The laboratory doors open with a hiss. The room is pressurized and the sound is cause by air forced out during the first few millimeters of movement. I am used to it and now when I open the door with a GenVI Fortezza keycard, I put my face near the door seal and let that first blast of air brush past my face.

The white walls are spotless, as always, and the chamber stands before me in all its aesthetic sobriety. I arrived here hurriedly and I hope I haven’t forgotten anything. Tech16 is working the console. He’s relatively new here in Shamballa, assigned here only a year ago from Olympus. The room is a bit warm. Heat has arrived in the desert and even though we are almost half a mile underground, our air is regularly filtered and fresh air from the surface is brought down. Tech 21 reported that one of the facility’s a/c units was not operating perfectly and has scheduled a shut down and replacement or repair at 0900.

“Good afternoon sir. Everything has been prepared for your mission. If you are ready…”

I adjust my light absorbing suit and nod. Tech16 shows me into the chamber and I watch as the door closes.

Preparing for time travel has almost become routine here now. I remember when the first time chamber was used and the room was filled with anxious physicists, engineers and emergency personnel. Now it is almost mundane and the operation of the chamber is a one man affair.

I close my eyes underneath my helmet. The upcoming flash and sensation will permeate all my atoms and closing one’s eyes really doesn’t make a difference, but it still feels better time traveling with ones eyes closed.

I feel it. The radiation bombards me. Every pore screams out in momentary pain. And then it subsides leaving my nervous system recovering, simulating a bad case of the shivers. I hear a quiet clicking in the back of my collar. My suit is designed to soothe the nervous system with signals keyed in to the fundamental frequencies of electrical impulses along my spine. In an instant the shivers are gone and I feel fine.

The year is 1941. I have been coming back to this point in time three times now in the attempt to correct my personal altering of history. In my universe, Shamballa was a fast response facility for SDAI, a group that was formed by executive order back in 1986 and answers only to the President of the United States. After a trip back in time back to December of 1941, ostensibly to experience the US after Pearl Harbor, I had encountered a previous version of myself and my daughter, from a life that was unmapped and which I was unfamiliar with. When I returned, much had changed.

SDAI still exists but its history is altered. In this universe time travel by machine was achieved in 1987 shortly before President Reagan left office and SDAI was assigned to safeguard the technology and continue research with perpetual black budget funding. I was Director of Shamballa in the other universe and here I am a TimeTech with time travel classification, same ranking but a completely different mission statement. Shamballa is much the same as it was before. The time chamber sits where an underground craft research hangar exists in my universe. Many of the people I meet are the same people, only different.

I have been personally using the time chamber to try and return home. So far I have not been successful and each time I have returned I have encountered more changes.

I am universe hopping now. Each time I return it is not to the same world from which I left.

I keep this to myself because I fear the other Techs will not understand. How you tell someone that the Tech1 they knew is gone and is lost to some other universe? And what’s worse Tech7 has not shared the same relationship that she and I shared in our own universe. I confided with the first Tech7 after my return and it was a big mistake. She apparently was closer to Tech4, had not shared our relationship and reported me as unfit for duty - that time travel had snapped me. I left that universe just in time.

It is December 6 1941...yet again.

As I look around things are already drastically different. War posters, worn with age, already are plastered against the liquor store which used to have a 7-up sign on the outside. The posters advocate the sale of war bonds to defeat the enemy. This is all wrong. Pearl Harbor and US participation in the war should not yet have occurred. This is already a new time stream and a different universe had been formed in this era before I arrived. It takes me a moment to deduce what has happened - then it occurs to me SDAI is not the only agency with a time machine in this universe and in the short time between trips, someone else had already altered the time stream again.

I realize I may never get back now, but I must keep trying. My ability to travel sans machines was lost when I returned the first time. I have a theory that upon my return my physical body and its atoms fundamental frequency were altered somewhat with each transfer and yet my mind still retains a continuity of consciousness. It is frustrating to find oneself trapped in variations of oneself.

Soldiers come out of the liquor store and I walk towards the door. I glance at the pile of papers stacked by the door, “BRITAIN SURRENDERS!” is the headline. I pick one up and skim the article. An unknown devastating weapon delivered by rocket devastated 3/4th of London, leveling it to the ground. The Queen, the rest of the royal family, the Prime Minister and thousands are missing and suspected of perishing.

It is unthinkable. Hitler has atomic weapons delivered by V2 rockets both already in December of 1941. How? Why? I know that the universe I am pulled back to will be even more altered and different. When was this universal time stream already altered? I will never know. But if this time stream continues, when I get back there is a good chance the USA and the world as I know it, will not exist at all.

I can’t rely on machines. I need to realign my atoms forcibly with willpower and compensate for the disparities. I need to find who is altering history and why.

Just as I tell myself this…it occurs to me what is going on! Someone else along these various time paths has noticed my own disruptions, since I began, and is trying to get back as well. This means there are now two time travelers passing through the time stream trying to return. I must somehow return to the first universe, I must merge with the same me that was watching the White House and I must do this without machines.

“Hey buddy watch where you’re going!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“ Did you see how quick that guy apologized! What a Milquetoast!”

The laughter fades off into the distance. I am distracted by these changes. As I walk inside the liquor store the interior is different, more rundown and with less stock. Rationing is apparent.

The man who used to work behind the counter is gone. A woman, 35-ish, attractive & with a Dorothy Lamour hairstyle works the counter.

“Anything I can get you?”

I want to say “Yeah, a 1st class ticket back to my universe!” but I resist.

“Sure, I’ll take this paper and a bottle of 7-up”

“You like it…”

“And it like you…yes I know.”

A dime goes a far way. Back at Shamballa they have a whole collection of old money accumulated. Mercury dimes, Barber dimes, Indian head Nickels, even Confederate money. My Mercury dime is much more apropos than a Roosevelt dime.

“This isn’t real money. What are you trying to pass off on me!”

I look at her open register at the tray holding change and see Mercury dimes are not used. The coin in use has the face of Woodrow Wilson. I smile, thinking of the man who wanted to cede US power to the League of Nations. Ha! Woodrow Wilson, there was a man who really was a Caspar Milquetoast.

“Sorry. I must’ve been given a hobo dime in change somewhere.”

I look at the change bin to see what, if any, currency is the same as my own. The Lincoln penny looks the same and so I grab a handful of change out of my pocket and extract the pennies.

“Thanks.”

Suddenly the familiar wail of an air raid siren goes off. It must be near hear as it is very loud. People start running for shelter, the street outside is clearing quickly of pedestrians and the woman with the Lamour-do turns the sign on the window to closed. I take my paper casually, grab my 7-up, and I am looking forward to reading and catching up the disparities.

“Get to your shelter!” The woman shouts.

“I don’t have one. I'm...from out of town.”

“Ok, follow me.”