Travel Hazards -- TT2022 non-writer

Ben sighed. This, he thought, was typical.

The letter had crisply opened with,

" Mister Dover: "

The business concept had seemed like such a good idea. Time travel, thanks to a pocket-sized wonder the size of a cell phone. Dial in your destination, and-- go!

As the business plan met reality, though, things had gotten, well, complicated. It turned out customers were either careless or perhaps, daredevils.

And so, there was a pile of over 2,000 TimeDial's in front of him that, per the guidance in the letter from corporate, had to have their ROM replaced. The upgraded code would bar journeys to obviously bad places.

Ben wondered which incident, specifically, had forced the change to the code.

Was it the guy who went back to 1770s Boston? Resync could take a couple of minutes upon arrival. The Redcoat officer who saw the customer's Entry and Resync freaked out, drew a pistol, and put a steel ball a half inch in diameter into the customer's chest with a single pull of the flintlock's trigger, all the while screaming Begone, Spawn of Satan!

Maybe it was the winner who dropped back 67 million years, had trouble breathing the different atmosphere, and then gotten half of his arm bitten off by a dinosaur the size of a Great Dane ... Ben was impressed, though, that the Resync calculations had gotten the client where he wanted to be and not dropped him off somewhere in deep space. That was a far piece to which to travel back.

Then, OH YEAH, there was the Darwin Award candidate-bozo who had taken his TimeDial aboard a beach chair attached to Helium-filled balloons, and then selected a destination above Remagen, Germany, in March 1945. "I wanted to see the bridge taken", he later lamely explained, but never made clear why he was surprised that anti-aircraft weapons had shot down his contraption while over the German side of the river. Badly injured from the crash, he barely managed an Exit and Return as a group of soldiers closed on him.

One worrying bit was a customer who had tinkered with his TimeDial (goddam engineers, Ben thought) and managed to reverse a pair of wires. He had wanted to go back just a couple of years, but the altered device had sent him somewhere and nobody knew where. Corporate suspected it had propelled the client into the future. Problem was, the future didn't yet exist, and thus, neither did the client ... yet.

Well, Ben mused, there was nothing he could do about all that. Opening his tool kit, he selected some small screwdrivers and a chip puller. These retrofits would take a lot of time.

THE END

When does the book come out? or is it out?

Agreeing with The2Billies here, you have a captivating and funny writing style, that's novel material. Going to have to stalk your profile to see if there are more gems hidden.

a reply to: F2d5thCavv2

Love it! I could have spent hours reading more time travel mishaps. It's a shame Ben has all that work to do...

Lovely story.

When are they coming out? I can give you a guaranteed pledge on Kickstarter!

Thanks for your timely Submission.


Good luck in the Contest.
Johnny