Visions Tomorrow - Part 3: The Future Ray (by Rune Woodman)
September 30th 2007 08:09
Day 7693
The pieces are finally falling together!
My design for the Temporal Fuse is complete. All that remains now is for me to place it into the main housing, however, that cannot be completed today. The glue on the fuse needs another 8 hours to set, so tomorrow I will finish the tasks and the Future Ray will be ready for testing.
Day 7694
Everything is ready!
The firing mechanism has joined perfectly with the Temporal Fuse and all of the moving parts (few that there are) have tested perfectly. The mice arrived early this morning and have settled in to their cages without incident.
Most of today was spent cleaning and rechecking components. Imagine the disaster if some spec of dust were to distort the lens or the smallest drop of moisture were to infiltrate the matter/antimatter interface! Just writing these words makes me shiver with fear that I may have missed something. Again I must check, and re-check everything in the laboratory. If there’s the slightest chance the environment is not perfectly sealed, sterile and dust free I must rebuild from scratch. It’s taken me twenty years to build this one; the prospect of another twenty years would kill me.
Day 7695
Shocking results: the mice are all dead!
The Future Ray was charged and ready. The first mouse was locked into the stocks. I fired and the stupid animal died! I must admit that I never had a concrete expected result. I had thought, at worst, that perhaps the test subject might evolve, deform or change in some way. I had hoped, at best, that the animal would be unharmed and show signs, in later testing, that it had future knowledge.
The Future Ray works by opening a Time Intensification Field which, when pointed at the brain, speeds up it’s relative perception allowing the subject to see vast distances into the future. I expect there is probably a certain amount of shock to the individual’s system, especially for the simple minds of mice, but I didn’t it would kill them! Thank the heavens I didn’t test it out on a human first. The consequences!
Tomorrow I will work on the calculations for reducing the intensity of the ray. Perhaps the brains of the subjects were sent so far into the future that they met with their own inevitable deaths.
Day 7696
Incredible! Incredible! Incredible!
The mice have come back to life! I can’t say if all of them revived as I disposed of most of them down the toilet last night, saving only two for autopsy.
This morning, after ordering more mice, I returned to the lab and found the two remaining mice up and about. They seem unharmed by their ordeals. I only wish I hadn’t disposed of the rest; such a waste of money.
Deciding to let the Future Ray rest today I ran tests on the mice. It has been a difficult time.
The first tests involved me placing a small piece of cheese at one end of a maze and a mouse at the other end. The first time neither mouse moved an inch. I tried the tests again but with larger pieces of cheese and this time both mice found their way through the maze in record time. It was as if they knew the first piece of cheese was too small to bother with the effort and were waiting for something more filling. Initial results indicate that the Ray has worked. My dreams of a future where everyone knows the future are coming true!
Tomorrow I will test the Ray on the mice again and see what results come next.
Day 7697
Those bloody mice!
Over-night I put the first two in with the lot that arrived later in the day. I wanted to see if there were any interactions between my time travelling mice and the normal mice that would suggest further knowledge of the future. When I looked in on them this morning I was shocked to discover one of the new batch of mice, the biggest male, had been ripped to shreds. All other mice were cowering in the sleeping section of their cage and the two Future Ray mice casually wandered up and down exercise area. When I reached into the cage to pick one of them up the other attacked my hand and bit it savagely.
Each time I attempted to catch one of the mice the other helped it to escape. There is no more testing I can do with these subjects. They cannot be asked why they are behaving in such a manner and I cannot understand it myself. My only choice, I fear, is to move my experiment to a human subject.
Normally I would perform early experiments on myself it would be difficult to be dead and take notes at the same time. Tomorrow, during my weekend workshop on human memory enhancement at the University I will ask one of my students to volunteer.
Day 7698
The future of Science is lost!
My students are all cowards. Not one of them volunteered for my tests. And as it is illegal for me to force them do work on my private experiments in return for a passing grade I have decided to volunteer one of them without their knowledge.
Howard has a special interest in brains and works as my lab assistant from time to time. Every week day he walks from Central Station to the university. His path takes him up Broadway and into Victoria Park. Tomorrow I will be waiting for him on the corner of Broadway and City Road. I have fitted the Future Ray with a tripod mount. He will assume I am another engineering student surveying the park and when he gets close enough I will hit him with the Ray him. Then I can load him into my car and bring him back here to complete my tests. He will be angry with me at first, assuming he doesn’t remain dead, but once he realises the power of future knowledge I will be forgiven and he will be a willing player in my plans. After all, he who knows the future owns the present.
