The theory and practice of Time Travel

Mr Daniels house was remarkably unchanged by the march of time. It was such a surreal experience that Ben found himself acting on instinct and walked up to the front door and rang the bell as he had done hundreds of times before.

It was early, but the sun was well and truly up now and activity had begun all over. Ben and Suzy waited for about ninety seconds before the door flew open and a scruffy faced man walked out.

Time had not been kind to Mr Daniels. In the future Ben knew him as old, bald and slightly pudgy. The man that stood before him now had a full head of dark hair and a tall, lean frame. But the face was very much the same, as was the energised expression.

“Can I help you?” He squinted at Ben, before softened his gaze when he noticed Suzy. “Ah! Susan! What brings you to my door? If your dad wants that fifty bucks I owe him he can wait until after I’ve had my first coffee of the day.”

Ben interjected. “Actually I’m the one who wanted to speak with you Sir,” he dug out the device from his pocket and showed it to the man. “Does this look familiar?”

Daniels mouth twitched a little. His eyes worked like tiny processors as they flickered about, taking in every inch of the device.“ I think …you better step inside.”

They were led into the living room while the man vanished upstairs. He came bounding back a few seconds later, a large piece of paper in his hand.

“Why don’t you explain to me,” he said, laying the device on a nearby coffee table before laying out his piece of paper right beside it. “Why you have a physical model of a device I just drew the blueprints for yesterday?”

Ben looked down at the piece of paper and confirmed with his own eyes the similarity. He was astounded, how had the man been working on the thing this far back?

Daniels locked eyes with Ben. “Son, I’m mostly sober right now, so I’m aware how this question will sound, but….are you from the future?”

“….yes.”

The scientist’s eyes shone with energy. “By god I knew it!” He slapped his knee, “oh how sweet vindication feels!” He looked at Ben again, his grin firmly affixed, “How far into the future exactly?”

Ben glanced at Suzy. “I…can’t really say.”

“I see,” he turned to the girl and smiled benignly, “Susan, I hate to be a pain…but could you…?”

She nodded in resignation. “Don’t worry I get it,” she rose to her feet, “fate of the cosmos or whatever. I’ll be in the kitchen making use of your coffee machine.”

They waited for her to leave and the moment they heard her footsteps echo down the hall Daniels fixed his gaze on Ben. He was like a surgeon trying to figure out where to make his first incision.

“Now, you’re going to need to be straight with me,” his voice was as solemn as a morticians. “Have you, to the best of your knowledge and understanding, done anything that might have altered the flow of history?”

Ben thought about being ambiguous with it, considered the ways to word things, to play coy. But in the end he couldn’t contain himself, he needed to unburden himself and Mr Daniels would have to be his confessor.

So he spilled his guts. Told him everything. Every single detail, both about who he was, when he was from, what he had done since arriving in the past and what his exact relationship was with Suzy.

The man took in everything, nodded a few times and then slumped back into his chair when Ben had finished. He facepalmed, looking utterly defeated by what he had been told.

“Mother of God,” he sighed, “what an absolute mess.” Another shake of the head. “You and her…my word, what a mess…”

“Yeah, it’s fucked up. I’m well aware of that.”

Daniels rubbed at his temple. “Well, the good news is that you might have just helped me better understand the laws of time travel.”

“What do you mean?”

The older man gestured about. “After all that you’ve done, you haven’t faded from existence and reality hasn’t been torn apart at the seams, so that would would imply the time stream is a lot sturdier than some of the theories would suggest.”

He gestured down at the blueprint. “I’ve considered three possible outcomes for time travel,” he held up one finger, “option one- someone could theoretically go back in time, but could never change or alter history because things are predetermined. Going back in time was always part of the initial timeline. A closed loop.”

Second finger came up. “Option two- you can go back, but whatever you do will radically effect the present you come from. You could theoretically undo your own existence if you tamper with things enough. But given all that you’ve told me, this one doesn’t seem likely.”

The third finger. “You can go back in time, you can alter things, but instead of it changing things in your history, it would instead create a divergent or alternate timeline. Personally, I’m inclined to believe this one is the most likely.”

Ben considered it. His mind struggled to grapple with some of the mechanics involved, but he understood enough of what Daniels was telling him to feel a little bit relieved. At the very least, he was safe from being written out of history.

But soon another question came to his mind.

“If I’ve created an alternate timeline, how would I go about finding my original one?”

Mr Daniels hummed thoughtfully. “Well, that’s a good question. But I won’t be able to give you an exact answer until I properly see the device and how future-me built it.”

“It’s …uh,” Ben shifted uncomfortably, “it’s out of juice.”

The old man sighed. “This’ll take longer than I thought...”