A Point in Spacetime

It had taken three days to go through my Great Grandpa’s house. He had the old mill converted over to generate power for the property. It seemed to be working. That was good because I had no idea what to do if it broke. It powered the cherry orchard he had inherited from his father. He had made it work for him all his life.

Most of the stuff in the house was junk that meant something to him only. There were menus from the many cruises that he and great-grandma Charlotte went on before she died. After she died, he withdrew from everybody. These last five years, he was never away from his house. When he went missing last month, the family was in shock. We searched for a month. All around the area of his house, nothing. Not a sign of him. The forest service said that Mountain Lions had been very active in the area. I did not want to think about being eaten by an animal. I tried to put it out of my mind, but every sound made it pop back into my thoughts.

My wife Kim and I lived in Tucson, Arizona, but Grandpa had lived at the Cherry Orchard in a valley near High Rolls, New Mexico. We were the closest relatives. The rest of the family would call in and ask how it was going? Is there was anything they could do to help? When I suggested mopping and cleaning the floor for sale, they would laugh and say goodbye.

“I guess we are done in the house, Kim,” I said as we ate breakfast in the now cleaned kitchen at the table.

“That old barn mill gives me the creeps, Mark. The mill pond is pitch black the water running over the water wheel skinks.”

Kim was afraid of critters. Unfortunately, I could not just clear the old mill barn of its residents. Kim was very hesitant.

I unlocked the chain that was put on the door by Grandpa’s friend Chris. He was the one who contacted us to say that Grandpa was missing.

I pulled on one of the old doors. It would not move. Kim came over and pulled too.

“Kim, come on, pull with all you got.”

After a few minutes together, we got it opened. As we entered, we were very aware that we were not the only life here.

We walked into the enclosed space, and you were stuck by the smell of fermented cherries plus the sound of the water wheel generating power. There were places to handle cherries to make cider. Old carts, bins, presses, and tanks all aged to with a fine patina that the collectors were crazy about now.

“Well, Kim, some of this is antique. We can sell it, I guess.”

We spent an hour just looking at all the stuff in the area. There was a trap door at the back of the mill barn. I opened it, and there were stone steps that lead to the darkness. Was it an old root cellar? I got a flashlight and started down the steps. Kim stood at the top of the steps and watched me go into the darkness.

“Kim, get down here. You won’t believe it.”

There were electronics everywhere. Only it was old. Some of the equipment used tubes. I found a light switch, and the room was vast. It went into the mountain.

Kim came down when I turned on the lights and said, “What is this, Mark?”

“Kim, this is some sort of lab, only the equipment is old like from the 1960s. It looks like stuff from when Grandpa worked for the big blue computer company.”

We walked down an aisle. To either side were racks with scrap electronics. After like ten rows of junk, we stepped into an opening. On one wall were five electronic equipment cabinets, a desk, and a bookshelf. On another wall was an old mainframe computer with two high-speed tape drives and four big disk drives.

On the last wall was a platform. On the platform were five huge coils in a big five-point pentagon. The inner part of the structure was just big enough to step through. There were cables neatly strung in every direction.

“Mark, what is this thing?”

“I don’t know, Kim.”

I walked over to the bookcase. On the top shelf were three engineering notebooks. I pick the first one.

I sat down at the desk, intending to thumb through the book, but the first entry stopped me.

196108012130 (September 1, 1961, 9:30 pm) There was some sort of explosion out in the woods behind the house. I went to investigate. It looked like a bomb had gone off. A couple of trees were flat on the ground. Some of the branches were smoking in the center of the blast zone. Laying on the ground was a woman. I brought her back to consciousness, but she was not in good shape. Her hair was singed, and an eyebrow was gone. She had a couple of burn marks on her clothes. She walked but seemed to have no idea what was happening. She was in some sort of shock. There was no vehicle, just her. I brought her to the house. She was hurt, but it was all superficial. She seemed very disoriented and confused. I put her in a guest room, and she slept for the night. In the morning, when she woke up, she came into the main room. I was working on my computer.

She said, in perfect English, “Where am I?”

I said, “You’re in High Rolls, New Mexico, USA, Earth. Where did you come from?”

She said, “I was in a lab at White Sands. We were experimenting with a displacement device for instantaneous movement from point to point. How far am I from White Sands?”

“Quite a ways,” I said, “We are close to Cloudcroft. Do you know where that is?”

“Yes, can I use your phone?”

“Sure.”

I walked over to the phone and handed it to her.

She said, “Where did you get this relic?”

I said, “It’s only three years old. It’s not an antique.”

She said, “What? What’s the date?”

I said, “It is August 1, 1962.”

She dropped to the couch, “1962? It’s 2156.”

I stopped typing and looked at her, “It is 1962. Maybe you should tell me just what is going on here. I’m William Nolan. I run my cherry orchid here. Who are you?”

She said, “I’m Dr. Charlotte Ford. I am a researcher at one of the secret facilities at White Sands. That is all I can say.”

She dialed a number, and I heard it say that it was a number that was not in service.

She said, “I need to run some data to try and understand what has happened.”

“You are welcome to use my computer.”

She said, “That antique toy will never do it. I need a real computer.”

“They have real computers where I used to work at the big blue computer company, but mainframes are expensive.”

She looked at me and said, “This is a nightmare. What am I going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “Have a cup of coffee and some breakfast.”

The next entry was 196210040734 (October 4, 1962, 734 am). It was in different handwriting. I have made a series of investments. They are starting to pay off. I have bought a mainframe. I can’t believe it. It uses paper tape to boot. I’m trapped in the past with none of my equipment and no way to contact my team. I am going to have to write the program to analyze the data I don’t have. This is going to be hard.

196212142030 (December 14, 1962, 8:30 pm)

After I did the data analysis, there is only one conclusion. We were trying to move to a place in spacetime. We failed to understand that we were moving to a position time was a part of that position. In other words, a point in space-time is a point in spacetime. The time reference is a part of that position.

The next three books were Charlottes notes. She made a device, she and Grandpa started to take trips back in time. The binders are notes of their exploits.

The last binder is labeled back home. It suggested that Grandma Charlotte Grandpa did a few things to deflect the suspicion. Then he went to join her in the future. This device is some time machine. We can go anywhere, any time.

Kim said, “Could we go back twenty years, make a deposit in a bank, and collect the interest today?”

I said, “Sure.”

Kim said, “I think this is going to be fun. Where do you think we should go first?”