Day 7699
I am doomed!
Arriving early at the park this morning I tested the calibration of the Future Ray on some of the local ducks. Aiming the device from a distance is not as easy as I expected; it veered a little to the left. It was surprising for me to learn that I’m a trigger happy sort of person and I tested one or two extra ducks than was necessary.
Howard came along at the right time and I shot the Future Ray at him from as close as I dared, forgetting in my excitement to aim a little to the right. Instead of falling down dead Howard kept walking. Thank the heavens he didn’t see me. With my eyes I followed the true line of where the Ray fired and found a red convertible waiting at the traffic lights.
It seemed no one in the park had paid me any attention so I quickly packed away my belongings and briskly walked to my car on City Road. From the safety of its interior I observed the scene. The top of the red convertible was down and the figures of two young men were slumped in the front seat.
Cursing myself for such stupidity I considered what to do next. Other motorists were gathering around the red car so I decided to approach the scene under the disguise of a concerned bystander, but as I was preparing myself the police arrived. I am easily spooked and the police are very spooky so I canned my plan and returned to my laboratory.
It’s going to be a long night while I wait for the authorities to work out that I am the killer. My only hope is the two men will return to life, just like the mice, so I can be redeemed in the end. Even then my Future Ray experiment will be cancelled and I will spend the rest of my days in prison learning how to be tough, I am certain.
Day 7700
I am the luckiest man alive!
While straightening up the sights on the Future Ray this morning there came a knock at the Laboratory door. This is it, I thought to myself, University security has been brought in to take me away for questioning.
Courageously I opened the door, ready to take my punishment but was surprised to see the Director of Medicine from the university hospital.
He seemed distressed but my own sorrow turned to joy when he told me of the two dead men brought into the hospital the morning before that has spontaneously returned to life. Both men seemed perfectly healthy, except for one who needed some stitches to his head.
The Director asked me, as the leading scientist in my field of brain research, to head up the team examining this strange phenomenon. What a break! I accepted, of course, and am off to meet the two men first thing in the morning! The Future Ray, it would seem, is safe after all.
The pieces are finally falling together!
My design for the Temporal Fuse is complete. All that remains now is for me to place it into the main housing, however, that cannot be completed today. The glue on the fuse needs another 8 hours to set, so tomorrow I will finish the tasks and the Future Ray will be ready for testing.
Day 7694
Everything is ready!
The firing mechanism has joined perfectly with the Temporal Fuse and all of the moving parts (few that there are) have tested perfectly. The mice arrived early this morning and have settled in to their cages without incident.
Most of today was spent cleaning and rechecking components. Imagine the disaster if some spec of dust were to distort the lens or the smallest drop of moisture were to infiltrate the matter/antimatter interface! Just writing these words makes me shiver with fear that I may have missed something. Again I must check, and re-check everything in the laboratory. If there’s the slightest chance the environment is not perfectly sealed, sterile and dust free I must rebuild from scratch. It’s taken me twenty years to build this one; the prospect of another twenty years would kill me.
Day 7695
Shocking results: the mice are all dead!
The Future Ray was charged and ready. The first mouse was locked into the stocks. I fired and the stupid animal died! I must admit that I never had a concrete expected result. I had thought, at worst, that perhaps the test subject might evolve, deform or change in some way. I had hoped, at best, that the animal would be unharmed and show signs, in later testing, that it had future knowledge.
The Future Ray works by opening a Time Intensification Field which, when pointed at the brain, speeds up it’s relative perception allowing the subject to see vast distances into the future. I expect there is probably a certain amount of shock to the individual’s system, especially for the simple minds of mice, but I didn’t it would kill them! Thank the heavens I didn’t test it out on a human first. The consequences!
Tomorrow I will work on the calculations for reducing the intensity of the ray. Perhaps the brains of the subjects were sent so far into the future that they met with their own inevitable deaths.
Day 7696
Incredible! Incredible! Incredible!
The mice have come back to life! I can’t say if all of them revived as I disposed of most of them down the toilet last night, saving only two for autopsy.
This morning, after ordering more mice, I returned to the lab and found the two remaining mice up and about. They seem unharmed by their ordeals. I only wish I hadn’t disposed of the rest; such a waste of money.
