《Out Of Time》


 Time Travel

    Time travel is either possible or it¡¯s not. It is a simple binary answer, or at least I think it is. My entire life has been based on understanding the rules around the questions and problems you are trying to solve. The more specific you ask the question the more solvable it is. Unfortunately, most of the world lives in the grey, as opposed to black and white and does not like binary questions. Ambiguity is the realm of lawyers and demons, I am not sure there is much of a difference between them, but they do have their uses at times.


    I am a gamer and I have lived my life with that thought on how I approach everything. At work it was the same. What are the rules that govern this game? Once you know the rules you can then tweak, bend, or use them to maximize what you want to get. You want a pay raise, what are the rules that govern them. Do you have to wait for an annual review, or can you get your annual review and then apply for an internal position and get another raise a few months later. Using these approaches and others I was able to squeeze out a few more percentage points here and there, they add up over the long run.


    I have been playing games in all formats since I was a kid. The key was in understanding the rules. Life in a lot of ways is no different, you just need to understand the rules, and use them to your advantage. With work for me the goal was trying to make more money. I was never the creative type who could create content and have a fabulous startup company and be a billionaire by the age of 25. I am a bit older, perhaps a lot, and yeah I am still not a billionaire.


    What I was able to do was to get experience and jump from company to company gaining titles and more money with each jump, until I was able to jump to a startup company and get moderately wealthy. In the last jump I was able to get equity from the beginning, in other words before they went public. I was able to trade my experience for equity. Within 2 years we were public. 6 months after that we were bought out and my equity stake was worth 15 million after taxes. As I said not a billionaire but overall, not too bad. It gave me options, pun intended.


    I had enough to retire on and live a moderately comfortable life never having to work again if I wanted it that way. We had signed all the papers this afternoon and I left the celebrations to have some quiet time by myself to reflect. I needed to think what to do next. Honestly at this point I had achieved what I wanted with my work goals. Running a company was not for me, I just wanted the paycheck. So, what did I want?


    Time travel is either possible or it¡¯s not.


    I looked at the scotch glass, seeking wisdom. The golden amber color was seducing in a lot of ways. It is wonderful to look at and delightful to taste. Scotch for me has always been a great reflection drink. You can sit and think while looking at it for answers. Drinking a bit more helps free the thoughts, at least that is what I like to tell myself. And if no answers come, after a while you really don¡¯t care.


    So, if it is possible how do you do it? I wasn¡¯t going to be able to invent time travel, that was clear. Again, that is just not my skill set. If it is possible then they should be able to come to me¡­right? The argument against this has always been well if that was the case why haven¡¯t we seen anyone from the future yet.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.


    Another delightful sip¡­


    Why would they though. Unless there was something worth coming to see why would they come? Honestly what do we have here that¡¯s worth seeing? This was the key then, in order to attract the time travelers, I needed something to get their attention. And honestly why would they take me anywhere if we did meet?


    Time for another glass¡­


    15 million was not going to be enough to get anyone¡¯s attention I expected; I needed more money. I also really didn¡¯t want to go back to work again, and honestly, I don¡¯t think working was going to get me the kind of money I needed to make it happen. What if I invested the money into a trust account of some sort¡­. with the sole purpose of when or if time travel was possible they develop the technology or buy me a ticket to come get me. It didn¡¯t matter how long it took, I could set up the fund now and define the timeframe for them to come get me. Just running some numbers on my phone, it looked like a ten million investment might get to be almost 200 billion in about a hundred years. The next hundred would be obscene. Even with inflation that should be a ton of money. Certainly, enough to get someone¡¯s attention.


    Ok so now I had a plan. Awesome¡­ it either works or it doesn¡¯t. Now where to go. Everyone loves the idea of time travel, but if you had a chance where would you go for the first trip. There is a ton of history to choose from, but the reality is I don¡¯t think I would enjoy most of it. Rome sounds great, taking in a gladiator fight, drinking some crappy wine, and trying to figure out how to use the vomitorium. The biggest problem though is I don¡¯t speak Latin. Hopefully the time travelers have a solution for that one, I was sure my phone and translator app were not going to connect to the internet at the colosseum.


    I also needed to prepare myself with some items for travel. Money would be nice, and a few other modern comforts. The internet would be out, but I could download a ton of apps and as long as I could keep my phone charged, I should be able to use it, I wasn¡¯t sure I would be able to take it though. Again, these are all simple enough problems to solve if I thought it out and packed accordingly. The question was still where to go.


