Story Excerpt 1.

Story Excerpt 1.

Jan 05, 2022

I'd like to share an excerpt from the book I am working on. It should be noted that things will likely change for this and any other excerpts that I share.

“The time travel device that exists now has some obvious limitations,” added Donovan. He felt nervous speaking about such a device. He was a stranger in this world. He knew nothing about the concept of time travel here. The time travel device they had now seemed very commonplace. Just as commonplace that teleportation was. “First off, we can only observe. We can’t interact with anyone or anything.”

“But that observation is an exact occurrence of an event that has happened in that point of time! We are looking into a window of time!” another researcher said.

“Also consider how risky it would be to develop technology that allows one to actually travel across time. Perhaps it is best that this device acts as a one-way mirror into different points of time.”

“How would we test it in a safe and effective manner following Insight’s standards and policies?”

“This doesn’t make any sense! How did we test teleportation then?” Donovan countered hastily his voice rising. He should have thought more about his response. He knew the answer as soon as the question slipped off his tongue. It was an answer that was the most obvious and of common knowledge even if hardly knew anything about Insight and the technologies they’ve created. Everyone knew the basic story behind the creation of teleportation.

“Are you seriously neglecting the fact that teleportation was first tested on an inanimate object?” Maddox exclaimed, exasperated.

Flustered and speechless, Donovan immediately turned his attention to Maddox. “I realize that. But-“

“Might I also add that teleportation and time travel though similar, are two very different concepts and need to be analyzed and developed differently for obvious reasons. After the inanimate object, we moved on to testing teleportation on a living creature that one could deem insignificant if it did parish in our experiment.”

“A spider,” one researcher quietly commented.

Donovan felt foolish and hopeless. The fascination that he had with all of these science fiction concepts served no good here. As much as he tried to conceal it by doing as much research as possible on the technologies here, he still stood out. And now here was Maddox — an individual that was also passionate about technology and had been here at Insight for a long time. He was highly respected as he was very knowledgeable.

Nova let out a quick breath of annoyance. “I’d like to add something to this as well, Maddox.”

Maddox was briefly surprised at Rachel’s quick response and was at a loss of words. Rachel took this as a window of opportunity to speak up.

“I believe that it is very possible to develop a better time travel device following Insight’s standards and mission. I do believe it might even be possible to test it on an inanimate object.”

“Belief! Belief!” Maddox scoffed. “Mere beliefs are irrelevant to empirical evidence and confirmed facts.”

“Perhaps you could enlighten us, Nova, with any ideas you might have as to how we could test time travel on an inanimate object?” Dr. Maverick spoke up.

Nova felt her face grow red, flustered. “Maybe if we could develop the device so that we could actually observe where the object teleported through time to… I’m not sure how yet. Why I’d even volunteer to test the time travel device out myself!”

“Then as rash as you are sounding, you would be foolish to do so.” Maddox said simply.

What was with Maddox? He was very intelligent yet also very arrogant sounding.

What does Maddox know right now?

Donovan stared intently as Maddox hurled his points. He was genuinely exasperated by Maddox’s arrogance and had forgotten that he had even been wearing the telepathy device.

It was a very vague question. Donovan felt a very slight electrifying sensation on the nape of his neck as the telepathy device activated as it sensed a connection to his thoughts.

Dr. Maverick, Maddox, Nova, and the rest of the researchers and all of the surroundings began to fade out. Donovan was mesmerized, caught in a trance like state as his current surroundings slowly faded into something entirely different. Donovan was startled as the images were much clearer than what they had been. However, they were still choppy. Donovan saw flashes of visions like a sort of information dump. He focused intently on the images the telepathy device gave off, trying to make sense of them.

First, he heard Maddox’s voice speaking repetitively.

Who is this new researcher? Why is he so different?

He then immediately saw an image of his cell phone. He gasped in disbelief, grabbing a hold of the table and pulled back. Did Maddox know about his cellphone?

Another more precise question invaded Donovan’s mind. Why is Maddox so obsessed with creating a telepathy device?

Next, he saw a vision of Maddox inside Insight’s lab. He was surrounded by a few others who he didn’t recognize. These appeared to be people that were no longer a part of Insight. They were talking about a special kind of mind reading device. Telepathy! Next, appeared visuals of a rather peculiar looking device. It looked very advanced by what Donovan considered, but it wasn’t as discrete in design as the device he and Maddox were currently working on.

He began to feel nauseous and desperately tried to pull away from the images the telepathy device was giving off. The visons were so realistic that Donovan had a hard time deciding what was real and what was just an illusion of the device.

Finally, with the control of his mind that he did have, he abruptly got up. “I’m sorry. I have to step out for a moment,” he said shakily, rubbing his forehead.

As soon as he was out in the hall where absolutely no one would see him, he reached for the telepathy device. Doing so was difficult and took all of his concentration to simply reach for it. The visions were still vivid. He felt for the device and managed to yank it off.

What did he just see? Was it really what Maddox was thinking and what he knew?

As he quickly placed the telepathy device into his jacket pocket, a more disturbing question surfaced. How did Maddox find out about his cellphone? He was absolutely positive that he had always kept it secure in his pocket. He tapped his jacket pocket. His cellphone was indeed there.

And what was that vision of Maddox in the lab with those other researchers? Did Maddox know far more about that supposed telepathy device he had mentioned? Maybe that was why he was so attentive when Donovan merely brought up the topic of telepathy.

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