The Letter

Joe Bringham sat with his back to the large oak tree at the back of the Bringham castle. The spring air warmed his skin as he studied his electrical engineering book. His attention was so focused he didn't even notice the faint hissing of steam coming from the ground a few feet away from him.

The hissing got Joe's attention when the ground started vibrating underneath him. Joe sprang to his feet so quickly that his head swam from oxygen rushing to his brain.

He looked around to see if someone was pulling some kind of trick on him but realized that he was within the guarded grounds of the family castle. A castle that had been in the family for many generations.

The ground was collapsing around the spout of steam that was erupting from the ground. The hissing of steam was accompanied by the sound of metal crashing through the dirt. The steam blew chunks of dirt and rock into the air.

The vibrating stopped as abruptly as it had begun, leaving a bowling ball sized hole in the ground. Steam continued to gently hiss out of the center of the small hole in the ground.

Joe stood with his mouth wide oped, trying to understand what had just happened in front of him. The steam had filled the air with the odor of iron and stagnant water, strong enough that joe could taste the pungent mist.

He approached the hole cautiously, afraid it may start spewing steam again. His glasses fogged as his tall skinny body neared the strange hole.

Inside the hole was an odd metal machine. The top had a primitive propeller designed for cutting through the dirt, under the center was a foot long cylinder with six arms jutting out from it in each direction. The arms extended upward and had small drills attached that would drill up and pull the machine toward the surface as the main cutter peeled dirt away from the center.

The machine looked very old, it was very primitively built, with exposed gears and makeshift parts. There was a gauge in the center that looked as though it was made from an old clock.

The steam had stopped and joe's curiosity got the better of him. He reached inside the hole and grabbed the main propeller, the machine was not stuck at all, it pulled up out of the ground easily.

On the underside of the tube was a leather strap that had been reinforced with rough cut silver backing. It held a cap onto the bottom of the cylindrical tube. The leather was mostly rotted away, but the silver held the cap firmly in place.

Joe just stared at the contraption, it looked like one of the crazy machines that his distant grandfather had built back in the 1400's. The machines that were far ahead of their time but caused him to be labeled crazy. In fact, Joe was the first to study a field other than politics and law since his grandfather. His father often joked that he would be the next crazy grandpa Justin.

Joe removed the cap from the bottom and was surprised to find a small glass vial with an electric blue liquid inside. The vial was wrapped inside of three pieces of parchment, all with neat handwriting on them:

My name is Justin Bringham, I am the first man on earth to exist in an entirely different dimension. This was not done intentionally, but it has certainly changed my life none the less. This is the story of how life changed, it's an attempt to reach the future world from my own. We...I need help from someone with a clean history in this dimension.

It all started when I was very young. When my fascination with time and steam collided with my duties to rule a country as their king. Here is how it all happened.

                                                          ***

"Must you always be tinkering with trash dear?" My mother's voice echoed through my thoughts as the hat neared completion, "We haven't the time for you to play with such things, there is a country that needs your attending."

"It's nearly finished anyhow mother," I said as I filled the tiny water chamber in the void within the hat, "The very first machine of it's type... I call it the clock hat."

Perching the hat on my head was a bit of a challenge, the top hat was slightly top heavy, an adjustment that could be dealt with later. Directly in the center of the hat was the golden framed clock. Its hands had been cut from a silver platter that once carried food from the kitchen to the dinner table.

"TOOOOOT TOOOOOOOT!" The steam whistle sounded from the top of the hat, marking twelve noon.

"The most ridiculous thing I have ever seen," My mother barked from across the room, "why have you made such a ridiculous hat?"

"Mother, I have told you before," My voice full of anger and hurt, "We are entering a new age, one full of invention and wonder. That is my dream for our country, to lead the world in innovation. With steam, we will be able to set the world in motion!"

"Steam darling?" My mother spoke as if speaking to a disobedient child, "What on earth is that?"

"I am not a child any longer!" My voice echoed through the large dining hall, "I am fifteen years old and a year ago I started leading this country after father died. Father would be proud that I have accomplished so much already. Why can't you be happy that I am stepping out of the normal war filled path that our family has lead this country through?"

