[BTS] Writing in Gunpowder

Game Started 4/9/2012
Game restarted 6/11/3012
Imp. Knoedel replaces Inky 10/25/2012


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[BTS] Writing in Gunpowder

Posts below are for the game's story.

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Hawklord: Pro, Ch 1
Joao, “Evil One”

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Nighthawk: Pro, Ch 1
Anton Rubin Filaro

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Eclipse4449: Pro, Ch 1
Ezzard, Séraphin, Nina, Nadia, Fulbert, Lazare

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Imp. Knoedel

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Character List

Prologue; The Storm
Prologue; The Advisors

Chapter 1
Rocky Beach
The Pack is Hungry
Chapter 2
His last three minutes
Chapter 3
The Quest Part 1 Current times
Chapter 4
The Man
The Woman
Chapter 5
Napoleon's ascent
Chapter 6
La Hire
Chapter 7
The Messenger
Chapter 8
The Quest Part 2 Current times
Chapter 9
Who am I
Chapter 10
The First Settlement




Prologue; The Storm

They hold on for their life, their tiny boats tied together,
in the calm sea this worked great, able to pass necessities to and from all of the other boats.

But the sea churns like a hungry abyss now, the clouds close in and darken to black, the wind too strong for sails,
the rain blurrying their vision.

"Take DOWN the Sails!" is YELLED OUT but very few are strong enough or brave enough to stand in her STORM.
Men, woman and children screaming in fear.

Thrashing relentlesly together, knocking their people overboard,
these tiny vessels coming apart with each tall wave,

SHARP JAGGED ROCKS!!!, They didn't see it soon enough.
Less screams with each blow and then silence.



The scene fades to Black and the Nightmare begins

Table of Contents:

Ancient:

Prologue
What good is a Hamburger without beef?
Kraut Metal
New friends
Copperfields

Classical:

Spelling Bee
The Academy
Tao bless the King
Deutsche Zeitrechnung
Trade
Threats and Thieves
Russian insolence

Medieval:

Handouts
Civil War

Queen Isabella of the Spanish Empire

Table of Contents

Prologue - The Beach
Part 1
Chapter 1 - The Beach House
Chapter 2 - Spanish Ruins
Chapter 3 - Anton's Birth Certificate
Chapter 4 - Antonio's Lab Notes
Chapter 5 - Rubin Filaro
Chapter 6 - Ancient Madrid
Chapter 7 - Isabella I
Chapter 8 - Antonio’s Lab Notes, Continued
Chapter 9 - Welcome to Spain
Interlude and a Small Update

Author's Disclaimer: Some of the concepts and definitely some of the motivation for my story comes from Stephen King's The Dark Tower books. I take no shame in giving Mr. King all the rights and in a way this could be considered "fan fiction". The underlying story arc fits in well with his story and I take no credit for thinking of it. Please, if my story interests you, pick up The Dark Tower series (7 books!) and read it, its well worth the read and guaranteed will blow any story I can come up with out of the water!


Prologue – The Beach

Anton opens his eyes. Sand.


Where am I?


He lay there contemplating his fate for about 10 seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

Then it hit him. The experiment. Did it work?

With a sudden shock he gets up and looks at himself. Whew, he thinks, not naked… my clothes made it with me. And his gun? He the safety to the off position. I guess we will find out.

He takes the time to look around. A beach? He looks out over the water… some sort of beach. Maybe a lake. Doesn’t matter. He starts to walk. To his left is a gigantic forest, one bigger than he has ever seen in his lifetime. These trees make the ones at the preserve look like seedlings. He must have gone wwaaayyyy back.



Anton walks… and walks, and walks some more. The beach seems endless. His surroundings are the same. No sign of life other than an occasional rustling from the underbrush of the woods. He ain’t going in there, that’s for sure. He has his gun, but he isn’t exactly a trained KGB agent. And who knows what things lurk in there in god knows what time he is in.



