I was shocked and deeply moved by his words although I didn't understand it completely, until some time later. My idea of traveling has been mostly influenced by Hollywood and it was not until I met Dante, that I learned what this actually will be like in the future.
"And you were trying to save her by traveling back in time?" I asked.
Dante shook his head. "It is not possible for a man to change history. What happened has already been written. I cannot stop Elaine from jumping."
I was confused, and it was showing on my face. "But you said that you found a way, right? A way to be together."
"It would not be an easy thing to explain to you my friend. To understand why I cannot save Elaine, you must understand how the science behind projection works," he said as he got up from the bench. I watched young man as he folded his hands behind his back and slowly paced towards the edge of the cliff.
Then he turned towards me. "I would love to tell you everything, but... I am afraid that I have other, uh, matters to attend to."
I was burning with curiosity, but I also felt a sense of being part of something important. I was the only person to discover something that I usually only write about, or read of, or see in a sci-fi flick. I felt like a secret agent, the chosen one to play a part in something amazing.
"You mentioned some sort of a station earlier, "I said, "What exactly did you mean? Is it a specific place somewhere, or is there somewhere else that I can take you to?"
"I am afraid not. I need a SNS station to recharge."
"We are not completely technologically incompetent you know," said taking my phone out of my pocket and waving it about,* "we have numerous devices that requires charging, maybe we can um... rig, something for you?"
Dante stepped closer and took the phone from my hand. He inspected it for a minute, looking slightly amused. "Asombroso",** he said handing it back to me and then stepping away once more. "But will your devices be able to charge this?"
He touched four fingers to his shoulder. I have to admit that until that point I still had a hint of skepticism left in me, but that was completely erased by what I witnessed next.
His skin, from head to toe lit up in a purple glow. I came a little closer to him and could see that it was like a thin membrane of interlinking hexagonal squares covering his skin.
"What is--", was all I could get out.
"This is SNS. It is short for Synthetic Nano Skin.***", he said, "It was developed to protect the human body against heat and cold, um,.. cuts, bruises, sickness. But it is also used for uh, projection you know, for uh, traveling."
"Is it broken? Do you need it fixed?“ I asked trying to sounded not too neanderthalish.
"The SNS cannot be destroyed. It becomes a part of the body. But it cannot hold a sufficient charge by itself," Dante said, and touched three fingers on the inside of his forearm. Instantly, as before the fibers on his clothing rearranged. But this time it wasn't limited to the area he touched, as his entire outfit changed into something that looked like millions of tiny little eyes.
"This is what holds the charge," he said, "But I had to take an extra fully charged energy suit with. For Elaine."
He tuned away from me and started pacing with his hands folded behind his back.
" Unfortunately with such a lot of energy, the risk of damaging the Pineal gland was too great. I decided to leave with half charge."
He wiped his hand across his forearm and in an instant his clothing returned to normal. "Without SNS station, it could take, uh... maybe a month to charge just enough to complete my Journey. With the help of the sun of course. Once I get to 1947 I will have wait another month, maybe two months to get enough charge to,... uh, project once again. "
I nodded as if I understood the technology completely. "Why don't you rather project back to 3039, to Madrid and charge properly? You know, do it the right way."
Dante sighed and tuned turned his eyes to the horizon.
"I can never return back there. I am a wanted man in Madrid."
I wasn't judging or even thinking about judging a man from a time that I knew nothing about, but the police officer inside of me persuaded me to ask, "What are you wanted for?"
Dante turned to me and looked me in the eye. For the first time I noticed two peculiar black dots in the upper, inner corners of each of his eyes.
"They want me for taking advantage of the Time Traveling System. And for killing a man..."
Next time - Confessions of a Time Traveler
*Afterwards I fell felt quite embarrassed by waving around my cellphone, which must have seemed like such an ancient piece of technology to Dante. He must have thought me an idiot.
**I could not clearly hear what Dante said when he spoke that word, but from what I heard it sounded like and my own assumptions, plus a little help from Google again, I figured that he might have used that word, meaning Amazing in Spanish.
***Again I can't remember if it was Nano skin or Nano suit.
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