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In the mid-38th century (OT calendar), Trans-temporal Combat Chess reached the peak of its popularity. The rules were simple– using traditional chess moves on a checkered floor, two teams maneuvered for strategic advantage. Each square was assigned a particular temporal-spacial milieu chosen from the known scope of human history. When two players challenged for a square, they would be transported to that location in space and time; possession of the square would be subsequently awarded to whichever player defeated the other in an appropriate temporal-social context, using only the tools and technology available to the natives.

Each player developed a combat specialty. Pawns, usually the least experienced players on the floor, faced simple challenges. Court players specialized as they gained skill. Rooks were engineers and manipulators of the physical world. Knights tended towards “races and chases,” challenges of movement. Bishops engaged in rhetoric or acts of persuasion. Queens, chosen from only the most skilled and experienced players, had to be ready for any type of challenge. Meanwhile, the Kings as the focus of the game floor, determined overall strategy.

Gameplay at the highest levels, which were also the most difficult and physically dangerous, could command audiences of billions….

*****

At the command, Miranda took her square on the chess floor. They were now in endgame, and many of the other players had already retired. She surveyed those who were left. To her experienced eye, the next move was obvious, and she turned and nodded to Jax, playing the Pearl King.

“Queen to King’s Bishop Five!” Jax called, as expected. Miranda grinned and traversed three diagonal squares to stand face to face with Cheshire, the remaining Jade Knight.

“The Pearl Queen challenges the Jade Knight!” called the referee. “Does Jade accept the challenge?”

Cheshire glanced back at his own King, who had the choice to forfeit the square for some strategic advantage. The Jade King stroked her beard judiciously and nodded. Cheshire flashed a cocky grin and called out, “Jade accepts!”

“The time and place is 1924, Pittsburg, Kansas! What challenge does Jade propose?” the referee asked.

“It’s Prohibition,” Cheshire replied. “The challenge is rum-running. One load of illegal spirits from Pittsburg to Kansas City.”

“Does Pearl accept the challenge?”

Miranda nodded. “Pearl gladly accepts.”

A chase, then, and a battle of wits. This sounded like fun.

(more…)

“No, that’s not it at all, Mr. Evans.  There is no such thing as travelling through time.  It is a bit of a misunderstanding in the public to be sure, but our company cannot, nor will it ever, send anyone back through time.”

I blinked a few times, “…Okay… Well, what exactly do you do then?”  I sat on the visitor’s side of a solid oak desk. The papers were stacked perfectly.  A pristine chrome-ish pen sat upright in its stand reflecting light from the desk lamp like a beacon.  There were no pictures frames.  Nothing out of order.  No clutter at all.  Just a stack of papers, the pen, and the desk light.

The rest of the room was just as polished.  Beige tile floor, no dust to be found even if I was looking on my hands and knees.  Bookshelves in perfect order along the walls on either side of the desk. A door behind me, and a blank wall in front of me.  The lighting was a warm yellow, which gave life to the otherwise sterile room.

Across the desk, sitting in the captain chair was the sales rep.  Broad shoulders, square jawline, and even a muscular neck. His suit pressed handsomely, and not a dimple or mole or freckle anywhere on his immaculate skin.  Maybe he was 50 years old judging by the gray peppered throughout his dark head of hair, but honestly, I had no idea. His smile was wide and toothy like a curious teenager.  And it never left his face.

Mr. Smith was pretty goddamn pleasant considering the mystery which surrounded all of this.

“I’m glad you asked, Dan.  Can I call you Dan?”

“Eh… Sure.”

“Well, you see, Timeline Unlimited is not a time travelling company.  We simply give people the opportunity to send their memories back, changing their personal timeline,” he shifted in his chair, “It’s not like the movies.  In the movies, you’ve got Van Damme jumping back and forth through time trying to save his wife by changing events in the past. But in real life, that kind of thing is impossible.  Pardon my French, but it’s bonafide bullshit.” (more…)

It would be nice if a delightful wormhole existed nearby. We could all travel through it to go visit different points of time on holiday. It would be grand fun. However, there is no such thing. Thus, that method of time travel, if really possible, is just a theory on the minds of some. Time travel can be seen as different things when one gets right down to it.

Take an ordinary healthy adult person and pause their body from aging. Do it by freezing them, by stasis, or by injecting them with a chemical. The details on this are not important. Just make sure they are stuck. Make sure the world, and time, moves forward without them.

Now, here’s the tricky part. After the world, and time, has aged a bit, you wake the person. You let the alarm go off blaring. You press play. You unstick them, unfreeze them, or inject them with a ‘go’ chemical. Again, the details are not important.

