The Engine

By Derrick E. Whitfield

This is a futuristic tale that starts in 2114 and shows the advanced state

of the world. A world that solved nearly all of the ills of the past including: War, Famine,

Climate Change, Resource Shortages, Violent Crimes, and Traffic Congestion to name a few.

Thanks to the development in 2024, of the first Quantum Plasma Fuel Mec

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lincoln Writes
• Release date: Jun 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781961028159

Book preview

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The Engine

Derrick E. Whitfield

Copyright © 2023

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 978-1-961028-15-9

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my beautiful wife, Angie for all of your inspiration and support. To our awesome children: Derrick Jr., Carlisha, Allison, Summer, Trey, and Moriah. Our grandchildren: JJ, Caylee, and Bryson, you are all my legacy and why I began this literary journey in the first place. To my brother Robert, my sister Jamelle, my mother-in-law Catherine, and my parents James and Estella, a heartfelt thank you for always loving me through thick

and thin. I love you all, there is no me without you.

Acknowledgment

"Let me begin by giving a deep, emotional, and special thank you

to my wife, Angie. For reading through exhaustive early drafts, keeping me encouraged throughout this process, recognizing my stress as a first-time author, and always knowing what to say to keep me lifted up, never letting me forget how much I am loved and appreciated, and for being my best friend. Angie, your committed love gave me the fuel to see this through to completion.

Thank you so much, baby"

Contents

Dedication3

Acknowledgment4

About the Author6

Chapter One7

Chapter Two19

Chapter Three26

Chapter Four35

Chapter Five44

Chapter Six56

Chapter Seven61

Chapter Eight68

Chapter Nine76

Chapter Ten83

Chapter Eleven91

Chapter Twelve97

About the Author

Derrick E. Whitfield was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, best known for being the home of the Champion Alabama Crimson Tide Football Team. Derrick grew up as a teenager in the mid 80’s, that’s where he developed a deep love for reading and science fiction movies such as Star Wars, Blade Runner, and Back to the Future. Fast forward and this former US Army Combat Engineer and Information Technology Professional developed an insatiable appetite in college and then later in grad school for writing and creating stories. This science fiction thriller, The Engine is

Mr. Whitfield’s first book.

Chapter One

One could scarcely recognize the world anymore if they had not grown familiar with this place since birth. Those who had lived longer lives remembered something else; their reality had been completely different. Those who visited the past often, the lines between reality and imagination were even more distorted for them because they had seen the dystopia of the past first-hand.

One could hardly paint an image of the year 2114 and present it to the mortals of the past because the ideas that people in this timeline had become used to would be too baffling—it would be too much to comprehend. One could see it everywhere they went. From the streets to the insides of buildings and housings and apartments. The change was everywhere, and it had been warmly accepted for the longest time.

The huge skyscrapers dominated the metropolises but unlike their high-rising remnants of glass, these buildings were made of a strange reflective polyester that merely looked like glass but was much lighter and safer to use. It reflected the sun the same way its ancestors did but speaking of the sun, and speaking of the climate, the biggest threat of the year 2024, had successfully, and painstakingly, been debunked by the scientists of 2114.

You see, climatic catastrophes existed still, it was something of nature that man could not simply control. But the ways to deal with such catastrophes were measured in such a way that they reduced their frequency and impact.

The air itself was the best version of it (even if it was, in many ways, artificial), as there were huge vents dug out under the pavements after every block of the street. These sucked air in at regular intervals only to release its purified form back—free of CFCs and other toxic compounds. This was just one way to keep the massive impact of global warming in check.

In other regions, many drastic measures could be seen. Science had evolved to a point where different chemicals were released near-equatorial regions.

These agents were to reach the very ozone layer itself and act like a needle and thread, too, quite literally, sow the layer back into its original dimension.

In this way, the temperature of the Earth was managed while keeping the risks of catastrophes such as droughts and floods in check. Killing two birds with one stone.

Spaceships existed, but they were reserved smartly for governmental agencies that operated them. Disappointingly, especially for the primitives, cars did not fly, but they operated in a safer and more efficient manner, something the past could only dream about.

Going at speeds above 200 miles per hour on a regular basis over a regular automobile was no longer something unthinkable. Still, strangely, while it was possible, it was rarely ever done by humans themselves. They were more used to being driven by chauffeurs that existed in the form of software built deep into the system of the vehicle itself.

But these cold, unfeeling machines, swerving through the lanes of the crowded metropolis, were more observant and responsible for the environment and those in it. Their exhaust produced no form of a carbon footprint.

Instead, the water they burnt merely added more oxygen to the air. Any extra levels of oxygen were purified by the vent system. It was a never-ending artificial, ecological loop where energy was constantly recycled most responsibly.

Even the water itself was the best version of itself. New elements had been discovered in the race towards the future; these elements allowed natural water resources to not only rid themselves of contaminants but to develop healing properties as well. Water had turned into a scientific miracle.

But it was not the synthetic high-rises, the self-cleaning cars, or the halt on climate change that made this world unrecognizable. No, the scientific revolution was not anything new.

In fact, it was very much something of the past. It was known back in 2024 that science would one day evolve to a point where the unimaginable would become possible.

No, it was unrecognizable because the world no longer fought over common commodities such as land, oil, gas, and water. There was no need to. Everything that was thought common and primal to this world was now capable of being produced in masses.

War had ended. The element that gave meaning to everything people knew in the Middle Ages, throughout the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Early Modern Ages, it no longer existed.

This was not to say that brotherhood had replaced tyranny; foreign diplomatic relations still very much existed. This is merely to say that the need to shed blood, tears, and, more importantly, wealth over natural resources was seen as arbitrary and unnecessary.

But the people who were native to this future did not, in any way, presume that they were the owners or producers of this serenity. They knew, for a fact, that they owed it all to the efforts of their primitives.

In fact, they popularly attributed a date to a day that sparked the birth of this utopia. They attribute this honour to the year 2024—the birth of the first-time working time machine.

The birth referred to a model that worked only for small objects, but its application only went upwards from there. It essentially made use of a huge machine that had the capability of shooting the object in it in the form of a ray. This ray "shot" the object at a molecular level, close to the speed of light since it was based on the theory of achieving travel through time by warping and slowing down the time of the world relative to it.

This was based on Einstein’s Everlong theory of Relativity but the concept of it was applied in the opposite way. While relativity considered the possibility of slowing down the relative time of the world as it went clockwise, scientists managed to run that very clock in an anticlockwise direction. They had opened the door to the past.

Albeit the model at that time was much less ambitious in what

it achieved; it did set up a base on which future iterations became

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