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The Chronologist

The pressure was enormous, the risks great. Thomas Derwin’s entire career hung on this briefing, this discovery. Time was essential. He had prepared this speech over and over again to get it right. Time travel could soon become more than science fiction. There were no windows in the hall, only lights hanging from the ceiling. Two hundred scientists and journalists would be questioning him on his discovery; its implications on human-kind. Eight years work was riding on this moment - Thomas would have liked a window. The room was incomprehensibly dark outside the spotlight. The air was thick with recycled oxygen and perfume, not to mention the stench of human body odour as the temperature rose. “I’ll be blunt,” Thomas said into the microphone, shocked at what his voice sounded like through the amplifiers. “My machine, my device, can allow not only the ability to see through time, but also the power to physically bend its walls an travel through them. So far I’ve only been able to go back an hour; power isn’t exactly cheap to run it. But with further resources, I could expand the wavelength and traverse further back. It could change history! We could stop J.F.K from being shot, or prevent Hitler rising to power. We could turn back the oppressors of the world’s most dangerous countries.” “And what about the implications on the future?” a man shouted. Thomas had been ready for it. “A good question,” he remarked, pushing his glasses back up onto the bridge of his nose. “The process would be careful. A good man’s death is a bad thing. A good nation’s a terrible one. We would only choose something if we were certain the world would avail of it. The future would only gain from the machine.” “And what about the dangers to the time-space continuum?” a woman called. “From my research, I’ve found that the universe can survive change. it’s still a hard thing to prove, but we can always undo the damage.” The briefing continued until at last came the demonstration. Thomas, sweaty and nervous, sat in the soft chair of his ‘time machine.’ The crowd were silent, hearts in their mouths. This was the moment most aimed for. The grinding of gears on gears filled the hall, thundering and vibrating everything. Light flowed from the machine, and at once Thomas and his device disappeared. The crowd gasped in shock. They had witnessed the man vanish. In the space of ten minutes, nothing seemed to have happened. Then an old man leapt to his feet and ran to the stage. “You can all go home now,” he told them. “The experiment was a success... And a failure. Thomas Derwin went back in time to my college fifty years ago. I just remembered.” He seemed senile, everyone thought so. “Two days after I met him, he was stabbed in the back.” He coughed into his withered hands. “There will be no chronologist like him now. He is dead.”