Chronological Order

"I got Game 7, baby! Canadiens vee Stars!" Marc trumpeted as he entered the ChronoWorx laboratory.

Jack tilted an eyebrow. "Nosebleeds? And there might not even be a Game 7. It would be two weeks away!"

Marc sighed. "Yeah, I got a pair of bleeders, but it’s Game 7! The Habs’ best chance at the Cup in 36 years! Besides, this would smooth things over with Marie."

There were chuckles around the room. Dr. Theodore Torr, whom everyone called Doc as a play on his last name, called out, "What’d you do this time, anyway?"

"Do you remember when we went out to celebrate the FCT’s decision to finally start working? Doc, you’ve got to help me with this age-old problem. She asked me if she looked fat in the dress she wore. I said, ‘Oh honey, you’d look fat in anything!’"

The room reverberated again with laughter. Doc said, "You’ve got to be smoother about these things, m’boy. You have to say something like, ‘Well, you’d look thinner without it.’"

"Sounds like a voice of wisdom."

"It used to be a voice. Now it’s just a whisper."

Doc always liked Marc. The two of them got along right from the start when Marc joined the project right after his studies at the École Polytechnique in Montreal. Despite his odd French Canadian habits and Doc’s crusty, old-fashioned nature, they quickly settled into a mentor-apprentice relationship.

The team got back to work, work that there was plenty of. Just two weeks ago, the ChronoWorx research and development team perfected the Future Consciousness Transporter, or the FCT. Ever since, they have been performing more field tests and analyzing data on the experiments. The first successful field test was performed on Doc’s pet Kerry Blue terrier, Casanova. Casanova was chosen because he was extremely clever and obedient, but mostly because Doc wanted him to be the first through the FCT.

*****

The Future Consciousness Transporter was the brainchild of Dr. Theodore Torr, a frumpy, sixty-something engineer that looked like he stepped out of a mad scientist movie. He founded ChronoWorx with a hefty grant from the U.S. government. The sole purpose of ChronoWorx was to develop the FCT. The government support for the project was considerable. This was not surprising considering the growing number of devastating terrorist attacks by Russian fundamentalists. The government desperately wanted to stem the growing death toll. The Ruskies were attacking civilians now, targeting the U.S. and its closest and most powerful military partner, Canada. Knowledge of the future may be enough to stop the terrorist assaults.

The FCT was a time machine of sorts. The transporter device itself was a radiation-proof, sound-proof, magnetic-proof, air-tight chamber. The chamber was spherical with electromagnetic emitters attached around its inner surface. A speaker system and video cameras were installed in the sphere so that the occupant could be observed. At the centre of the room was a sleek black reclining chair for the occupant.

What the FCT did was transport consciousness into the future, rather than some physical object. When the FCT was activated, the occupant found himself as himself in the future. He could control his actions and speech normally. There was a slightly schizophrenic effect since two consciousnesses - the future and the present - were overlaid on top of each other; however, there was no problem if the future consciousness did not resist against its doppelganger from the past.

The time traveler could remain in the future for about an hour.