The Temporalnaut

Written for the Daily Flash Fiction Challenge with a word limit of 300.

The prompts: This story must contain the words: Test, Clock, Unbelievable

The Temporalnaut

I’ve been here before. Temporalnaut Steve Crusher felt the déjà vu pass through his awareness like an icy cold wind. It left him as quickly as it had arrived.

He looked at the atomic clock embedded in his instrument panel. It read 1115.30. In another fifteen minutes, he would become the first man to travel backwards in time. The first jump would be short, a mere fifteen minutes. He initiated the AIAS, Artificial Intelligence Awareness Sequence. The computer came online immediately. That didn’t leave a lot of time.

They had tried to give the AI longer to work through the math but for some reason, every time they started it more than fifteen minutes before the “jump” the AI would go insane; schizophrenic to be more precise. It was as if there were multiple intelligences within the Probability Chamber’s mainframe; all of them trying to communicate something about an endless loop sequence and danger. None of it made any sense.

This was to be the final test. Failure meant they would have to go back to the drawing board.

The AI was running smoothly as it crunched through the probability wave functions, collapsing one after another. Steve’s pulse began to rise in anticipation of achieving something unbelievable. He was going to travel back in time.

Sixty seconds to go. The AI was almost there. When only one probability existed, it would become reality, regardless of how unlikely that one probability once was. Five seconds to go. Time to make some history. Steve thought.

The chamber began to hum. There was a brilliant flash of light.

I’ve been here before. Temporalnaut Steve Crusher felt the déjà vu pass through his awareness like an icy cold wind. It left him as quickly as it had arrived.