The Technicolor Time Machine

“Just listen to him,” Barney pleaded. “Let him show you the one where he sends the beer bottle into the future. This is too impressive to ignore.”

“There is a temporal barrier in any motion towards the future, I must explain that carefully. Displacement toward the future requires infinitely more energy than displacement into the past. However, the effect still operates—if you will watch the bottle closely.”

Once again the miracle of electronic technology clashed with the forces of time and the air crackled with the discharge. The beer bottle flickered, ever so slightly.

“So long.” L.M. started up the stairs. “And P.S., Barney, you’re fired.”

“You can’t leave yet—you haven’t given Hewett a chance to prove his point, or even to let me explain.” Barney was angry, angry at himself, at the dying company that employed him, at the blindness of man, at the futility of man, at the fact he was overdrawn in the bank. He raced up behind L.M. and whipped the smoking Havana from his chops. “We’ll have a real demonstration, something you can appreciate!”

“They cost two bucks apiece! Give it back—”

“You’ll have it back, but watch this first.” He hurled the beer bottle to the floor and put the cigar on the platform. “Which one of these gadgets is the power control?” he asked Hewett.

“This rheostat controls the input, but why? You cannot raise the temporal displacement level without burning out the equipment—stop!”

“You can buy new equipment, but if you don’t convince L.M., you’re on the rocks and you know it. Shoot for the moon!”

Barney held the protesting professor off with one hand while he spun the power to full on and slammed the operation switch shut. This time the results were far more spectacular. The scream rose to a banshee wail that hurt their ears, the tubes glowed with all the fires of hell, brighter and brighter, while static charges played over the metal frames; their hair stood straight up from their heads and gave off sparks.

“I’m electrocuted!” L.M. shouted as, with a last burst of energy, all the tubes glared and exploded and the lights went out.

“There—look there!” Barney shouted as he thumbed his Ronson to life and held the flame out. The metal platform was empty.

“You owe me two bucks.”

“Look, gone! Two seconds at least, three… four… five… six…”

The cigar suddenly reappeared on the platform, still smoking, and L.M. grabbed it up and took a deep drag.

“All right, so it’s a time machine, so I believe you. But what has this got to do with making films or keeping Climactic off the rocks?”

“Let me explain…”

2

There were six men in the office, grouped in a semicircle in front of L.M.’s desk.

“Lock the door and cut the phone wires,” he ordered.

“It’s three in the morning,” Barney protested. “We can’t be overheard.”

“If the banks get wind of this I am ruined for life, and maybe longer. Cut the wires.”

“Let me take care of it,” Amory Blestead said, standing and taking an insulated screwdriver from his breast pocket—he was the head of Climactic Studios’ technical department. “The mystery is at last solved. For a year now my boys have been repairing these cut wires on the average of twice a week.” He worked quickly, taking the tops off the junction boxes and disconnecting the seven telephones, the intercom, the closed circuit television and the Muzak wire. L.M. Greenspan watched him closely and did not talk again until he had personally seen all ten wires dangling freely.

“Report,” he said, stabbing his finger at Barney Hendrickson.

“Things are ready to roll at last, L.M. All of the essential machinery for the vremeatron has been built on the set for The Creature’s Son Marries the Thing’s Daughter and the expenses have been covered by the budget for this picture. In fact there was a bit of a saving there, the professor’s machines cost less than the usual props—”

“Don’t digress!”

“Right. Well, the last laboratory scenes for the monster picture were shot this afternoon, yesterday afternoon I mean, so we got some grips in later on overtime and cleaned all the machinery out. As soon as they were gone the rest of us here mounted it in the back of an army truck from the set of The Pfc. from Brooklyn and the Prof has hooked it up and tested everything. It’s ready to go.”

“I don’t like the truck—it’ll be missed.”

“No, it won’t, L.M., everything has been taken care of. It was government surplus in the first place and was going to be disposed of in the second. It was sold legally through our usual outlet and bought by Tex here, I told you—we’re in the clear.”

“Tex, Tex—who is he? Who are all these people?” L.M. complained, darting suspicious glances around the circle. “I thought I told you to keep this thing small, hold it down until we saw how it works, if the banks get wind…”

“This operation is as small as it could possibly be. There is myself and the Prof, whom you know, and Blestead, who is your own technical chief and has been with you for thirty years—”