Cli-Fi
John J. Falco
My take on what it's like living in a world where people have the capability to travel through time:
“Temporal processing facility, how may I take your call?” It was the standard greeting of technical support representatives for Los Angeles’ new multidimensional hub Henry Wilson heard in the background. Behind the bullet proof glass that protected him, he stared out at the chattering support agents, the clicking of keyboards and the dreary cubicles that made a modern office complete. Along with the response which Henry had memorized as well, “I’m sorry sir/ma’am, but the facility is not processing claims yet, please check back in a few hours.” It was like that for the past two days.
He rolled his eyes and sighed, leave it up to the U.S government to mess up the opening.
Why they had assigned him to be a babysitter to a bunch of eggheads was beyond him. He didn’t know if they cared about how it all looked on the outside. People were nervous and anxious to get enrolled. The demand was huge!
To set up security here, out of the way in a back room in the middle of tech support, seemed half-assed and to make matters worse he only had a few people on his staff. If those crazies tried something this wouldn’t be enough.
However, in the chaos, he learned to stop asking the wrong questions. Questions that would never get answered anyway. At least the back office was small and comfy. He leaned back on his chair and put on some headphones and started to watch the video again.
“Johnny McIntire Everybody!” The host on the most popular Youtube video clip of all time was ecstatic.
“Wow, he’s actually here!” The audience was emotional, and for Detective Henry Wilson thanks to a cryptic voicemail that was left on his cell phone, he was over it.
It must have been the thousandth time he viewed the clip, and even though Henry was taught never to believe anything you read or watch on the internet, he couldn’t explain it. To many Johnny McIntire proved he could travel through time with that ridiculous announcement and subsequent appearance on The Tonight Show.
Henry’s father was a skeptic, a boring analytical scientist that relied on cold hard data in place of love and compassion. His mother was a researcher who spent her days over looking charts and trends in some dusty University basement and she never came home at proper times of the day. Yet here he was, a cop on the force of the LAPD no doubt, watching a Youtube clip wondering what the hell was happening! He hoped to get some answers.
His parents tried to protect him from this sort of craziness, but due to the nature of his particular job title inside the LAPD, it sort of came with the territory. The main suspect (?) was due to come in at any moment. The shade that was thrown his way from the other officers on the staff kept him alienated inside his precinct, which he guessed was part of the reason he ended up here in the first place. They didn’t get it. As much as he begged them to listen to his pleas that the chips just fell his way. They insisted he was in on the scam, to help his career.
“Today’s the big day huh?” Henry heard the muffled question through the plump headphones that cushioned his ears with the sounds of a screaming and applauding audience. He looked at the views on the video clip, and he sighed, before staring up at his partner. He took off the headphones and watched as Eddie Dorf, leaned over his desk. “Damn, McIntyre got another billion views? Did you expect it would get this popular?”
“I didn’t ****ing know!” Henry snapped. It was the tenth time today someone asked him when he was going to tell them that he was in on it. There was an office pool after all…
Eddie stood back up at full attention. He puffed out his flabby chest and raised both arms at ninety degree angles, “Jeez, settle down, I wasn’t insinuating anything. I was asking generally.”
“f*ck you Eddie! Your name is at the top of the God-Damn pool for crying out loud. Don’t act all innocent now.”
Eddie, ran over to his desk like a scared little boy, but Henry was in no mood to apologize today, “Connie, is he here yet?” He yelled into the speaker phone.
A young, perky blonde stuck her head out of the front desk area. “He’s waiting for you in interrogation, Henry.”
“Thank God.” Maybe now this nightmare will finally end.
Henry Wilson put both palms down on his desk, rose slowly, straightened out his uniform and walked into the bleak interrogation room where he saw Johnny McIntyre sitting there looking a bit too smug.
“What’d I tell ya? I’m back!” Johnny outstretch his muscular arms which seemed to pop out of the tight t-shirt that he was wearing. Is that the same T-shirt he wore in the video? The same T-shirt he wore in the one from three years ago too? Henry didn’t want to believe it, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore the hype.
“For the past three years you made my life a ****ing nightmare, you asshole. You pissed a lot of people off. How about all the resources we used trying to track you down, who is going to pay for that? So you are going to sit there and answer all my questions. Starting with where the hell did you actually go?”
