Cli-Fi
John J. Falco
I made 1000 posts on this forum!!!!!!! So in celebration I'll give you all a little taste of what I've been working on. Most of you should be familiar with my story.
This is the end of Chapter 3 of my WIP Israel Falls. In this scene we get a taste of time travel and how it all works. It's more fantasy and celestial rather than hard science. I hope you all enjoy.
*Squirrels and other animals are very important to this world.
---------------------------
Juliet stared at the salesman and at first she didn’t see anything, but then he pulled up his jacket sleeve slowly revealing what was under it. It had been a few years since she had seen the infamous blue triangle, and by the time she realized what she was looking at. It was too late. A glowing light emanated from his muscular forearm. At first she was mesmerized by the flicking glow and the vibrating sensation that seemed to fill the room, making everything else dance and swim. The walls suddenly turned to soup, all distorted and out of place, and soon she was lost somewhere in time and space.
The weightless holographical projection of her body floated aimlessly through the time stream. As she passed a soul collecting station, she somehow felt a weird watery sensation rising up from her stomach making it twist and turn, or at least giving the impression of such things. The endless supply of little white balls of light pouring out of the gigantic mouth of one of the longest time tubes she thought she ever saw, made her feel nauseous. What feeling these things odd sensations, in the time stream meant she couldn’t pinpoint. How could a consciousness feel matter?
She guessed it was another sneaky roadway, false exit, or impenetrable block stuffy elite time travelers conjured up in order to protect their stash of priceless souls! Yes, this was how time travel economics operated. An archaic system of religious devotion, paranoia, and greed. How God-like. The first reports of time travel had often been compared to what people experienced in Near-Death experiences. Eventually The Heaven’s Gate, an unofficial title for leaving this plane of existence, would be opened, synonymous with stepping inside to take a trip through the time stream.
Juliet had always known that the system as it stands, must have originated partly due to the political discourse in the high courts and partly, greed from the very first time travelers who claimed a monopoly over specified eras of great importance. The history of such things has been heavily kept under wraps, and she knew it must be for good reason. For the most part, she trusted the elites, there was no reason not to.
If they said that an era was unsafe, or someone else had already claimed it, who was she to question it? The daughter of a Carpenter? Both literally and figuratively. She floated near a piece of the time tube, a gigantic metallic structure that is nearly impossible to describe. She knew it well, her father had designed it, and she got to lay the first building block of its foundation.
She floated by a certain wavy piece of pipe that had those same familiar initials carved into it, “JM + JC 4evr.” The same signature imprinted on the fancy jewelry she wanted nothing to do with anymore. The watery sensation rose up her chest and she felt like she was running out of breath. So she moved closer, grabbed either end of the wavy pipe and willed it to budge.
Realizing what she now had to do she wondered at the impossibility of it all. For if she felt this way, looking at normal operating procedures, on the Celestial Plane of Existence, how did the first travelers ever even conceive of such a barbaric masterpiece?
The elites, man how she hated that term. Despised it so. They didn’t deserve the recognition that they got, and yet they remained a puzzling mystery to the top scholars of the day. There were even theories that the folks who gave the world the ability to time travel had been from the future, and the reason we don’t know their names is because they want it kept that way. For reasons unknown, but probably terrible. Did it start here? In the time stream? Or did the trouble start back on Earth and when?
Many had their suspicions and at the top of everyone’s list, was one man. Johnny McIntyre! Riding on the coattails of her father’s success in the markets Johnny didn’t care about his public image as a soul hoarder. He flaunted his wealth, from the souls and the timelines he had acquired in his day. To Juliet it seemed exotic at first, but it was his boldness and intelligence that ultimately won her over. Their relationship wasn’t without problems, though. Her parents seemed to love him more than she did, and eventually it was beginning to feel like an arranged marriage. She chuckled as she floated there, “The more advanced we get as a society, the more we devolve as people.”