    The more I thought about it the easier the choice became. There are two periods of history I have always enjoyed that could work. The American Revolution and the Tudor period of England. I wasn¡¯t sure I could speak Old English well enough, but hopefully I could get a few classes to help me with that weakness. Otherwise plan B was Boston in the spring of 1775. That would be fun and fascinating to see too.


    Over the next several weeks I put things into a motion. I found some lawyers who were willing to set up a trust fund and take me seriously. It cost more than I would¡¯ve liked in fees, but the reality is most people thought I was crazy. After that I focused on getting the equipment and training, I thought would be helpful. I just did not know if the trip was going to be a few days, a few weeks or even months in length. Either way I wanted to be fully prepared for the trip.


    I had asked that the time travelers meet me one year after the creation of the trust. I thought this would give enough time to get things setup, get the training I needed, and allow me to close out any personal items for a few months if needed.


    The location I chose to meet them was in Boston. If it didn¡¯t work out at least there was a good selection of restaurants and bars in the area that I could commiserate or plan my new set of actions in. I thought at this point I had planned everything out. I had spent a year covering every possibility that I could think of, where this might go, and how to prevent it from going wrong. Once again, I was convinced I was using the ¡°rules of the game¡± to suit me. Of course, when you think you have everything figured out that¡¯s usually when life comes around and kicks you in the nuts.

 Chapter 2 The Offer

    I was sitting in my back yard enjoying the day waiting for the last few days to creep by for the appointment.  The day was perfect, it was early June, the sky was blue there a couple of white puffy clouds in the sky, and all the trees had just completed their blooms. It was one of those early summer days where the leaves in the trees are so vibrantly green, and the sky so blue it is surreal.  It was a perfect New England late Spring day.


    The two fellows who came over to me were completely out of place for the day and my back yard.  They were dressed in business suits and were clearly corporate type guys, something I thought I had left behind last year.


    ¡°Hey there, what can I do for you?¡± I casually asked.  Not wanted to kill my feel-good mood I refilled my near empty glass of wine just in case.


    ¡°Are you Jeff, Jeff Harbor?¡± asked the taller of the two guys.


    ¡°Yes, what¡¯s going on?¡±  I asked, getting more curious by the moment while taking a sip of a wonderful Cabernet from Columbia Valley.  It really was becoming one of my favorite areas for wine.


    ¡°Mr. Harbor, we are here on behalf of the trust you created.  We have a proposition for you.  I am Jack Conway, and my companion is Harry Tyler.¡±


    ¡°It worked!¡±, I exclaimed, not really believing this was happening


    ¡°Yes, and no.¡± said the second gentlemen.  He was the shorter of the two, but seemed to have a slightly better made suit, and the swatch in his jacket pocket was a nice touch with the suit I thought.  I had always wanted to wear one, but never felt I could pull it off.


    ¡°We are not here to offer you a trip through time.  Instead we have something else to offer you that we think is far more interesting, and one that you will find much more interesting.  You are familiar with MMPOG, and the new variations VRMMPOG, Right?¡±


    I nodded my head, not sure where this was going.  Not only were these guys, assuming they were the guys I thought they were, meeting me a few days early, this was also not quite what I was expecting.


    We are here to offer you a chance to play in the ultimate VRMMPOG.  The game is similar to what you would expect and is based on a fantasy setting, but there are several key differences.  The first is that this game is the most realistic VRMMPOG that has ever been created and likely ever will be created.  It is created in a future time-period and we are using quantum links to invite players from all time periods to play.¡±


    ¡°The second key difference is the players you will be playing with are from all periods of history.  Some will be ancient warriors, some will be key historical figures you may or may not know, some will be from the future.  There are players covering a time-period of just over 5000 years of human history.  We almost put in some of the older prehistoric civilizations, but we had some trouble getting them to understand the interfaces.  It was felt that they would start of well in the game, but never manage to finish the final quests.¡±


    ¡°But what about my request for time travel, that is what I set the trust up for?¡± I asked, still not quite understanding what was going on here.


