William Brunelli: A Time Traveler's Tale

Prologue

It was late at night, and I was brainstorming ideas for my upcoming science project. I wanted to present it to the robotics class, but what could I create to stand out? I knew—a machine that could time travel, that's what! 

I jumped out of bed and quickly approached the garage to begin planning the project. Going toward the workbench, I set down a large poster board sheet and started sketching my design. My first idea was to create a time machine, but that was overdone, so I came up with another plan. As I mindlessly doodled on the poster board, an idea struck me. 

"A robotic horse! A time-traveling robotic horse!" I said out loud. And with those words, it was so. I sketched my design until it finally took shape, then went to my welding station and began building the framework. I carefully began to sculpt each piece of titanium alloy, then welded them together just as carefully, ensuring every piece was in its rightful place. 

I lifted my welding goggles to look at what I'd created so far; enthralled by my progress, I hastily continued welding more pieces together when a flurry of stray sparks shot into my eyes, damaging my vision. I let out a holler of pain as I stumbled around my workspace like a drunken fool, furiously rubbing my eyes, hoping to rid them of the intense, burning sensation, but to no avail. Knowing that my vision was in danger, I called it quits for the night and raced to the emergency room, where I would endure a seven-hour-long operation to be given robotic eyes, which would restore my vision. I spent one week in the hospital before I was discharged. I went home to continue my project.

With less than three weeks left until the robotics fair, I needed to act fast, or else this entire project would be as good as a waste. I picked up my tools again and continued constructing the rest of the body. By the time I was finished, it was half-past four in the morning, so I went to bed to continue when the sun came up. 

I overslept until noon. Great. No big deal, though. 

As I returned to my workstation, my girlfriend, Kamila, asked me where I was going. 

"William? Where are you off to?" Kamila inquired. I turned around with a smile two miles wide plastered on my face. 

"I'm creating a robot for the robotics fair! Do you want to see it?" I offered as I began to step backward toward the door. 

"A robot? Sure!" Kamila replied happily before following me into the garage. I waved my hand toward my project and smiled.

"Here it is so far!" I said before lowering my hand and continuing to work on the machine. "I plan on giving it the ability to time travel. Wouldn't that be so cool?" 

"William, you know time travel is dangerous," Kamila stated. 

"...like I care." I retorted, not taking my eyes off my project. "The government is a bunch of tyrannical assholes, so the ability to travel through time can help us overthrow them." Once I finished constructing the upper body, I turned to Kamila and leaned against the soon-to-be-robotic horse. "We can call ourselves the Fighters of Yesteryear!"

"Don't be so ridiculous, William," Kamila retorted before exiting the workshop. "Well, I'm going to leave you to it. Try not to stay up too late this time." Kamila exited the room, leaving me to my own devices. 

Hours went by, and I began assembling the robotic horse's head, piece by piece, bolt by bolt, and screw by screw. Each piece was a hand holding this mechanical beast together. Once I was finally finished constructing the head, I carefully welded it onto the neck I'd built, then took a step back, admiring the majesty that was soon to become the RoboSteed. 

"Hmmm....." I hummed as I began to think. Something was missing, but what? After some scrutiny, I knew what this machine needed: skin! I knew I had some silicone sheets left over from a previous project, so I took some and began shaping them to fit the machine, creating an almost realistic-looking skin. But it still looked bland, so I dug deeper. 

Rummaging through a large metal box, I found some faux fur I could use to emulate horse hair. So, I cut off individual hair pieces and carefully glued them onto the silicone skin. When completed, the hair looked and felt just like real horse hair. 

I had the body, but now I needed to program the damn thing, so I whipped out my supercomputer and got to work. 

Being the rather stellar computer programmer and robotics engineer, I started by writing a boot sequence for the machine to use every time it powers on. I went through several lines of code until I wrote the perfect one. I decided to test it. 

I gingerly removed the ear panel and powered the machine by pressing the button. 

It failed to boot.

Not to worry; I can fix this. I rewrote the code and tried again; it booted this time. Now it's time to program some basic actions. 

I started by writing a line of code that lets the machine follow objects using only its eyes. Once finished, I threw something across its visual field, and only one of its eyes followed the object. The other one stayed dormant, so I reviewed my code and realized I had made an error. I corrected it and tried it again. Success! 

I continued adding more lines of code to the machine, and slowly but surely, the once lifeless pile of titanium almost became a lifelike creature. It still needed a personality and some emotion, so I quickly added them. I soon stepped back and admired my creation from afar; as I stepped back, the machine turned its head toward me and stared at me blankly. I guess I knew its visual tracking system was working. Now, for the final thing to do. I have to give it a name.

"Hm...Wilhelm? No, that's a silly name for a machine," I said to myself before I had the perfect name. "...Justice!" 

Justice. I liked that name. It was fitting, considering its purpose. I went back to my computer and began to check Justice's internals. All systems were operational. I entered Justice's name into the computer, which renamed the device to Justice-20A-4. 

Now, what about the time-traveling capabilities? Well, I needed to build a rift ripper. To do that, I would need a piece of technology that I kept hidden from the world—something I've built from scratch: a time reactor. I took this time reactor and placed it into a titanium shell. I glanced over at the clock; it was already eight at night.

"Jesus..." I muttered quietly as I went to power Justice down; it's been eight hours, and it only felt like two. I knew I had to finish inserting the rift ripper before I called it quits and began testing tomorrow. I reopened Justice's chest cavity, then carefully slipped the rift ripper into a small open slot in its metal casing. After that, I carefully wired it all together before closing Justice back up, placing my tools in their rightful place, and exiting the garage, ready for an exciting day of testing my new creation first thing in the morning. 

With the first RoboSteed completed, I had no idea of the technological achievement I had just accomplished and the government's attention I would receive, and it wasn't anything good.