My name is John, John Doe Stoon. My parents thought it would be a good name for me because according to every government in the world, I do not exist. Hence John Doe, My parents Jake Stoon and Isabella Stoon are top scientists working for Lockheed, against company policy they ended up falling in love with one another. They ended up being happily married, till they had me. Because the work my parents do is a secret and because they both pretty much signed their life away to Lockheed, they are never to leave the premises of this research facility. For me, this means that for the past 14 years, I was the only child here, my best friends all had 200+ IQ and my hobbies are reading, reading and reading some more.
My parents work well over 12 hours a day, 5 days a week. On Saturday they rest as to keep their sanity and on Sunday they take me out to play with some of the various life-threatening devices that the mad scientists come up with here. You got the anti-gravity grenades that upon exploding give you a sweet 2 minutes of weightlessness. One time I snuck one out and used it outside. Jumped as hard as I could till I could look over the mountains round-about. I was hoping to find a way of escape like any 12 year old would in my situation. But all I could see was more mountains. No civilization as far as the eye could see. I did enjoy taking in the sight till my 2 minutes were up and gravity took a hold of me once again. I plummeted down from incredible heights, ofcourse I came prepared and used the parachute to land back safely on the ground. One thing that the parachute didn't help me do however is to keep my little escapade hidden from my parents. I ended up getting grounded for 3 months and they never again let me anywhere near the anti-gravity grenades again.
Those were good times, sadly, as with all good things it seems like this had come to an end. I was diagnosed with an incurable disease 2 months ago. At least that is what they said, it might just be something that the mad scientists at the biolab had concocted. So with my and my parents permission they hooked me up to a device that was supposed to preserve my life. They put a massive heavy helmet on my head with more wires going in and out of it than I care to count. I look at my parents behind as the sedation slowly takes me. As I close my eyes, my mind is taken away. The helmet comes to life as it starts to thrum a low beratone zoom.
Isabella turns away and buries her head in her husbands embrace as they silently cry. They would see their son on the other side. After a couple minutes that seemed to last for hours John Doe's heart stopped beating. He had now been completely uploaded and brought in digital stasis. Only to wake up again if he was uploaded to a machine or body with technology that Jake and Isabella had yet to invent.
After a week of respite Isabella and Jake returned to their lab and worked, now more motivated than ever to develop the technology to save their son.
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About the Great Leap Backward
When timetravel first became possible as any responsible scientist, Jake tried to send a camera back to the past to see what would happen. 5 minutes and a blackout later the camera appeared, or what was left of it. The camera had been twisted and compressed and burnt to a crisp. The second test was... strange. This time a metal ball with the corpse of a monkey inside of it appeared in the warehouse. The metal ball was slightly scorched but largely undamaged. It seems our future selves had been able to make quite a bit of progress. Then, like clockwork, every 5 minutes another metal ball appeared in the warehouse. Each with a data entry detailing what the future had been like. It seemed like our timeline was altered every 5 minutes and another possible future had been attempted.
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The data entries detailed that in 8 years time, just after the time travel device had been completed the 3rd world war broke out and the North Koreans had attacked the base to use the weapons in the base against their enemies. Or, as they had put it, to defend their homeland. They had asked Jake and Isabella for a demonstration of their device which is how they were able to send the monkey back to the past a day after their camera attempt. As they had identified this to be the most optimal point to send these to. The timeline thereafter had also received the metal ball with the monkey, they knew what was going to happen and realized that only time travel could help them get out of this dillema. So they developed the metal ball further, made it more advanced and sent a plant back in time which, just like the monkey, did not survive the jump. 5 minutes later it was a testube with what should have been organic matieral. But that too turned up dead.
The data entries however remained undamaged. The next breakthrough only happened 12 timelines later when all trials of sending living beings, plants or matter had been tried unsuccesfully an AI was sent back. It had been developed over a timespan of 8 years. 5 minutes later the same AI returned but even more advanced. It seems like our future selves were now on their way to develop an AI that would be strong and smart enough to come up with a way of getting out of our future predicament and hopefully save the world. The AI developed an almost superhuman intelligence and finally after a week of timetravels we had a working solution. Every 5 minute the timeline had been renewed.
That is how the project Great Leap Backward came to be. The plan was to upload all of us onto a time travel device in the future and to send us back to pre-historic time. Where there would be no human interferences. Where whatever changes we made to the local environment would soon be wiped out by a descending meteorite and where we could live and work in peace on peace. Many things could've gone wrong, so as any good scientist. We had run plenty of tests (in the future) before finalizing the plan for our great leap backwards. With the incredible computing power of the AI and after a week worth of timelines or to put it in layman's terms, 967.680 years of research.
We were ready. All of us committed to uploading ourselves to our timeship. Our timeship was sent to us from the future and came with all the materials and technology we thought we could possibly need in the past. Most importantly, it came with a way to upload ourselves to either organic beings or to robots. Despite all the computing power of the AI, no solution was found for sending a living being, nor anything that lived throught time. The saying 'time stops for noone' seems to hold some truth to it. Instead, once we travelled back in time, we would need to be uploaded to inorganic robots that had been built to stand the test of time.
Our destination, a volcanic hotspot which would later be called Kamtchatka. Our time of arrival, approximately 65.000.000 BC. Our mission, world peace.
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Author's note:
In previous attempts of writing the story I never started by explaining the premise and instead started the story somewhere along the timeline of the mission for world peace so I could slowly reveal past events and unravel the mysteries. This time I've chosen to introduce you to the plot right from the start. This story won't follow what was written in my previous attempts. Therefore, you can read those without worrying about spoilers.
I intend to write well over a thousand words a day this month and if I stay motivated, perhaps also in the months after November. If you really like my story and wish for me to continue writing. I would appreciate any encouraging messages, comments and reviews. Your thoughts and comments are highly valued, if you find any spelling errors, have any questions or you see something that doesn't make sense, like a plot-hole. Please don't hesitate to tell me in the comments below.
Thanks for reading!