My mother looked at me with her deep brown eyes, they were filled with rage. She wanted to charge at me and throw me to the ground, as she had done many times. Now that I had taken the throne as king, she knew it would mean imprisonment.

Without another word she stomped out of the hall, slamming the door behind her. The force of the door knocked a lantern from its hook, shattering it on the stone floor. A kitchen maid nearby beat the flames out with the cloth that had been around her head.

As I turned to sit at my place on the long table in the middle of the room, the top hat fell forward off my head. Instinctively my hands reach forward allowing it topple gently into them.

My eyes blinked out tears as I threw the hat down on the table. Before the hat reached the hard surface regret had already filled my heart. The clock glass shattered, allowing springs and gears to fly across the table. The whistle that had been made from a teapot lid rolled off the table and landed at my feet.

"Sir, would you like me to clean that up for you?" Giles my personal assistant and friend squeaked from behind me.

"Giles, call me Justin. I have told you one hundred times, we are friends. No thank you, I want it there when the royal council meets."

Giles was always eager to help, never eager to talk. At fourteen he had not yet had a change of voice, for the past year he nearly never spoke unless spoken too.

I sat in my tall chair at the head of the table, staring at the hat pieces with great remorse. Wishing I could go back in time to take back the destruction of the hat. The idea that would change my history was born in that thought.

"Giles, tell the council I am sick," I said with excitement in my voice, "After they have had their tea and talked, come to my creation room."

Without another word I ran as fast as I could to the room I had transformed into a master craftsman's workshop. It was called the creation room because it was there that all my ideas came to life.

While the world outside was stuck in an era of horse-drawn buggies and proper speaking, I buried myself in a world of innovation. Taking old clocks, gears, pullies, and metal objects, I put them to use in a myriad of different ways.

The day the clock hat broke, is the day the dam that held back my creative juices also burst. Science and craftsmanship collided in my head, and that is when the fourth dimension became a reality in my mind.

The next two years my mother ran the country as I barricaded myself in the creation workshop. Test after test failed until one day, I mixed hydrochloric acid with liquid nitrogen, at first nothing but a frozen blue mass.

When that frozen mass was placed in a steam bath inside of a pressurized container made entirely of gold, the Gold did something incredible. It grew at an alarming rate, so fast that it actually turned to liquid. Before long it consumed all the chemicals in my lab and an explosion caused the creation room to be filled with a shimmery purple smoke.

When the smoke cleared, that is when it became apparent that I was no longer in the same dimension. I started to see and hear a myriad of different voices and figures, the figures were very blurry and the voices all seemed to be my own.

I focused all my will into seeing the one nearest to me, in an instant, it became very clear, it was indeed me. My mouth sat open in disbelief and I realized that it was possibly a few seconds ahead of me in time.

After a few moments of watching, it occurred to me that I maybe able to touch the older version of myself. As the thought crossed my mind the other me reached out in front of itself and seemed to skip ahead a few seconds.

Though fear sat in my heart, I reached out and touched my own arm. The world around me blurred for half a second before I realized nothing had really happened.

There was a clock on the wall a few feet from me, just as I considered grabbing it, the figure in front of me reached for it too. This older version of myself was a mere three seconds ahead of me. But to my surprise, the clock was still on the wall, yet also in the hands of the future me.

Trying to ignore the other version of myself. I grabbed the clock and watched the second hand tick by. The theory was that when I touched myself the first time, I actually skipped ahead a few seconds in time.

When the clocks second hand hit 12 I reached ahead and touched myself. The world went blurry, and I focused on the clock. It went ahead ten seconds in the blink of an eye.

I stared for a few moments in disbelief, I had just created time travel. The me I was focused on ran up the stairs, I stood to follow before willing myself to stay.

Once I was not focused on that version of myself, I realized that there were still many voices and blurry figures moving around the room. In fact, there were more than even before I had jumped.

