Time Travel 101: Huxley's Leap

So, here's the beginning of a time travel tourism idea that I have been playing around with lately. I've decided to rewrite it to be a lot darker (surprise, surprise) but enjoyed playing with the paradox problems!

Huxley’s Leap

“This way please for the Battle of Hastings Time Tour. Yes madam, this way. Please take a seat and secure any belongings. No sir, the Building of Stonehenge Spectacular is just down the corridor to your right, just after the 13.15 to The Shakespeare Experience. Yes, thank you. Please sit in your ticketed seats.”

Once the pod was full, Huxley went through the general safety procedures; customers must remain in their seats at all time, customers may take photos but please, no flash, customers are to use the supplied vomit-bags if affected by G-sickness during the leap.

“Are there any questions?”

An older lady in the middle row raised her hand. A virgin-leaper, he could tell.

“What if I faint, on account of all the blood?”

A fair question, admitted Huxley, and one that often came up.

“Well, you are strapped in so you won’t have to worry about falling. Other than that, we do keep supplies to revive people if they do lose consciousness. Most leapers are completely fine, if you do start to feel queasy, just pretend you’re watching a film or tubebox programme. That seems to help.”

There weren’t any more questions after that. He went round each leaper, sixteen in total, checking their straps, mouth compressors (which, as he explained, prevented a person biting on their tongue during the leap) and heart rates. Everything looked to be in order.

“Ok, as we’re all ready. Please remember to stay calm during the leap, everything is under control and you are completely safe.”

He nodded to the whitecoat who gave him the thumbs up. Huxley took his own seat, strapped himself in, and pressed the button in front of him. They leapt.

He had grown used to the sensation during his six years working at Time Tours™ but he was still left with a flutter in the lower stomach and a certain sparkling behind the eyes. Occasionally he’d open one eye, just a slit, to see what it looked like. He’d soon squeeze it shut again though, the sensation of looking out from behind a waterfall and up from the bottom of a well at the same time was too much to handle. He preferred to live the sensation inside his head.

 When the swirling came to an abrupt stop, Huxley knew they had arrived. He released his straps and pulled out his compressor. Below him, the shouting and clashing of metal rose up from the battlefield. He turned down the volume control in the pod and switched its walls to total clarity.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you can see by the timer we have reached October 14^th 1066, and are currently approximately seven miles north-west of modern-day Hastings,” Huxley announced, “Here you can see the army of Duke William II of Normandy, with the kite-shaped shields, advancing on the Anglo-Saxons, led by King Harold. There you can see Senlac Ridge...” He continued his narration without needing to refer to his notes, he had been on the Hastings tour four times this week alone.

He let the leapers gaze through the concave walls as he talked, the pod floating in its pre-ordained route over the field. A man in the front row jumped in his seat as an arrow whistled past, feet from his face.

“It’s ok sir,” said Huxley, “Researches have calculated a completely safe route for the pod to materialise, one which is safe for it to travel in, without a bird, missile or even arrow bouncing off it.” He treated the man to a reassuring smile.

The Past-Timers could not be given even the slightest clue that the pod was there so every precaution was taken to ensure that their presence remained a secret. The pods had been made semi-permeable which meant that vapour and gas, such as clouds, could pass right through. Without this, substances such as smoke would gather underneath and show their form, but it also gave the added advantage of experiencing the smells of the age. Leapers loved the clean, fresh air of pre-industrial revolution eras and the roasting scent of real meat at the Elizabethan banquets. The porous material could of course be closed up, an essential adaptation for visits to 60s Vietnam or gas battles, like the Somme.

 You don’t get that on the tubebox.

“Please, do take pictures.”

The pod slowly span in its seemingly erratic but computerised path. His favourite bit was coming up, when an Anglo-Saxon is run through (armour and all) by a Norman sword and falls to the ground, only to show unexpected strength by scrambling to his feet and jabbing his spear right through the neck of the Norman. Huxley did not draw the leaper’s attention to the happening, but chose to enjoy it privately. It was his special event, he had his moments on all his tours.

