Finding Time 06

The auditorium was half full when we peeped through the doors. The camera set up to one side of the small platform we'd be using to set the equipment up on. Sally and I left to collect the Tunnel from the engineering block while Carol went in.

I picked the small hand cart and rode the lift down. It took only a few minutes to load it all and start back. With an hour still to go to the official start the seats were reasonably full when we got back.

They paid little attention to us as we wheeled it over and began to set it up. Carol came over and checked that everything was alright then left again. We had a test picture up on the screen in twenty minutes, an aerial shot of a chariot race at Circus Maximus.

We let it play for a few minutes and then disconnected from the main screen to find Carol and tell her all was ready then take a break in the back seats. The crowd didn't grow much as the time ticked down but there looked to be enough to spread the word.

With five minutes to go Carol signalled us down. Sally sat at the desk and I joined Carol, sitting beside it. She looked a lot calmer that I felt as she gave me a quick smile as she flipped through her prompt cards.

The chatter died down as Carol walked to the podium. "Gentlemen, for I see no ladies among you. What you will see here tonight is unbelievable," she started.

"Tonight you are witness to a discovery that will change the world, eliminate crime and corruption, make war unimaginable. Dr Lutner has called his discovery a Time Tunnel because that's what it is, a way of looking any where and any when."

She pause a second or to then carried on. "Besides the astronomical implications it opens up the last fifteen thousand years of history to observation. We can go back to the infancy of civilisation and track its path to the current day."

This time when she took a breath someone shouted a query. "Any time anywhere."

She held her hand up and continued. "Imagine a scenario where someone commits a crime, the police turn on their Time Tunnel and watch the crime committed and can track the perpetrator and know where he/she is ten seconds ago. There'd be nowhere to hide. And any jury could see it was you."

She let the words hang a second or so. "How many criminals would be left on the street when the police open up old cases? Same with bribery and corruption, whether its hard cash or electronic transfer between two Swiss accounts, you can look over their shoulder as they do it."

There were more shouted questions. "The job of a reporter will get easier too, you can go back and witness events from your very office and not have to wait on reports on the wire service."

That got their attention back. "An earthquake happens and you can have your cameras there in seconds. Wherever the news happens you could be there to see and hear it happening."

"I have the Professor here to answer your technical questions but first I'd like to demonstrate it and prove that it works by asking one or two of you to give me a time and place something eventful happened, something non-controversial, no bloodshed or unpleasant things."

There was a clamour of voices as Sally reconnected to the screen.

"You," Carol said pointing to the first.

They were all relatively modern events. In the half hour Carol allowed we managed seven requests and had most of them accepting it as truth. By the time it came for me to say my piece they were almost overexcited.

Carol introduced me and I walked forward to take her place at the podium. There were a few cries of 'How does it work' and a rippling of applause as I looked out on them.

"As you've asked how does it work I have to tell you we don't know yet. It's a new branch of Physics and we'll have to work back from effect to cause. What I can tell you is that it's easy and cheap to make."

My eyes scanned the audience.

"For the benefit of your readers and viewers I've uploaded a file to wikileaks containing details of how to make a crude experimental one. The password is 93asdfgh2014."

I repeated it again slowly before carrying on. "My admirable colleague Carol has outlined some of the benefits of my discovery so I feel I should mention some of the cons as well. The biggest of these will be the loss of privacy. Unfortunately the discovery cannot be unmade so it becomes a question of finding the best option. Trusting the powers that be with its exclusive use, or putting its power in the hands of the people and accepting that a small percentage of people will misuse it."

I saw a lot of thoughtful faces as I scanned the tiered rows.

"Some of you may think it arrogant of me to try to decide the fate of the world like this and though I can't foresee the eventual outcome I think the risk of putting it in the hands of the people is the lesser of the two evils. Imagine if you will the power it would give a dictator. Balance that against a society where every decision made by our elected representatives is open to public view, money could no longer influence the outcome, any misdeeds could be up on YouTube minutes after they were committed. The politician who crossed his voters wouldn't get re-elected. I think society will adjust and adapt but I also accept that it's going to change society in ways we don't expect. It's also going to change the playing field for businesses; I can see the entertainment industry suffering. Sports as well with fans being able to watch from home with a much better view. I realise also, that its introduction will probably lead to riots and revolutions, a fact that saddens me but doesn't shake my belief that this is the lesser evil."

There was a buzz of conversation coming from the audience, there were still a number calling questions but more were conversing with their neighbours or talking on their phones.

"I think now might be a good time to start taking questions," I announced over the hubbub.

None of the questions touched on the theory, a few were asking about its construction and I answered that first. Quite a few departed, including the camera crew, who had hurriedly packed up during my explanation of its construction.

Carol came to my rescue and closed the conference. A couple of the reporters continued to call out questions as Carol and I walked back to where Sally was starting to pack up our equipment.

"You shouldn't have mentioned the privacy aspect, the reaction is going to be a lot less favourable now," Carol said taking my arm.

"Perhaps, but I felt we had to be honest about it. The shoe I didn't want dropped was religion. I've given them enough to worry about in the present to keep them busy, they'll all be concentrating what it'll mean for the structure of society. In the end all that matters is getting the word out and I think we've achieved that objective."

"I wouldn't mind a peek at Mr Smythe-Brown's reaction when he hears about this," Sally said with a grin on her face.

"We'll have a look tomorrow if you want," I replied as I slipped free of Carols arm.

