Time Gloves
A thousand years in the future, most everything is holographic, hovers, or flies. To name a few, phones and watches use clear square or rectangular screens made of plastic to project a square above the device. While holographic computers use clear keyboards made of plastic for keying in information that project holographic screens onto the wall. Chairs and desks hover above the floor or ground without legs, instead, their tables or cushioned seats and backs float. Cars fly above the cities faster than any modern-day car.
Evelynne sits in her basement lab and works on her latest invention. She takes a pair of black steel mesh gloves she uses when cutting things and attaches microchips to the back of each one. She first attaches three microchips, one at the top, the CPU, the second in the center, the RAM, and the third on the bottom, she calls it the “Time microchip”. Lastly, she adds the time flux capacitor microchip. She electrically attaches them all together. She adheres copper wires to the back of each finger and connects them to the microchips. After which, she epoxies flexible plastic screens on top of the microchips, then she connects the wires to the screens. Lastly, she attaches small plastic circles to the front of each fingertip. After several sleepless days and nights of continuously fiddling, adding, and wiring the gloves she runs upstairs to show her inventor colleague, Emerson.
Upon arrival at their office, she slams her fingers into the keys of the keypad to allow the door to slide up and open. She runs in and finds Emerson in his lab coat, sitting on his hoverchair and typing on his holographic computer. Evelynne interrupts him to show him her invention.
She stands in front of her own desk and says, “Emerson look, my greatest invention. I call them Time Gloves.”
“How do they work?” Emerson says as he spins around in his hoverchair.
“Instead of telling you, let me show you,” Evelynne says before putting on the Time Gloves. She keys in a time and location onto both of the glove’s backs. She grabs him by the shoulder and puts out her other hand next to her head as if to stop time itself.
A flash of light bursts out of the room and another flash of light appears in the middle of a zoo entrance in 20th century Washington D.C. Women in flowy dresses and men in tailored suits, with their children stand in shock and awe as these two people in lab coats appear out of nowhere. They scream as they run off in fear.
“Woah, where are we?” he asks as Evelynne removes her hand from his shoulder.
“Don’t you mean, when are we?” she corrects him and sets her hands down on her thighs.
“What?” he asks in confusion.
“Welcome to the east entrance of the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., April 3rd, 1919,” she says as she puts her hands up in a v-formation above her head.
“What? That’s impossible no one’s invented time travel unless-,” he says as she interrupts him.
“That’s right, I’ve invented time travel,” she says in excitement.
They walked up to the entrance, only to stop at the ticket booth. A male ticket booth attendant stood inside with the name tag “James”.
“Welcome to the National Zoo. How are you today?” asks James.
“I’m good, how much are the tickets?” asks Evelynne.
“A lady speaking for a man, how absurd,” James says in confusion and shock.
“Yes,” she simply says.
“They are free, since this is a National Park,” James says with a smile.
“Well thanks, for nothing,” she says, walking into the zoo. Emerson follows her.
They see lions, tigers, and bears. The two of them stop at the panda exhibit. They hunch over the fences enclosing the pandas. They stare at these gigantic black and white creatures in wonder. From 1919 the giant panda will go extinct in one-thousand eighty-four years. Emerson remembers the creature from when he was a child of five at the zoo. The zoo was full of the remaining species on Earth. A few emperor penguins, limited pandas, a couple of macaws, and a handful of fish. He recollects as waiting as a high schooler before the hover bus arrived, he looked to the wall on his family’s rectangular clear TV screen made of plastic. A newswoman said, “Today we remember the giant panda. The last panda on Earth has died because of climate change, global warming, and removal of their habitats by humans. This year alone in 3003, there are 120 billion people…” He looked away from the screen and back at his cereal and thought about all the times he saw the panda. From age two to fifteen, when he went last week with his sister and mother.
“I remember those,” Emerson says, pointing to the pandas, not one in specific.
“Didn’t they go extinct fifteen years ago?” Evelynne says, flipping her golden hair.
“Yes,” he says as he gazes into one of the panda’s eyes.
“Well, in 1919 the giant pandas are plentiful,” she says, looking back at her left time
glove to check the current time and future time.
Grey clouds form overhead when suddenly, rain pours from the sky, and thunder rumbles from a distance. The storm grows closer as they run for cover toward an umbrellaed table outside the café. Out of nowhere, lightning strikes the steel of both the left and right Time Gloves. The gloves spark and a time bubble forms around Emerson and Evelynne. They disappear and reappear in the middle of Central Park, New York City on February 3rd, 2018. Their black work shoes drop onto the snowy ground and they shiver in the cold artic air. Evelynne tries to fiddle with her screen, but it’s useless both screens are shot.
“What happened?” Emerson asks as he holds his collar upon his neck as if to get warmer.
“I don’t know, one minute we’re in 1919 and the next minute we’re here,” she says, continuing to fidget with the gloves. She rips off the left hand’s screen and touches one of the microchips, which shocks her.
“When and where are we?” he questions.
“I have no idea,” she answers, pulling out her small rectangular clear screen phone. She taps it to turn it on. A flat projection floats above her screen.
