Jade was touring Temporal Seismics Buildings as part of her Crisis Management course of year 4. Not surprisingly it was THE crisis that everyone was talking about. The complex was off campus, so it could set it’s own iteration size so it could make sense of the yearly iterations of the main University.
Seismic was always on the precipice of the most dangerous time shifts, and as such moved throughout the years of the quake as aftershocks and stray signals intercepted events and people. But for the most part, stayed anchored to a certain iteration window. Relative to the University and the strongest TimeQuake measured.
To counter the effects of itself moving through time, but still have it accessible, it broadcast a signal that represented a level 9 TimeQuake and 30 years of time. The various distortions of that static could be interpreted by Comms and TimeShips as a kind of Universal Chronometer.
She walked through the hallways, trying to make sense of everything that happened outside of the University and the scale of the larger problem. A guided display took her up to speed rather quickly. Her training at the university helped her make sense of the diagrams that Siesmics was only just starting to understand.
Nearby, but not in the same iteration window, was the dorms. They worked individually to keep the students in a loop of the university that kept their progress across multiple years.
There was, or will be a TimeQuake, rather high on the scale, possibly displacing as much as 30 years worth of events.
The current goal was to try and minimize the damage to the timeline, and each student and faculty was asked to sacrifice a certain amount of experiences, as a kind of buffer to the shift in circumstances that so many things changing would cause. Energy could be dissipated into smaller TimeQuakes that made smaller shifts for larger numbers of people. It was, however, a stopgap measure.
All of the paradoxes from time travel were starting to create a new underlying nature to Space-Time. There would be a Before-and After in which the nature of the Universe would settle out into a new configuration that allowed for more Time Travel, with less side effects.
The University was on the leading edge of that shift and was already experiencing some of the benefits and drawbacks. Null Pulses could reset the University to the Before bit of the timeline, but more and more people were living in the After. Years passed, and things advanced, but not as quickly as at the University where time was more fluid. Without a way to properly dissipate the paradoxes, things could get exponential worse, and more unstable.
It was as much of a human caused problem as a fundamental problem with Time Travel itself. As Doctor Time’s course suggested, it was hard to build a castle when the sands of time flowed around as much as they wanted to.
It was decided that best thing to do would be to keep the ‘sandbox’ workable by dividing time into iterations, for years, days and smaller increments for mechanical devices. Time for events was buffered out as the TimeQuakes at the University got worse.
Doctor Zapp made an unexpected appearance, and took Jade aside for a quick moment.
“I think you know more than you’re letting on, and I think I’m willing to see it now.”
Jade pressed the button on her wrist and focused herself. “It’s time you saw something” she lead Zapp to a chronometer in an area of the building that was heavily shielded. It had yellow text – This area is Nominal. Iteration Unknown.
That was a bit of a surprise. He trusted the electronics to give a decent readout of time, but this was a bit of a question. It was as if the whole room could slide back and forth through an unknown vector of time relatively safely, even if it’s absolute location was a mystery.
Nominal seemed to indicate that it could still access that signal, but not localize it. It needed to be oriented to a certain event first. He put his hand on the Chronometer’s reader. It zaps hims slightly, and says “Iteration 30 +/- 5” Jade does the same scan. “Year 4” it says.
Jade explains the point of the room. “You know how TimeQuakes are always happening on different days, depending on the iteration size of here and when in the year the University is?”
Zapp nods. “Unfortunately, that’s why we try but, can never predict it more than 24 hours in advance.”
Jade sits down and offers Zapp a chair. It’s a stark white room, the furniture is practical rather than comfortable. It feels vaguely familiar to Zapp but at the same time, not.
“This is the Vanilla Room.” she says, trying to sound like it’s the first time she’s said this, but fails spectacularly. “It’s used to get a baseline on the ‘normalness’ of time”
Zapp starts to
speak, but Jade stops him.
I recorded the next bit, after you left, so I don’t have to have this conversation again. In fact, it’s the whole premise of Seismic Time”
Video Jade begins
“It compares the relative difference between people and their interactions, based on their most recent paradoxes and who’ve they’ve met and what events they’ve seen back on their most recent comms and unique work. Everyone has their own internal chronometer, and there is one for each size of iteration of the University, and the Seismics labs current settings. It’s based on registering a safe point in time, based on the user and the nearest paradoxes. At any given point, the various chronometers are registering a background signal based on Pi and a pulse from the start of the iteration.
If you feel ‘safe’ a year after level one paradox – say a note set back a year in time – your internal chronometer would register 365 digits of pi. That would mean you could survive a level 1 TimeQuake and not experience too much disorientation. It would check in with the various other chronometers and register you at those locations/events and Time Triggering could map out where and when you’ve been and plot a sensible path through time for you and everyone you interact with.
If you don’t feel safe or steady with those things the safeties kick on and a few things happen. Comms might change the voice so you don’t recognize it, you might not grasp that you’re talking to yourself, or you might get nulled, or put in a time loop so it feels rehearsed on an unconscious level.
