Loop Vacation

By Gordon McFadden

A story of love, sex, time travel and betrayal, and a reality that just won't settle down.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gordon McFadden
• Release date: Feb 21, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466034686

Gordon McFadden

Husband, father, software architect, author. Hockey loving Canadian living in football living USA Enjoying the hell out of life.

Book preview

Loop Vacation

by Gordon McFadden

Copyright Gordon McFadden 2012

Smashwords Edition

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http://gordmcfadden.wordpress.com

For Eva,

who colors my world with love and adventure,

And

For Alex, Mia, Ryan and Liam,

the greatest children a father could ask for

Lots of thanks are due Carolyn and Jason for editing this work.

I would like to thank Reina, Anne, Joanne, Dave and Joyce for volunteering to be beta-readers. Whatever errors remain belong to me.

Prologue

Late September, 2012

Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah

3:13pm

Twenty-seven-year-old Dr. Timothy Argus smiled and looked out over the crowd. There were at least 2,000 people in attendance, which was not too bad for a Wednesday afternoon. He spoke into the microphone, Ladies and gentlemen, members of the faculty, members of the press and media, protesters and anyone else who is here. Normally I would be very formal and secretive. I would have written a paper or two that describes the technology here today and hope they got published in a respected journal. I might file a patent or two to protect my interest in this technology. But let's dispense with the usual crappy formalities shall we?

Timothy was standing in front of a portable lectern, which was set up under a large canopy tent on the edge of the Bonneville Salt Flats. There was a table to his right. It was well stocked with water, fruit and a few sandwiches. The water was for the heat. Despite it being late in the summer, the temperature was just peaking in the mid nineties. The food was for the press, who expected to be fed while doing their job. There was also a table to his left. On it was the machine.

I know you are all wondering why I invited you here. Why a relatively unknown scientist, working in molecular engineering at Oregon State University, has persuaded the US Bureau of Land Management to allow me to use a couple of miles of the Bonneville Salt Flats. Trust me. That was not easy. There are speed trials tomorrow, and I have to make sure this place is cleaned up after this demonstration. I will need the entire space for my presentation.

Argus looked at the crowd. He knew that most of the people here were not really listening to him. They were, for the most part, looking at the machine. Either that or they were thinking about how to ignore the heat. It didn't matter that they were not paying attention. He was about to change society forever. Every aspect of humanity was going to change for the better - medicine, travel, shopping, education - and the press was not paying attention. But that was okay. The demonstration would be unequivocal. He had planned it very carefully. There would be no room to argue with the results. And at the end of it, they would pay attention to him. Everyone would pay attention to him. Time to hit them with the news. Really, there was no point in building up to it.

In about 42 minutes, I will demonstrate an exploitation of a singularity in point-time space. Okay - I had to say it that way. He chuckled. The Scientist Guild made me do it. That machine down there, with the massive amount of power cables, copper looking rings and impressively raised platform, is a time machine and I will be using it today.

There. That had them. Background-level talk stopped. The TV news personalities actually looked up at him. Argus was positively giddy. There was shouting from the printed press section and silence from everyone else.

Argus held his hands up. "Please, there will be time for questions both before and after the demonstration. But I need to do a few things. First, we have 38 minutes. Feel free to call anyone you like, invite them to come here. There is an airport nearby. I have arranged with a production company to record the entire event with several high-speed cameras but feel free to use your own. Walk around the platform. You can climb on it, but please do not touch the wire loops. If you do you will die. I am just kidding; but don't touch the copper loops, really. Check out the area around us.

"The second thing I am going to do is provide some background for the underlying technology. I am not going to be offended if you do not pay too much attention. It is being recorded and, after today, will be readily available on the Internet. So clog up the airways with your phones if you like.

Oh, in case you are wondering why we are doing this in 34 minutes, there are batteries and capacitors that need to be charged. Dr Argus looked at the crowd over his glasses. He wondered if they knew what was coming. He took a sip from a water bottle. "The time machine takes a massive amount of power. It takes time to charge the machine before each use. There is a small Honda generator behind me chugging away as I speak.

"I will be doing this twice more before sunset, assuming, of course, the generator holds out and does not run out of fuel. I expect by the third time, we will have quite a little crowd here. And you might wonder why we need to be on the Bonneville Salt Flats in the first place. I will explain.

The singularity in point-time space is an artifact of quantum mechanics. As most of us will recall from our electronics and semi-conductor courses in college, for some special materials, electrons exist in defined valence bands at specific energy levels. A change in the energy level of the atom can cause an electron to exist in a different valence band. There are two interesting things about this. The first is that the energy bands correspond to a physical location. The higher the energy level of the electron, the further away from the nucleus of the atom. Timothy adjusted his glasses, wondering if anyone was following the science. It was important to him they did. He was trying to make this part understandable to most people. He was not sure if he was succeeding. "Okay? The second really interesting thing is that the electron energy state is not defined between the energy bands. That is, according to the formulas and from observation, the electrons are either in one band or another, but not between them. Alright? There is no time when the electron is electrically not in one of the valence band, and therefore... Let me rephrase that. From an energy level point of view, the electrons can only exist in one of the valence bands. In terms of spatial location, there is a defined space - a distance from the atom - where the electron can exist, and another defined space, a different distance from the atom, where the electron can exist. But it cannot exist in any other space and we know this is true. If it were not true, the computer industry would, well, let's just say there would be no computer industry. The core of all of our research revolves around this fact, and how to cause the same effect in multiple electrons and atoms and matrices of atoms. And to do it at the same time. But the core of the technology is the magic of electrons moving instantaneously with the application of energy.