For hours Anton walks. Not in a hurry, just… going nowhere. This wasn’t what he expected at all. He was supposed to arrive at least somewhere near some event of importance. Do humans event exist yet? He wonders if he will run into a Neanderthal with a club anytime soon.

In fact something had better happen, and soon. The sun is getting lower. He doesn’t know when he is supposed to go back, but he sure as hell doesn’t want to spend the night out here. When am I?

Just then a girl runs out of the woods ahead of him and runs to the water. She is beautiful all over… and only wearing a few hides over the important parts. Can’t be more than 13, Anton thinks. Guess that answers the question about when, it’s a long time ago. She doesn’t notice the strange man on the beach and runs into the shallow water, falling to her knees and crying, praying.

Before Anton can even process all this new information another gruff man runs out of the woods towards the girl. He also has only a few hides on him and is holding… yes a wooden club. There he is, Anton thinks, smiling to himself. Now if our history books are true he will whack her over the head and drag her by the hair back to his cave. He can’t help but laugh to himself, and continues walking slowly towards them.

Except upon further inspection this guy isn’t just your normal meathead at the gym. He is pure muscle, head to toe, and is faster than Anton realizes. He runs to the girl and doesn’t grab her by the hair to take to his cave, instead he grabs her and throws her down in the water right there. She screams and struggles, but this Neanderthal would overpower anyone from his time, man or woman. This girl doesn’t stand a chance. Anton breaks to a sprint… he isn’t taking her to his cave, he’s going to have his way with her right here, he thinks.

As Anton approaches, the Neanderthal notices when he runs into the water. He quickly turns and raises his club, yelling a battle cry. Anton his pistol and has a quick thought, I don’t even know if this is going to work! This could be trouble…

The Neanderthal charges, Anton draws. When he is about 6 feet away (man this guy is quick, Anton thinks) Anton pulls the trigger. Click. His face goes slack and like a deer in headlights he just stands there… suddenly facing death.

The girl has gotten up and is running after the Neanderthal. She yells her own battle cry, throwing shells at the gruff man. This is enough to give him slight pause and just enough time for Anton to snap out of it. He shakes the gun, smacks it against his hand and pulls the trigger. This time it fires, right into the water. The blast isn’t all that loud, but it’s completely foreign and shocking to the ancient people, who both stop in their tracks.

Anton raises the pistol once more. “Seems like it’s working now you .” Another blast and the Neanderthal falls into the water. “The bigger they are the harder they fall.”

The girl screams again and turns to run. Anton moves much quicker this time and grabs her arm. “It’s ok, it’s ok, please don’t run. I’m not going to hurt you.”

The girl fights him at first but quickly starts to understand. He lets go of her arm. “Please, its ok. I’m here to help. What’s your name?”

The girl looks at this strange man. He is clad in furs of a different kind she has never seen before. And what is that thing that killed her pursuer. The questions come faster than she can process them and she just stands there. Suddenly he begins to shimmer as he asks her name.

Anton suddenly feels sick. He looks at his hands and they are shimmering, then he can see through them. He asks himself, is this it? He looks at his hand again and then disappears.

The girl is shocked. She stands there looking at where the strange man used to be. Then finally she has an answer to his question. She finally speaks.



“My name is Isabella.”

subbed

Prologue
Little is known of the early history of the Portuguese nation though it is clear that they first settled on the banks of the River Lis. It was the development of small scale mining for metals and precious stones used in making small decorative jewellery and religious statues.