Even when Johnny clearly messed something up—say a project that she had planned for even longer—her father let it go. No matter how much or how little damage Johnny did to the timeline, in the mind of the great David Carpenter, he could do no wrong and to her mother, he was the son she never had. Yet he had broken her heart on numerous occasions, even after coming to a mutual understanding that their status as a power couple was more important to this ridiculous system than their own well-being and sanity. It got so heated and so temperamental that he actually sent her to jail in his place. Replacing her likeness in every bad thing that he ever did to the timeline. The world thinks he’s such a goodie-goodie. All she had left of her father’s legacy was a nasty Nursing Home. That had to change.
She stared at the detached celestial pipe, she held in her weightless hands for a long time, before she crumpled it up into a little ball. Then, she threw it away into a pile of souls causing a few of them to fly out into the dark abyss. She didn’t care about causing a few rifts in the space-time continuum. A pang of joy leapt through her body and the uncomfortable feeling she was experiencing before had subsided.
“I’ll show them!” She didn’t need Johnny McIntyre to make a name for herself in this crazy world. She could make it all on her own, and if she had to bring him down in order to do it, so be it! By the time she was done with Johnny, rifts in the time line would be the last thing the authorities had to worry about.
With no way to tell how much time had passed or where she was heading, somehow in her mind of psychedelic thoughts, she conjured up a rudimentary plan of revenge. What she would do to Johnny McIntyre to make him suffer for what he did to her. How did that old saying go? Eye for an Eye? More like Soul for a soul.
Suddenly she came upon an acorn tree, in the middle of the time stream and a squirrel was sitting atop one of the branches. Astonishingly it was pointing its hand downwards. She looked down but didn’t see anything of importance. Confused she shrugged her shoulders and gave the squirrel her best looking perplexed face. It kicked an Acorn off the branch and it plopped squarely on her forehead.
“Ouch.” She went to yell at the squirrel but she found herself disoriented. As the time stream cleared up and she got used to her surroundings, she heard sirens and saw the commotion happening all around her. It seemed like a bomb had gone off inside. Inside…the Nursing Home! She briskly walked past security not noticing the little bushy critter nipping at her heels the whole way into the building.
This is the end of Chapter 3 of my WIP Israel Falls. In this scene we get a taste of time travel and how it all works. It's more fantasy and celestial rather than hard science. I hope you all enjoy.
*Squirrels and other animals are very important to this world.
---------------------------
Juliet stared at the salesman and at first she didn’t see anything, but then he pulled up his jacket sleeve slowly revealing what was under it. It had been a few years since she had seen the infamous blue triangle, and by the time she realized what she was looking at. It was too late. A glowing light emanated from his muscular forearm. At first she was mesmerized by the flicking glow and the vibrating sensation that seemed to fill the room, making everything else dance and swim. The walls suddenly turned to soup, all distorted and out of place, and soon she was lost somewhere in time and space.
The weightless holographical projection of her body floated aimlessly through the time stream. As she passed a soul collecting station, she somehow felt a weird watery sensation rising up from her stomach making it twist and turn, or at least giving the impression of such things. The endless supply of little white balls of light pouring out of the gigantic mouth of one of the longest time tubes she thought she ever saw, made her feel nauseous. What feeling these things odd sensations, in the time stream meant she couldn’t pinpoint. How could a consciousness feel matter?
She guessed it was another sneaky roadway, false exit, or impenetrable block stuffy elite time travelers conjured up in order to protect their stash of priceless souls! Yes, this was how time travel economics operated. An archaic system of religious devotion, paranoia, and greed. How God-like. The first reports of time travel had often been compared to what people experienced in Near-Death experiences. Eventually The Heaven’s Gate, an unofficial title for leaving this plane of existence, would be opened, synonymous with stepping inside to take a trip through the time stream.
Juliet had always known that the system as it stands, must have originated partly due to the political discourse in the high courts and partly, greed from the very first time travelers who claimed a monopoly over specified eras of great importance. The history of such things has been heavily kept under wraps, and she knew it must be for good reason. For the most part, she trusted the elites, there was no reason not to.
