I’m on vacations, so sorry this is only posted on Tuesday and that it’s cut so short. I have a college diploma in history, so this made me very nostalgic.
Kallias was doing a history major at university and he loved it. It always had been a passion of his ever since he was a child. He still had the mythological and the history books with scribbled notes in the margins. Other kids had made fun of him for spending his time reading inside instead of playing with them, but he hadn’t cared. Knowledge was priceless, he knew it even at that age. It was of no surprise that when he learnt about a needed subject for a time machine prototype, he immediately applied. It consisted of a strict interview with questions to study their personality. Some had better physical abilities, others had survival ones, but none had the historical knowledge Kallias had, essential on traveling through the past, and so he was chosen.
The thought of visiting ancient civilisation was exhilirating, causing him to not sleep the night before his debriefing and of the test. It was all so exciting, really, because there was some speculations they set their objective on the Antiquity era, his period of expertise.
Morning came and off he was after a light breakfast. The team greeted him like he was a champion who’d won a marathon, when in reality, he had no clue what to expect. The team leader greeted him with a steaming cup of coffee.
“Are you ready to set off, Kallias?”
“I sure am.” Kallias tried to hide his enthusiasm, without success. “I had a few questions, before we start, however.”
“Ask away.” The leader turned around and took a document, signing some papers.
“Firstly, am I allowed to bring a camera to take pictures as historical artefacts? I’m sure it would be useful for my thesis, you see, as I’m currently narrowing what my subject shall be.”
“You won’t be able to bring anything physical with you, I’m afraid.”
“Physical? Not even clothes? Of course that would create an anachronism…”
“The machine would become unstable if we were to subject it to anything other than a living organism, and we don’t want that for our first human subject.”
Kallias sighed. “I understand. I wanted to know if you tried teleporting anything else before?”
The leader, whose name was Iris, painted a confident smile on her face. “We have. A pig and a dog. Sadly none of them had the intelligence required to return with the implant we’ll insert in you as well, so we received no data from the other side. We at least know that the teleportation process itself works like a charm.”
“That’s… interesting. So I’m the first human to try this?”
“You are.” The woman patted his arm. “Now, you need to sign those few forms and we’ll proceed.”
Kallias was bewildermed by the amount of forms he had to signs to make sure the agency wouldn’t be pursued by Kallias as he was fully aware of the danger of such an experiment.
“Tell me, Kallias, do you have a testament?”
“A will? I never thought about it. Why are you asking?” He was a twenty-four orphan, thinking about to whom he’d give his few furnitures and his little savings hadn’t been a priority.
“Nothing, I was simply wondering.” Kallias finished filling up the forms and Iris began to explain how it would work. It would be simple enough. He’d be implanted with a device to return to the present time behind the ear which would look like a mole, and only his digit prints would make it work. They’d allow him an hour of free roaming before pressing the device to come back. It was a first test, so they didn’t know how it would go. Kallias listened but some of the information n case of emergency went a bit over his head. Iris brought him to a white room filled with computers and a stand in the middle with an orb made of glass on top of it. As he approached, he realized the floor was made of electronic panels, electricity running underneath the translucent surface.
“You’ll need to remove your clothes,” a technician with a gentle smile told him, and he gulped. With a deep sigh, he executed himself, folding his clothes on the back of a chair. At least, the four other present persons had the decency to look away while he did so.
“Now what?”
They made him proceed to the stand in the middle of the room. He felt self-conscious for a minute, but the persons’ attention were all turned on their respective computer, so he began to loosen up. At least the temperature was warm enough.
“Here, it’ll sting a bit.” The device hurt like a bitch, especially because his neck was very sensitive, but he gritted his teeth and stayed silent. It only lasted a second, and he felt a quite pleasant buzz afterwards. He lightly touched it, a hard bump under his ear.
“Let’s get you going, then. The implant will warm up in about an hour, so you’ll know when to acivate it.”
“Where are you teleporting me?”
“The Antiquity’s center of the world, Delphi.”
Kallias nodded and stood in the middle of the podium. He idly wondered how he world acquire clothes when Iris pushed a button. The teleportation process began. It merely lasted a few seconds before the smell hit him and a wave of dizziness hit him. He lunched forward on his knees, heaving, but his stomach didn’t give its contents to the ground. To say it reeked would be a weak word. Once he felt that his sickness was under control, he slowly rose on his feet to look around.
This was it. Ancient Greece. A visit to the Pythia was in order with the little time he had.
Conatus 
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