The Time Machine

In 1895 H. G. Wells published his 32,000 word novella The Time Machine in serial form in the Pall Mall Gazette. Three years later beneath the Cardiff City Museum Llew Wyn Roberts created a 'time machine'.

Llew Wyn Roberts like any avid reader of all things science fiction was an above average scholar. When H.G. Wells published his works in the Pall Mall Gazette, Llew's mind exploded with possibilities. It was already thought amongst scholars that Wells was a man ahead of his time, just like Da Vinci and others before him. They had an insight to the future that many others could only imagine. Llew Wyn Roberts began to plan.

Every day his work at the Cardiff City museum turned up a few new surprises, later in the evening of September 29th, a delivery of a strange artefact from a building South of London arrived in a crate labelled 'Storage - DO NOT OPEN' and labelled for the owner of the Museum, an astute man in his late fifties, Mr Henry Styles.

Llew had seen the large package that came in a crate 50 inches square, wheeled across the floor using two potato barrows and frowned curiously. He had overseen all the packages that had arrived from all over the world. The last Dodo, the six toed spider crab, the seven eyed arthropod. All strange creatures he'd never seen before but had read about in 'The Lost world of Babylon' or other such books. As the evening wore on and the crates were pushed to the side and labelled, and written up in the thick black books for artefacts brought from other museums or other parts of the country or world Llew walked towards the 'DO NOT OPEN' crate and tapped the top. He stroked the box sides, the rough splintered tea crate piqued his curiosity and lifting a crowbar jemmied the side open and lifted the lid. Inside covered in straw for packaginig sat a heavy machine but not just any machine. Sitting in the box was Wells' Time Machine.

Llew wasted no time. He drew the machine from the box and assembled the sides in exactly the same way as Wells described it in the book. There were a few loose mechanical pieces to attach but Llew attached them correctly and smiled at the finished work. It didn't bother him too much that Mr Henry Styles was upstairs in his office, the man rarely walked downstairs to view the work of restoration that Llew prided himself with, and as Llew had nobody waiting for him at home with a warm bowl of stew and witty conversations of their day at the coal face, he remained working until he finally fell asleep slumped over his desk until the city clock chimes awoke him as the daily life stirred at five am.

The Time Machine was small and would not carry a man to the fourth dimension as stated in the book. But over the following nights and using the power supply from the museum transported small creatures, bugs and mice into the future and back within minutes. The effects upon the creatures were astounding, but not being a scientist he was not aware of the effects of radiation or the larger creatures that awaited the bugs and the mice. He needed to see for himself. But the teleportation mat was too small. To build a larger time machine would require a lot more work, and somewhere safer to work in. Llew had to take his work into the crypt of the museum. A place rarely used if ever these days. It was one step away from the sewers, the rats and the creatures that lurked the other side of the damp walls.

It was many years before the larger 'time machine' was finished. Llew had ploughed all his money into parts and over time had taken parts down to the crypt in packages he'd sent himself to the museum to avoid interest from others including Mr Styles who had noticed how dedicated his employee seemed to be about his work. It was only when Llew's work, his real work began to suffer did Styles come down to see him.

The large archives room where all number of artefacts were stored in the arched chamber beneath the main building of the museum housed many artefacts that were deemed too valuable for public viewing and had been painstakingly copied for all to see, while the scrolls of the Red Sea were stored securely in damp proof cases, touched only with a gloved hand and only when it was absolutely necessary. Large tombs containing mummified pharoahs, coffins in the shape of Anubis and Horus stood tall and proud against a large stone wall secured by ropes, tall pillars allegedly from the hanging gardens of Babylon sat beside each other broken during transit across the sea voyage and along the road and rail.

Styles ventured into the large room and saw Llew's tweed jacket hanging over the back of his chair at his desk, reams of paperwork still requiring a signature sat piled on his desk, a stack of crates three high remained at the door but Styles could see no sign of the man in question. His shiny new shoes clipped over the concrete flooring, his back straight and his hands behind him he walked with an air of authority. Many men and women would step back from him, revered him. Were afraid of him. Llew wasn't. He rarely saw him, and if he rarely saw him, he had no fear. He had no reason to be scared of the man with the eyes too close together and the mind of a ruthless businessman about him. He made money by robbing the visitors to the museum, pure and simple. It was a business venture. A lot of the equipment upstairs were casts of the real thing, but there were reasons for everything and real artefacts did not need school children with sticky hands touching them and tainting their quality and lowering their price on the open market, should the museum hit hard times. Styles knew business, his father before him knew business and how it worked. Styles had not got to where he was today without taking a few back handers and turning a few blind eyes knowing he could cash in on it much later when the need arose.

Llew was busy in the crypt, he was only days away from transporting himself into the future and seeing for himself what lay ahead for himself and the world he lived in. He'd pieced together that in order to transport something as heavy as a human into another dimension required more energy than the city museum held. He had to wire cables into another source but that wasn't as easy as he first thought and finding the ideal location for keeping the power was under the ground where the dampness fired the electricity, he fed the wires towards the generator that fuelled the city hall and the streets around Cardiff that had electric lamps in homes. In all this time he'd forgotten about his real work, he'd forgotten about the museum, he ate, slept and worked on the machine. It had become an obsession.

As Styles stepped towards the door of the crypt he could already feel the immense power groaning behind the metal door. As he touched it, his hand recoiled and he stared at his hand still tingling from the static build up of electricity within the room. Tapping a stick on the handle and manipulating it open he pulled at the door and looked in. At first the bright light blinded him, the flickering and whirring as the time machine powered up made him blink and shield his eyes with his arm. But as he focused once more, he saw a man working methodically if a little erratically on a machine he'd only seen on a smaller scale in a drawing on his desk. When he realised what it was, his mouth fell open in shock.

Styles bellowed Llew's name. It echoed around the crypt but the arcing of the machine as it drew in the energy from the room distorted the yell and Llew continued to work oblivious to his employer standing mid way down the steps and advancing towards him.

'LLEW ROBERTS YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A DAMN GOOD REASON FOR THIS.' Styles grabbed hold of his shoulder and shook him around as the strangest thing happened. As Llew looked up, the energy shifted in the room, the anger from the owner disturbed the steady flow of electrons, now they sought out another power source. Llew horrified at being startled by Styles stepped back in the damp room and could only watch as the man's anger fed the machine. The light filter became brighter, the cables once powering the machine had found a new source and Llew felt relieved. He felt the power of the machine release hold of his weakened body. It had a far greater taste and began consuming it as the taller man shouted. But his shouting became screams and his screams became pitiful and as the light faded in the crypt room, so did Styles.

Nobody knew what happened in the crypt room that night, nobody could explain the disappearance of Mr Henry Styles and Llew Wyn Roberts, but something had happened. Unsure what the machine was the door was boarded up. The museum closed during the first world war and again in the second when Cardiff suffered at the hands of the German Nazi Luftwaffe and was bombed mercilessly.

One hundred and twelve years later and the crypt was active again. But the door was still boarded up from the outside, nobody could enter and nobody could leave...or could they?

Copyright 2010