“I told you when I made the announcement. I just time traveled here. Why do you think we are meeting like this?” Johnny looked around and seemed proud of himself. He answered this question as if it was a perfectly normal thing to be talking about. Like he just hopped into a time machine and used it all the time, and it was no big deal. “In fact, I’d like to show everybody how it works. I’m meeting with some top government officials this week to set up a time travel exploratory committee to start the work—.” Henry interrupted.
“Let’s just say that I believe you for a second. What ****ing idiot would just time travel to the same exact TV show three years later? With this so-called time machine at your disposal you could have gone anywhere! Why don’t you take a ****ing selfie with a dinosaur and prove it you fake prick! I don’t believe in any of this crap!” Henry threw his notepad across the room and the pencil circled the floor.
McIntyre shrugged, “If you are done with the ranting now, Henry, maybe I can start to explain. Did you keep the voicemail I sent you?”
Henry nodded, he must have listened to that thing more than he watched the video clip of Johnny’s return. “Of course, but you got me. I have no ****ing clue what it means.”
Suddenly the chair under Henry vibrated. “Hold that thought,” Henry pulled out his cell phone and saw the caller ID said Israel Falls. “Oh sorry, I have to take this.”
It was the retirement home where is mother stayed. He sighed and answered it without bothering to get up and leave as was protocol.
“What did she do now?” He sighed as he answered. Then listening intently to the woman on the end of the line, he got up and left the interrogation room. Leaving Johnny McIntire all alone.
When he slammed the door on his way out he told the guard standing watch, “You better not let him ****ing leave. I’ll be right back.”
The guard nodded and Henry was on his way to Israel Falls Nursing Home. The quaint little Jewish Community was nestled just north of the city, and it would give him enough time to process Johnny’s startling return. He turned on the radio in his Honda, it was tuned to NPR.
“Los Angeles’ Temporal Airport continues to experience a horrible backlog of signups for time travel requests. Is Johnny McIntyre’s return to blame for this? Story and analysis next!”
Chapter One: Israel Falls
“Temporal processing facility, how may I take your call?” It was the standard greeting of technical support representatives for Los Angeles’ new multidimensional hub Henry Wilson heard in the background. Behind the bullet proof glass that protected him, he stared out at the chattering support agents, the clicking of keyboards and the dreary cubicles that made a modern office complete. Along with the response which Henry had memorized as well, “I’m sorry sir/ma’am, but the facility is not processing claims yet, please check back in a few hours.” It was like that for the past two days.
He rolled his eyes and sighed, leave it up to the U.S government to mess up the opening.
Why they had assigned him to be a babysitter to a bunch of eggheads was beyond him. He didn’t know if they cared about how it all looked on the outside. People were nervous and anxious to get enrolled. The demand was huge!
To set up security here, out of the way in a back room in the middle of tech support, seemed half-assed and to make matters worse he only had a few people on his staff. If those crazies tried something this wouldn’t be enough.
However, in the chaos, he learned to stop asking the wrong questions. Questions that would never get answered anyway. At least the back office was small and comfy. He leaned back on his chair and put on some headphones and started to watch the video again.
“Johnny McIntire Everybody!” The host on the most popular Youtube video clip of all time was ecstatic.
“Wow, he’s actually here!” The audience was emotional, and for Detective Henry Wilson thanks to a cryptic voicemail that was left on his cell phone, he was over it.
It must have been the thousandth time he viewed the clip, and even though Henry was taught never to believe anything you read or watch on the internet, he couldn’t explain it. To many Johnny McIntire proved he could travel through time with that ridiculous announcement and subsequent appearance on The Tonight Show.
Henry’s father was a skeptic, a boring analytical scientist that relied on cold hard data in place of love and compassion. His mother was a researcher who spent her days over looking charts and trends in some dusty University basement and she never came home at proper times of the day. Yet here he was, a cop on the force of the LAPD no doubt, watching a Youtube clip wondering what the hell was happening! He hoped to get some answers.
