Nearly everyone agreed the new time travel app was the greatest invention since the internet. True, the new app had its limitations. It wasn’t time travel like in the Vids.  The user could only go back in time, not forward. There were other limitations too.  For instance, no one was going to travel to the distant past to see who built Stonehenge or to murder Hitler. A time traveler can only travel as far back as the support system for the time travel app has been in place. Right now, that’s a year; today is the app’s one year anniversary. But as time moves on, the app will work further back in time. Ten years from now you will be able to travel back eleven years.

Still the time travel app has proved to be very handy. Are you late for a life changing appointment or an important transport connection, the time travel app can transport you back in time, to be on time. Did you say or do something you will always regret? Finally, you can go back in time and this time get it right.  It is worth the pricey cost of time travel to straighten out your life.

Adam Suko knows more about the time travel app than anyone.  He invented it. Adam is all brain and possesses no social skills. His sister Rosaline guides him outside his emersion in his laboratory and equations.

Despite some concerns, the new time travel app became an instant success and at age 27 Adam Suko became a world hero. But Adam’s obsession with solving the equation of time travel to the future robbed him of all enjoyment of his great fame and fortune. Why can’t I move forward in time? The system is in place now and will be then.

“You must make an appearance at the banquet honoring you,” Rosaline reminded him when she managed to get Adam to sit with her for a meal.

“I have no time for such nonsense. I have too much work to do.”

“You know, you’re not bad looking. You should go out some, maybe meet someone special.”

Adam glared at her as though she were insane. “Like I said, I have no time for such nonsense. And where is your someone special?”

“We broke up.” She didn’t tell him the breakup fight was over her devotion to her brother. And Adam wasn’t interested enough in these matters to ask further questions.

“I need to travel back to the original installment of the time travel system and make some changes,” Adam announced to Rosaline after working all day in his laboratory.

“But you can’t. Tonight is the banquet.” Adam wasn’t listening. Carrying a pack filled with technical equipment, he activated the time travel app on his device and vanished to another time.

The time travel system was installed for testing nearly six months before service became available to the public. Adam tried to pinpoint the date most beneficial for making the changes to his programing without wasting time. He arrived in his living room seventeen months and three days in the past at the exact same spot he left. Rosaline wasn’t home. Immediately, he closed himself in his laboratory and went to work.

Hours later, Rosaline beat on the laboratory door begging him to come out and eat…and bathe, and sleep.

“I have it,” Adam announced unlocking the door. Then it occurred to him he hadn’t encountered his other self and wondered why.

“What are you looking for?” Rosaline asked, noticing his furtive glances.

“Nothing.” He didn’t tell her he lived seventeen months in the future. There would be no need to if there wasn’t a paradox.

Once again, he attended the ceremonial opening of the time travel system. And again, Rosaline graciously filled in for his social deficiency, although to her, it was the first time. Adam was prepared to quickly jump back to his own time if the other Adam Suko made an appearance, but he never did. Again, Adam answered questions, this time with more data.

“But won’t messing with the past change the future?” reporters asked.

“We don’t quite have the answer to that question yet,” Adam admitted. “There is not yet enough collected data, but I would argue that when changes occur, the timeline simply splits, and both realities continue to exist.”

“But what about safety? What safety precautions are in place?” the media demanded to know. “Does this open us up to terrorism?”

“There is nothing to fear,” Adam reassured the people. “Users of the app must submit to a complete 3-D scan including a mind read before the app can be activated.  No one harboring nefarious intentions will be able to get through.”

“But what about privacy? Isn’t a mind read scan an invasion of a citizen’s right to privacy?”

“Sometimes we have to surrender a little privacy in order to enjoy technological advances and still stay safe.”

“You did it!” Rosaline exclaimed when Adam returned to the present.

“What do you mean?”

“You were gone for two weeks and returned two weeks later than you left. You traveled to the future.”

To test her assumption, Adam attempted to travel further into the future, but nothing happened. “I’ve only managed to fill in time’s linear progression,” he said in disappointment and returned to his laboratory in defeat.

Over the next five years Adam returned to the past seven times to make a correction. When he couldn’t solve the problem in the past, he returned to the present. Then he traveled back in time to the system’s start up and tried to solve it from there, becoming the app’s most frequent user.

Each time Adam returned to the present, he noticed his sister Rosaline was aging much more rapidly than he was and suspected it had to do with time travel. After Rosaline passed away, he spent more and more time in the past, where a younger Rosaline looked after him, laboring over the project, but all to no avail.

Adam never managed to time travel into the future despite his lifelong efforts.  Adam Suko lived for a hundred and seven years, didn’t look a day over forty-five, and died three months before the time travel app was made available to the public.