If they said that an era was unsafe, or someone else had already claimed it, who was she to question it? The daughter of a Carpenter? Both literally and figuratively. She floated near a piece of the time tube, a gigantic metallic structure that is nearly impossible to describe. She knew it well, her father had designed it, and she got to lay the first building block of its foundation.
She floated by a certain wavy piece of pipe that had those same familiar initials carved into it, “JM + JC 4evr.” The same signature imprinted on the fancy jewelry she wanted nothing to do with anymore. The watery sensation rose up her chest and she felt like she was running out of breath. So she moved closer, grabbed either end of the wavy pipe and willed it to budge.
Realizing what she now had to do she wondered at the impossibility of it all. For if she felt this way, looking at normal operating procedures, on the Celestial Plane of Existence, how did the first travelers ever even conceive of such a barbaric masterpiece?
The elites, man how she hated that term. Despised it so. They didn’t deserve the recognition that they got, and yet they remained a puzzling mystery to the top scholars of the day. There were even theories that the folks who gave the world the ability to time travel had been from the future, and the reason we don’t know their names is because they want it kept that way. For reasons unknown, but probably terrible. Did it start here? In the time stream? Or did the trouble start back on Earth and when?
Many had their suspicions and at the top of everyone’s list, was one man. Johnny McIntyre! Riding on the coattails of her father’s success in the markets Johnny didn’t care about his public image as a soul hoarder. He flaunted his wealth, from the souls and the timelines he had acquired in his day. To Juliet it seemed exotic at first, but it was his boldness and intelligence that ultimately won her over. Their relationship wasn’t without problems, though. Her parents seemed to love him more than she did, and eventually it was beginning to feel like an arranged marriage. She chuckled as she floated there, “The more advanced we get as a society, the more we devolve as people.”
Even when Johnny clearly messed something up—say a project that she had planned for even longer—her father let it go. No matter how much or how little damage Johnny did to the timeline, in the mind of the great David Carpenter, he could do no wrong and to her mother, he was the son she never had. Yet he had broken her heart on numerous occasions, even after coming to a mutual understanding that their status as a power couple was more important to this ridiculous system than their own well-being and sanity. It got so heated and so temperamental that he actually sent her to jail in his place. Replacing her likeness in every bad thing that he ever did to the timeline. The world thinks he’s such a goodie-goodie. All she had left of her father’s legacy was a nasty Nursing Home. That had to change.
She stared at the detached celestial pipe, she held in her weightless hands for a long time, before she crumpled it up into a little ball. Then, she threw it away into a pile of souls causing a few of them to fly out into the dark abyss. She didn’t care about causing a few rifts in the space-time continuum. A pang of joy leapt through her body and the uncomfortable feeling she was experiencing before had subsided.
“I’ll show them!” She didn’t need Johnny McIntyre to make a name for herself in this crazy world. She could make it all on her own, and if she had to bring him down in order to do it, so be it! By the time she was done with Johnny, rifts in the time line would be the last thing the authorities had to worry about.
With no way to tell how much time had passed or where she was heading, somehow in her mind of psychedelic thoughts, she conjured up a rudimentary plan of revenge. What she would do to Johnny McIntyre to make him suffer for what he did to her. How did that old saying go? Eye for an Eye? More like Soul for a soul.
Suddenly she came upon an acorn tree, in the middle of the time stream and a squirrel was sitting atop one of the branches. Astonishingly it was pointing its hand downwards. She looked down but didn’t see anything of importance. Confused she shrugged her shoulders and gave the squirrel her best looking perplexed face. It kicked an Acorn off the branch and it plopped squarely on her forehead.
“Ouch.” She went to yell at the squirrel but she found herself disoriented. As the time stream cleared up and she got used to her surroundings, she heard sirens and saw the commotion happening all around her. It seemed like a bomb had gone off inside. Inside…the Nursing Home! She briskly walked past security not noticing the little bushy critter nipping at her heels the whole way into the building.
