Down with Gravity

"People should be able to escape Earth's gravitational field just by jumping," Timmers argued.

"Really? how about that." Horowitz was reading his _Popular_Mechanics_ and didn't want to look up. He especially didn't want to look up at Timmers. It wasn't wise to encourage Timmers.

"We are poised on the brink of conquering the solar system," Timmers pressed. "What stands in our way? This goddamn gravity well, that's what! Getting off this rock is almost impossible. It's getting to the point," [and here Timmers' eyes narrowed], "it's getting to the point where gravity is really harshing my buzz."

Horowitz chuckled. "So you're saying you're anti-gravity?"

"Damn straight." Timmers folded his arms and looked thoughtful. "And I'm gonna do something about it."

Horowitz put down his magazine in alarm. "Oh, no, Timmers, no no no. You don't want to do anything silly, do you?" Timmers said nothing, but he looked away, his mouth a grim line.

Gingerly, Horowitz tried again. "Do you remember when you got all excited about global warming, Timmers? huh? Do you remember that?"

Timmers rolled his eyes and said nothing.

"And, uh, do you remember what happened then? when you wanted to, you know, do something?"

"I wish you all would quit bringing that up," snarled Timmers. "A little cold air and everybody gets all excited. I'm sorry about all those penguins and Eskimos, okay? they should have dressed warmer."

Horowitz licked his lips. "Timmers, you liquefied their oxygen."

"This is different!" Timmers was angry now, Horowitz saw, which was never good. "We are suffering under the tyranny of gravity. We are PRISONERS of the PUNIEST of universal forces, and it's got to stop."

Under the table, Horowitz pressed one of the little red buttons that had been installed at every workstation to kill the lab's power in the event that Timmers got one of his dangerous ideas. "No, Timmers, YOU have got to stop. This is....this is utterly crazy. You always do this; you have these nutty notions and you don't think through the consequences of your actions!" Horowitz mopped at his forehead with a handkerchief.

"Look," said Horowitz more kindly, "you can't fool with the Earth's gravity. Why don't you take a walk or get a cup of coffee or something? We can talk some more when you get back."

Timmers stalked off, fuming. Horowitz followed him with his eyes, profoundly disturbed.

*************************************************************************

Cho munched on an apple. "You're not supposed to have any power," he scolded. "Security said so." He was standing inside the janitor closet watching Timmers work.

"I'm not using the lab's juice," grunted Timmers. "And Security can collectively screw its collective self."

Cho frowned, watching the blinking lights cycle across the surface of Timmers' amorphous spindly creation. "Then what's it running on?"

"I'm extracting caloric from the ether."

"Um...." Cho scratched his head. "I don't think that's how heat transfer works, Timmers."

Timmers half-turned and stabbed a screwdriver in Cho's general direction. "That's what they WANT you to think. Goddamn power companies and their monopolies."

Cho shuffled up to peer over Timmers' shoulder. "So how's it gonna work?"

Timmers sat back on his haunches. "Well," he said, "basically, the strong force and the weak force are gonna get together and kick gravity's ass. It's, like, the opposite of the Grand Unification Theory. This is civil fuckin' war." He seemed deeply satisfied.

Cho shook his head. "Timmers," he said, "you are, on a very basic level, a weirdo."

"You watch it," growled Timmers, fixing Cho with a steely eye. "Sometimes people implode."

Cho fled the room. "And don't tell Horowitz!" shouted Timmers after him.

Awkward Moments

"Do you people even listen?!" Timmers was a much better engineer than he was a teacher. He had very little patience for anybody less smart than himself, which was everybody.

Cho and Murman exchanged glances. "I've been listening," replied Murman defensively.

"Me too," added Cho, "but I'm having trouble with this whole Gap Convecture..."

"Conjecture! Gap Conjecture! You're all idiots!" Timmers ground his teeth, then returned to the whiteboard.

"Okay! One more time! look:" Timmers drew a horizontal line on the board. "This is time! See? there is a past....and there is a future! Have I lost you yet?"

