The Beyond Now Device (ePub)

We are all fated to die and the earth will continue to circle the sun. Of this, we can be sure. Yet when four people sharing an apartment happen upon a device that transports them three weeks into the future, they care less about the grand scheme and more about their own lives in the time to come. During their brief episodes they are cast as key players in a crime. One will grow physically attracted to the man she is to blackmail, annoying her boyfriend. One will fire two bullets into the chest of an attorney he doesn't know, growing to like the power of the gun, while his friend tries her best to stop him.

Both wanting and not wanting the seen future to unfold, they contact the maker of the device who is convinced only a true understanding of time will help them. From Plato to quantum physics, religion to common sense, immediacy and anticipation to the gravity of elephants, the maker expresses time from a variety of perspectives.

The author solicited help through email correspondence with graduate students and professors at major universities in the departments of physics, philosophy, and theology to enrich the characters' evaluation of free will at odds with determinism as they try to control their futures and answer the question 'Does the future already exist?'

Realizing that physics, philosophy, and theology hold no consensus on the nature of time, or on the existence of the future, the characters' day of destiny arrives, affirming and refuting the power of choice to smooth the road beyond now.