    ¡°We are here to offer you an alternative to time travel¡± said Jack.  ¡°Time travel, in the form that you would like to achieve is just not possible.  We can watch the events unfold, but we cannot send anyone back into them.  If you like you could see a video recording of the event, but there is no way for you to be able to travel and actually be a part of the events yourself.¡±


    ¡°So, keeping that in mind, what we want to offer you is a chance to experience another form of reality.  It is a VRMMPOG, to put it in terms that you would understand.  But it is on a level that you could never imagine.  The theme is fantasy, with a medieval setting with a few surprises mixed in throughout the world. The game will be started at the same time for all players.  No one will have a head start.  The players will come from not just all over the world, but from almost every time-period as well.¡±


    ¡°You mean I could be playing against Napoleon, or Alexander the Great?  Really!!!!, Come on¡­.¡±


    ¡°I am not sure if we have those two signed up, but Leonardo Da Vinci is, and there are other notables that you would recognize their names.  It is possible because of the way we have set the game up.  The machines running it are based in the future, but we are using a form of Quantum entanglement to allow us to target most of the periods that humanity has existed in, and to start them all at the same point in the game.  It is a bit more complex than that but based on where our time-period is in its understanding of physics let¡¯s leave it at that.  Not to mention the fact I don¡¯t understand it myself.  We just recruit the players and get them set up.  We are not from the future, but are from this time-period, so I have no understanding of the technology and only a basic understanding of the game.¡±


    He continued on, ¡°Ben Franklin was a great mind at age 70 and a founding father of the United States, what if we offer to put him in the game at 16 or 25?  That is one of the variables you will not know.  We are not putting them in the game after they have achieved greatness, we are placing them in the game at time points in their life where this is still a challenge for them, and where it will not interfere with actual events.¡±


    ¡°The bottom line is, if you decide to play, we are offering you a chance to experience another world.  One in which you have the chance to interact with other people from different time periods.  I suspect that may be less important to you once you start playing the game.  It is really a chance to explore a new world.  The game experience will take weeks, months or even a year or more from your perspective, but only a few days will pass in this time frame, depending on how long you last in the game. So, what do you think? Are you in?¡±


    ¡°How long do I have to think about this?¡±


    ¡°Surprisingly not much time at all.  While the game can cover all kinds of time periods the starting time points have already been established for this period.  You were not originally planned on being selected, but one of the participants from this time point can no longer play.  As a result, you were selected from the backup list.¡±


    I started to interrupt him with a question, but he pushed on. ¡°Don¡¯t ask about how the lists were created; I have no idea.  We are here to simply recruit the candidates and get them to the processing facility if they agree to move forward.  And as for the person who dropped out, she is not someone you are aware of yet.  In 20 years yes, today no, at least that is what I was told.¡±This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    ¡°What do I have to do to get started if I agree to join?¡± I asked still not sure what the hell was going on.


    ¡°If you agree to playing then we will pick you up in the morning, and we can explain a bit more on the way to the processing facility.  You also must agree to waiving all video rights.  The game is being streamed to several viewers in the future across multiple time points.  They plan on selling the video feeds and monetizing the content that is created.  There is expected to be a huge draw in terms of audience and value creation for the content that we expect to generate.¡±


    Honestly, I did not have much to do here, I was just planning on hanging out not doing much of anything for the next week or so.  My wife was leaving tonight for a vacation with her sister.  I had set that up in case I managed to get a time travel ticket.  The kids were all grown and had the left the house to move on with their lives.  A few days to a week would not be an issue.  I just hoped these guys were on the level.


    ¡°OK, I guess I¡¯m in.  What should I bring with me?¡± I asked


    ¡°You really don¡¯t need anything. This is a virtual game¡± said Jack.  ¡°we will have a car here in the morning and we will take you to the processing facility.  Once there we will set you up and begin to interface you with the game.  On the drive over we will try to give you some basic information to introduce you to the game.¡±


    The drive over to their facility the next day took about an hour and ?.  The location was nothing special, it was in an industrial park and looked like any of the other warehouses in the area.  On the drive over Jackson explained to me that this game would be a true virtual reality game.  1 hour would feel like 1 hour, I would be required to eat, sleep, drink and do all the other requirements of living.  In virtually every respect this would be no different than reality.  The characters I would meet in the game would not be distinguishable from any of the players.  They would have a history and background just as if they had grown up in a normal world and lived their whole lives there.


    As far as interacting with the game I would have a virtual transparent screen visible in front of my eyes.  I should be able to ¡°will¡± it to come up, and to manipulate it by thinking.  They both encouraged me to explore the screens and to understand how to interact with it and the world.  It would be intuitive and easy to use, but they also encouraged me to keep exploring it, as new screens would become available as I leveled up and obtained new skills and, as I became familiar with the screens, I could train them to do things to help me interact with world in more efficient ways.


