Taking the Beast to Meet Jimmy Carter

Jimmy Carter has been on my mind recently as he enters into hospice. I realize that even though he lost reelection by a landslide in 1980, his values have stood the test of time. He has become many people’s favorite ex-President. He was in favor of renewable energy, environmental conservation, and caring for people in times of need before any of it was cool. My thoughts go out to his family.

Here is the story:

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This trip through time better be worth it.

I’m sweating buckets here in the humid summer heat. We are all tired. It has been two weeks since we left the bunkers in Upper Appalachia. Two weeks of walking and two weeks of taking turns pushing the Beast. It is my turn now, and of course, it has to be up a hill. Ugh. I hope it is worth it.

My legs are burning. This morning Red said that it will likely be just another day. The wet heat of the coastal jungle is making us go slower than before, so I don’t know. Also, what used to be roads are mostly covered with vines and downed trees, slowing progress. Thankfully the bridges have been intact, or we would never have been able to bring the Beast this far.

It is essential to get the Beast to the correct spot before we turn it on. In the bunker, it worked fine, but it has never been out of the bunker and we have never done a jump this far back.

It has to work. It must work.

Blue has been telling me about the science behind the Beast when we sit around the campfires at night. There is hardly any point in her telling me because it all washes over me as “quantum this” and “grey energy” that. But it reassures me to know how confident she is.

She tells me that the Beast is designed to work like a boomerang. When it goes back in time, it travels back to the designated time, stays there for a short while, and then returns to the current time.

When Blue says it like that, it doesn’t sound scary. But I’ve jumped six times, and I can say that the trip there and back is not for the light-hearted. It involves me being instantly put into something like a deep, dreamless sleep and then waking up in a terrorized panic with my heart racing, my limbs shaking, incredibly thirsty, and with my lungs emptied out. And every time is worse than the last.

Once I get to the target time in the past and catch my breath, I have about a minute of lucidity until the Beast brings me back to the present time, with the return trip bringing a second round of intense panic.

Green is our doctor, and he assures me that time travel is safe. But every time I come back, the panic lasts longer. It doesn’t feel safe. How does he know?

Gold is the other scientist on the trip. Gold and Blue built the Beast. They have made a working time machine of what seems like random junk. It feels like a miracle, but I know this is actually a generation's worth of scientific achievement. Gold and Blue have studied with the best minds and have been working their whole lives to get to this point.

The seat of the Beast is from a car they found in a barn and scavenged. The cage is made out of twisted copper wire they took from old houses. The electronics were found over the course of ten years of scavenging. The Beast is one of a kind. And it is dying.

After every trip, Blue and Gold inspect the machine and make adjustments. Lately, I see nothing but frowns. Each trip takes a lot out of the Beast. They think we only have one good trip left before it becomes unusable.

I know this might be our chance. We built the Beast to try to go back and warn people about climate change.

It has been a hundred years since the Tipping Point — when one climate catastrophe after another destabilized all the world’s governments and crashed all the economies, sending people into bunkers and survival camps.

If there is even the slightest chance that we can warn people, we have to.

I’m almost done with my shift pushing the Beast. I can see the top of the hill and I force myself to get there. I am rewarded with my first view of the Washington Monument.

We make our way through the abandoned and overgrown city that Red calls DC toward the ruins of something called the White House. Both Purple and Red have guns, and they habitually take the head and the tail of the expedition. Now they are both on high alert. There are animals everywhere, but we have seen no humans since the Cumberland pass, days ago. If there are humans in DC, they are hiding from us.

When we are finally at the White House, we discover that it is surrounded by a locked fence. The last days of the government must have been scary for people. Gold and Blue are both experts with metal, and soon they are cutting the fence gates open with a torch.

When we get to the building, it seems smaller than I’d imagined. It was once the seat of all the power in the world, and it looks like just a big house.

We take the beast off its wheels and carry it inside. Our goal is to find a place called the Oval Office. Red has been reading history and has decided that the best person to warn about the coming climate crisis is the President of the United States.

