No Ordinary Man

No Ordinary Man

AD33

Isaiah watched in fascinated horror as the cat of nine tales landed on the man’s back. The soldier waited just a moment as bits of broken bone and iron attached to the whip bit into soft flesh. Once properly anchored, he ripped the whip away, tearing small chunks of skin and muscle with it. Over and over, the punishing blows continued as the crowd counted them off. Unable to watch anymore, Isaiah turned away, choking down the bile that rose from his stomach. Sure, he had heard the stories, but nothing could have prepared him for the horrible sight he beheld. Moving away from the bloody scene with his eyes on the ground, he grimaced as he heard the grunt of the soldier, followed by applause from the crowd. What kind of people would cheer such a sight?

Isaiah thought back to the morning he had left the comfort of his home. He had thought himself prepared, but now realized that no one from the modern day United States could be psychologically ready for the barbaric culture that had existed two thousand years before. Isaiah reflected on his own wounds from the beating he had received earlier that morning.

Though they stung as he moved, they were nothing compared to what he saw.

Isaiah reached into his notebook, found the entry.

This one they got right.

AD2012

“As Einstein showed, mass and energy are the same thing, “said the 75 year old man. Known to the group only as “the professor,” he was a short thin and wiry individual. A thick crop of white hair above his age wrinkled face belied the fire that was in his being. Although a natural leader in the laboratory, the professor was a fish out of water when it came to speaking to the investors.

Miles Peterson watched as the professor nervously tried to explain the basics of time travel. A self made billionaire, Miles had played the real estate game as no one before him. But the real estate prophets were a by-product of his search for power rather than the goal.

This investors meeting was, of course, only a formality to appease the many men that he had needed to fund the multibillion dollar project. The investors, all of them powerful in their own right, had been merely pawns for Miles to use.

In the early 1980’s, Miles had been approached by two scientists with a dream to build a functioning time machine. Miles had instantly appreciated the power that such a technology would provide its owner and had already begun shopping the technology to the highest bidder even before the ink on the contract was dry. Backed by Miles, the scientists were well on their way to developing a working time machine when tragedy had struck. Both the scientists had been killed in an automotive accident.

After the accident, Miles had chanced upon Isaiah and the retired professor. Each of them geniuses in their own fields, he had recruited them to the project promising unlimited funding and undeniable possibilities. Isaiah had joined in search of knowledge; the professor had joined for the sake of the journey. As the years passed, even the considerable resources that Miles enjoyed began to be strained. Using his considerable influence, he had managed to assemble a group of over a dozen millionaires to help fund the project to completion.

The professor continued, “The time machine we’ve designed uses light in the form of circulating lasers to warp time.” He looked around the group, and was met with indifferent gazes from the men who cared not for the incredible science, but were interested only in results. Despite their empty eyes, he continued. “We have created a highly sensitive reactive energy. Although difficult to describe, it is in the form of a fluid that when excited by lasers…”

“Excuse me, professor,” interrupted one of the men, “does it work?” The professor dipped his head in resignation. He was wasting his time with these fools. “It has been tested, and it does work. To date we have only sent a clock and a mouse a few minutes into the past, but I’m confident that it will work on a human.”