    One of the key differences with this game from others would be the fact that there was no interface for the outside world.  This would ensure that guilds from the real world would not be created and give some players the added benefit of real-world alliances.  You could create a guild in the VR world, if you wanted, but it had to be done with the limitations of communications that the world had.  It was a level playing field for all.  There would also not be access to a wiki of any sort.  You had to learn from the world and grow within that world.  This would ensure that all the players from all time periods were starting in a level playing field.


    Quests would be a bit different too.  I shouldn¡¯t expect the normal leveling quests of a farmer needing help from wolves and having to slay 6 wolves to save his precious cattle.  Quests had to be obtained from exploring the world and finding them.  They were there and plentiful, but they would make sense from a realistic perspective of the world.


    As far as winning the game that was up to me.  Just as in most MMPOG what it means to win is up to the individual.  For some players it would be crafting unique items and enjoying the experience, for others it might be playing with heavy magic and becoming a true master of the arts.  And for those that really desired a quest, there was one unique quest that would reward one player with a unique item.  They would not tell me what that item was, but it was one that would influence what happened in the real world and not just in the VRMMPOG.  That would be up to me to discover the quest chain and to be the first one to win it if I truly wanted it.  The quest chain would also help to reveal the nature of the reward.  There would be additional rewards based on other quest chains, but the main reward was one that would be truly life changing.  That had to be something special, right?


    We pulled up to a warehouse type facility in an industrial park.  The building didn¡¯t look like anything special and it was at the end of the industrial strip ensuring there was privacy.


    Going into the processing facility, I could see people were set up on what looked like patient beds.  They were hooked up to ER monitoring machines and drip IV¡¯s.  Honestly this looked very weird, and I was really questioning my decision right now.  This looked more like a horror movie setup than a gaming platform.


    ¡°What the hell¡¯s going on here?¡± I asked


    ¡°Don¡¯t think about it too much¡± Chuckled Jack. ¡°I am sure this looks creepy as all hell, but all we¡¯re doing is setting up stations to monitor the players bodies and to ensure the patients are fed and cared for over the next few days.  Everyone is being monitored by nurses and doctors to ensure no damage comes to your physical body as you play the game.¡±


    I tried to get a closer look at some of the other players, but I really could not get too close to look at them.  They looked to be of all ages from the early twenties to possibly in their sixties or seventies, hell one guy looked like he was over a hundred and barley alive.  It honestly looked like he needed the machines to keep him alive.


    Jack noticed me looking over at that room and commented.


    ¡°He was a special entry and a late replacement like you.  He is a World War 2 vet and stormed the beaches of Normandy with the best of them.  The number of military decorations he received is staggering, and he should have received more.  He managed to live a full life after the war and then some.  That is the type of players you are up against.  I hope you are ready for this.¡±


    ¡°Just to let you know from the odd makers perspective you are at or near the bottom.  The veteran ranks higher than you.  Keep that in mind as you figure out how to play and what you want to do in the game.  There will be a payout based on the ranking.  The majority will get nothing.  Those that achieve memorable results or rank in the top 100 will all receive prizes that have a real-world impact on you and your life.¡±


    Once I was settled into the bed and hooked up to the machines and the IV, they came in with a headset.  It didn¡¯t seem like much; it was a simple contraction with not much on it.  Honestly it looked like a combination of the headset from Doc Browns¡¯ Back to the Future movie and a metal pasta strainer.


    ¡°Jeff, once we turn the headset on you will be placed in a coma like state until we start the game.  No time will pass for you.  You¡¯ll wake up in a predetermined location in the game.  The spot is a safe area for the start of the game and will be a re-spawn area if you happen to die.  You do not have an infinite amount of lives.  Every player starts off with three lives.  There will be opportunities to earn additional lives in the game.  There will also be additional random factors that will impact you through the game.  All players will start out with the same basic crappy equipment and the same disadvantages of being an inexperienced level one character, and everything that entails.  There is no extra charge for the crappy equipment you start out with.  From that point it is up to you to decide what you want to do and who and what you will want to become.¡±


    ¡°Any questions?¡± he asked as they placed the Headset on, and the nurses finished hooking up an IV to me.


    I probably had a ton, but I was too busy trying to process everything that was being thrown at me to do more than just nod that I was ready.


    ¡°Good luck¡±