A Timeless Journey (31 page)

Being a Holo programmer, Luna could easily put together an application to control a time travel device, travel to this reality and return within minutes without being detected if it wasn’t for the PBM that monitored her thoughts. The time travel device I had seen at the Museum of Time had two parts consisting of two tiny cube-shaped devices full of nanotechnology and once someone registered via a special app the dates and the coordinates of the places you wanted to connect, a portal opened up creating a door between the two timelines. This portal could only be switched off from the timeline where the time travel device was powered on and not from the other side.

If Luna has to get hold of these two little cubes, she could easily open a portal from our apartment in Laguna city into my bedroom in Ripon if I gave her the exact coordinates and then I can walk through to the other side with her. It is as easy as that, but this means we would break the law and end up in the IEF for a long time. There is always the other option, that of Luna crossing over to this reality and staying here with me. However, I cannot subject her to the mess that our world is.

Before my travel into the future, I thought this reality and the advanced technology was the best there was, but after seeing and experiencing what I had in the last two years, everything here looks primitive, out of date, dirty and unsafe. Compare to the future where every thought, every small credit and every personal freedom counted, here in this reality, chaos seems to reign everywhere and the human governments are unable to fully control the undignified behaviour of each citizen and that of themselves. The only thing politicians do well in this reality is the alliance with the big corporations and lobbying against the interests of the majority who votes for them.

Since the use of time travel device is out of the question, the only option for me to reunite with Luna and Sky remains the hope that the anomaly will reappear again at the same place and time as it did this summer. No matter how open minded I have become, this reality is proving difficult for me to accept and I understand now the reason why the panel in the IEF insisted I stayed in the future.

39

It is a wet mid-November Sunday night and I am nearly in the end of my story. From this point on, most of the content I will write is not in the novel I have read in the future. This means that I am already changing the future by adding what happened in the last two days. I have no idea if this part will appear as if by magic in the novel in the future, or we have to wait for this version to make its own way through the centuries. 

Two day ago, on Friday evening, as I sat in my bedroom thinking how to end this novel, a crazy idea came to mind.

‘What if I asked Sophie, Chris and Lauren to spend the night together drinking and implore them to use the mind scrambler to meet with Luna?’ I thought half aloud. They have no choice but to believe me and I would be able to claim our friendship back. It was important for me to reconcile with my old friends just in case I returned to the 26
th
century. I didn’t fancy leaving with the knowledge that my friends disliked me. Only by meeting Luna virtually, they would be able to accept what I had told them was true.

I was astonished that I hadn’t thought of this earlier, and yet, the fear that one of them may share this secret with the world and I may end up losing the scrambler to some secret government agency, made me hesitate for a few minutes. After giving it some thought, I decided to trust my friends and show them that I wasn’t crazy. Excited by the idea, I got dressed ready to go and surprise Chris in his house. I had to try and persuade him to give me a chance.

It was dark and cold outside, but excited by the thought that my friends were finally going to meet Luna, the cold became the last worry to occupy my mind. With the Link device on my wrist and the mind scrambler ring in the jacket pocket, I left the house and walked through the cold to the Chris and Lauren’s house. They lived about ten minutes’ walk from my parents’ house.

On my lonely walk, I kept wondering how my friends were going to react to my proposal. Their house appeared in front of me and I was about to find out. I rang the bell and waited. Chris opened the door and from the expression on his face and the tone of his voice, I could see he wasn’t happy to find me standing on his doorstep.

“Hey Scott… what… what are you doing here?” He stuttered and blocked the door with his torso. “Lauren is in the living room and she won’t be happy to see you standing here,” he whispered.

I smiled kindly at his childish reaction.

“I know, listen… give me a chance to speak and I will explain why I am here. Can I come in? Sort of need to speak with both of you.”

“What is this about Scott?”

“It is important and I really need both of you to hear me out. May I come in please?”

Chris stood there speechless, but I insisted. “Come on man, we’ve been friends for a long time, you own me at least that.”

Chris had a think about what I said and then half-heartedly admitted defeat.

“Lauren won’t be happy to see you, but come in anyway, if you insist. This better be good, or I will be in trouble with her.” He pointed with his arm towards the living room where Lauren was.