His parents tried to protect him from this sort of craziness, but due to the nature of his particular job title inside the LAPD, it sort of came with the territory. The main suspect (?) was due to come in at any moment. The shade that was thrown his way from the other officers on the staff kept him alienated inside his precinct, which he guessed was part of the reason he ended up here in the first place. They didn’t get it. As much as he begged them to listen to his pleas that the chips just fell his way. They insisted he was in on the scam, to help his career.
“Today’s the big day huh?” Henry heard the muffled question through the plump headphones that cushioned his ears with the sounds of a screaming and applauding audience. He looked at the views on the video clip, and he sighed, before staring up at his partner. He took off the headphones and watched as Eddie Dorf, leaned over his desk. “Damn, McIntyre got another billion views? Did you expect it would get this popular?”
“I didn’t ****ing know!” Henry snapped. It was the tenth time today someone asked him when he was going to tell them that he was in on it. There was an office pool after all…
Eddie stood back up at full attention. He puffed out his flabby chest and raised both arms at ninety degree angles, “Jeez, settle down, I wasn’t insinuating anything. I was asking generally.”
“f*ck you Eddie! Your name is at the top of the God-Damn pool for crying out loud. Don’t act all innocent now.”
Eddie, ran over to his desk like a scared little boy, but Henry was in no mood to apologize today, “Connie, is he here yet?” He yelled into the speaker phone.
A young, perky blonde stuck her head out of the front desk area. “He’s waiting for you in interrogation, Henry.”
“Thank God.” Maybe now this nightmare will finally end.
Henry Wilson put both palms down on his desk, rose slowly, straightened out his uniform and walked into the bleak interrogation room where he saw Johnny McIntyre sitting there looking a bit too smug.
“What’d I tell ya? I’m back!” Johnny outstretch his muscular arms which seemed to pop out of the tight t-shirt that he was wearing. Is that the same T-shirt he wore in the video? The same T-shirt he wore in the one from three years ago too? Henry didn’t want to believe it, but it was getting harder and harder to ignore the hype.
“For the past three years you made my life a ****ing nightmare, you asshole. You pissed a lot of people off. How about all the resources we used trying to track you down, who is going to pay for that? So you are going to sit there and answer all my questions. Starting with where the hell did you actually go?”
“I told you when I made the announcement. I just time traveled here. Why do you think we are meeting like this?” Johnny looked around and seemed proud of himself. He answered this question as if it was a perfectly normal thing to be talking about. Like he just hopped into a time machine and used it all the time, and it was no big deal. “In fact, I’d like to show everybody how it works. I’m meeting with some top government officials this week to set up a time travel exploratory committee to start the work—.” Henry interrupted.
“Let’s just say that I believe you for a second. What ****ing idiot would just time travel to the same exact TV show three years later? With this so-called time machine at your disposal you could have gone anywhere! Why don’t you take a ****ing selfie with a dinosaur and prove it you fake prick! I don’t believe in any of this crap!” Henry threw his notepad across the room and the pencil circled the floor.
McIntyre shrugged, “If you are done with the ranting now, Henry, maybe I can start to explain. Did you keep the voicemail I sent you?”
Henry nodded, he must have listened to that thing more than he watched the video clip of Johnny’s return. “Of course, but you got me. I have no ****ing clue what it means.”
Suddenly the chair under Henry vibrated. “Hold that thought,” Henry pulled out his cell phone and saw the caller ID said Israel Falls. “Oh sorry, I have to take this.”
It was the retirement home where is mother stayed. He sighed and answered it without bothering to get up and leave as was protocol.
“What did she do now?” He sighed as he answered. Then listening intently to the woman on the end of the line, he got up and left the interrogation room. Leaving Johnny McIntire all alone.
When he slammed the door on his way out he told the guard standing watch, “You better not let him ****ing leave. I’ll be right back.”
The guard nodded and Henry was on his way to Israel Falls Nursing Home. The quaint little Jewish Community was nestled just north of the city, and it would give him enough time to process Johnny’s startling return. He turned on the radio in his Honda, it was tuned to NPR.
“Los Angeles’ Temporal Airport continues to experience a horrible backlog of signups for time travel requests. Is Johnny McIntyre’s return to blame for this? Story and analysis next!”
