The Things We Think We Know

The sunken, makeshift basement was damp and dirty with electrical components strewn everywhere.

In the background, the projection blared, “Why don’t I teach you the hard way?” Knox Ames proclaimed before landing a punch to jaw of a no name henchman.

Lenny barreled down the staircase, knocking Miles awake.

“Dude you gotta see this!”

He shoved a hand in Miles’s face. His holo-ring projected a screen above his palm. The headline on the display read, ‘First government approved Time Vacation…to Disney World’

“They actually did it! That family came back… and nothing happened.”

“Whoopdy … fucking … doo,” Miles responded sarcastically as he rose to a seat on the ragged couch. “That tech has been out for years. You think a company is gonna waste its time with “time tourism” before milking every government for all its worth?”

“Can’t you find joy in anything?” Lenny retorted. “Your ‘Tech Hacker’ persona has really gotta chill out.” Lenny said. “We need drinks,” emphasizing the plural.

Lenny never understood Miles’ line of work, but that’s why Miles liked him. And Lenny was right after all. Too much time without a break is bound to make someone snap.

Maroney’s was packed. Unsurprising for a Friday night. Once a Chicago staple in the early 2080s, the tiny dive bar was bought up by a super conglomerate, Exxion, in 2099. The charm disappeared, but Exxion’s purchase made it easier to hack their payment software, so the two drank all night for free.

Stumbling down back in the basement, Miles asked, “Are we starting with ‘Blood Race’ or ‘For the Commander in Chief’?”

“I’m going off-menu tonight.” Lenny responded, flourishing his wrist, “We’re watching ‘Iron Fist: Tokyo Siege’.”

Lenny grabbed the virtual movie poster of the wall with his holo-ring and tossed it over to the main projector.

“Don’t forget to wipe that bar tab.” Lenny said, “You’re gonna be pissed if you miss the crawl.”

“Fine.” Miles responded.

After passing through his various security gates, he launched his self made software for hacking into various corporations. The benefit of corporations owning America, most of the businesses ran on three or four main programs. Meaning as long as he had already hacked the main corporations system, Miles had access to all their subsidiaries. He hacked Exxion last fall, it would only take minutes to locate Maroney’s sales system, find the record of their thumbprint payment, and remove it. Exxion calls it an accounting error.

Miles heard the trumpets, signaling the title crawl. That meant in minutes, General Stratos’s fleet would invade Tokyo. Miles having seen this fifty times made no difference. He completed the remainder of his work and began ex filtrating the database.

He navigated out of Maroney’s, into Exxion’s hospitality subsidiaries. A small, non-descript, company name caught his eye - ‘Temporal Horizons Group’. A company normally meaningless had he not been shown an article earlier that day, detailing the first ‘time tourism’ participants, provided by ‘Temporal Horizons Group’. Exxion was also the corporation behind time travel tourism. Miles mentally filed that information. He disconnected the program and launched over the couch, plopping next to Lenny . Just in time as the title fades.

Two hours passed in complete silence. The friends, engulfed by a 40 year old movie they had seen - possibly more than any other human in existence. The movie closed as Knox Ames and his femme fatale embrace as the camera fades up and away through the saved city of Tokyo and the credits roll.

“Dude! That may have been the best one yet. I didn’t notice until now that they used the MK6 British rifles for Knox’s gun! They chopped off half the barrel and removed the stock. That’s so wild.”Lenny exclaimed.

“Wow, I wish I could watch these movies for the first time again,” Miles dryly jabbed back.

“Really funny. So which movie is next?”

Lenny jumped off the couch and strolled back over to the wall projecting the definitive Knox Ames movie collection. As he swiped his hand, the wall scrolled to reveal more movies. Lenny paused on one, adopting a mischievous sneer. He knew the reaction his next comment will receive.

“Hell yeah. How about this one next?”

Miles peered up from the projection streaming from his holo-ring

“Absolutely… fucking…not.”

The movie poster now holographically pinned to the wall was ‘Love in the Line of Fire’. The movie that unquestionably destroyed Knox Ames’ acting career. Miles knew this information all too well. Poised to be one of the greatest actors of all time, Knox Ames had several successful action movies. However, in 2091, Knox starred in a romantic drama thinking it would cement his status in Hollywood. The film failed miserably. Knox was forced to starring in low budget sci-fi movies that he churned out faster than McDonald’s makes hamburgers.

“Come on man. It’s not that bad. It won’t kill you to watch it.” Lenny faux pleaded.

“It may kill me. It killed Ames’. If they want to use that time travel, maybe start with convincing him not to star in that piece of garbage. Then maybe we would have gotten Iron Fist 5.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Lenny excited at his chance to outsmart his friend. “The time travel watch things create a barrier between you and the past. You can go back but you can’t interact with anything.”

Miles now vividly recalled the ‘Temporal Horizons Group’ logo he had found within the Exxion mainframe.