Deciding to let the Future Ray rest today I ran tests on the mice. It has been a difficult time.
The first tests involved me placing a small piece of cheese at one end of a maze and a mouse at the other end. The first time neither mouse moved an inch. I tried the tests again but with larger pieces of cheese and this time both mice found their way through the maze in record time. It was as if they knew the first piece of cheese was too small to bother with the effort and were waiting for something more filling. Initial results indicate that the Ray has worked. My dreams of a future where everyone knows the future are coming true!
Tomorrow I will test the Ray on the mice again and see what results come next.
Day 7697
Those bloody mice!
Over-night I put the first two in with the lot that arrived later in the day. I wanted to see if there were any interactions between my time travelling mice and the normal mice that would suggest further knowledge of the future. When I looked in on them this morning I was shocked to discover one of the new batch of mice, the biggest male, had been ripped to shreds. All other mice were cowering in the sleeping section of their cage and the two Future Ray mice casually wandered up and down exercise area. When I reached into the cage to pick one of them up the other attacked my hand and bit it savagely.
Each time I attempted to catch one of the mice the other helped it to escape. There is no more testing I can do with these subjects. They cannot be asked why they are behaving in such a manner and I cannot understand it myself. My only choice, I fear, is to move my experiment to a human subject.
Normally I would perform early experiments on myself it would be difficult to be dead and take notes at the same time. Tomorrow, during my weekend workshop on human memory enhancement at the University I will ask one of my students to volunteer.
Day 7698
The future of Science is lost!
My students are all cowards. Not one of them volunteered for my tests. And as it is illegal for me to force them do work on my private experiments in return for a passing grade I have decided to volunteer one of them without their knowledge.
Howard has a special interest in brains and works as my lab assistant from time to time. Every week day he walks from Central Station to the university. His path takes him up Broadway and into Victoria Park. Tomorrow I will be waiting for him on the corner of Broadway and City Road. I have fitted the Future Ray with a tripod mount. He will assume I am another engineering student surveying the park and when he gets close enough I will hit him with the Ray him. Then I can load him into my car and bring him back here to complete my tests. He will be angry with me at first, assuming he doesn’t remain dead, but once he realises the power of future knowledge I will be forgiven and he will be a willing player in my plans. After all, he who knows the future owns the present.
Day 7699
I am doomed!
Arriving early at the park this morning I tested the calibration of the Future Ray on some of the local ducks. Aiming the device from a distance is not as easy as I expected; it veered a little to the left. It was surprising for me to learn that I’m a trigger happy sort of person and I tested one or two extra ducks than was necessary.
Howard came along at the right time and I shot the Future Ray at him from as close as I dared, forgetting in my excitement to aim a little to the right. Instead of falling down dead Howard kept walking. Thank the heavens he didn’t see me. With my eyes I followed the true line of where the Ray fired and found a red convertible waiting at the traffic lights.
It seemed no one in the park had paid me any attention so I quickly packed away my belongings and briskly walked to my car on City Road. From the safety of its interior I observed the scene. The top of the red convertible was down and the figures of two young men were slumped in the front seat.
Cursing myself for such stupidity I considered what to do next. Other motorists were gathering around the red car so I decided to approach the scene under the disguise of a concerned bystander, but as I was preparing myself the police arrived. I am easily spooked and the police are very spooky so I canned my plan and returned to my laboratory.
It’s going to be a long night while I wait for the authorities to work out that I am the killer. My only hope is the two men will return to life, just like the mice, so I can be redeemed in the end. Even then my Future Ray experiment will be cancelled and I will spend the rest of my days in prison learning how to be tough, I am certain.
Day 7700
I am the luckiest man alive!
While straightening up the sights on the Future Ray this morning there came a knock at the Laboratory door. This is it, I thought to myself, University security has been brought in to take me away for questioning.
Courageously I opened the door, ready to take my punishment but was surprised to see the Director of Medicine from the university hospital.
He seemed distressed but my own sorrow turned to joy when he told me of the two dead men brought into the hospital the morning before that has spontaneously returned to life. Both men seemed perfectly healthy, except for one who needed some stitches to his head.
The Director asked me, as the leading scientist in my field of brain research, to head up the team examining this strange phenomenon. What a break! I accepted, of course, and am off to meet the two men first thing in the morning! The Future Ray, it would seem, is safe after all.
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