It is said that a great confrontation between Joao and the “Evil One” (who is never named in the legends) took place on the banks of the river Lis, the disagreement had come to a head and the Evil One had threatened to kill Joao. Joao called on the gods to show the Evil One the error of his ways, saying that he could not fight with one of the people. And lo and behold a great hawk descended from the heavens and struck the Evil One, raking it’s talons across his head. The Evil One was incensed and started towards Joao, whereupon Joao called on the Gods again, and the hawk swooped down striking him again. It was then that the people saw him for what he was and drove him from the camp. It was thus that Joao became known as the “Lord of the Hawk” and the people came to settle in one place. The Evil One was never seen again, though it is also known that he is still out there plotting the downfall of the Hawklords and he often sends agents to cause trouble for the people who spurned him.
Early Portuguese Myths and Folklore, Babcock and Babcock, 2012


Legend also has it that the Lord of the Hawk lived many times a normal man’s lifetimes, a gift bestowed on him by the Gods for defeating the Evil One. For many years Joao was seen as the chosen of the God’s, though many records show that his reign lasted for many generations, it is thought today that the name passed down from father to son and may have been a simple honorific title taken by a new leader in order to gain some of the Hawklord’s magic powers.

Whatever the truth is, this is the story of the Hawklords and the Portuguese nation.
1st Chronicle of the Hawklords
The Meeting

Watching thread.

Chapter 1 – The Beach House

Anton wakes up on the couch in his lab. In a daze he stumbles down, his gun slipping off his belt and into the cushions. He thinks about the strange dream he just had and wonders to himself if he will ever get the machine working. He can only hope to travel back as far as he dreamt, he could change history! Yes that was the point of this whole project, but he still has held his hopes in check. His work has been based only in theory, and while the theory states that such a wormhole could be created, it would be incredibly unstable.

He puts on his shoes and mixes himself a cocktail. I really have been working too hard lately, he thinks, falling asleep on the couch in the middle of the afternoon like that. And he has been working hard, but only for a few weeks. He used to work longer hours than this back at the Academy, what has gotten into him? The stress of the project must be taking a toll, this isn’t just some experiment run by a Professor who knows what the outcome will be, this is real life, he thinks.

The project started innocently enough. In one of his trips to downtown Madrid to pick up supplies, he not only was surprised to run into another human, but another scientist to boot. The older fellow was deep into conspiracy theories before the Nuclear Armageddon of 2362; since then he has just been searching for anyone with the will to listen. The man ambushed Anton while he searched the remnants of the corner deli, telling him of his theories from before the Armageddon. He talked nonsense mostly, about how time was slowing down, the world was “moving on,” and it wasn’t coincidence that the world had never been able to find peace since the year 1999. But mixed in with the nonsense were some theories about time travel Anton had read about before the nukes went off, except this guy seemed to know more than he ever read.

Anton left him that day, but not before agreeing to meet up with the old man weekly at the same deli. He was interested in hearing more about these time travel theories, but having a little human interaction was nice too, even if the guy was nuts. At first the meetings all were similar – the guy would show up late every time and talk about his conspiracy theories. About how the French caused the first war but the Russians were really just looking for a reason to go after the Portuguese and assimilate them like they did to the Spanish back in medieval times. And the kicker was that it was all nudged along by one person. Like one person could cause the world to break down like that!

Every now and then a bit of the time travel theory would slip into the conversation, which is when Anton’s interest really perked up. The theory was simple really; that time is the fourth dimension. Height, Length, Depth, Time. Of course this also came with the assumption that the entire timeline of the planet was essentially pre-determined, which threw free will out the window. But in theory, he said, you could create a wormhole which would allow someone to travel between the current time and some other time. The only problem is breaking down the barriers which keep us moving along the timeline and determining how to travel back, since the wormhole would only be at that specific point in time and disappear a second later.

One week the old man stopped showing up. Anton went back to their meeting place every week for the next two months, but he never saw the conspiracy theorist again. Normally, he would have moved on with his life, but in a post-apocalyptic world where the only things to do were loot the empty stores for supplies and read through the books of the world, why not take a shot? There was plenty of food for what remained of the human race in the form of canned and freeze dried goods, and he could get his hands on any mechanical devices he could ever need. He might as well use his training to do something productive. Worst case he fails and goes back to reading old news, best case he actually travels through time!

