Chaos Theory

Flash Fiction February (Day 12)

Thomas Andrews sat in his first-class smoking room, his shirt unbuttoned and a lit cigarette balanced in his left hand. Icy water from the Atlantic Ocean sloshed into his shoes as he took a slow drag and let the smoke out with a heavy sigh.

Water was pouring into the room from all directions, coming up from the floor and no doubt building pressure in the rooms above him. Perhaps Andrew’s greatest regret is that he would not live to tell his superiors I told you so, not only about the ship’s design but also concerning the lack of lifeboats.

A fast and panicked knock came from the door to his cabin. Andrew sat up. He had already helped all the passengers he could to the lifeboats. The floor was supposed to be deserted.

“Thomas Andrews! Thomas! Please, open the door!” a voice shouted.

Thomas took another drag of his cigarette and shook his head. “Not a chance, friend! Get yourself to a lifeboat before it’s too late!”

“Thomas, please, you must survive!” the voice cried.

“I don’t think either of us has a say in that, my friend,” he looked around at the streams of water bursting through cracks in the walls and ceiling. “Perhaps if we had sunk slower, there would have been a chance at survival.”

Thomas tossed his cigarette into the water pooling around him. Moments later, the ceiling gave way, sealing him in an icy tomb.

His body was never recovered.

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Markus Fields tore the VR headset off his head and threw it onto the podium beside him. The device slid across the sea of papers that littered the desk, knocking several onto the floor.

“God-fucking-dammit!” Markus shouted.

“Hey! Watch it; if you break that thing, then we’re really screwed,” another voice replied.

Markus rubbed his eyes and stood up. His stomach rumbled. He hadn’t eaten or slept in days. None of that would matter in a few hours, though. Unless he and his partner Derek Fields figured something out, the world would end at midnight.

Markus stood and walked up to the chalkboard that spanned the back wall of the college classroom. Equations were drawn across the surface, along with more than a few sketches of the Lorenz attractor, which resembled a butterfly's wings.

Markus turned back to the papers littering the podium. He pushed them aside, revealing an antique book. Originally titled Futility, his version was from after it had been renamed The Wreck of the Titan in 1912.

Many had credited the book with predicting the sinking of the Titanic twelve years before the actual event. Its story was eerily close. He set the book back down. It was one of many artifacts he had collected in pursuit of his goal.

“Maybe we try someone else? Thomas’ mind is clearly not interested in letting you into his dream. That door has been locked every time,” Derek said.

Markus threw his hands into the air. “It doesn’t matter if we try someone else! We need him to survive. I’ve run the simulation over and over. If he survives, then we avoid the current outcome. It has to be him!”

Derek stepped away from the servers and machinery tucked into the side of the auditorium. He walked up to Markus and wrapped his arms around him.

Markus broke down, sobbing into his partner’s shoulder. Derek rubbed his back with his hands, trying to soothe him.

“We’ve still got a few hours. We’ll figure it out. In fact, we have almost as much time left as it took the Titanic to sink in the first place!” Derek joked.

Markus pulled away from him, his tear-stained eyes wide.

“Wait, say that again?”

Derek was confused but obliged. “I said: we almost have the same amount of time left that it took the Titanic to sink.”

Markus snapped his fingers and ran over to the podium. He dug through the papers until he found an article about the rivets used in the Titanic’s design. He plucked out the page and grabbed his copy of The Wreck of the Titan before rushing back to Derek’s side.

“You’re a fucking genius, babe!” he said, holding the two items in front of Derek’s eyes.

“I’m glad you feel better, but I’m not following.”

“If they had considered icebergs a potential threat, they would have used steel rivets instead of iron! The damage to the ship wouldn’t have been as drastic. It would have sunk slower. The RMS Carpathia would have gotten there in time to rescue them!”

Derek nodded. “Sure, but how are we going to influence the design of the Titanic? We can only send you back to someone’s dream from that time period.”

Markus pointed to one of the Lorenz attractor equations drawn on the chalkboard behind him.

Image: The Lorenz Attractor or “Lorenz Butterfly”

“It’s the butterfly effect! We just have to put the idea in the designer’s mind! Chaos theory will take it from there!” he said.

Derek shook his head. “We’ve been trying to get through to Thomas Andrews. That dream of his a week before the Titanic’s maiden voyage is the only one we can access, and if you recall, he doesn’t want to talk to you.”

Markus ran back to the podium to retrieve another article he had printed out. His eyes scanned the paper.

“Multiple screenplays over the years have credited Andrews with the design of the Titanic, but that’s only because they wanted to play into the theme of the creator going down with the ship. We need him to survive for this plan, but he wasn’t the designer! The real designer was Andrew Carlisle!”

Derek sprinted back to the machinery tucked off to the side of the classroom. “Why didn’t you mention this earlier?”

Markus joined him at his side. “I wasn’t thinking about the ship’s design; I was just thinking about Andrews. If this works, we can save everyone!”

Derek furiously began typing on his laptop. He reached over to the dashboard of switches and dials beside it and started adjusting them. Markus’ eyes followed the cables running from the electronics all the way to the headset sitting on the podium.

This will work. It has to; there’s no other choice.

Derek pumped a fist into the air and cheered. “I got a lock! It’s about two years before the Titanic’s Maiden voyage. Should be early enough for you to influence the design.”

Markus grabbed his partner’s face with both hands and kissed him.

“You’re fucking incredible! Can you send me back with a copy of the book, too?” Markus asked.

Derek nodded, “Shouldn’t be a problem. Just make sure this works. We don’t have enough time to try again.”

Markus sat back down and put the headset on. Derek watched as his body went limp. The data on his screen showed a successful jump. He sat down and tried to calm his racing heart. There was nothing he could do now but wait.

Derek checked his phone, scrolling through articles about humanity’s impending doom. Nothing had changed yet. He looked back to the clock on his laptop.

It was five minutes until midnight.

“Come on, baby, you’ve got this,” he whispered.

Two minutes before midnight, Markus’ body shook violently, and he gripped the sides of the chair he was sitting on. He tore off the headset again, sprinting back to Derek’s side.

“Did it work?” Derek asked, his eyes wandering down to the clock.

It was one minute to midnight.

Markus stepped in front of the laptop and opened a web browser. He typed in a search query composed of three simple words: Titanic designer dream.

This was the first article that came up in the search results:

Derek’s eyes went wide as he read the article. He had completely forgotten about the time. His eyes shot down to the clock in the corner of the screen.

It was two minutes past midnight.

“Holy shit, we did it! We saved the fucking world!” Markus shouted.

Derek stood up as his partner embraced him. They held each other tight, knowing that they had not only saved 1,500 lives but billions more as well.

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Featured in Issue #7 of Top in Fiction!

This piece was recently featured in Top of Fiction! You can see the full issue here, including the other stories who were chosen.

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