Depending on your comfort level with various interactions, your own chronometer signal gets assigned a certain section of the digits of pi, and the public chronometer translates that back as either a school year reading or iterations after a level 9 time quake.”
Zapp shuffled uncomfortably in his seat. He felt the twinge of a distant memory starting to surface.
Jade, the person, not the recording says “This is where is where we stop the video and do a live demonstration. Comms, TimeQuake -1 Localized to Doctor Zapps Office. Keyword “32” The chronometer blinked like it was part of the calculation.
Zapp recognized his own call to Seismics from the other day. What day? Today? Three days ago, a year? Thirty years ago? Something about a plan to shift the younger Nathan’s Major and put him on a split track from a Time Cop to a Professor. He figured it would probably take about 30 years to take that the young man that everyone called “Captain” as if he was already part of the Time Cops, and turn him into a proper teacher.
The monitor in the room seemed to be tracing out a pattern that represented years and TimeQuakes. It seemed to spike as Zapp talked to himself and finally said “Maybe the Doctor of Time has a plan after all?”
The words seemed to cause a large shift in the pattern of years. It took a 30 year span, compressed it to a handful of years and pushed back nearly identical echos of it in segments of 3 or four years.
Jade quietly zoomed the display to the last iteration and cut the line. “I need to step out for a moment, Temporal Triggering is going to need me.” She hits the refocus button on her hand and seems to become a little less animate.
Zapp uses the table display to get a feed from Temporal Triggering. It’s a mess of colours and signals, cross chat that he can’t make much sense of. He resets the board to beginning of year and places himself in his office and himself here at the same point in time. He remembers he has the safeties on so he won’t recognize his own voice.
The memory seems to refresh of the day, becoming a clear memory from about 3/4 of a year ago. He remembered the disorientation he felt that day. He would probably rate it as a 9.
His own voice interrupted his thoughts.
“What happens if we let Doctor Time sort most of this out?
He looks at the timequake display as a dull but rehearsed Jade manages the details.
Zapp answers himself in hushed tone as the problem resolves itself in his mind. “We’d have a level 9 scale TimeQuake, but we could pin the origin down to the day. It’d likely cause about 30 time loops before we can move past it though.”
“How long would each of the loops be? How tough would it be to manage them?”
Zapp cuts the audio when Jade waves at him. “How long ago does this conversion seem?”
“About 3/4 of a year?”
Jade moves the ‘train cars’ representing Zapp to September. The other traffic on the board becomes dizzying again, but much less so than initially, as only a handful of people are in play. Mostly Nathan and Jade.
“You know that Vanilla Year 3 end simulation that always tanks? That would be the rough estimate.”
“So if we had someone who was an ace at Fractal Integration?”
Jade laughs, exactly how he remembers it. But it’s just a loop of her at this point, so of course it’s identical.
She echos her line, “32 Iterations and between 12:15 and 12:35, the exact day doesn’t matter. But some time after the robot is built and Robot Safety lets the Double Paradox happen.”
Zapp realizes she chose her words carefully. All the different bits moving around, they can control the day, but certain elements are focused so as to be logically true. He realizes he needs to bend his rules a bit to get things done, and manage things without such big resets.
He remembers how he felt at about this conversation and sensing on some level that things were shifting around him.
He remembered he had to talk to Nathan again, and Comms had routed Detective Time instead of anyone else.
Jade hands him a Padd, it has a recording of Nathan on it. Zap waits till about the time the call went through and presses play. “Doctor Zapp? I was just going to call you. Apparently I’m missing. You wouldn’t have any plans that involve a Temporal Echo that fades out?”
Zapp realizes he’s been tricked and starts asking what’s going on. Right while he heard the static on the other end.
Jade explains, “This is rehearsed and live at the same time, it has to match memories for the safeties to come off. The AI and Comms knows you’re supposed to sound like Nathan now, so it will take over, I just couldn’t get you to say the first line right without help.
Zapp clues in. He’s trying to talk himself through a TimeQuake.
Zapp sighs. He’s been netted into doing the Narration field. Still, nobody gains anything if everyone is stuck in a time loop, and not noticing. Time to go a bit off script. Or rather. On it.
She points at his “Iteration 30” chronometer reading and Zapp understands.
“Oh I’m Narrating? Thanks Jade. I’m after the TimeQuake and he’s before it? That makes... sense.”
“You’re not Doctor Time anymore are you?”
Zapp answers, hearing his own voice and Nathan’s overlap. “Detective Time at your service!”
Jade smiles, she linked the real Nathan in at the last bit.
Zapp is confused again. And talks, again while he remembers static. “I thought that I was Nathan and the TimeQuake hasn’t happened.”
Jade shushes him “That’s the best I can connect with till iOi is done, Comm’s Out.”