"No." "No."

"Yay! okay, now you are here, the present, at time T2. Murman, if you ask me why it's T2 and not T1, I swear I will disintegrate you. Now then, moving on." Murman slowly put his hand back down.

"We hop in our time machine," continued Timmers, "and we return to the past to time T1 over here. There we do something that changes the time stream. Let's say, Murman, that I went back and knocked up your mother. Now, will those changes be felt at time T2? Yes, Murman?"

"Would that make you my father?"

"Correct, Murman; the answer is 'no': the changes will not be felt at time T2. And why is that, Cho?"

"Uh...because it would cause a paradox?"

"Yes! it's sinking in! it would cause a goddamn paradox. It will only avoid a paradox if the changes write themselves discontinuously onto reality at some point *after* our time traveler departs from T2."

Murman's eyes were completely glazed over. Cho's were getting there, but he still gamely raised his hand.

"So, uh, how do the changes get from T1 to T2? I mean, if you knock up Murman's mom, and there's a baby, that baby can't just spring into existence at T2, can it?"

"That's what I've been spending the last 45 minutes trying to explain to you boobs," groaned Timmers, throwing his hands up in exasperation. "Okay, look, we're already talked about how there are multiple dimensions of time as well as space, right? You remember that, right? You don't remember that. Sweet Jesus and his Travellin' Electric Band. Okay....I have a headache....okay." Timmers smiled thinly.

"The changes will propagate as a wave through the lower dimensions of timespace," he half-sang, staring up at the ceiling, "and will only manifest themselves in *this* timestream at some point *after* T2. They will appear at T3, off to the right here, after a short gap, a gap proportional to T2-T1, a gap which I am conjecturing about, and that is why I call it....Murman?" Timmers smiled expectantly.

Murman started. "What?"

Timmers blinked. "The gap. And my conjecture about it. What I, you know, call it."

"Man, what are you talking about?" Murman looked at his watch. "Is lunch over yet?"

Timmers' nostrils flared. He looked over at Cho. Cho shrugged.

"Well." Timmers stalked across the room, raised the lid of the curious machine that had been built using the frame of a washing machine, and swung his legs inside the drum.

"I am going to prove the Gap Conjecture," Timmers announced, strapping a headset of electrodes across his balding head, "by returning in time. Cho, stay here and keep an eye on your watch. Murman, where and when were you born?"

Murman frowned. "Newark, 1972. Why?"

"Nothing, nothing. Say, what's your Mom's name, anyway?"

"It's Hilda. You....oh, no. No, forget it, Timmers, you're not her type."

"Never underestimate science, Murman. Cheerio, boys!" With a hearty wave, Timmers twisted the Spin Cycle dial and disappeared.

Murman folded his arms. "You know what? that guy is a dick."

"He's right most of the time, though," Cho conceded. "I mean, he did repel the Zorg fleet and everything."

"I don't care," Murman replied, opening a Coke. "He's totally going back in time to screw my mom. There's no reason to do that, except to be an asshole. I'm going to tell him that when he gets back, too."

"Better be careful; remember what happened to Horowitz?" Cho warned. "He's going to be in that tank downstairs for months. Dude, what's going on with you?"

"What?" Murman's outline was blurring, a bit like an old TV fuzzing out. "Nothing's going on with me, Cho; I'd lzzk to knzzw mzzzt ms zz zz mzzz..." The image of Murman blurred away to a grey wash, only to redefine itself and resolve into perfect clarity.

Cho stared. Murman was gone. In his place, wearing Murman's clothes and still holding a half-drunk Coke, was Timmers. Timmers looked down at his soda.

"Ew!" he announced, putting the drink down and recoiling. "Carbs and caffeine; what was I thinking?"

Some sparks and a whooping noise announced the return of the original Timmers, his clapped-together time machine settling into a corner of the room with a scrape. He removed his headset and stared at the new Timmers. The new Timmers stared back.

"Well!" said the first Timmers brightly. "This is an awkward moment!"

"Ain't it?" asked his twin.