The highlight for many was the death of Harold, by an arrow to an eye. It was nice for the pioneering t-travellers to be able to confirm that, after so much speculation throughout the centuries. There was an optional add-on to the Hastings tour, which was the final few stitches of the Bayeux Tapestry, but it was proving to be unpopular. It turns out that watching embroidery in real-time was not that interesting, even if it was during the 1070s. Huxley had strongly suggested that Kristeva cut it from the package. She was considering it.

 

 

The Hastings tour took about three hours, from start to finish, encompassing the more dramatic parts of the battle, swooping in and out for perspective when the Past-time action would allow. They didn’t hang around for the clean-up.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of the tour for today. Thank you so much for choosing to time travel with Time Tours. Don’t forget to check out our extensive catalogue of tours for you to pick and enjoy, if you book today you’ll receive a 25% discount. I can definitely recommend the ‘Wright Flight’ Special, it’s a perfect winter-warmer. I do hope you enjoyed your tour today, and we’ll see you again soon. Thanks.”

Huxley had one more Hastings before the end of his shift, which went off without any hitches. Apart from a vommer on the leap, but he was used to that. He turned off the lights behind him, securing the lab and leaving the machines humming quietly. He chatted with Security Simon on the front desk for a few minutes before registering his Time Tours™ ID card with the drone stationed at the door, then stepping out into the night. The doors hissed shut behind him, slicing in half the drone’s monotone, ‘Goodnight, Mr. Len’.

The neon colours reflected mutely in the frozen puddles which beaded the kerb. Huxley stuffed his hands into his pockets, turned up his jacket to 26° and crossed the road to the 25 hour shop to pick up the things he’d promised Sara he would. Once outside, bag in hand, he lit a cigabetter before heading down the street toward the nearest chute stop.

“Good evening sir or madam, what is your destination?”

“Huxley Len, 00624039, Home.”

“Very well, Mr Len.”

The chute veered off towards the Len residence. Huxley used the down time to think about ways to improve his tour sales. Kristeva had been going on at him about the low uptake numbers on the World War packages, previously their biggest. The problem with history, as he had explained, was that it didn’t change. There was only so many times you could go on a tour before you wanted to see something else. The World Wars had been popular at the beginning but now customers were becoming more eclectic, they wanted to see the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the first man on the moon, Beethoven live, the eruption of Krakatoa.

There had also been a significant rise in the number of personal, tailored tours; much more expensive and completely private. There were the usual; the wedding of the leaper’s parents, their first birthday, assorted happy times before death and disease had elbowed their way in. And also a worrying trend for older leaper’s travelling back to go and see their own birth. There was something weird about that, incestuous almost, Huxley thought. He could definitely be completely fine without ever seeing another greyish, slippery blob being wrenched out of a screaming woman. It was too old school, too graphic – he was glad technology had eradicated that inconvenience once and for all.

There was always the JFK assassination, Huxley thought as he pressed his eye to the cornea lock, that tour was still as popular as ever. It had been a massive breakthrough of course, whoever had suspected her?

“Sara, I’m home!”

“I’m in here, did you pick up those things?”

“Yeah, I’ve put them on the kitchen table.”

He stepped down in the living room to find Sara plugged into an audio book. Probably Austen, Huxley thought, she had gone on the Regency Romance tour more times then he cared to remember.

“Where are the kids?” he asked as he let himself fall onto the settee next to her.

She paused the audio, “Up in their room on their VR sets, there was some new pandemic game out, or something.” She tuned back to her book.

“You should be careful what they play on there, I’m not sure I like them being subjected to all that violence.”

“This coming from the man whose job entails taking gaggling tourists to see murders, genocide and terrorism in real time. I hardly think it’s going to have any effect on them, pandemics are as dead as the rhino. It’s the same as them playing at shooting up zombies or Nazis.”

Huxley acquiesced. She was probably right, she usually was.