Red said that Jimmy Carter is the best President to warn. He said it would be useless to warn the Republican Presidents, and anyone after Bill Clinton would be too late. It has to be Carter.

Since the Beast only moves in time, we had to bring it to a place that we knew President Carter would be. Red found his diaries in a library in Georgia, so we had a specific date when he should be in DC. We would just have to take a chance that he will be in his office.

Now is the time. And given the state of the Beast, we will likely only have one chance until Blue and Gold can build another one. We have to make it count.

Blue and Gold are busy fussing with the computers on the outside of the Beast. They are both looking a little too worried for my tastes.

“What is going on?” I ask.

“We would like to do one more test, to make sure everything survived the trip.” Says Gold.

“But given the deterioration of the systems, we think that the Beast may only have one sure trip left in her.” Says Blue.

“So no test?” I ask.

“No test.” They both say it at the same time.

I take a moment to consider the implications. I’m getting into a deteriorated machine that has been moved 150 miles over bumpy non-existent roads for what will likely be its last trip into the past. We are sending the Beast back further than it has ever gone. And I will be inside, strapped to a bucket seat taken from an old Subaru found in a barn.

No problem.

“No time like the present,” I say as I lift the cage up and climb into the seat.

Blue and Gold chuckle at my joke as they power up the Beast. Green reaches in and hands me an anti-nausea pill and a water bottle.

As the Beast starts to make its familiar noises, I do the calming breathing techniques that Green has been coaching me on. I need to be able to control my panic because I may only have a few moments to communicate the immensity of the situation to President Carter.

The whirring of the Beast intensifies. I close my eyes and take deep belly breaths.

I hear Red screaming in the next room. There is gunfire. Purple is standing in the doorway shooting repeatedly out at someone or something in the hall.

Then I am gone.

I open my eyes in sheer utter terror. I feel all over my body for gunshot wounds. I’m safe and whole. Two deep breaths. Look out. There he is.

I have seen pictures of President Carter, but those were from later in his life. This man is young. He stands up from behind his desk and is coming toward me and the Beast.

I lift the cage up, controlling my panic, and look all around the room. It is just us.

“What in the HELL?!?”

“Mr. President. Don’t call the guards. I mean you no harm. I’m from the future. I can only stay a minute, so I need every moment you have.”

He stops coming toward me. His eyes are wide.

“I have come to warn you about the coming collapse of life as you know it due to atmospheric carbon-caused climate change. If climate change is left unchecked, within fifty years, the world will reach a disastrous tipping point. There will be uncontrollable droughts and wildfires. Near constant tropical storms, with massive flooding and high winds. Unprecedented sea level rise. The near-total collapse of agriculture and commerce. Endless wars for food. The end of central governments and money. More.”

“I know,” says President Carter, waving his hands. “My best scientists have been telling me the same thing. My advisors don’t want me to cause global panic, so we are trying to switch to solar and wind power and work on fuel economy, using the energy crisis as an excuse. But yes. I know.”

“You mean, you know what is coming, and we still didn’t do everything we can to stop it?”

“I. I. I thank you for taking the effort to tell me. I will redouble my efforts.”

“But. But. But. You need to do more! Don’t you understand? I’m from 150 years in the future and there is nothing but ruins in this place.” I look around the room.

I heard the whirring of the Beast, signaling my imminent departure.

“You have to do more! This may be our only chance to come back and warn you. Please listen.”

The Beast starts to shake and my mind goes blank.

I open my eyes in the present in a complete panic. I’m hyperventilating. I’m trying to breathe but coughing. The Beast is spewing blue smoke from its inner workings. It looks like Blue and Gold were right about this being the last trip.

I lift the cage up and look around the room. It is near dark. I must have been gone for several hours. Purple is lying dead in the doorway. Blue, Gold, and Green are all on the ground, each glassy-eyed and leaking blood from various wounds. I’m all alone.

Without Blue and Gold, we will never fix or rebuild the Beast. It was a one-and-done.

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Photo by Gu Bra: https://www.pexels.com/photo/the-white-house-6477549/

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