Author: David C. Nutt

“How’d did your last trip go Vincent?”
(Sigh) “Not good Director. We keep hitting the same walls. No matter what we do, nothing has an effect.”
“Nothing?”
“You heard it right chief, nothing.”
“Maybe we should go for a larger effect.”
“Like killing Hitler? Sorry to disappoint you but when our fifth attempt to alter the timeline did not work, Anderson went off the deep end. His targets were Hitler, Mao, Alexander the Great, Aristotle, and Jesus. Oh, and his uncle Phil.”
“Phil?”
“Maternal uncle. Apparently a real douche bag.”
“When you say nothing, what exactly do you mean?”
“Just that boss, nothing. And when I mean nothing the big nothing. Anderson dialed into the 1925 rally at Nuremberg and not only did the weapon malfunction, he was ejected from history.”
“What!”
“Furthermore, each time he dialed in to do the deed as soon as the attempt failed, he just materialized right back to our point of origin. We even repeated his ‘experiment’ and even less happened. ”
“Time index. What was his time index for each event?”
“His and our taskers took eight hours subjective and zero time actual.”
“Wait: Zero time actual? That’s not possible. There should have been some indication of time spent if only the time it took to dial the controls.”
“Roger that sir, but according to the logs we spent zero time, time traveling. Oh, and it gets better still. Now we can’t travel at all.”
“Machine malfunction?”
“Nope. The techs tell us everything is in perfect working order. Circuits fine, no shorts in the systems, controls, all in perfect order. And before you ask, I scrambled the beta site teams and the gamma and the delta. Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Any speculations?”
“Yes, sir. We assembled the team and during the debrief we all came to the same conclusion.”
“And?”
“That the universe is a lot more involved in us than we thought and it doesn’t want us to time travel.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes sir.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. Cease operations immediately and disassemble the project as if it never existed within the next 24 hours. Oh, you’ll find all our resignations along with our final report.”
“A bit draconian don’t you think? Seeing as you actually did travel in time don’t you think it warrants another attempt?”
“No, sir. It’s clear to us that the universe does not want us to continue.”
“Really? As men and women of Science don’t you think you’re anthropomorphized this a just a tad?”
“Well, normally I would agree with you but as you know to check our time index we look at before and after shots of seven constellations of known configurations. Their movement gives us a reference point for time. ”
“I fail to see-“
Vincent spread a folder of time-indexed photos on the table in before the Director. His eyes became as wide as saucers. “How is this possible? This has got to be a trick.”
Vincent shook his head. “Checked and rechecked. Had security run a level 10 diagnostic sweep to see if we have been hacked. I have done all the due diligence and then some. The results, however bizarre, speak for themselves.”
Vincent tapped the time-indexed photos of the constellations. The Director closed his eyes and sighed deeply. “For the record, tell me what you see in the photos of the constellations please.”
Vincent took a deep breath. “That of the seven known constellations we use for time travel authentication and verification, all seven have realigned to spell the word ‘NO.’”