Echos of the Past

As so many science fiction stories start, a meteor falls to earth and it is discovered to hold elements completely foreign to this planet.

What ends up being amazing about this new substance is that, upon extensive study by the government, it is found that the meteorite allows you to see into the past. But being extremely radioactive, they must create a machine that would help utilize this ability, strengthen it into something more, and protect humans as much as possible from harm.

In the end, they created a fantastic machine that broadens this portal to allow actual travel back in time. The machine is hosted on a small, man made island, just far enough away from the coast of Florida and the inhabited islands nearby that they couldn't possibly endanger the public with potential leaks. With protective gear on, the scientists could generally stay within ten feet of the substance for a reasonable amount of time without adverse side effects. So the machine was created as a grand structure, triangular in shape to allow a portal between the substance in as few connectivity points as possible. The sections of rock lay in a casing at each point of the triangle and created a sort of magnetic-like connection to each other, bonding each piece as a unit. But the structure was parallel with the ground, and lifted up just enough for a human to stand comfortably underneath. They needed a place to land, after all.

The first test was a success, and while the device's creators felt accomplished and proud, they also were baffled and disappointed by what they discovered. When they crossed over the structure on the floor above and leapt into the void of uncertainty, they found themselves in a sort of movie of he past. An echo. Nothing they did could change anything that happened. No great issues of their time could be reversed by the dreams and fantasies they had compiled since the discovery of this mysterious rock. They were ghosts in the past, leaving no impressions, only watching the world go by just as it had long ago.

So it was that the use of the machine dialed down to a simple, but honorable use of understanding their past better. Historians became the transported, and the only things that were changing, were the details in our history books. Knowledge was growing in a different way. Questions of all sorts were being answered. And eventually, some of the issues of their time were better understood with more information from how those issues came to be.

But just as the world started seeing this contraption as an instrument that could help them save them selves, a great tragedy happened. Without warning, the device overloaded. Seemingly insignificant in it's effects on their laboratory, each rock broke in two and the pieces tore from their casings and hit each other. The process repeated itself over and over again until a ring of small stone, each touching another, lined the inside of the triangular structure.

Then they exploded... or dissolved, as it seemed. But in that moment, things started appearing. Miles away there was a ship in the ocean, worn down and beaten from the weather, though much older than it looked. And even further in another direction came a plane, in two halves. Minute by minute vehicles continued to appear, piling up or sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

It only took a short time to identify some of these new found items and discover their relation to each other. They had all disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle throughout history. The rocks had exploded, but the force went backward in time. And finally, the machine they created made an impact. It just wasn't the impact anyone had ever hoped for. They had created devastation throughout history, exactly as it had been recorded. And they had nothing left of the mysterious meteorite to work with.

So even with all the answers they found, and their discoveries of time, they were forced back to the questions that they started with, having no tools to prove an answer.

Time could not be changed and had not been changed: time had been fulfilled. But that begs the question... could they have made historical changes for the better if only they had used the rocks in a different way? Or would anything that had affected the past already been in the past?

Time, and it's potentials, were endless again.