Origin Point -16 Hours

After laying Simon’s traps at the warehouse, he and Victor decided to return to Simon’s Harrogate flat and continue work on the time drive while waiting for pizza to arrive.

The interesting applications of the machine — that Samantha had not been informed of due to Simon’s unceremonious arrival — went far beyond messaging practice that Victor had mentioned. In addition to photon pairs being linked across space, they were also connected across time. If photons A and B were entangled, Photon B could be re-entangled with a new particle, Photon C, at a later date. Photon C would then affect Photon A while skipping the time in between their pairings. This meant they could send a message via their present photon to the original in the past.

If a pair were entangled today, for instance, then were re-entangled with another photon in a week, they would offer a direct line to seven days in the past. This in itself would be hugely lucrative to anyone with half a brain, but the machine would work fast enough to create new pairs within a tenth of a second of each other. Each pair could then be used in relay to reach any point between the present and the moment in the past when the machine first became operational.

Computing and sending messages via quantum entanglement wasn’t a new concept, scientists had been toying with the notion for decades. Victor, Simon and Spencer were just the first to make the method stable and reliable enough to use effectively. The key was in the method used to read the state of the photons; current techniques were unable to test an entangled photon without destroying it. The three physicists had cracked that particular problem, giving themselves a head start on the competition.

“You’ve been busy, did you make more photon boxes?” Victor asked as he surveyed Simon’s living room.

To call it a living room might be oxymoronic, as the area hadn’t enough space for living comfortably. The majority of the space was taken up by the group’s inventions and the devices they used to maintain them. Some of the tech had even spilt into Simon’s bedroom, and going to the bathroom during the night had become a drowsy obstacle course, resulting in minor injury more than once.

“I made another seven boxes so we can send a full byte in tandem, rather than in serial bit by bit, should improve the speed and efficiency even further.”

“Faster than what was already virtually instantaneous?”

“Cheating time is what we’re all about right now.”

“Fair point.”

There was a knock at the door. Knowing that the pizza guy would have to use the intercom to gain entry to the building, Victor looked to Simon inquisitively. Simon held a finger to his lips. Victor kept silent. What? He mouthed to Simon. Simon shrugged.

“Mr Raines!” A voice called from the corridor outside the flat. “I know you’re in there. I can see the light from under the door, and your car is parked outside. I need your rent and the arrears by tomorrow, or I’ll have no choice but to evict you. You’re three months behind, it’s unacceptable. I should have removed you when you missed the first month. Mr Raines! I can see your lights!”

“I keep the lights on, so burglars think I’m home,” Simon shouted.

Victor held his palms to the air in a ‘what the hell’ gesture. Simon looked clueless.

“Whatever,” the voice responded, “you have until tomorrow, or you’re out.”

Simon went to the door to hear footsteps retreating through the passage beyond.

“Phew, that was close.” he said.

“Yeah, Simon, I think you got away with it,” Victor said, incredulously. “Stealthy.”

“Yeah?” Simon said, oblivious to the sarcasm. “I have no idea where I’m getting the rent, so I’m glad he left.”

“Simon, did you not hear him? You’ll have nowhere to live tomorrow if you don’t give him what you owe.”

“Oh, he always says that, it’ll be fine. These boxes are going to be like our own private mint.”

“I don’t know, mate, it didn’t sound that way. That it’s fine, I mean, the second part was right.”

“Either way, I’ll be able to afford a mansion once this gets switched on. Not that I’d waste money on that kind of thing. I just need work and sleep space.”

“Well, we’d better step up the schedule a bit. We can run the first test tomorrow.”

“Sure. These eight are all ready to go, we should probably get started on another eight.”

“The container for the boxes and the intermediation is going to be quite big, not really plug and play is it?”

“We’ll have chance to upgrade them as we go, I’d say I could fit all eight photons and the sensors in a package that’s two by one by one inch. Once we’re operational, we’ll have the funds to miniaturise them in no time.”

“Literally, if this works.”

“It’s going to work. It has to. I spent all my rent on these boxes and the materials for the other eight I’m going to get started on now.”

“Probably not the best idea, the drive will work fine with one box on each end. You need a place to sleep if we’re going to continue this project.”

“I just wanted to make the first test as efficient as possible, so we have the best starting position. Hopefully, we’ll see profit in time to pay my arrears. If it comes down to a race against time, we’ll win.”

“Yeah, time’s gonna be our bitch,” Victor said, joining in with Simon’s positivity. “Once this thing’s on, we’ll be closer to having all the time in the world than anyone, ever. Louis Armstrong can suck it.”

“Our machine can’t send messages back to the seventies when he died, it will only go back as far as when we first switch it on.”

“It was a figure of speech, Si,” Victor said, amazed once more by Simon’s literal-mindedness. “Even if we put aside the fact that I didn’t even exist before ‘89, I don’t plan on using our revolutionary, world-changing device to send a message back in time and bag myself a BJ from an old jazz man.”

“Okay, that’s good, I don’t imagine Doc Brown would have approved of that.”

“No,” Victor adopted his best Christopher Lloyd impression. ‘I didn’t invent the time machine to solicit oral sex from old jazz men, Marty, I invented the time machine to travel through time!’”

They both laughed until the front door buzzer sounded.

“That’ll be the pizza,” Simon said as he went to buzz the delivery person in via the intercom handset on the wall by the flat’s front door.

Victor perused the eight boxes on the hardware strewn table in front of him. These little boxes were about to make history, and remake future history. He gave the boxes a pat and smiled, his life, and the lives of his two best friends were about to become a lot more exciting thanks to these black plastic objects and their contents. The drive to which the future data-stream would be downloaded was seated next to the boxes. Currently a box of about two square feet filled with standard 3.5” personal computer hard drives. The box was modular, so they could add extra data storage when needed. They were to use a custom built program on Simon’s laptop to write to the hard drive externally. Once the machine was running smoothly, the laptop would be replaced by a desktop computer, allowing further upgrades. When the plan was in full swing, the team would receive messages from their future selves, informing them of how to improve the system beyond the capabilities of their present time’s technological limitations.

Simon returned to the non-living room. “I don’t suppose you could lend me some money towards my half of dinner could you?”

“How much of it?” Victor asked, pulling out his wallet.

“Let’s see, erm, roughly, ahh, all... of it.”

“OK, since you shelled out for the new boxes.” Victor sighed. “You’ll have to let me share the cost of that too, although I suppose it won’t matter soon enough.”