Choosing one across the room I focused hard on it, once again it came into complete focus. This one looked familiar, it was me from earlier. I watched as if I was watching myself act out my past.

It all went like I thought until, well the past me grabbed nitroglycerin instead of hydrochloric acid, I watched as the past me was blown into a hundred pieces. Well, I am guessing that is what happened because the instant steam was introduced, that version of me was gone.

I choose another blur across the room, this time it was me in the future, A long way into the future. I looked at this version of me astounded, he was a grown man. I looked a lot like my father, I was drawn to this version of myself. I reached out and touched my arm.

The world turned into a blur, this time it lasted more than a few seconds. Flash after flash of intense light hit me until I realized I had stopped.

I ran up the stairs to find out how the world had changed. At the top of the stairs, Giles stood in front of me, a grown man himself.

"That was a fast trip to the old creation room," Giles said in a very deep voice, "Are you still the...you I remember?"

"What are you talking about?" My voice sounded strange to me, more grown up, "where is my mother?"

"You have to be kidding me," Giles growled, " You said you wouldn't touch any more of those things!"

"So you know?" I questioned, "It is amazing, isn't it? I created time travel!"

"You told me to always remind you," Giles said seemingly put out, "It is not time travel, it is a new dimension. How old are you this time?"

"I am fifteen," I said sarcastically, " Oh... well, I was anyway."

Gile's eyes grew big, "How long after the creation of the new dimension is this version of you?"

"Well I have.. er...jumped a few times," I said not sure what to call the time travel, " But same day as, maybe twenty minutes after?"

"Hurry!" Giles said as he pushed me back into the creation room, "find you before the creation of the dimension, touch that version and stop the creation of time travel!"

"No way!!!" I shouted, "This was what I was trying to do all along!"

"You have to trust me!" Giles pleaded, "The future you was trying to find a version of you that was from before the dimension, but you are what he got! Don't you get it, the longer you wait, the more versions of you there are. Start looking!"

I knew I didn't want to be that version of me anymore, I wanted to be a kid still. So I found the version of me reaching for the clock and touched it.

The effects of the smoke had apparently only affected me. So that means the dimension didn't exist for everyone or at least they couldn't jump between them or see them.

After months of traveling to many versions of me through time, one thing became very clear. I didn't want to be stuck in any one of these versions of me. I wanted to go back to the time before the dimension shift. The problem was the more I jumped, the more versions of me there became, leaving it impossible to try and find the one before the time shift.

This is all very confusing I know, I have lived many many lifetimes over. Living a few times into old age, then jumping to younger versions of myself. In all my time, I have learned a great many things. About life and invention, mathematics and science, about people in general.

The major problem is that I am always stuck at the same time in history, the same seventy years or so. But I came up with a theory, if I could find a way to send something into the future, I may be able to bring someone from the future back to my time to help change the future and the past at the same time.

If you are reading this, you are the one who will be able to come back into time, back far enough to change history and put the future into an advanced state of technological achievement.

There is a bottle hidden with this letter, drink it. You will find that you are able to see the version of me hiding this time capsule. Simply touch that version of me and you will travel to my time. We can discuss matters in more detail once you arrive.

                                                           ***

Joe looked at the blue liquid in the vial. It had been over six hundred years since the liquid was sealed into the vial. He wanted desperately to drink the liquid. If he could indeed go back in time with his knowledge, the world could be technologically in a different place. Imagine if Einstein and Tesla could have advanced modern technology to the next stages.

Joe opened the vial and smelled the substance, it had no odor at all. He looked around the house and made his decision. If grandpa Justin was correct, this would be a chance to change the world for the better.

In an adrenaline filled moment, Joe took the bottle closed his eyes and dumped it down his throat.

The burning that followed was enough to drop him to his knees. His eyes lost focus and he let out a scream.

"ARGGHHHH," He screamed grabbing his stomach, the final words just a whisper, " Heeeelp..."

Joe began to go in and out of consciousness laying on the grass next to the hole in the ground. Finally, after what felt like hours, Joe could see someone through his blurred vision. He reached out to take their hand as the world around him went black.