“I can do it.” Miles responded flatly.

“What do you mean, ‘you can do it?’” Lenny, respectable of his friends technical skills, stared at Miles, confident his friend was overstepping his abilities.

“Look, I’ll show you. I guarantee I can figure out how it works.”

Miles walked over to his desk and swiped his screen to the center of the room.

Lenny , eagerly positioning on the couch, said, “If this doesn’t work, you have to sit here and watch this movie, then post a review exclaiming your love for this film.” Obviously aware that this will be worse than a death sentence to Miles.

“Deal. But I’ve seen that movie once, and I only intend to see it once.”

Navigating back to the list of subsidiaries under Exxion, he found the database for Temporal Horizon Group.

After several hours of filtering through various programs and database on the company intranet, he found it. The source code that controlled the time travel ‘watches’. And within that source code, neatly labeled under ‘Environmental Barrier’, he found the parameters that controlled how much the user can interact with the past. Through his hours of research, he learned that full communication to the past was not possible. The designers had installed a hard code restriction that prevented anyone from removing the barrier. This was to prevent altering major events in the past. However, with Miles reducing the barrier parameters to their lowest setting, he figured he’d be on par with an apparition. Knock objects off the wall, flicker electricity, all the classics. He thought maybe he could spook Knox into abandoning the role.

The final step was to obtain a time watch. Critical hardware that made traveling actually possible. Luckily, he already covered that along his mission. He had found the courier information for the companies’ next ‘tourists’, also conveniently owned by Exxion.

“Aren’t corporations the best,” he sarcastically thought.

He swapped the shipping address to a nearby EchoVault, which allowed autonomous and most importantly, discreet pick up of the package.

He nudged Lenny, passed out, hanging over the arm rest of the couch.

“Wake up loser, plans all set. By the way, what do I get out of this bet when I win?”

Rubbing his eyes and cartoonishly stretching his arms, Lenny rose up to a seat.

“What do you mean, ‘What do you get?’ You stand to get an entire saga of Knox Ames movies that you’ve never seen before if this works. Now walk me through exactly how the fuck you managed to do this in one night, hungover no less”

The watch arrived the following afternoon. Lenny was stuck at work.

Miles was not upset, as his best friend had the annoying habit of causing unnecessary problems. Better to get the job done and fill him in later. The prospect of spending weeks on end watching brand new (to them at least) movies would be reward enough.

Flipping the latches, he opened the metal case housing the time watch. He paused and examined it for a moment. The device was larger than a normal wrist watch. A more apt name would be the ‘time sleeve’. The top of the device housed a 3 inch screen. Through Miles’s research the night before, he learned this display was the control panel for the device. Where he would enter the four dimensional coordinates; longitude, latitude, height above sea level, and date. The ‘height above sea level’ parameter initially confused him, however he quickly discovered through the Temporal Horizons internal user manual that ‘height’ was critical so you weren’t transported underground or 3000 feet in the air. The user may not be able to interact with the past, but physics certainly could.

Miles removed the device from the case and slid it over his forearm, tightening the straps at his wrist and elbow to secure the device. The device booted up and flashed four data entry fields. But before he had to upload his new script to the device minimizing the environmental barriers. Carefully checking his coordinates a second, third and fourth time, Miles winced, placed one hand over his groin and pressed the red ‘Execute’ button.

______

He felt a rush of electricity fill his body and in an instant, it subsided. He opened his eyes to see the basement had disappeared. He now stood at the base of a stone driveway. The hover sport car parked at the end was a Ferrari NovaRossa. Miles knew by the body type that this would be a 2090 model. He also knew that Knox Ames had acquired this in the spring of 2090, 4 months before he started shooting ‘Love in the Line of Fire’. The device had worked! He was back in 2090, standing in front of Knox Ames’ lavish home. He noticed an opaque film surrounding him. The environmental barrier in action, he thought. But the ground felt real, and he took his first steps, toward the front of the home, still not 100% sure of exactly how he was going to convince Knox.

Approaching the front door, he extended a fist to knock on the door. He could feel his hand making contact but heard nothing. His eyes moved to the doorbell and attempted to press it. Still nothing. He couldn’t even force the button down. Even with his reduction to the barrier parameters, interacting with anything in the past would seem difficult. Taking a step back of the porch to re-examine, he heard music softly playing in the back of the house. Miles walked around the corner, up to the gate of a metal fence surrounding the properties’ pool. Looking further through the gate, squinting to fight the blur, he saw him. There was no questioning it. Miles was looking at his idol, Knox Ames, passed out on a vintage tanning lounge. Doors may be an issue but he found the iron fence surprisingly simple to hop over. Not a sound nor movement in the fence. There may be some perks to this after all, he thought.