Okay. Let's review. We have a physical object - an electron - that, with the application of enough energy, changes location without occupying the space in between the starting space and final space without any duration of time. This is exactly like a transporter on the Enterprise, 'Beam me up, Scotty,' and all that. It looked like no one understood the reference. He cleared his throat and continued. "Initially that was where our research was focused, but about two years ago, while working on the math with one of the interns, and let me tell you the math is pretty hairy, we realized, that applied in a different locus, we could image the electron 'skipping the trip.' No, I am saying this wrong. We realized that the same fundamental math described instantaneous movement - delta with no delta - could also be written to describe a change in time with no change in space, or delta with no delta .

A time machine.

There was a lot more attention focused on him now.

"Okay. We are getting down to it.

"The no delta is why we are out here in the middle of nowhere. The surface of the earth moves through space at a velocity of about 40,000 kilometers per day, or more precisely, at 463.83 meters per second in what is essentially a west to east direction. I am going to take a six second trip. During this six seconds, the earth's surface will move about 2,700 meters to the east and due to the curvature of the earth, will be about 2.4 meters lower that it is here. So, although the trip I take will have no motion in any axis, everything else; you, this microphone, the speakers, the salt on the ground, will be a mile or so to the west. In fact, since I will be traveling exactly six seconds, I know precisely where the trip will end. I have painted a red dot over there. Some of you may want to go to meet me. I will need a ride back here, if someone would be so obliging.

"As an aside, we do not know exactly what we do not have to compensate for the orbit of the earth around the sun, or indeed for the motion of the sun within the galaxy. I personally feel there is something that I am calling a time domain in play. Do you know the speed we are traveling with respect to a fixed point in space - like a fixed point with respect to the center of mass of the entire universe? Let's just say we are clipping along pretty good. In any event, observation tells us we are only affected by the rotation of the earth. Odd, but there it is.

All right. All right. Here is how it is going to go down. There will, of course, be questions about whether I am pulling a fast one on all of you. Let me try to set your mind at ease. First, I'm going to ask you cynical group of reporters to come up with a two digit number. I'll be flashing this with my hands as I make the trip. A two digit number between 11 and 99. Next, I'm going to appear at the red dot exactly six seconds before I activate the singularity. So if we can get cameras on both spots, please. Next, can some people to go down in a vehicle to see when I appear? I will appear about two meters above the surface due to the rotation of the earth as I have already described. I will fall to the earth. Finally, if I could get someone - and I confess a preference for a female - to sign their name with a Sharpie somewhere on my body. Yes. Kevin? Did you have a question?

Dr. Argus. Are you seriously telling us that you are going to appear over there six seconds before you step into the machine over here? Really?

Yes. Exactly!

Why don't you go into the future? Why into the past?

"Don't be ridiculous! The future does not exist yet. You'd have to wait; take a nap. If you go into a coma for a year could you call that time travel into the future? Sure you could. In fact, I bet some shysters are already doing it. The only practical time travel is into the past and that is what I am going to show today. Six seconds; for six seconds I will exist over there and here in the same period of time. Okay, are we ready? Oh yeah, one more thing. There is one detail the movies got right. Nothing but living tissue goes through the machine. My clothes will disappear; as will my hair, fingernails and toe nails. We actually do not know why this might be, but it happens. You can see I have pretty short hair now. It's from previous trials. So I am taking off my cloths. All of them.

Hey, you there. He motioned to one of the OSU professors in attendance. Can you run these clothes down to the red dot? I really am going to be dropping out of the sky completely stark naked and hairless.

Tom - have you guys got a two digit number ?

Um, yes - 43.

Great. See how I 'm flashing this - four fingers on my left hand and three on my right once every second or so?

Tom was stripped down to his jockey's now.

You there! He called to a young university students, Miss, can you write something on me. I do not care what, or where you put it. Someone get her a Sharpie. As an aside, the Sharpie image will fade a bit. Only the ink actually touching living cells will make the transit. She wrote 'Bon Voyage,' folks. Someone get a photo of this.

He began powering up the machine.

"Okay folks, we are very close now. Will some of you train your cameras and eyes here, while some of you train them down there. Are we ready?

LOOK!! There I am. I just fell out of the sky. I was still flashing 43 and here I go through the singularity. There was a gasp as he disappeared.

There was of course, a lot of skepticism. But by the fourth transfer that evening - the generator chugged on without a hitch, unaware of the drama it was powering - there was FLIR, helicopters over head, high-definition, high-speed cameras and thousands of witnesses. There was not much doubt about it. He had given 8 samples for DNA comparison, but already people were believing. Time travel, at least in very short durations, was a reality. The nearby airport at Wendover saw more unexpected aircraft traffic that afternoon and evening than in the entire previous year.

--

Good evening viewers, Piers Morgan here with Dr. Timothy Argus. As most of the world now knows, Dr. Argus is the inventor of the Incredible Argus Device. A time travel machine. Dr. Argus welcome. You had a long day yesterday. To be precise, it was about 24 seconds longer than anyone else's day in the history of all days. Your invention promises to revolutionize society. Everything will change. Nothing can ever be the same for anyone. But can we first talk about you. How are you feeling after four time travels in one day. Does it hurt? And what is the story with your hair? Why do you lose it? I understand and I can see you also lost your fingernails. There are lots of questions, but I gotta start with that one.

"Well, Piers, I am fine. The transit causes no serious sensations. A little vertigo when you are all of a sudden six feet in the air with nothing under you. As for the hair and nails, to be honest, we still do not know why dead cells don't make the trip. We are working on a theory that living cells have a property