The Volunteer Time-Traveler

The Multiverse Timecraft, my famed invention, successfully transported six mice to five minutes in the past. (Poor mice. Why do they win the lottery for being test candidates for just about anything? But I digress.) I was able to calculate the length of time the mice were transported back in time through a series of gnarly algorithms that would make the nerdiest systems engineer bawl like a newborn baby. The one snag in all this was that only four of the mice returned to the present. The remaining two were left in the past--somewhere of unknown time and space. Only my team and I knew that reverse time travel had successfully occurred. But science doesn’t rely on hearsay. It relies on evidence. Hard evidence. Reproducible results. Algorithms alone would not suffice.

In the transport experiments that followed, we designed it so that the mice would travel back one hour in time and would be filmed with a timestamp. Because ethical standards would not allow us to test with a human subject, we had to first set up the film equipment and start the filming of where the mice would be located when the reverse time transport occurred. We waited four hours to leave plenty of room for error. Then, we began the transport process. Again, six mice were transported back sixty minutes.

When we reviewed the digital recording, there were three mice. We never located the remaining three mice. We were ecstatic and celebrated as if it were New Year’s Eve. BUT—the next step was crucial. Whatever number of mice we transported back in time, we had to transport the exact same number back to the present. Losing mice in the dimension of time was one thing, but if we were to get permission to recruit human volunteers, we had to first prove that we could, at the very least, safely transport a handful of mice back and forth!

My invention and the time-traveling mice won me the Nobel prize. Yippee! The problem was a mouse couldn’t tell a story. It couldn’t catalog scientific events, and that’s what was called for. I received accolades for my accomplishment that took me twenty-two miserable years to achieve. Yes, those years were miserable. I had no life outside of work. Five, count ‘em, five failed relationships. I finally gave up on all that stuff.

All right, it was time for human trials. Somehow, I found a volunteer through a simple online ad on Anonlist. Online ads never failed. Whether it was in old newspapers and other online ad sites, there was always something for someone. And I needed someone for this something.

You see, I was dying to try it out myself, but I couldn’t risk a failed return trip. If something were to go wrong, I’d be the only one who could fix it. I’d be of no use if I were stranded in the 16th century.

I’m working on training my team but it’s difficult. There are nuances and it’s hard to get the commitment and trust that this all entails.

So, one day, I lucked out! After filtering out a few unsuitable candidates from Anonlist, one winner slipped through the cracks! His name was George. He refused to provide a last name.

George volunteered because he was fascinated, intensively curious, eccentric and about 30% of the time, an unapologetic drunk. He loved reading about time travel. His father and grandfather were amateur science aficionados. They were well-versed on the latest scientific theories, and owned the most state-of-the-art telescopes that their modest government-job budgets would allow. When free online courses were available, they devoured them. He was exposed to all this as a child. It enriched his senses, his imagination, and his intellect. But ironically, it also left him with a constant emotional malaise, which he dampened with whatever substances he could obtain - whether illegal or over-the-counter. He believed time travel could happen someday but not in his lifetime unless he took this opportunity.

“I’m 53 and have no family. I have no one I’d miss and no one who’d miss me. I’ve been there, done that, so I’ve got nothing to lose,” George stated. “Don’t pity me if things go wrong. I have no regrets, believe me.”

“Okay, George, you’re in,” I told him. I respected his personal convictions without judgment.

He was scheduled to come by my lab at six in the evening. He was fifteen minutes early. He wanted a gin and tonic before the trip, which I had ready for him.

Gin and tonic in hand, he said, “I’ll be back! And sober. Trust me!”

He had the drink in hand while seated in the Multiverse Timecraft. He raised the glass of gin and tonic, took a sip, and slowly faded away. It was one thing to see a mouse disappear, but to see a human body vanish before my eyes like a ghost was mesmerizing.

The way the Multiverse Timecraft was designed was to transport the traveler while the vehicle stayed behind. The travel timings, roundtrip, were driven by programming the time and location of the target transport destination using my algorithms. It worked with mice. Why wouldn't it work with humans?

“Please, please come back,” I shouted at no one. I’d never been religious, but I prayed anyway. Just in case I was wrong about such things. As a scientist, I was, after all, open-minded.

I waited all night, the next day, the next night, and the next day and night after that. Nothing. No sight of George.

Were my algorithms off or was my programming faulty? While I waited for George to return, I reviewed the numbers over and over again and could not find the problem. I felt like a cashier unable to reconcile a petty cash fund. Still, I believed George would be back—in due time. And I continued to pray.

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