The inside of Capsule Mark 73 was snug, to say the least. Strapped into the contoured seat, surrounded by humming consoles and flickering readouts, I took a deep, shaky breath. This was it. The culmination of eleven years of grief, obsession, and impossible science. My finger hovered over the main activation sequence. Rina's smiling face in the small, taped-up photo seemed to offer silent encouragement.
I pressed it.
The world outside the capsule's small viewport dissolved into a blinding white light. A sensation of immense pressure, then sudden, terrifying weightlessness. My body felt like it was being squeezed through an impossibly small needle, yet simultaneously expanding outwards. It was a paradox of sensation, a violent tearing and reknitting of my very being. The trumpet-shaped conduits I'd designed, based on Rina's sketch, glowed with an almost organic light, channeling the immense energies involved.
Then, as suddenly as it began, the violent transition ceased. I was… somewhere else.
The capsule's internal lights flickered back to a steady hum, but the viewport showed nothing I could comprehend. It wasn't blackness, nor was it light. It was… everything. My mind, designed for three dimensions, struggled to process the input. It was like trying to describe color to someone born blind. The specialized sensors I'd built, however, began translating the raw data into perceivable images on my main screen.
I saw…infinity. Streams of light, like cosmic rivers, flowed in directions I couldn't name. I could zoom in, and see the dance of molecules on a planet impossibly far away, or zoom out, and witness the grand ballet of galaxies colliding. It was overwhelming, beautiful, terrifying.
And I wasn't alone. Faint, shimmering figures, vaguely humanoid, drifted in this… fifth dimension. Other travelers? From other times, other worlds? There was no way to communicate, just a silent acknowledgment of shared, impossible journeys. I saw alien civilizations on distant worlds, cities that glowed with technologies beyond human comprehension, looking eerily similar to us in form. The universe was teeming with life, a thought both exhilarating and humbling.
My focus, however, was Earth. I manipulated the controls, the strange, intuitive interface I'd designed based on those mysteriously appearing notes. The display shifted, and there was our blue marble, hanging suspended in the cosmic tapestry. But something was wrong. I zoomed in, targeting Europe. Cities were burning. Men in archaic uniforms fought in muddy trenches. The weapons… they looked like something from a history book, World War I era.
My heart pounded. I'd done it. I had traveled through time. But to when?
I focused intently on the image of Earth. As I shifted my perceived "angle" of observation, just a slight mental tilt, the scenes on Earth flickered and changed at an incredible speed. Decades, then centuries, flashed by. I realized my position in this higher dimension dictated the temporal window I was viewing. Frantically, I tried to steer, to navigate. I needed a fixed point, an anchor.
My thirteenth birthday. A day etched in my memory, not for any grand event, but because it was a happy, uncomplicated time, Rina by my side even then, as friends. I focused on that date, that feeling. The temporal stream slowed. I found it – a younger me, blowing out candles on a cake. From there, I pushed forward, watching my own life, Rina's life, unfold at an accelerated pace. The joy, the mundane, the love… all leading to that one, horrific day.
I saw it. The street. Rina laughing. The gunman.
But how to get there? I tried to "move" towards the event, but it was like trying to grab smoke. My perception of direction here was utterly alien. Up wasn't up, left wasn't left. There were two more cardinal directions, imperceptible to my human senses, that governed movement in this realm. Despair began to creep in. To see it, to be so close, yet unable to reach it… it was a new kind of torture. I'd come so far, only to fail at the final hurdle. "I can't do it," I whispered, the words swallowed by the immensity of the 5th dimension.
The moment I gave up, the moment the fight went out of me, a new pinprick of darkness appeared directly "in front" of my capsule. It wasn't one I had created. It pulsed gently, an invitation. It was as if something, or someone, had heard my despair and offered a way out. Or a way in.
With renewed hope, I steered the capsule towards it. Another wrenching, disorienting compression, and then…
Sunlight. Harsh, bright, and utterly familiar. The smell of exhaust fumes and street food. The cacophony of city life.
My capsule, thankfully, had materialized in a grimy, deserted alleyway, shielded by overflowing dumpsters. The temporal display read: First day, third week of July. Six days. I had six days before Rina…
My legs were shaky as I unstrapped myself and cautiously opened the hatch. The air was warm, humid. It was the past. It was real. The city looked the same, yet subtly different. The cars, the fashion, the advertisements – all slightly dated, a snapshot of a world I'd left behind. For a moment, the sheer normalcy of it, after the mind-bending vista of the fifth dimension, was disorienting. My surroundings felt flat, almost comically mundane, after witnessing the universe laid bare.
I needed to blend in, to find a way to navigate this without drawing attention. I had some cash, clothes from this era I'd packed. First, information. Maybe a discreet way to find out about police activity, any unusual reports.
My wandering led me to a local police precinct. I was just loitering outside, trying to look casual, when a man exited. He was youngish, maybe twenty-nine, with a tired but keen look in his eyes. He wore a slightly rumpled suit, the look of a plainclothes detective. He paused to light a cigarette, his gaze sweeping the street, and for a moment, it rested on me.
He frowned slightly, then his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. He walked over. "Can I help you? You look a little lost."
His voice was calm, professional, but there was something else there, a flicker of… recognition?
"Just… getting my bearings," I mumbled, trying to appear nonchalant.
He took a drag from his cigarette, studying me. "You know, it's funny," he said, his voice dropping a little. "My old man… well, the guy who raised me, an old family friend after my parents passed… he always told me stories. And he described someone who looked a lot like you. Said he was a brilliant, if troubled, scientist." He paused. "He even mentioned a small mole, right behind the left ear."
My hand instinctively went to the back of my ear. He was right. It was a small, insignificant mole Rina used to tease me about. How could this stranger know? My mind reeled. The old man… an adult version of me? A bootstrap paradox? Time wasn't just a river; it was a tangled, looping knot.
The investigator's eyes were sharp, intelligent. He wasn't accusing, just… observing. Waiting.
The desperation, the sheer unlikeliness of my situation, and a strange, inexplicable sense of trust towards this man who somehow knew a piece of my future, or my past self's future, made me reckless.
"I am," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "I'm from the future. I built a time machine. I came back to stop something terrible from happening."
The investigator didn't laugh. He didn't call for backup. He just looked at me, the cigarette smoke curling around his head, his expression unreadable for a long moment. Then, he nodded slowly. "Okay," he said, as if I'd just told him the weather forecast. "Let's talk."