
“Two truths will always be... You cannot put chaos in a formula, and man will never be able to see what is coming next. Make no mistake, the latter follows the former.”
-Doctor
Samuel Gordon Chase (Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics)
Jessup, MD
He had a good life. He had a good
job. Driving while he works everyday was a plus for Ansem. He never thought he
would have this much to begin with. He owned the truck and basically had his
own shipping company. Right off Route 1, Ansem was not twenty minutes from
Washington, D.C.; the center of it all. There was always business in the
capital. Ansem was swelling with jobs. He had no real family. He could drive
all across the country if he wanted.
Ansem instead lived in his late
parents’ house, the house he grew up in. He stayed in crowded Maryland and made
thousands and thousands of dollars over the years of getting contracts. Ansem
did not do much. He never went out nor had people over. He had very few hobbies.
When he was a kid, the only thing he played with was his chem-set.
Ansem wanted to be a scientist his
entire life; not just any science, but one remembered and rich, with his own
laboratory, someone who cured something major, like cancer or AIDS. And yet his
life did not lead him there. Out of high school he went away to college and was
called home halfway through his first year when his mother fell ill. It took
her nine months to die, the same amount of time he grew to live inside her
womb. Ansem never returned to school. Instead he stayed home and took care of
his heartbroken dad. In five years their lives were beginning to get better.
Ansem’s father then died of a heart attack.
He had no chance to get him to the
hospital. The heart attack took three seconds, three seconds… one moment’s
thought…that is all it took to kill his dad. There was nothing anybody could
do. In all honesty, his father was dead the moment they lost his mother. Ansem
was left alone, and with this big empty house. There was only one reason he did
not move and start his life over. Instead, it has been over twenty years and
Ansem is a quiet millionaire living amongst normal people, maintaining his
guise as the blue collar delivery guy. He did all of this, all these years, for
one person in mind, the reason he stayed...
There
is nothing in this world that he would not do for her and she had no idea. They
barely even knew each other. But Ansem had lived next to Rebecca for seven
years now, and he knew enough about her to know that he loved her. Now all he
had to do was talk to her.
New York, NY
The Manhattan morning was clear with
a bright blue sky. The kids were all up and getting ready for school when Samuel came downstairs. “Did I
miss breakfast?” Samuel asked his wife.
“No darling, the girls just wake up
early with Mommy. And Warren!”
Samuel’s wife banged on the wall, “…is
going to be late!”
Just then
a bedroom door opened and the front door slammed shut. Their oldest was in his last
year of prep school. Samuel walked up behind Vanessa.
“Could it be, Doctor Chase…that we have the house to ourselves?”
"I wouldn't say that..." remarked Samuel as the neighbor's dog came running into the kitchen, looking for some breakfast.
“Could it be, Doctor Chase…that we have the house to ourselves?”
"I wouldn't say that..." remarked Samuel as the neighbor's dog came running into the kitchen, looking for some breakfast.
"Warren keeps letting him in and not taking him back to Allen," Vanessa explained.
"Go home, Jackson!" Samuel shooed the pup out the back door.
“You’re going to be late too, Doctor.”
"Go home, Jackson!" Samuel shooed the pup out the back door.
“You’re going to be late too, Doctor.”
“They can wait for me.”
An hour later, Doctor Samuel Gordon
Chase entered his research company’s funded wing at Manhattan Tech. He was late
for his presentation on his latest theory. Dr. Chase was the head of his
department, albeit the smallest department in the field of physics.
Samuel got through the door of his
office and switched out of his jacket and into his blazer. He slid his
already-knotted tie around his neck and under his collar. A quick brush to the
hair and he was back out the door. Samuel ran back into the office to get his
notes and finally got to the meeting in the lecture room over twenty minutes
late.
When Samuel opened the door the
clocks were rolled back. He laughed and to cover catching his breath he
scoffed, “Now suppose I just went back in time.” Everyone had a laugh or a gasp
at the reality and comfort with Samuel’s tone. They talked amongst themselves
as he got ready. He got his stuff together and onto the podium and started up
his laptop. He turned on the projector and opened the slideshow he had ready.
Doctor Samuel Gordon Chase was a
leading mind in theoretical and quantum physics. Today his lecture was on the
theoretical analysis of whether time travel was possible and/or achievable.
There were six representatives from the pentagon present at the lecture. All
but one got up and left during it. General Saarsgard of the Air Force stayed
and let the eccentric doctor of science finish what he had to say.
The other representatives shrugged
it off as nonsense, but in reality they were listening to a man far ahead of
his time. He was talking about cracking the scientific code of chaos and
unlocking the space time continuum. The general took away one important fact
over all of them when he left, exactly what Samuel intended, Traveling to the
future was impossible, you could not be able to tell what would be there
waiting for you; but a carefully constructed window into the past could be
ascertained. Unbeknownst to anyone, a squad of pilots was chosen and issued
orders by General Saarsgard to begin top secret training in Cheyenne Mountain
for navigating through “deep space”.
It was a hard couple of months after
that for Doctor Chase. From how the Pentagon reps had reacted to the lecture to the talk
around the institute, rumors of his theory had turned Samuel into a social pariah.
His field was always on the edge of fact and fiction. This might have put it
over the top. He continued his research with his grad students, but even they
started to dwindle in numbers. He was losing his integrity as a scientist. Soon
he would have to make a decision…call off this crazy hunt for time travel or
risk losing his career and family over it. Samuel could always see down the
line; no matter how thick the fog got…
to be continued...
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