Darren Johnson - Arnesto Modesto - The World's Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

“Why must time travel kill you, Grandpa?”

Arnesto Modesto looked at little Jessenia and smiled. She wasn’t his granddaughter but his great-great-great-great-granddaughter. Over the last century, medicine had seen countless improvements in staving off death so people were living longer than ever before. As the number of surviving generations increased, many families adopted the tradition of calling all their elders “Grandma” and “Grandpa.”

“Because the nanobots have to destroy my memory cells to best extract the information before they create the impulses to send back along the curve of space-time via quantum embroilment,” he said. She looked confused so he reiterated, “It’s to give my brain in the past the best chance of accepting memories from my brain in the present.” He tapped his frail finger against the side of his liver-spotted head for emphasis.

He overheard one of the young mothers in the room whispering to her little boy, “He’s preparing to go to heaven.”

“No, I’m not!” he snapped.

A few of the bystanders gasped at his sudden outburst before the room fell silent.

“There’s no such thing as heaven or hell. Can’t a man choose to die in peace without any religious dogma ruining the moment?”

The boy looked like he was about to cry. So did the boy’s mother. Arnesto felt bad. Must remember to be less condescending in my next life , he thought.

He looked over at the 2130 calendar hanging on the wall. He had it special made as nobody used print calendars anymore.

The top pages of the calendar featured classic cars from the 2060s: self-driving, self-recharging, eco-friendly, and impossibly safe. They were a far cry from the cars Arnesto drove in his day. He realized he was probably the only one alive in his family who had ever driven a car. Heck, the Department of Motor Vehicles closed down decades ago.

The bottom page showed April with that day’s date circled. He loved that circle. His day had come at last. Less exciting were the marks filling every day before. The nurse put another mark inside that day’s circle then looked at Arnesto with a mild sneer. It was part of their arrangement that she would mark the calendar every time he was snarky to someone.

From his deathbed, he looked around the room. Besides the nurse and Arnesto’s assistant, Marcus, everyone was somehow related to him. Descendants, descendants-in-law, cousins a number of times removed, cousins he wouldn’t mind seeing removed. They were all awkwardly looking at him. Even though it was his big day, he never got used to being the center of attention. He made an attempt at some damage control.

“I mean, we all have our own ways of coping with death. Besides, I’m not going anywhere except to the past, where I will get to live my life all over again. Does anyone have any questions?” he asked.

“If the impulses go back in time, couldn’t they recreate your memories in a dinosaur?” Jessenia asked. Several people chuckled, easing the tension in the room.

“A great question! Who read and understood my research and wants to answer that?” The adults looked around the room at one another, but nobody volunteered. Idiots.

Arnesto had no choice but to answer for them. “I’m kind of oversimplifying things, but the impulses are grounded in my brain. That means I’m the only one who can receive them. But if one of them escapes and lands in a dinosaur’s puny brain, the impulse would be incompatible. The energy would simply float away. Anyone else?”

A middle-aged man spoke up. “Would you like us to pray for you?”

Arnesto glared at the man. “You listen—”

“Arnesto, your blood pressure,” Nurse Pearl said, placing her hand on his frail arm and nodding to the marked up calendar.

“Who cares, I’m about to frigging die anyway!”

“It might affect the experiment.” She was good. She knew how to handle him. He looked over at his assistant, Marcus, who shrugged. The experiment was unique, built upon layer after layer of wild conjecture. Both memory extraction and quantum teleportation had their geneses early in the twenty-first century, but no one had ever attempted to marry the technologies like this .

Arnesto centered himself, again looking around at his guests. “I think it’s time,” he said. He looked again at Marcus, who gave him a quick nod. He then turned back to the crowd.

“I’d like to thank you all for coming. Despite my brilliance, I’ve made some mistakes, but seeing all of you here, I know I’ve done something right.” There were a great number of smiles, but Arnesto focused on the gaps between those present, picturing in his mind the many who weren’t. “I’ve had a great life, but now my time has come. It is my dying wish to make a final contribution to the world of science, and my experiment should do just that. At the same time, it will allow me to execute my Twenty-Ninth Amendment right to humanely terminate my life with dignity — as if I had any left.” A few chuckles. “A tiny percentage of the nanobots are there purely to observe. Marcus will be displaying the feed on one of the monitors on the wall there. I encourage you to watch and ask questions. However, those of you who are embarrassed, squeamish, or easily offended may wish to look away or even leave the room. I guess that’s it. I wish you all the best. Goodbye.”

Marcus handed him the specially marked vial, then Nurse Pearl assisted his shaky hand as he inserted it into the injector port leading directly to his bloodstream. It didn’t take long for the first nanobots to reach the blood-brain barrier and cut their way inside. In no time, they were tracing their way along the synapses to the memory center of the brain.

Marcus selected the most interesting-looking view on the multi-cam display and made that the primary display on the viewing monitor. It was mostly the children who watched as a nanobot found an isolated memory cell and attached itself. There was a pause, then a bright flash filled the monitor. The camera nanobot had to reorient itself, but once it did, it panned over the area where the flash happened. A few people gasped. The memory cell was all but gone and in its place were a bunch of damaged nanobot parts.

Jessenia looked at Marcus, who explained in a respectful, hushed tone, “It’s a violent reaction on a very tiny scale.”

She then looked at Arnesto. “Does it hurt?”

“Not at all,” Nurse Pearl reassured her. “We gave him some medicine to make him feel completely relaxed and pain-free.”

Marcus considered mentioning the stimulation nanobots that had nothing to do with the experiment but were there solely to interact with the brain’s pleasure center, but thought better of it. He found a camera near a large cluster of cells and put that up on the viewing monitor. It took several seconds as many more reactor nanobots appeared and secured their positions. Another big flash. This time the camera nanobot remained far enough away to hold stable. There were more oohs and aahs as the aftermath of the orchestrated reaction revealed itself.

The microexplosions were coming faster now. Marcus shifted his entire display to the viewing monitor. Like the end of a fireworks show, flashes appeared in many of the individual windows on the screen.

The children delighted in the carnage of nanobot parts floating in the newly empty spaces. Arnesto had opted out of the decomposing variety. What was the point? He was going to die anyway. Might as well go for broke and use a sturdier compound. At least that way, he had reasoned, he didn’t have to worry about some nanobots crapping out before they could finish their job. Marcus wondered if Arnesto’s additional aim was to enhance the viewing pleasure of his audience.