"Are you taking all that stuff back to your lab?" Carol asked.

"Yes, tuck it up safely for the night," I replied.

"I've got a few things to sort out here, I'll meet you over there when I've finished," she said.

I nodded and she turned to leave. I swivelled to Sally. "How do you think it went?" I asked.

"I liked the bit about arrogance and I was glad you mentioned 'riots and revolutions'. Giving them a taste of what we've been talking about, showing them it's the only logical choice. I don't remember you doing the Wikileaks file."

"That's my notes and a brief how-to on constructing a prototype, along with a parts list. I set it up that first night we ran the program."

She finished unplugging the computer and I picked it up to load it on the trolley while she gathered up the leads. Within ten minutes I had it all packed up and was ready to go. Carol was still talking to a few reporters as we wheeled it out.

Despite telling Carol we were taking it back to my lab I took it back downstairs and stowed it back in its old hiding place. We were waiting in the entrance hall for her when she came; two minutes later we were on our way to see Andy.

When we walked into the bar there was caption announcing breaking news on the TV, the headline following it mentioning my Time Tunnel. I nudged Sally and pointed it out.

Carol wasn't as excited about it as we were when we joined Andy at his table. I sat where I could see the screen as Andy took our order. The full headline said 'New breakthrough in physics. British University announces Time Tunnel'.

I was pleased and excited, it was going to dominate the news when it came on, the twenty four hour channels were probably already reporting on it. As the TV here was showing a football game I doubted they'd swap it over, I'd probably have to wait till we got back to Carol's to catch the full report.

Andy came back with the drinks and asked Carol how she thought it went. She gave him a brief outline of what she'd said and a more detailed report on my little speech. I defended what I'd said as nothing that wasn't obvious if you thought it through.

We went on to talk about the religious backlash. Andy pushed the idea that should we go back and find that god was indeed a creation of man's need to explain the unknown, then the anger of the religious would quickly fade as the videos hit the news.

My point was that the archaic languages were a barrier to understanding and that would allow the unscrupulous to carry on manipulating their 'flocks'. Just as it would take a generation or two to adjust to the new bounds of privacy, religion would die with the current generation with only a rump of fanatics left for the next to deal with.

Sally played devil's advocate and asked what if we found that Jesus and his miracles were real. None of us gave the question serious consideration with Andy's trite answer of 'We'd all be believers' summing up our reaction.

The conversation continued on to the topic of privacy and we speculated on how much of the financial 'industry' would survive. The traditional part would have to in one form our other but the trading parts were likely to wither.

The stock exchange would probably continue with everyone insider traders now, it might even return to its original function as a simple marketplace. Carol switched the subject to the entertainment industry, anything that charged admission was virtually doomed.

With a Time Tunnel you could pick your point of view in any arena, cinema, race track. That brought us to the celebrity stalking; I took a wry delight in reminding them that there were probably dozens of shadow watchers from the future watching us at that very moment.

That thought dampened the conversation for more than a few moments till Carol asked Sally about the Tunnel's benefits for astronomy. Sally gave her the details of her project. The sonar search she was planning for Europa.

It was past my normal bedtime when we called it a day and finally headed home. Andy gave us a lift to Carol's and then bid us goodnight. Despite my tiredness we turned the TV on and tuned in to a news channel.

We had to wait a few minutes while the weather finished. Then I saw a picture of myself on the screen and heard the newsreader give out my name and launch into an explanation my discovery.

From there it went to a panel discussion. They were an odd mix. Three Professors, a historian, an astronomer and a psycho-sociologist, the fourth member was a low level politician who was clearly out of his depth.

After about a minute listening to the History Professor extol the tunnels, I started channel surfing. Bloomburg were covering it, so were CNN. Fox had an item on healthcare. Al Jazeera had it on their chyron, but the Indian and Chinese stations had no mention that I could see.

I turned to Sally. "I think you can safely turn your phone on now, if that is, you want to be plagued by journalists."

"I take it you aren't," she replied.

"I've got mine switched to friends only. Anybody not on the list gets diverted to voicemail," Carol said.

"I also think it would be safe to move back to my place tomorrow but there'll be a crowd of reporters there as well. At least I get to have my car back, that's one freedom I've missed."

"You can stay as long as you want," Carol offered.

"Thanks, maybe another night. Oh, and while I think about it I can use the cash I drew out to pay you back," I said, my hand going to my jacket pocket.

"No, that's okay, it was only a couple of pounds."

"If you're sure?"

"Yes, don't worry about it. I'm going to open a bottle of wine and watch a bit more, see how the story is developing, before I go to bed."

I looked at Sally, she nodded. "I think we can spare time enough to share a glass with you."

We watched the BBC for a while noting that they were skirting the subject of privacy and featuring Carol's speech rather than mine. Whilst it wasn't a fair and balanced representation I had no objection to its bias to a point, it would keep the populace calm, but it looked like they were still deciding what position to take.

Sally finished her wine before me; I finished mine off as she snuggled up to me. Bidding Carol goodnight we made our way to the bedroom and enjoyable love making session before we went to sleep.

END.

Notes

We knew that mass was associated with the Higgs A boson, and theorised that the B boson was related to the electroweak force. I was conducting an experiment to stimulate them with an oscillating electric field (capacitor) cycling it between 125 and 127 GeV/c2.

Carbon Buckyballs as target (iron ones made to order by nanobots). Effects manifest themselves when resonance (positive feedback.) occurs.