What Anton didn’t plan on was the obsession the project would cause in him. He started off just by going back to his lab from before the nukes and using the document reader to search through any old texts relating to time travel. What he uncovered was a whole underground network of people just like the old man, conspiracy theories and all. Within a week of reading he had found a design for a machine which could break down “the time barriers.” Why it hadn’t been built yet, he hadn’t a clue. Anton went to work gathering what he needed and started building the machine at his beach house, creating a new workspace out of his old living room. And now here he is, finishing a whiskey after an unexpected mid-afternoon nap, trying to regain some sanity in an empty, lonely world.

Prologue;
The Advisors

.
.



Wait who is missing?

Spoiler :

Oh here he comes now, this one is late for supper.

Sorry about that! Aaa, I saw a pretty girl, she had a loaf of bread, What can I say?
And I wasn't late for anything! Any idea when we’ll be departing?


We shall as soon as we see Eclipse or whenever he is ready, meanwhile why don’t we sit down and tell these folks a s story.


Oh lets tell them about how they got here,

Yes please that would be great!


Crash.....

.

Writing in Gunpowder

Elizabeth

Prologue - The Trial, P. 1

Prologue - The Trial


Between the entwining layers of an autumn breeze the softest song played in my ear. At first the melody rang quietly, but grew louder as the seconds ticked by. Recovering from the stark white of the world around me, I struggled to regain my world. What was only darkness before had erupted into the flowing colors of a vast forest. Green leaves twirled in their trees, casually dancing in the wind. They pulled at the stem, wriggling looser and looser but to no avail. The sigh of autumn grew in the distance. I stood staring, questioning everything when suddenly everything changed. As if the the world was a painting being ruined, the shining greens ran into rivers of orange and red.

The songbird sang louder and louder sending its celestial song into its climactic oblivion. The beginning of the end. What once was the rise became the fall and the song fell into it's outro. The leaves shuttered in the wind and with one last breath of chill air fell slowly to the ground. The beauty of death laid in wastes around me. The now bare trees swayed gently. The soft notes that graced my ear had dropped off. I stood at the edge of a vast field. The silence ebbed at my brain. I watched the masses of leaves fly past me on the current of their own fate, each falling to ruin in their own silent ballet.

In the center of the field was a short podium. Light reflected off of something small and golden on top. From across the field a group of strangers stepped from the treeline. All different in nature. Men and women staring fiercely at me and the podium. In a violent motion they lurched forward. They were running at full bore toward the podium. The strangers stumbled over each other, some of them pushing the others out of the way. One of them fell, dawning a scarlet slit across his throat. A women ran to the side, she stopped and blew soft kisses to the men, they fell to their knees before her. What was left of the group ran along side one another, smiling as if they were friends.

I had hesitated long enough. I sprinted until the small object came into clear view. The smallest crown shimmered in the sun. It resonated with undeniable power. In a moment of realization my legs quickened and my hands stretched out, begging for the crown. As my hand clasped the cold metal the mob had met me. The glint of sharpened steel was all that met my gaze before the scene around me melted into nothing.

I was on my back, gasping for sweet air. My hands reached out for salvation only to find the soft inner lining of a silken sheet. The hard ground replaced by my bed.

Chapter 1 - the early years
Somewhere between 4000BC and 3960BC a band of nomadic tribesmen settled on a bend in the river Lis. They were mostly still hunting and gathering but were skilled fishermen and there were signs that they were mining in small quantities in order to fashion small religious idols. They were also peacefully trading with other small tribes in the area.

They remained this way for over 300 years at which point at around 3680BC there is a rapid rise in the size of the settlement with a population of around 6000 people it had quite quickly became a large city state. There is evidence of small scale farming and animal husbandry. It is believed that the Portuguese were taught the secret of animal husbandry by a small tribe to the north as similar animal pens have been found that predate the earliest Portuguese evidence by a good 100 years.

By 3040BC the population had risen to 21000 people and the kings had at least 2 legions of trained warriors, one of which was always billeted in the city. It was around this time that organised work parties were set up and systematic improvement of the land was undertaken.

