” She grabbed his face with both hands and forced him to face her. Tears streamed from his eyes. In his expression she saw absolute horror. “Mark!” she cried. “Mark Gibson! Snap out of it!”
The paper, crinkled into a small wad, lay by his side. She let go of the professor, snatched up the note, and read it.
She felt bile rise in her mouth. Conley dropped the note like it suddenly caught fire. “P professor. This note. It’s…”
“Yes.” He was hugging his shoulders, his head bloodied enough. His whole face was red from weeping and hysterics.
She took a few deep breaths. “What can we do?” she whispered.
He bent down his head on his knees. “I don’t know. I don’t know. We need—we need to—break… break the link… Break the machine. Break it! Kill it! Destroy it!” His scream rent the air. Gibson leapt up and punched the machine. Again. Again his fists crashed against it. Blood slicked across the broken shell. He attacked again as he sobbed.
Conley grabbed onto him and was screaming something, yelling something in his ear. What?
“But won’t this—”
“Yes!” His chest heaved in and out. There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room for him, not in the whole world. “Iris. Iris, we must.” His voice became softer, encouraging, almost like it had been during his lectures. “You always wanted to be famous. Now you can. Now we can. We need to do this, or…”
Tears dripped from her eyes, but she no longer cared. “I know.” She calmly picked up the clipboard, walked to the gaping innards of the Machine, still wet with Gibson’s blood, and jammed the clipboard into the wires and into the thin layer of reflective metal.
It broke like an eggshell.
There was a white light, brighter than the sun.
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My first submission in a... long time. I don't normally write sci-fi, but I've been trying to get into it lately. I'm still not sure if I like this piece or not, partly because of the near chaos near the end. Please critique, nitpick, whatever you like.
)**. He bit his lip until he tasted blood. “I can’t do this, Iris. It—my god… my god…” **(Iris? Who's Iris?)**
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