christmas on infinite earths

What ho! Greetings, my fellow colleagues in the fields of science and philosophy! If you are reading this log, my experiments will have already taken me to greater and grander things. No doubt, you are curious as to how I constructed the miraculous machine you witnessed in action during your lecture hours on November the tenth. Here lie the records of my labor, the chronicles of my journey from daydreamer to time traveler. Read on, friends.
–D. Gentry, Esq.

The project began as a mere ruse, a simple accessory for a night of japery on All Hallows Eve with my compatriots at the home of a young socialite living in the hills that skirt the city. I would produce a leather arm band adorned with fanciful clockwork and objects and play at being a mad scientist who could use the machine to pass through time. While toiling on the object, however, it occurred to me that it lay within my grasp to construct a device which actually could penetrate the veil of time itself and allow passage freely through the currents of time. My experiments were put on hold for the festivities of that night, and I was ill with headache for the day after.

I took to my books, poring over Faraday, Gruetzner, Pythagoras, Hortzmann, Euclid. I devised a method to power a small chamber on the device by means of electromagnetic induction, and a means to magnifying the field emanating from the chamber with a solid brass dispersal vane. A mainspring driven clock was affixed to the dorsum of the machine, facing me when the machine was positioned to my fore. The clock would determine the trajectory of the return from the time stream after particle excitation, allowing for control over one’s passage through time. The device is foolproof! Each theory fits into the other like a jigsaw puzzle in four dimensions. The only piece left is the electro-magnetic miniature alternator. I have to maintain a stable fluctuation in power or else the Gruetzner-Faraday Field could oscillate wildly out of control. It should not be hard to manage.

The alternating circuit generator is functional! However it needs to be fine tuned. I have only managed to achieve a gentle pulse from it, while what I need is more of a rising wave if I want to achieve any visible effects. I will continue working though the night. I fear I may be late to my presentation tomorrow. What am I saying? I can arrive at tomorrow lecture whenever I choose! The key to this mainspring is the key to time itself!

Historians are still trying to determine what happened the day Gentry demonstrated the device. Some say a disoriented, shaken Gentry entered the room first, without the machine, warning the others of danger and confusedly entreating them not to allow him to activate the already malfunctioning device. Gentry reentered the room just moments later, fully composed with coat and device in tow. When he unveiled it to the audience, they soon realized that the Gentry that had entered previously was actually Gentry after he had sent himself into the past. They pleaded with him not to activate the machine, but he was too stubborn or shortsighted to listen. No one knows his ultimate destination, as the scientist who had already executed the time jump had indicated only that he needed to get the device “far away.”

The completed artifact was discovered a month later in the mountains to the west of the city, with Gentry nowhere to be found. It’s Faraday induction circuit was deemed irreparable and no other specialists have yet deciphered (or discovered) many of Gentry’s notes. The Chrono Disruptor is now housed in a museum with other curious and potentially dangerous oddities.