In the early part of the 3rd millennium French explorers from the east approached the Portuguese City State of Lisbon. It was these first meetings that created the underlying tension between France and Portugal that would have ramifications right through history and even to this day.



But that is another story....

Chapter One
The Rocky Beach


A man a woman and a young girl survive the storm!

They lay beaten on the rocky beach, boat debris crashing into them with every icy wave, their blood thickening. Ice forms, but the next wave melts it away.

In the background they here Wolves !!!​

May i interrupt your story? Really? Yes this is a fight scene right? He clears his throat



The two knelt beside her, neither sure what to do when the Wolves came.
They were soaked and sluggish, the girl to weak to even shiver. She must be warmed.


Behind him the Brown pack appears in the tree line, the Alpha's head lowers and steps forward, behind him his pack stops! On the Left, the Grey, on the Right the Tan pack steps out of the tree line.

Unrelated packs now know they are after the same easy meal.


The Brown pack divides, two go left and the others to the Right. They now stand to protect their leader and their dinner.
They move fast and silent toward their respected directions, and between Humans.
Hellish growls and barks everywhere. The Alpha's pack are bigger than the others so two against four is a nearly equal.

They Grey pack lowers their heads in unison and lung forward to attack the first two.
Tearing and biting with raw primal instinct, the battle is on!

The Tan pack is a bit more methodical, moves quicker than their pursuants

They cross the path of the Alpha on the way toward the child.

Placing himself in front of the running pack does nothing as the run by.
The closest to the Alpha, stops and turns for the fight.
The Alpha quickly overtakes him, taking him out of the equation. The other three make to the Humans. Unarmed and half frozen they know they are doomed.

The man stomps forward to meet a very deadly foe, the woman stoops and positions herself and the child, she picks up a melon sized stone and hurls it at the closest wolf to her. A direct hit! Right on that Wolf's head! It yelps and staggers and drops, the other two circle the man.

Is that so unbelievable that a woman can fight too?

Chapter One
The Pack is Hungry

I never heard that part of the story? please go on!
Really?

Out of the corner of his eyes he sees the stone tossed. The Alpha stands over this one now, clinging to a thread of life the alpha bites down and puts an end to a short misery.

The Alpha looks into the man's eyes and measures him, sensing that the other wolves are standing between him and dinner and the man was less opposing.

Taking a stance to deal with the three Tan wolves ready to end this story, he is attacked from behind by the Grey Pack.

The exchange vicious and at Three against one the fight was seemingly never ending, but yet over quick. They back off! They turn!

The eyes of the Predators are focused, each working to better another's chance of success.

The man and woman work together, they know its their only chance.

A faint to draw attention, and another stone tossed,
It's another direct hit, a yip!
The fight is to death but the odds now change.
A Grey takes hold of the Alpha and guarantees the outcome will change. Confident of victory the Grey looks at the man and the Alpha takes hold of the Grey, he is done, the Alpha stands over it as it takes its last breathe.

For the first time the man has a chance to act, until now he has been the focus, the prize.

How can two survive these odds!

The Lightning strikes again and the sound of thunder jolts them.
Wet, cold and sore, survival mode kicks in! And together he and the woman bait each nightmare so the other can throw another stone.


But this story takes a grim path here and is left out of most tales.

Remember, there is only one man and one woman here to carry on this Blood line.

The scene embedded in their memories forever. Against unmanageable odds, the man and Woman survive! But while the fight for life was happening, choices were made, and with that the end result, guilt and denial emerges and a wall is erected. They stand there on the beach in shock, unable to recount what had just happened when they saw the trail.Amorphis bows a gestures back towards Nina.
Nina entranced by the story teller's demeanor is caught unaware that the she was now the subject of this Tale.



She stares threw him, her eyes empty, and turns towards her man.

Shrouded vision blocks out the battle around her and she moves to him.
Like a calling. It is now her Will she is fighting, not the cold or the wind,
her rain soaked wrap caught the wind but did not slow her!