“Thank you mate, you won’t regret it,” I replied excited by the opportunity to prove that I wasn’t lying and that certainly I wasn’t crazy. As I walked into their living room, Lauren stood up and faced Chris giving him an angry look. I could tell she was unhappy to see me standing there.

“What is he doing here?” She asked Chris as she pointed at me.

I smiled mildly and begged them both to listen what I had to say.

“I have given it some thought and to hell with the consequences, but I can prove that I am not lying when I said I have been living in the future for two years. I will prove it to you tonight and I want Sophie to be here as well.”

“There is no way she will agree to be in the same room as you, ever again. Sophie is convinced that you have lost your mind,” replied Lauren in a raised voice. She made it clear to me that she had no desire to get involved.

“I know how she feels Lauren, but I have a device from the future that virtually connects me and Luna every night. At first, I didn’t want anyone to know about this, but I can’t stand anymore this situation where I am made to be the crazy guy. You can talk to Luna and see for yourself that she exists.”

“Scott, we’ve been friends for a long time. Please stop this and get some help,” urged Lauren.

Chris looked at me, unable to contain the excitement on his face.

“You have a device that allows you to see and talk to someone in the future? I don’t believe it, show us.”

“Go on, prove it! Connect with her now and I will call Sophie for you,” Lauren added with a hint of sarcasm in a sceptical tone of voice which led me to understand that she didn’t believe a word of what I was saying.

“Look Lauren, Luna and I have this arrangement to see each other at ten o’clock in the evening Dominican Republic time.” I tried to explain to her. “The only way for you to meet Luna and baby Sky is to wait until two in the morning when she will activate her part of the scrambler. This is why I want Sophie to be here, so she can meet Luna and understand the situation I am in.”

“Why I have this feeling that you are using us to get back with her?”

“Let me be clear on this Lauren! I am not planning to get back with Sophie. I just want to prove that I never lied to her or to anyone else. After this entire time, what I had to benefit from this break-up? I have no girlfriend and I’m not even looking for one. All I care is our friendship.”

After my last statement, Lauren seemed to believe me and picked up her mobile phone. She pointed her phone at me.

“I will call her and explain what you said, but I can’t promise she will come running here full of excitement.”

“I don’t want her to come running into my arms. I just want to put things straight. I’m not the bad guy here, it just happened. And for your information, I still care about her. I feel guilty for hurting her.”

It took a lot of persuasion in convincing them to give me a chance to prove that I wasn’t lying. I was forced to use our earlier friendship days as emotional blackmail.  In the end, it worked and they gave in. Lauren called Sophie and explained the situation, but she refused. I understood that it was going to be hard for her to face me again and I settled to prove only to Chris and Lauren how wrong they were.

Despite her earlier rejection, Sophie surprised all by showing up a little later. I never thought it would get awkward meeting her. She ignored me. We sufficed with a few silent glares across the room, over an alcoholic drink while we waited.

I wondered what made to change her mind. There were two reasons I could think of for Sophie accepting my offer. The first was that she expected me to fail and wanted to be present and witness it with her own eyes. The second reason was that she was still in love with me and wanted to see me again despite her anger.

Although they had been my friends for a long time, I felt uncomfortable for most of the night and could barely wait for the clock to reach two in the morning. Trying to kill some time, I rolled the sleeve up and showed the Link bracelet to my friends as a proof of being in the future. I explained how this device worked in the future and what it did. All they could see was a silver hair-thin bracelet with no clues of future technology.

I warned my friends that once it was able to detect a connection with the future where it belonged, it would vibrate to let me know. Chris took the bracelet in his hands observing it carefully. Although he could clearly see it was a sophisticated piece of equipment, he thought it looked like a useless piece of fine metal.

I had to explain to my friends that without the presence of the main and local government AI systems which the Link was normally connected in the reality it belonged, it would be impossible to activate the device, unless the mind scrambler created a bridge between the two realities. I had tried to connect the Link device wirelessly to my laptop, but the technology we use in the 21
st
century is not compatible with the synthetic quantum technology used in the future. Is useless to say I was unsuccessful.

