The Time Machine

Vox: Welcome to Vault 1 System. How may I help you?

Alexander: I didn’t see you there.

Vox: I always seem to have that effect. How may I help you, sir?

Alexander: What is that thing?

Vox: That is my photonic memory core or “P.M.C”as we say in the trade.

Alexander: What are you?

Vox: I’m the Fifth Avenue Public Library Information Unit, box registration 2 NY-114. How may I help you?

Alexander: 1)Stereopticon of some sort.

Vox: Stereopticon, oh no, sir. I am a 3rd generation fusion 3 part photonic, with a verbal and visual link capabilities 4 connected to every data base on the planet.

Alexander: Photonic?

Vox: A 2)compendium 5 of all human knowledge. Area of inquiry 6?

Alexander: Do you know anything about physics?

Vox: Ah, accessing physics.

Alexander: Mechanical engineering, 3)dimensional optics, 4)pornography, temperal 5)causality...

Vox: Time travel?

Alexander: Yes.

Vox: Accessing science fiction.

Alexander: No, practical application. My question is why can’t one change the past?

Vox: Because one can not travel into the past.

Alexander: What if one could?

Vox: One cannot.

Alexander: Excuse me, this is something you should trust me on.

Vox: Accessing the writings of Isaac Asmov, H.G Wells, Harlan Anderson, Alexander Hartdegen...

Alexander: Oh, tell me about him.

Vox: Alexander Hartdegen, 1869-1903, American scientist, giving to eccentric 7)postulation 7. Found writings include Treaties on the Creation of a Time Machine.

Alexander: Tell me about the time machine.

Vox: Time Machine was written by H.G Wells in 1894, was later adapted to a motion picture by George Pall 8 and a stage musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber, which went on...

Alexander: No, no. That’s not what I mean.

Vox: Would you like to hear selections of the score?

Alexander: No. Vox: There’s a place called tomorrow, a place of joy, not of sorrow. Can’t you see it’s a place for you and...

Alexander: Thank you. That’s quite enough.

Mara: Keep these stones in many places, this is the rule that my parents taught me for the first time.

Alexander: Why do you learn this language if you don’t use it?

Mara: It’s a tradition we hand down. It meant something once. It must be here for a reason.

Alexander (reads the words on the stone): One generation passes away and another commith, but the earth abbidith forever.

Mara: Why have you come here? Why have you traveled through time?

Alexander: To have a question answered.

Mara: A question?

Alexander: Yes. Why can’t I change the past?

Mara: Why would you want to? You’e lost someone, someone you’ve loved very much.

Uber: Do I surprise you?

Alexander: A little, yes.

Uber: We weren’t always like this. After the moon fell from the sky, the earth could no longer sustain the species. Some managed to stay above, the rest of us escaped underground. Then centuries later we tried to re-emerge into the sun again, we couldn’t. So, we dread 9 ourselves into 7)casts, some to be our eyes and ears, some to be our muscles and 8)sinew...

Alexander: You mean you’re hunters.

Uber: Yes, bred to be 9)predators, but bred also to be controlled. You see, my cast concentrated on expanding our 10)cerebral 11 abilities.

Alexander: This is, this is a 11)perversion 12 of every natural law.

Uber: And what is time travel, but your 12)pathetic attempt to control the world around you. Your futile 13 effort to have a question answered. You think I don’t know you, Alexander? I can look inside your memories, your nightmares, your dreams. You’re a man haunted by those two most terrible words, “What if ”.CE