Chapter 2: His last three minutes
The strongest will survive and the weakest perish

Frederick of Germany
Table of Contents

Nothing (yet)

First story post should be in a couple of turns, at which point I will edit this

Chapter 2 - Spanish Ruins

The following is an excerpt from a Spanish newspaper publishing, summer of 2155 AD:

Madrid, Spain – Today researchers uncovered ancient cave drawings in the mines outside of Madrid. Archaeologists have recently unearthed what appear to be the remnants of the first settlements of homo-sapiens underneath Queen Isabella XVII’s Royal Palace. Ancient pottery, preserved in rock, and stone spear tips were unearthed last week. Today they have found drawings in caves which are assumed to be from ancient people. The drawings depict ancient warriors and their battle clubs hunting larger than life lions which are assumed to have roamed the ancient forests freely.

One drawing however, astounds even the most imaginative of archaeologists. In it a young woman is shown praying on her knees in the shallow water of the ocean shores. The next picture shows an ancient warrior raising his club to attack the woman. The third shows what appears to be an alien figure hovering over the ocean with lines drawn from his hands to the warrior. The last depiction shows a crowd of ancient figures bowing down to the young woman.

Archaeologists and historians have yet to determine the meaning of the drawings. Some believe these may be alien life forms which visited the planet in ancient times, and may have helped ancient people build the Pyramids. However some historians also believe this event may be the start of the Crown’s ancient tradition to pass rule over the country to the eldest female daughter upon death of the Queen. Popular theory is that rule is passed to the eldest daughter because females are thought to be of a more pure mind, heart and spirit than their male counterparts, however now the question has to be asked: Is there a different reason for this tradition? Did the ancient Spanish believe their female leaders had some connection to a higher power that was not available to men? The debate will be ongoing in the coming months for historians throughout Spain…

(Image attached: An artist's rendering of what ancient Madrid may have looked like.)

Chapter 3 – Anton’s Birth Certificate

Anton pushed himself away from the document reader, almost falling out of the chair. Confused and flooded with too many questions in his mind all at once, he gets up and immediately goes for a walk. He thinks to himself, time for a breath of fresh air. I must be going crazy.

After a few minutes of walking, his mind clears somewhat and he’s able to start to thinking straight. Let’s start first with the obvious – the cave drawings mentioned in the article are eerily reminiscent of the dream he had last week. Is it possible that it was more than just a dream?

And less obviously – since when was there a Queen Isabella XVII? Anton was Russian. Madrid hadn’t been part of an independent Spanish empire since medieval times. What was going on here?

It has to be some sort of error, a major misprint, some journalist with a deep Spanish heritage playing tricks. Anton turns on his heels and heads back to the library. Speaking aloud this time he says, “I’m just going to flip through some other articles to prove that this was a misprint and then forget the dream and move on with my life.” Except the dream he had was different than others. It hadn’t faded away like so many of the dreams we have, getting lost in our deep subconscious, only being remembered in the form of déjà vu. It had stuck with him; he remembered minutia details like it had happened yesterday.

He sits back down to the reader and does a search for “Queen Isabella XVII,” the queen he had never heard of before. As the machine processes, Anton closes his eyes and thinks that there should only be the one entry that will come up for this made up queen. He opens his eyes:

Results found: 5,496

Shock.

With wide eyes, Anton quickly scans some of the various newspaper and magazine articles, books, blogs and internet commentary. He finds out that Queen Isabella XVII lived from 2111 AD to 2210 AD, a full life at 99 years. She helped end (or at least temporarily pause) the Fifth Russo-Spanish war in 2153 shortly after becoming queen. It appeared that in her old age, her advisors ran the country, resulting in the Sixth Russo-Spanish war in 2199 which lasted until well after her death.

Anton looked up from the reader. Of course an hour had passed by, he had gotten lost in Isabella’s history like it was a great work of fiction. Which of course, to him, it was. He had never learned of this queen during his time at school, and for good reason, she hadn’t actually existed! Spain didn’t exist! Madrid was just another city in the glorious Russian empire!