Jade sits down and hits focus. “I see that went better this time. Last time you were trying to move too many pieces around and it got too noisy. I thought a voice changer would be an easier thing to sell. Nathan is after the TimeQuake, partially intergrated, as your chronometer might say, but only because you talked yourself through a level 9 TimeQuake”
Zapp started getting confused again. Jade cued a video of Zapp from last loop.
“Doctor Zapp to the Next loop. You won’t remember this but you’ve done this before. I see the need to back off on the “Simultaneous Trains” approach and work on a background approach that assumes we can all survive a Level 9 TimeQuake. Which is, in fact, easier than you might expect. It’s simply a matter of jumping tracks and having somewhere to land. It’s not going to be the same world but it’s going to make sense. I, we, are going to move the University back 30 years to get everyone trained and sort out the logical inconsistencies. I’ll split myself between a Time Cop track and a teaching track. That should let me keep a handle on the paradoxes that move beyond the University’s scope. I’ll wipe my memory so I don’t worry too much about the other career choice. If you are watching this video it means that I’m the Time Cop and you’re the Teacher. I’ll leave a drop point for more videos once this robot is designed and the University is more stable. Jade says the robot both is and isn’t built and exists as a kind of binary Time pulse that self corrects the Universe.”
Jade watches as Zapp drinks in all the information. She watches as the video shows himself playing with Time Triggering as train cars on various loops and tracks. The video skips and jumps as the track patterns get more complicated for a while then simplify again. The process gets more complicated as various track pieces mirroring logic gates replace the basic track pieces labelled “loop” and “vanilla”.
Just then Zapp shudders as he recognizes the video. It’s from the class he taught. He doesn’t remember where he got the teaching materials, but he had the strong feeling not to question it.
Jade waits for a bad reaction, but he can’t fault the logic.
“Previous Loop” is all Zapp can say.
He realizes he both has and hasn’t contributed his part of the robot iOi. Trying to get out of binary thinking he asks Jade how much of the plans are pending in Comms.
She asks him a question instead. “If you were going to send yourself a message. Something to do with a code number, and completing something irrational and never ending, how would you phrase it?”
Zapp thought about it. She was asking him to send back a message to his previous loop and see how much of a shift he can take. If he’s willing to go from not doing something and having it partially done and not remember doing it.
He comes up with a question, Seals it with his personal chronometer and labels it ‘Previous loop Null Pulse Test’ and sends it to Temporal Triggering marked ‘Urgent – Robot Plans Request’
The video version of himself appears again, and gets the message.
“I’m not going to say when in the year it is, but it’s pretty early, and I’ve been asked for robot plans from my future self. There’s a test question in here.
Zapp starts to remember the message. That’s what he’d do if he’d figured future loops weren’t just random and unpredictable.
“What is Pi, times 10, rounded up?”
Jade walks over to the Chronometer scanner again. It switches from “Year Four”, to the message
“Double Paradox - Pending”
Zapp stood up to check his own reading. “TimeQuake Level 9 – 24 hours Notice”
Jade explained softly. “Don’t worry, it just means you’ll get your plans tomorrow and can start building. Remember these things are relative.”
Zapp remembered the shift from his earlier memory. There seemed to be a flood of memories afterwards that just made sense at the time. A shift, to be sure, but what was it?
Oh right. He was thinking about designing a robot with Jade and Nathan, because of the Narration field, then suddenly it was 90% done and he didn’t bat an eye. He had been distracted by the information about the TimeQuake and suddenly he shifted to after teaching them and it made sense.
The video of himself started again, it was himself, but in a Time Police Uniform, he looked like he was already at the rank of Chief. “I’ve determined that a level 9 TimeQuake is about 3/4 of a year shift if focused on a normal person.”
Jade laughs. “We’re all ‘normal’ aren’t we?”
“The Time police will use that as a yardstick and retroactively use a TimeQuake of 5 as threshold of Time Crimes that will be dealt with. That’s about a memory conflict of about day about a week out”
Zapp realized it was all arbitrary, but figured that chronometers could probably sort out anything less than that on their own.
“For reasons of public safety, the University, Seismics and anything related will be confined to specific iterations and in a time loop till they sort out their mess. This message is from year 15 of the start of that enforcement, the accompanying TimeCode will verify this.
A news ticker of various time quakes appears on the screen as the chronometers from inside and outside the university synch up.
That was a load off Zapps mind. “I guess that gives things a reference point.”
Jade unfocuses again and retroactively routes the signal she just saw back to the vanilla room. The seismic lab shifts slightly and becomes more grounded, for lack of a better word. Displays sharpen and ‘Inside’ and ‘Outside’ now appear on any of the displays on Time Shifts.
“I think that’s enough for today" says Zapp. Jade nods and escorts him out of the Vanilla room.
In the lobby of the building is a map of 30 years of ‘Sand Time’ with the University appearing as a hump in the middle and various smaller piles representing the past and future reference points checked by Seismics.
Outside, on the next street over is the Time Police Precinct. It seems both new and familiar. Zapp shrugs it off and tries to decide where to show up for work the next day.
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