As two o’clock neared, I took the mind scrambler out of my jacket pocket and with a serious voice I started to explain what it was and how it worked.

“This is called a ‘mind scrambler’ and is made of two of these rings. One ring is with Luna and this ring is here with me. In order for this device to work, both rings have to be placed overhead by the two people involved. At first, Luna and I never thought this would work due to different timelines of course, but somehow this device is able to connect through different timelines.”

“How do you turn on this thing?” Chris interrupted me, expressing some genuine curiosity.

“Good question and you’re not going to believe the answer. This ring is powered by the body’s positive energy once you have placed it on your head. Of course it would need the other person to do the same simultaneously, otherwise it won’t connect. The most important thing to remember is that you have to be relaxed and positive for the device to be fully powered.”

“Wow! Positive energy huh, so if you feeling like shit, this thing won’t power up?

“No, it won’t power, I’ve tried.”

“What happens when you connect?” Continued Chris with his questions and the fact he finally believed in me, made my answers more enthusiastic. 

“Well, this is the weird part. Thanks to a technology that I am unable to explain in scientific terms, you are able to penetrate inside the other person’s mind and you have to let that person inside your head. You can see each other by closing the eyes and, just like in a dream; you are able to meet virtually with the other person. It spookily feels as though you are there in person.” I explained as I looked at Sophie. She looked down to avoid eye contact, but I could see she was listening with a keen interest.

“Wow, if all this is true, I’m looking forward to trying it.” Chris replied enthusiastically.

It seemed to me he wasn’t the only one taking me seriously, since Lauren and Sophie sat next to each other with an impressed expression on their faces. It was the first time since the holiday, to have a real chance and talk about the future with my friends.

The time was approaching the two o’clock mark. I decided to place the ring over my head and wait for the blue light. The seconds passed slowly and I had some time to review the evening up to that point. Without realising, we had behaved as old friends again, with the exception of Sophie. She still felt the pain by the surprise break-up. I gazed at her to express a silent “I am sorry” and in that moment her eyes opened wide as if she had just seen a ghost. She moved back and pointed over my head.

“Oh my god, there is a blue ‘thing’ over your head?” She said.

The three of them were watching me as if my hair was on fire. Before I had a chance to explain to my friends that the device had turned on, Luna’s voice invaded my brain taking away my attention from the room.

“Hey Scotty, how are you tonight?”

“Hi Luna, I am fine.” I closed my eyes and there she was in front of me, smiling. “How is Sky? Is she missing me?”

“We are both missing you. The surrounding doesn’t look familiar. Are you not at home?”

“No, I’m not and we are not alone either. I have my friends here with me and I would like you to meet them tonight. Can we transfer in our apartment over there? I like my friends to see it.”

“Is it safe to tell other people about the mind scrambler?”

“I had no choice. They all think I am crazy. I had to prove it to them what has happened to me is real.”

“I will accept to meet with them, but you should know if they are really your friends, they should stand by you and not call you crazy.”

“I like it when you get all protective over me, but the way of thinking works differently in this reality, I have explained it to you before.”

“I would never be able to understand the kind of mentality people demonstrate in your time Scott. I am ready to talk to your friends. I want to find out for myself what they’re like.”

“First will be Chris, he is the one who believes me, I think.”

I lifted the ring off my head and the connection with Luna was interrupted. I passed it to Chris.

“Here, place it over your head. Remember, be positive and once you are connected, close your eyes and let Luna inside your mind.”

He took the ring off my hands and placed over his head, but not before he expressed his worries. As soon as the ring lit bright blue, he jumped as if he had heard a ghost talking. I placed my hand over his shoulder and nodded. I asked him to stay calm and close his eyes. It took a while for Chris to get used to the way mind scrambler worked.

Chris spoke with Luna for the next few minutes. At least he tried anyway, because he remained speechless for most of the time and who could blame him. It wasn’t easy to accept the surrealism of the situation and probably Luan was telling him off for the way he treated me. Once he finished talking to Luna, he took the ring off and released a strong emotional reaction.

“Oh my God, wow! What has just happened? I saw Luna, and your apartment, and very tall buildings outside the window just as you described it Scott. It’s real and…” he paused for a second and then in a confused state said. “I have just seen the future.”