So what now, he thinks. There’s no sense in doing more searches, flipping through more articles and spending even more time here. He was hungry and it was time for some lunch. The fact remains that the world is still an empty nuclear wasteland. Whether it was a Russo-Spanish war or a Russo-French war that caused it, the results are the same. There is still the distinct possibility that he is just going crazy. Being alone for this long would make anyone lose their mind. He didn’t think it would come in the form of making up a history of the world, but then again who really has any clue what it’s like to go crazy?

He decided that enough was enough. He would go home, heat up some of those canned baked beans he found the other day, and maybe crack open another bottle of Jack. If he was going to crazy, he might as well be happy about it.


It’s a few hours later (or at least what passes for hours these days, time is slowing down) and here we see Anton back at his house. The TV doesn’t work; there’s no networks left to broadcast anything. There is music playing, futuristic and foreign to our ears, but to Anton it’s old. He has the same library of songs that will never get updated, because there are no more people to produce music. It’s a sad state of affairs, you have to admit. No food but freeze dried and canned goods, minimal entertainment. He does have a working computer, powered from the generator out back, but Anton was never a big gamer. He was a scientist, but not exactly the brightest in his field. He coasted through the Academy, taking the time to enjoy socializing and partying. One could say he never really grew up after that either.

And so here is Anton, sitting on his couch, sipping his third glass of warm Jack Daniels because he has no ice, he doesn’t want to waste the power left in his generator on trivial nonsense like a working refrigerator. Muttering to himself, mostly wondering what he is going to do with himself for the rest of his life. At times he starts to more fully understand the old man he used to meet up with. The longer you are alone like this, the easier it is to look crazy. Who was he kidding, the easier it is to be crazy.

And imagine, suddenly, a light bulb over his head turning on. An idea comes to him, one that would prove it one way or the other. He gets up off the couch and runs upstairs to his work area, the same one where the time machine was built. He shuffles through papers on his desk, in the drawers, and finally finds it – a folded up and worn down piece of paper that is his birth certificate. He quickly opens it up and looks at his name:

Antonio Roland Salazar

He was as Spanish as the running of the bulls.

Chapter 4 – Antonio’s Lab Notes

Tuesday, June 25, 2367

You aren’t going to believe this, but I think I actually made a breakthrough. I haven’t made an entry in over a week, but that’s because I thought I needed a break. I woke up on the couch after what I thought was passing out due to exhaustion. I took a break for a while to get myself in a better place before starting work again, thinking that I can’t be effective if I’m falling asleep on the job and can’t even remember the details of what I was doing.

But now due to some recent revelations, I believe I may have actually traveled through time. Not just traveled through time either, I believe I have changed recorded history significantly, although the end result is still the same. If this is true then I may have the ability to go to certain events and bring about different outcomes, possibly preventing the Nuclear Armageddon and saving humanity.

Anyway, let’s get to the meat of the matter. I believe my previous theories may have been incorrect. Upon investigation of the machine, I noticed that it will no longer work. All fuses have been fried and half of the motherboard is melted. It clearly started up and ran, but then quickly burnt itself out. However while I was poking around in the machine to evaluate the damage, a screw popped loose and disappeared in thin air to the right of the machine, between it and my couch. I did not just lose the screw, with my own eyes I witnessed it drop and then disappear. It never hit the floor.

I decided to try tossing other objects into the two foot space between the end of the machine and end of the couch where the screw had disappeared. Anything else I tossed lightly in the area disappeared out of thin air. I believe this area contains the wormhole through which I traveled through time. There is no physical manifestation of the wormhole, but no object will stay in this space. The fact that there may be a wormhole there is contrary to my previous theory, which is that the wormhole would only exist at the exact moment in time that it was created.