He crept over the lawn to the pool where Knox laid. On a circular side table next to the actor, sat a half finished cocktail. Beside that, the draft script of ‘Love in the Line of Fire’. Instinctually, Miles reached for the script. A mediocre first attempt to destroy the literary version of the thing he hated the most. All he could manage was to flick the corners a modest amount. He twisted around, searching for anything he felt could aid in his mission. A vibrant smell of alcohol hit his nostrils. He peered down to look at the half empty glass. What appeared to be a Mojito, tall glass, ice, sprig of mint on the rim, was actually pure rum. He bent down to get a better smell. The singe of his nose hairs confirmed it. He tried to pick up the glass with no luck. As he removed his hand away from the glass to ponder another solution, his knuckle grazed the edge of the mint sprig resting on the top. To his amazement, the sprig fell, landing softly on the screenplay. A drop of the rum that had rested on the stem, now soaking through the first few pages. That’s it! Miles thought. He reached for the sprig of mint, and was able to move it, albeit at a snails pace. He lifted the mint and then dropped it back into the glass of rum, allowing it to fully soak in. After a minute, he reached back into the glass, grasping the tip of a leaf sticking out into the air. With all the strength he could muster, he pulled the sprig from the glass and plummeted it onto the packet of papers. That seemed to be the hardest part, he thought. Gravity turned out to be his biggest foe in the past. Moving the soaked mint across the paper proved to be a simpler feat. He slowly dragged the leaves across the script. From corner to opposite corner, an ‘X’ now appeared on the cover, with a sprig of mint at the center.

Now he had to wait. Fortunately for not too long. Within the hour, the sun would reach an optimal angle to hit the top of the glass, reflecting and amplifying the beam of sun light directly onto the script lying next to it, igniting the pages.

Knox Ames burst out of his stupor to the smell of flames inches from his face. Knox’s first instinct was to smack the fire out. Miles had half expected Knox to use the remainder of the rum and set the whole script on fire. It took Knox almost a dozen smacks to get every last ember out, but the final product had worked. The first few pages of the script lay etched and singed black around the edges. Knox took a moment to linger on this and then leapt out of the lounger. Frantically, he looked around, trying to find some reality to the situation. He found none.

Miles waited around for a little bit longer. He was finally convinced of his success when Knox came back outside after a long call with his agent. He couldn’t make out everything through the windows of the house, but understood enough that Knox was not moving forward with the picture. Good enough, he felt. He dismissed the ‘Low Battery’ alarm and pressed the ‘Return’ button on the display. In one blink, he re-appeared in the basement. The time watch case still open on his desk. Everything appearing completely unchanged.

Quickly, he flipped his right hand so that he was staring at his palm. More precisely, his holo ring. “Show me Knox Ames’ filmography he asked the ring, and a page appeared listing all the titles Ames had starred in. To Miles’s shock, they were all completely the same. With the only noticeable difference being that ‘Love in the Line of Fire’ was missing. He could find no reference at all of his most despised movie.

“They must not even had made it after Knox dropped out,” he said aloud. But why then did he still make all those crappy movies? Scrolling further down, he stumbled across a news article he had never seen before. The headline read, “Knox Ames opens up about Alcoholism and Philanthropy.” Knox wasn’t an alcoholic, as far as Miles knew. He certainly never revealed it publicly. ‘Open the article’ he said into his hand.

‘Knox Ames, once a blockbuster star of classic Hollywood sat down with us to discuss, in depth, about his hover car accident in the Summer of 2090, which completely altered the path of his career.’

‘I was about to star in this drama piece to come out in 2091,’ Knox told us. ‘I think they wanted to call it ‘Love in the Line of Fire’ or something ridiculous like that, if you can imagine. That summer, I crashed my Ferrari, drunk driving over the coast of La Jolla. I was barely conscience when the EMTs arrived and needed a partial brain transplant to survive. I was fortunate to be eligible to receive one. During my recovery is when I discovered the moral emptiness of our medical system. From the moment I left that hospital, I vowed to make an impact on this system. I took a couple year hiatus from acting to launch the foundation, but soon the money dried up. I was still driven immeasurably to this goal that I had to find a way to keep it alive. Desperately, I took the only gig that paid decent and only asked for a week worth of work. And that’s why I made ‘MechaMummy.’ And the two or three other dozen movies like that.’

‘You had been so quiet about your passion for philanthropy, even amongst all the criticism about your career. Why?’ the reporter asked.

‘My work trying to correct a broken system doesn’t deserve my name as a headline. It belongs center stage rightfully by itself. Celebrity should not be exploited for basic human decency.’ Knox responded.

‘Who knows, maybe there’s a version of me that did make that drama movie. And maybe I got that oscar I thought was so important. But that would be nothing compared to the amount we’ve accomplished with this version.’

Miles closed the window on his holo ring as a notification from Lenny appeared, “Maroney’s? 20 minutes?”

Miles quickly replied with a thumbs up emoji. Realizing they were in for a good night.