Emerson pulls out his phone as well and after many taps, he finds no signal or wi-fi. Their phones are too advanced to pick up the early 21st century’s basic signal of 3G, 4G, and 4G
LTE. 3018 has 10G, which is ten times the thousand megabits per second speed of today.
“Let’s walk around and find out,” she says after breathing in the fresh air.
“I know, the air is cleaner here,” he exclaims. He breathes in through his nose.
They walk out of the park and onto West 86th Street. They saunter up the street and take a left on Columbus Avenue. While walking around Evelynne thinks, People with cell phones, cars and buses with wheels. Taxies everywhere. When is this? Fifteen minutes later of walking, they take a slight left onto Broadway, and another left onto West 63rd Street. They then arrive at a newsstand named “First Avenue Newsstand”. Evelynne picks up a New York Times newspaper and finds the date in the center of the front page. It reads “New York, Saturday, February 3, 2018”. She then tells Emerson their current time and city.
Emerson rubs the back of his neck and says, “What do we do now?”
“I think we should start with fixing my Time Gloves,” she says as she removes her gloves and shoves them into her lab coat pocket.
“Where are supposed to repair your Time Gloves?” he queries.
“I’m not sure, we need to find access to a lab that has future technology. A lab with RAM microchips, CPU microchips, and Time microchips,” she says as she frowns in doubt.
Evelynne grabs a cellphone from a woman’s hand and ear as she speaks to her husband in it.
The woman says, “Hey, that’s mine.”
“Sorry, I’m commandeering this phone for scientific research,” Evelynne says as begins to maneuver through the phone and finds the Internet.
“Oh, if it’s scientific research, then keep it,” the woman says as she walks away.
Evelynne searches Google for nearby computer science labs. She sees that there’s one that’s an hour's walk for her and Emerson. She decides to take an Uber using the woman’s phone. They wait ten minutes for the Uber driver.
When he arrives he asks, “Deborah?”
“That’s us,” she says as she opens the door and sits in the back seat.
Emerson gets in on the left passenger door. They don’t speak for the rest of the ride until their arrival.
“Could you drop us off in front of Columbia University’s Department of Computer Science?” Evelynne asks, leaning in, so the Uber driver can hear her.
“Sure,” says the Uber driver named Paul.
Paul drives up to the department’s building.
“Which building is it?” Paul asks.
“Oh, it’s the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science,” Evelynne says, pointing at the building.
He drops them off in front of the marble and brick-walled building. The letters are etched:
“The Fu Foundation
of School and Engineering
and Applied Science”
He says his goodbyes, they jump out of his car, and walk into the building. They step up the stairs and they enter the nearest computer lab. Evelynne runs in and finds the closest computer tower to rip it open. She detaches the CPU and RAM microchips. Emerson rips open one himself and also detaches the needed microchips. However, now she has to find the parts for a Time microchip and a time flux capacitator microchip. For the Time microchip, she needs a crystalline opal and watch parts. The time flux capacitator microchip needs tiny Geissler tubes in the form of a Y-shape to move the flow of time. Evelynne searches on Deborah’s (the woman’s) phone to find a museum that might have crystalline opal. The American Museum of Natural History has a Hall of Minerals and a Hall of Gems. She tells Emerson where they need to go. They call a Lyft to take them to Central Park West and 79th Street. Ten minutes later, a female Lyft driver arrives.
“Deborah?” asks the female Lyft driver named Kelsey.
“That’s us,” Evelynne says as she enters Kelsey’s car.
Emerson gets in on the front passenger seat
“So, where you guys from originally?” queries Kelsey.
“We live in New York,” Emerson lies.
“Yes, on the Lower East Side,” Evelynne continues.
Eleven minutes later, they arrive at their destination. Kelsey says her goodbyes and they get out. They walk down the stairs to enter through the American Museum of Natural History front doors. They walk down the hall through the Theodore Roosevelt Memorial Hall, they take a left, and a right to the gift shop. Evelynne uses Deborah’s Apple Pay to pay for one gem of crystalline opal. A flat egg-shaped gem of light blue with sprinkles and hints of every color of the rainbow. They call and take an Uber to West 47th Street. Upon arrival, they use Deborah’s Apple Pay again to buy two watches. They leave and take another Lyft to the Tube Store on 50th street in Brooklynn. They arrive and again use Deborah’s Apple pay to buy two small y-shaped Geissler tubes. After getting all of their supplies, they return to Colombia University, so Evelynne can rebuild her Time Gloves.
“Now what?” Emerson questions.
“Now we need to repair the Time Gloves,” Evelynne says as they enter an empty lab upon entrance to the building.
She empties everything from her pockets, the microchips, the watches, and the crystalline opal. She takes a hammer from a nearby table and smashes the opal. She pulls out a screwdriver from her pocket and unscrews open the watches. She inserts the watch parts onto the back of the gloves and sprinkles the opal onto each Time microchip. She covers them with square pieces. She attaches the RAM and CPU to both gloves and rewires the microchips. After which, she steals some epoxy and glues the screens back on. She wires the screens to the lines on the back of the hands. The gloves spark again.
