wasn't a protected zone. If the government didn't want you to see it they would have put the blocks on the way they did with religion and later with naked pictures.”
Dorso left Susan and moved back to his locker. Thesmell was still almost as strong as it had been when he'd first opened the door, but the body was gone, all traces of it, even the stains. Well, that was good, at least. He held his breath and took out his gym bag. He had gym first period, which was a stupid time to have PE, but he was stuck with it if he wanted to take computer science second period, which he had to do because Karen Bemis took computer science then and he thought if he could be around her enough she might begin to notice him. It hadn't happened in two years but he still had hopes.
His gym bag reeked of the dead body. That meant the smell had gotten into his gym shorts and T-shirt as well.
Great. I'll stink like a cadaver. Just great.
He looked down the hallway where Susan was getting to her feet, her eyes dazed as she leaned against the wall, and for about the ten thousandth time that month he thought maybe it had been a bad idea when the scientists had figured out how to crack time.
It was strange how it had happened, Dorso thought, walking slowly toward the gym, hoping the stench would dissipate before he got there.
Some lab technician in Texas had fired one electron through a linear accelerator near the speed of light onto a receptor plate, where there were hits from two electrons, and when they were trying to figure out where the second electron came from they found a way to go back in time and bring traces of the past forward.
Sort of.
Of course, it didn't happen quite that fast. At first all that the scientists could bring forward were fuzzy images, almost impossible to see, and there was no way to control what they would get. They could jump into the past and project images onto a screen in the present, but they couldn't pick the time or the place, and for the first year it amounted to little more than a very interesting techno-trick. They might see a vision of a dinosaur one time and on the second try get an image of a man who might be Julius Caesar getting ready for a bath, or Anne Boleyn getting her head chopped off.
Initially only the supercomputer labs could make it work, because it required a warping of the time line that took loads of electrical energy.
But then they found that the new Super Chip developed by Roger Hemmesvedt in his basement in Fort Garland, Texas, made it possible for anybody with a personal computer to play with the time line. That blew
everything
wide open. The chip not only provided access for everybody, but when its output was coupled with a built-in clock, it let you pick the time you went to. If you used data from GPS equipment it became easier to pick the place as well.
Soon people going to work on trains were able to access the time line and get pictures on their laptops of Shakespeare writing, or the Battle of Gettysburg, or Jesus actually giving the Sermon on the Mount.
In the beginning there were amazing effects. Many of the more money-oriented evangelical ministers found themselves going broke when people listened to Jesus directly instead of needing a middleman. History teachers had to actually study history and know the facts. They couldn't just be football coaches killing time until the season started.
Of course, there were problems. Initially there were no controls on subject access, and for a time there were naked pictures of Cleopatra in her bath and Helen of Troy standing nude in a window frame all
over
the place. It was an exciting time to study history.
But the tech wizards soon invented the sliding chip block, so all the new Super Chips could block out anythingoffensive to the viewer—or what censors and auditors might think was offensive. There were constant court battles to decide what young people should be able to see.
Then they discovered the hologram projector chip,
Dorso left Susan and moved back to his locker. Thesmell was still almost as strong as it had been when he'd first opened the door, but the body was gone, all traces of it, even the stains. Well, that was good, at least. He held his breath and took out his gym bag. He had gym first period, which was a stupid time to have PE, but he was stuck with it if he wanted to take computer science second period, which he had to do because Karen Bemis took computer science then and he thought if he could be around her enough she might begin to notice him. It hadn't happened in two years but he still had hopes.
His gym bag reeked of the dead body. That meant the smell had gotten into his gym shorts and T-shirt as well.
Great. I'll stink like a cadaver. Just great.
He looked down the hallway where Susan was getting to her feet, her eyes dazed as she leaned against the wall, and for about the ten thousandth time that month he thought maybe it had been a bad idea when the scientists had figured out how to crack time.
It was strange how it had happened, Dorso thought, walking slowly toward the gym, hoping the stench would dissipate before he got there.
Some lab technician in Texas had fired one electron through a linear accelerator near the speed of light onto a receptor plate, where there were hits from two electrons, and when they were trying to figure out where the second electron came from they found a way to go back in time and bring traces of the past forward.
Sort of.
Of course, it didn't happen quite that fast. At first all that the scientists could bring forward were fuzzy images, almost impossible to see, and there was no way to control what they would get. They could jump into the past and project images onto a screen in the present, but they couldn't pick the time or the place, and for the first year it amounted to little more than a very interesting techno-trick. They might see a vision of a dinosaur one time and on the second try get an image of a man who might be Julius Caesar getting ready for a bath, or Anne Boleyn getting her head chopped off.
Initially only the supercomputer labs could make it work, because it required a warping of the time line that took loads of electrical energy.
But then they found that the new Super Chip developed by Roger Hemmesvedt in his basement in Fort Garland, Texas, made it possible for anybody with a personal computer to play with the time line. That blew
everything
wide open. The chip not only provided access for everybody, but when its output was coupled with a built-in clock, it let you pick the time you went to. If you used data from GPS equipment it became easier to pick the place as well.
Soon people going to work on trains were able to access the time line and get pictures on their laptops of Shakespeare writing, or the Battle of Gettysburg, or Jesus actually giving the Sermon on the Mount.
In the beginning there were amazing effects. Many of the more money-oriented evangelical ministers found themselves going broke when people listened to Jesus directly instead of needing a middleman. History teachers had to actually study history and know the facts. They couldn't just be football coaches killing time until the season started.
Of course, there were problems. Initially there were no controls on subject access, and for a time there were naked pictures of Cleopatra in her bath and Helen of Troy standing nude in a window frame all
over
the place. It was an exciting time to study history.
But the tech wizards soon invented the sliding chip block, so all the new Super Chips could block out anythingoffensive to the viewer—or what censors and auditors might think was offensive. There were constant court battles to decide what young people should be able to see.
Then they discovered the hologram projector chip,
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