Chapter 2

Three months later...

Every year, before Luke's guardian, the mad genius, and the founder of Richmort, Jude Freeman, had a science conference on gadgets that can change human lives forever. The last conference was about his discovery of the flow of time and the more detailed way it worked.

Today was Luke's first conference as the owner of Richmort, and he completely forgot. He cleans himself and packs his hair up. He was already ten minutes late when Drake came in with a tuxedo.

"Mr. Freeman, your tuxedo is here," he said. Drake is a 5'9" male with blonde hair and hazel-brown eyes. He is a soft-looking guy and he is around twenty-five years old, about two years older than Luke.

"Great," Luke said collecting the tuxedo from him. "Go and start the conference, I'll be there in five minutes to take over."

Drake felt helpless. Why is this man relying on him this much? He isn't fully his employee. "I'm just an errand boy," he said.

"And five hundred thousand is just spare change," Luke said suggestively.

Drake held his breath for a while. "I'm going to start the conference," he said turning around. Fortunately, he was there during the preparation meeting that Luke wasn't even there for. Also if he has that kind of money he would be able to retire early and move to the countryside where it is peaceful.

"Thanks, Drake," Luke said, then he quickly dressed up.

He pressed a button on one of the desks in his lab and a mirror came out of the wall. He adjusts his tie and looks at himself one more time. 'I look like I'm half dead,' he thought. 

He walked out of his lab for the first time that week because he refused to attend his therapy session for the week. "It's show time."

"...And, now distinguished guests, I present to you, Mr. Freeman." Drake hoped that Luke would suddenly just appear in front of him and take him out of his misery.

Fortunately, his prayers were heard and Luke appeared in front of him all of a sudden, making him stumble back a bit in surprise. He held his chest to calm his heart which was beating fast

"Good evening people!" Luke said then fireworks blasted from the stage.

'How did he do that?' Drake thought. This was never part of the plan during the meeting.

"Today is the first conference in nearly three years, sorry for the delay, I was busy for a while thanks to a few of you sitting here," Luke said in a sarcastic tone, looking at a young couple quietly glaring at him.

He smiles a bit then stops. "Anyway, we didn't come here for that kind of drama, so I'm not going to deliver that kind of drama," he said. "I, however, am going to deliver a different kind of drama."

 The hall became dark and an image appeared on a hologram. It was a blue orb. "This is a very powerful battery of more than a million watts," he said. The audience spoke among themselves. "I know, I know what you're thinking," he said. "What could possibly want to use it for?"

"Well," he said then he vanished and appeared in front of a woman, who screamed in surprise. "Hello," he said in a fake friendly tone. He was at the back of the hall and he placed his hand on the wall behind her, and the ground glowed.

Then the stage split open and a machine came out of the ground. It looked like a pod, the pod then opened, and a phone was placed in it.

"Unfortunately the battery is the size of a pea and is inside this phone which is a time machine," he said.

"That is impossible," someone in the audience said.

Luke smiled evilly. "I was expecting that."

However Luke didn't speak even though they all heard his voice. They turned to the side and saw another Luke. "Hey me," the other Luke said. "I'm from..." he turned on the phone and said, "... a few minutes from now."

"But how do I tell you are real?" The first Luke said, then all of a sudden, he raised his leg and kicked the other Luke. He was stunned when his leg was caught.

"I'm real," the other Luke said pushing his leg back in annoyance, Luke fell to the floor, rubbing his backside as he stood up. "Man, you look stupidly awful," he said as if it was a compliment.

"Thank you, I'll take that as a compliment," the first Luke said, then he went to the pod and took the phone. "See you later," the first Luke said then used the settings of the device and a blue light enveloped him before he disappeared.

"Although it can only work for traveling a few minutes forward and backward in time there's a bit of progress," he said.

"Any questions?" he said, and almost everyone raised their hands to ask questions.

Luke wasn't surprised by the fact that almost everyone had questions about this invention. "I'm going to pick out five people for this because we don't have all night, we still need to get drunk and return to work hoping that we know what we're doing and not end up dying okay?"

Everyone was a bit weirded out by this, it made them not want to drink anymore. "You, the old man wearing a plaid suit, on seat fifteen, what is your question?" Luke said pointing to an old wrinkly man in his mid seventies.

The man was a bit annoyed with Luke because of his rudeness, but now is not the time to call him out. "How were you able to fulfill twelve years of work in less than a year after coming out of prison?" he asked.

"Technically, I've been working on this since I got to prison," Luke said honestly. "With none of you trying to give me advice on how to run my business, I managed to work on the calculations needed to finish this, and I figured out that if I want to time travel, I first have to work on a little side quest, called teleportation," he explained. He appeared directly in front of the man.

"I've appeared and disappeared twice and none of you thought to question that," he said disappointedly. "To go through time travel, you have to understand the concept of space and time working as one. The space-time continuum I'm sure most of us here are familiar with the theory of how that works, aren't you?"

"Time travel and teleportation are basically the same, teleportation is basically time travel without actually traveling in time, do you understand that?"

Before the man could respond, Luke said impatiently, "Alright, next the woman on seat 7," he said.

A young-looking lady, around twenty-two years old, wearing a seductive red dress was surprised she was called. "Me?" she said.

"Yes," Luke replies in irritation. "I saw you raise your hand then you must have a question, don't you?" he asked.

The young lady who is a brunette with blue eyes, had only come to try to seduce some wealthy man, she had only gotten the invitation to this event by accident. She had only raised her hand so she would look intelligent as well.

"Uh-- um, why don't you... commercialize the teleportation device?" she asked racking her brain. "Yes, it would be a time saver for a lot of people."

Luke looks at her in disdain. "Are you stupid?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" the lady said clearly offended by this.

"She's right though, selling a device like this would revolutionize the world, reducing the amount of energy being used," someone said. Luke recognized the voice and soon a few people began voicing their agreement.

Luke sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "First of all," he said. "Mass producing a device like this would sure lead to mistakes," he said. "I don't know how it feels like, but I don't think anyone would enjoy their body being ripped apart because of a minor miscalculation, let's not even talk about what would happen if there was a major miscalculation," he said.

"And for your information, less energy isn't being used, more energy is being used to create a single battery, and I don't think anyone would want to have another global warming case because I want to become richer, but I'm not complaining," he said. 

"Next the person on seat 1..."