Time Traveller
The machine lurches sickeningly in that now-familiar way as it speeds through timezones and narrowly misses collisions with impossibility barriers. Your stomach performs a variety of acrobatics during the journey, leaving you feeling queasy when the machine finally lands with a thump.
Pushing open the door, you are appalled by the sight beyond. You must have made a miscalculation. Instead of the clinical white interior of the lab building, you are looking out on an immense, smouldering crater. There are charred, dismembered bodies scattered all about, and the remains of what was once a large structure. You double over and vomit explosively.
Something must be wrong. This is not the present day that you know. The smell of sulphur and stagnant water is in the air. Leaving the machine where it is, you negotiate your way across the crater and pull yourself up the side, clawing at the hot dirt. You slip and fall once or twice, but finally manage to pull yourself up over the lip.
As you stand and brush yourself off, your heart goes into your throat and you lose your breath. Before you are the skyscrapers and highways of the city you remember, but they are barren and dead. Fires rage in gaping holes, cars lay abandoned and lifeless and the sound of explosions is coming from somewhere. The air is stifling and hot, filled with dust.
"It wasn't your fault, you know," A voice you know says nearby. You turn to look into the battle-scarred, tense face of the overseer. His white lab coat is gone, replaced by jeans, a beaten old coat and a t-shirt. He is, to your shock, holding an AK-47 rifle.
"What? What do you mean? I don't understand." You say.
The overseer shrugs.
"Somethin' you did back there, during the experiment, it changed time, changed events. We ended up with this. I remember both, somehow." He waves back at the crater. "They dropped a bomb on the lab."
"Who is they?" You are terrified.
"Corporations, of course. Who else? You better get used to this, this is the rest of your life now."
The overseer looks startled all of a sudden. He cocks his head on one side, listening intently, and then swears loudly.
"That's them!" He cries, tossing you a pistol. Your trembling fingers strive for a grip on the metal as a low humming sound gets closer.
From within the buildings, an army of dark shapes has emerged, and heads in your direction. As you take aim and begin firing alongside the overseer's rifle bursts, you reflect that perhaps you should have chosen a different career.
Pushing open the door, you are appalled by the sight beyond. You must have made a miscalculation. Instead of the clinical white interior of the lab building, you are looking out on an immense, smouldering crater. There are charred, dismembered bodies scattered all about, and the remains of what was once a large structure. You double over and vomit explosively.
Something must be wrong. This is not the present day that you know. The smell of sulphur and stagnant water is in the air. Leaving the machine where it is, you negotiate your way across the crater and pull yourself up the side, clawing at the hot dirt. You slip and fall once or twice, but finally manage to pull yourself up over the lip.
As you stand and brush yourself off, your heart goes into your throat and you lose your breath. Before you are the skyscrapers and highways of the city you remember, but they are barren and dead. Fires rage in gaping holes, cars lay abandoned and lifeless and the sound of explosions is coming from somewhere. The air is stifling and hot, filled with dust.
"It wasn't your fault, you know," A voice you know says nearby. You turn to look into the battle-scarred, tense face of the overseer. His white lab coat is gone, replaced by jeans, a beaten old coat and a t-shirt. He is, to your shock, holding an AK-47 rifle.
"What? What do you mean? I don't understand." You say.
The overseer shrugs.
"Somethin' you did back there, during the experiment, it changed time, changed events. We ended up with this. I remember both, somehow." He waves back at the crater. "They dropped a bomb on the lab."
"Who is they?" You are terrified.
"Corporations, of course. Who else? You better get used to this, this is the rest of your life now."
The overseer looks startled all of a sudden. He cocks his head on one side, listening intently, and then swears loudly.
"That's them!" He cries, tossing you a pistol. Your trembling fingers strive for a grip on the metal as a low humming sound gets closer.
From within the buildings, an army of dark shapes has emerged, and heads in your direction. As you take aim and begin firing alongside the overseer's rifle bursts, you reflect that perhaps you should have chosen a different career.