Time is relative. The unstuck person feels like he has traveled in time. Who are we to argue?

For thousands of years, people attempted to write down history, even attempted to make it interesting by engaging in dramatic and exciting story-telling, but to no avail. Person after person, civilization after civilization just kept making the same mistakes. They kept repeating the same kind of suffering over and over. Growth was limited.

The planet was dying. Something had to be done, so many people volunteered to travel to the future, to be living breathing interactive historians. Why read about a war when you could talk to someone who has seen it? At least, that was the justification for the first wave of time sleepers. Out of the thousands of volunteers, only thirty-two were chosen. An additional forty-eight were chosen to be their care-takers. Among them were pilots, doctors, engineers, scientists, botanists, anything one might need to survive in outer space on a specialty designed space craft that was going to travel away from Earth for one hundred fifty years before coming back. Several generations of the care-takers would have to keep things up and running and to keep the time sleepers stable. That meant generations of families. Over time, it also meant a new religion. (more…)

“Fuck Werner!”

“Who?”

LeBron James dribbled out the last four seconds with little pressure from the Sixers, as his team had a comfortable 11 point lead. The time ran out and he threw the ball in the air, embracing teammates Kevin Durant and Andrew Wiggins in the middle of the court. This was a historic night for James. Notching his fourth ring with the Toronto Raptors in as many years, and adding to the three he got in Houston, he had finally surpassed Michael Jordan’s legacy and cemented himself as the GOAT. At 36 years old, he could finally retire in peace.

“Wait, who’s Werner?”

Jeremiah smiled slyly and reached for his empty beer glass. Noticing how lightweight the glass felt he forcefully dropped it back on the table, probably still mad at the game.

“Want another beer?”

“Ah… sure.”

“Good. You’re buying.”

Kevin chuckled to himself, but quietly agreed. Unlike Jeremiah, who refused logic by being part of team #NEVERBRON, Kevin had actually made some money on this game. He pulled out his phone and went to the TrueSportsbetting app. Yes, he had made roughly $500, out of the more than $5,000 he had bet. The odds weren’t paying very much for the Raptors, with four all-stars on the team, they were by far the clear favorites. (more…)

Much needed August rain spotted her dusty wind shield as Caroline pressed her pass to the identifier, and then, her ring finger print. Nodding to the guard, she drove the FEMA van through the gate to the restricted area. Around her neck, were nine badges, and her eye was the final key to the interior lock of the old missile silo.

Caroline’s parents, Sophie and Frank, molecular physics professors, had spent their lives developing their dream. Unknown to the University and the Board of Regents, their true work was hidden in the confines of a superfund site. And now, passing through the final locked door, she was going to fulfill their dying wish.

Lead Engineer, Jordan, her handsome fiancé, greeted her in a warm embrace, nuzzling her neck. She air kissed his cheek and took off her hard hat.

Her father’s handpicked team of grad students was assembled. The systems were set. Alone, in the private office her parents had once occupied, she took deep breaths to shake off her pre-travel nerves. With a touch of a button, hidden under the chair rail on the wall, the panels silently moved to display the panorama of the lab just beyond the office door.

Sophie had designed this office to spend as much private time with her beloved husband as possible, as Frank kept his micromanaging eye on everything.

They had both cautioned Caroline to keep this view a secret, but she had decided to reveal it to Jordan when she returned from her travel. After all, he was her father’s most favored protégé, and they would be married next month.

From the windows, she watched the team activate the systems for the maiden near journey. Sophie had always planned that Caroline would be the first. Frank, a life-long feminist, thought it was a funny idea – taking the trip before she got her MRS. Degree, a sign that he approved of her engagement with Jordan.

It was Sophie’s idea to use a new minivan – in a style that hadn’t changed much for the past five years so it wouldn’t stand out in the near past and could be considered a desired antique in the decades to come. (more…)

Hart surveyed the team of Time Engineer s busying about the parking garage. He knew this mission was more likely than most to get him killed, but at least it promised to be extra interesting. Partly due to ‘technical challenges,’ but mostly because of his guest agent.

The spies Hart usually escorted into the past were quiet, stern, and in their mid-forties. They didn’t care about Hart’s part of the job—the ins and outs of time travel. They wanted to get straight to the secrets he could show them. But Agent Victoria Cross, a young, red-headed Brit, had been downright effervescent about traveling through time. As well she should be, Hart thought. His job was, after all, really cool. (more…)