It’s now my belief that rather than being a stagnant fourth dimension, time flows, much like a river would. By living, I am simply coasting down the river of time. I believe the machine may have caused a rip in time (what I’m calling a wormhole) connecting the space in time I am in to the beginning of recorded history of man, approximately 4000 BC. However rather than simply connecting two stagnant points in time, I believe the wormhole also moves through time, floating down the river similar to myself, which would explain why the wormhole continues to exist even though it is a week after I turned the machine on.

I also believe that the time travel itself is almost like a rubber band. By going through the wormhole, I am distorting the natural order of things, taking up space in the past that shouldn’t be used and leaving a space in the present that should be filled. Therefore, the longer I am in the past and the farther from the wormhole I travel, I… cause a stretching, is the only way to describe it. After a rubber band is stretched too far, it eventually rebounds and snaps back to its natural form. This could explain why when I traveled the first time, I eventually started to disappear and got snapped back to the present, whether I wanted to or not. I am beginning to wonder whether the rubber band can be stretched farther with multiple uses, a theory I intend to test with my next trip. An alternate scenario is that I stretch the rubber band so far that it snaps… which is a theory I would prefer not to test.

Lastly, I believe the actual travel through time is rough enough on humans that it knocks the human unconscious and causes brief memory loss, which would explain why I didn’t realize my first time travel experience had happened. It is very similar to a dream in a sense. More importantly, I believe that the time traveler himself is immune to the effects of changes to the timeline on his own history, which is why I did not realize it right away. My memories are different from the ones I apparently lived through. Strangely enough, my original memories are beginning to fade and feel old, almost like I have Alzheimer’s. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to identify any memories that I would consider “new” yet, which makes me believe that time travel could have some very nasty and unintended side effects. I can’t even begin to ponder the various paradoxes and other problems time travel could cause. I intend to keep more up with my journal, if only to remind myself what I have been doing should my memory get really bad.

I still have no way of knowing exactly what time the wormhole I created goes to, however if my theory is correct, when I go through it again, I expect it should be approximately a week after my first trip and I should be able to find the encampment of the young girl I saved, the girl who I believe is the first distant ancestor of the “new” line of Spanish Queens. Based on the new history that I have brushed up on, she should have survived long enough to lead her people to a permanent settlement in what is current day Madrid, so there is no reason to think she would have died during this time.

There is much work to be done if I am to rebuild the machine and possibly create another wormhole to a more specific past event in order to prevent the Nuclear Armageddon. I don’t know if I can control how big of a rip in time I create yet. In fact I believe I may need to rebuild the machine in another location so as not to interfere with this first wormhole. But the first step is to test my theories on the current wormhole and the idea of time travel itself.

If you are reading this, chances are I did not make it back. Or possibly, my memories have faded and I am unaware of what I have done. If so I warn you to stay away from the wormhole. It is dangerous and untested. Soon I am going to be the first true test.

Chapter 2:
His last three minutes



lightning-lulu

Nothing was said, but inside she was screaming, a rush of adrenalin.
He lay broken and battered. A Tan wolf takes notice and lunges at her, a large stone is thrown, it hits as it bites down on her, driving the canines deeper but dieing with the blow.

She shakes it off and makes it to him, she lay next to him and drew him straight,
His cold body stiff
His pupils large. She knows how to make him feel better, together they were often cold but their special act they did always made them feel better.
They lay on a stone bed, ungiving,
she covers him with her whole body, the sudden pressure of her weight against a stone snaps his back with a pop.

He arches his back with the pain and falls again. Motionless she grabs his face, the rain heavy.
Not knowing what happened she wraps her arms around him and slides forward to lift him. The expression on his face was shock. She shook him and settled on his lap. She parted.




Looking into his eyes she lowers his limp body.
A strong wave enveloped them washing them further up the beach entwined and back to where they were, his face changing, his eyes now seeing.

His last three minutes they cried, she wipes their tears from his eyes,
he blinks and sees her, his woman, their embrace, their last.
A salty tear falls back into his eye and stiffens his body, and she feels it.