AgStim has nasty side effects. When my dad binged on it for months at a time, he usually became violent. I was beaten numerous times until I learned to hide as soon as I saw the telltale signs he needed to withdraw from the stuff: his normally lustrous eyes became dull, his skin took on a grayish tinge and his hands shook.
The Time Travel Administration (TTA) sent me back to three different points in time when I could have interfered with the timeline leading directly to my father’s death. The first mission took me back to the moment when he first decided to try AgStim. I was nine years old. AgStim was being heralded as a breakthrough invention in brain enhancement. The commercials that flickered across our virtual reality eyesets, the huge black lenses we popped over our eyes for direct neural access to the Information Hub, told us that AgStim was the invention that would advance the human race forward, just as the Photosynthesis Experiment had done for previous generations.
My dad came home from his art studio telling us that his doctor had prescribed AgStim for him because he’d been feeling tired. I asked him, “So, you’ll have more energy, Dad?”
He said, “That’s what they say. I should feel ten years younger and have the energy of a hummingbird drone.”
I’d run off to paint him a picture in which my dad was a hummingbird drone zipping around his office with a paintbrush poking out of the top like an antenna. My dad loved the picture. He took it to work and hung it in his studio the next day, my simple kid’s picture hanging next to the professional paintings he sold.
The TTA sent me back there. I had to be extremely careful not to let my family see me. I was to slip into the house through the back door and listen to the conversation from the kitchen. I’d remembered my mother wasn’t home that day and the younger me would be chatting with my dad and then off in my room painting the picture.
I wanted more than anything to walk in and explain the dangers of AgStim to my father and warn him about his future. When it was time to leave, I hopped into my pod with tears streaming down my face.
The next moment I was sent back to was a time when I was a teenager and my dad asked me to take his prescription to the pharmacy. His eyes had lost their shine and his hands were shaking.
I wanted to stop the adolescent me from filling the prescription, but I held back.
The most difficult mission of all, however, was when TTA sent me back in time to my father’s hospital deathbed disguised as a nurse.
I could have saved him. He didn’t die from AgStim itself. He would have survived, after going through enhanced withdrawal where his body would be monitored and replenished with everything it needed. They were about to begin the process when the computer malfunctioned and mixed a deadly combination of drugs that would be poured into an IV bag and delivered through a tube into his veins.
TTA put me through rigorous virtual reality training in which I relived this moment over and over again, and then relived it once more in a modified scene. I watched myself refill his water pitcher and chat with him as the other nurse hung the bag filled with poisonous liquid and started the drip. I watched my father’s body tremble and stiffen in a series of seizures. I watched him die within the large black contact lenses that obscured the rest of the world and made this my only reality. I was monitored the entire time. If I took off the lenses or ordered the program to stop running inside them, I would never become a time traveler. I had to pass this test.
The final test was going back in time to that same moment with a virtual reality headset over my face, the split-screen type that allows a doctor to see reality in one section and medical information in another, so that my father wouldn’t recognize me. I was to take his vital signs through medical instruments in the headset while the nurse hung the bag and started the drip. I was to say nothing unless asked a question. I was to change nothing in that instance of time. I was to leave the room shortly after my dad began seizuring. I was in no way allowed to help or report the problem to hospital personnel.
After surviving the incident and returning to the present time, I was debriefed. And then I was treated to the ritual that made all of this easier: two solid days of raucous partying and drinking with fellow trainees. Everyone got four days off following any of our Time Travel Missions: two for partying, two for recovering. It was, I believe, a ritual for reintegrating us back into our present time and having those of us who would be traveling through time on a regular basis bond as a group. Once we became full-fledged time travelers, we’d have clubs for that. It was important for us to realize how much we would need those and how much we should turn to them for support.
After I completed my training as a time traveler on both the Anthropology and Medical teams, I received my first real mission. Training started with a series of classes. The first explained the goal of the mission.
I woke up early, showered and dressed. Looking in the mirror, I liked what I saw. My skin had a healthy green color, none of the gray tinge I’d noticed after my final training mission. The luster had returned to my eyes, which were now bright green. The top of my head was green and smooth, no longer riddled with the rash I’d developed from the neoskin helmet. Next mission, I’d be wearing one of the older models, since I seemed to be allergic to the new ones.
Walking across the TTA grounds, I thought how lucky I was. This place was beautiful and uplifting. Trees towered over white concrete buildings. Flowers in a wide variety of colors filled numerous gardens. Fountains tossed water up into the air and statues stood in the midst of them. A rich forest completely surrounded the campus, bathing it in the perfume of trees. Food was plentiful here, as were vitamins and other health enhancements. The latest in medical advancements and human-machine interfaces were available to us. Our teachers and trainers were all highly qualified.
I had started thinking about whether or not I’d like to get an interface. My best friend, a time traveler in the History division, had recently had a chip implanted in her brain that would allow her to see historical events unfold as she read about them. It was a step beyond the VR eyesets or contact lenses, more immersive.
I passed a few mechanical engineers with robotic arms that allowed them to work more efficiently on the time travel pods and the TTA’s infrastructure. One bowed their head to say hello.
When I finally arrived at the instructional building, I sighed with happiness. Looking up at the tall white building in the shadow of living, breathing trees, sunlight forming a sparkling pool on the ground in front of it, I thought how long my journey had been to this point where I’d be given an actual mission.
I stepped from the quiet campus into a hallway bustling with recent graduates, everyone on their way to find out where they’d be going and the purpose of their assignment.
I found my classroom and got seated just a few minutes before the instructor entered the room and introduced herself. She was short, had green freckles and one of the latest fashion enhancements: long blue hair implants. She looked like someone from the past when human beings still had hair. That kind of thing was totally impractical for time travelers or astronauts, but it was perfectly fine for teachers. I kind of liked the look. It was starting to grow on me.
Folding her hands, she looked around the classroom. She smiled and said, “What a fine group of time travelers we have here! Welcome to Mission Instruction. I’m Dr. Raelynn Molyneux. Here’s how you spell it…” With a printing stick in her hand, she shined her name in the air, in bold yellow letters against a black background. A few heads nodded as they took pictures with their contact lenses.
She said, “I’m going to explain your mission this way: downloads into your contact lenses followed by instruction. You’ll need to turn off all tune-out devices in your implants or contact lenses right now in order to experience the entire lesson. I’ll tell you when to turn them back on.”