The Chamber

"In the history of technological development, many new and exciting innovations have come to humanity sooner than our sense and in our excitement, we were too anxious to take advantage of these new novelties before considering their impact on the future. The Industrial Revolution for example, which ultimately led to global warming. Although this did eventually cause us to evolve for the better, it was still an avoidable tragedy. Such disasters as this have served as a warning against the very human instinct to leap into something new without first thinking about its consequences... During the 19th century, humanity started to dream about travelling through time. By 2099, it seemed like it might become a reality."

- Technological Innovation Throughout The 21st Century, 2291

BY the end of the second Great Galactic War, it seemed like humanity had figured out how to live quite comfortably with what it had. Having come so close to so many galactic-scale disasters, most people were content to live peacefully, enjoying the luxury of spotlessly clean capital cities, lightning fast transportation, unprecedentedly advanced healthcare and holidays on orbiting space hotels or to colonies on other worlds.

In this age of rampant advancement, there was always something new bubbling up from the underground laboratories of the Solar Empire. This week, there were breakthroughs related to a new experimental form of travel and somebody - who would later become very important - was only just hearing about it as they woke up.

For Solomon, today would have been just like any other if it weren't for the message that he'd been sent on his communications channel. He rose from his bed, spurred on by the signal from the wall-mounted unit that was telling him to go downstairs. When he checked his inbox on his holoscreen, there was a message waiting for him from an old friend whom he hadn't seen in such a long time, it was believed that he had disappeared.

"Dear Sol,
How have you been? I'm sorry for disappearing on you like that but I promise I had a very good reason. I'll explain when I see you today. I need to see you, you can meet me in the lobby of the DELTA building at 13:00."

DELTA? This wasn't a good start. The DELTA building - as everyone knew - was some kind of laboratory. It was extremely secretive and it was said that you didn't choose to work there - they chose you. It was a large complex on the surface but it was presumed that there was even more of it underground, though how much, nobody could possibly have known.

He was there dead on time, feeling a little like he was a spy being given a secret mission. His feeling was also partly dread. He sat down.

"Hello Sol, it's good to see you again."
He turned around to see the jolly face of a familiar old friend.
"Hello Caesar. How long has it been? 8 years?"
"I promise I can explain."

As they walked through the great, expansive building, down elevators and past important-looking people, he explained. He had been recruited by DELTA and swept up off the face of the earth, as they do to all of their subjects.
"So why do you need me?"
"Well, Sol - this is completely top-secret, okay? They might have made a breakthrough in something very exciting and they needed someone to test it. I told them I knew someone completely fearless."
"And what is this thing I'm testing?"
"Promise you won't think I'm making it up?" Caesar joked.
"We think we've cracked time travel, at least in a very limited sense. It's still baby steps so far."
"My god," Solomon said, without a hint of irony, "you've actually done it?"
"Well yes. We sent our machine a few minutes into the future and then it disappeared. Sure enough, when those minutes passed, it appeared again, completely intact."

The pair walked from a corridor, through a door and into a small metal room with a long window. The glass looked out into a vast, white underground chamber.