Timenell

The year is 2042, a team of four men and four women have been trained and assembled for a 16-year mission through space. The day before they are to leave, they are informed that their mission is not one through space, but a mission through time. Unbeknownst to them and to the public, time travel has been possible in limited ways since the first atomic power was developed in 1945. Unmanned probes have been sent forward in time, and have returned, every 16 years since the end of WWII. They have revealed a future world much like our own, full of deer, butterflies, sunshine, and blue skies. Everything seems perfect, except for one troubling aspect: there appears to be no people. Every probe sent forward in time has returned without showing anything indicating that people still exist. No occasional joggers, no planes passing overhead, no voices in the background.

Did we kill ourselves off in nuclear wars? Did we develop a virus that drove us to extinction? Did humanity move underground and have simply not yet been found by the probes? Where are we? The mission becomes complicated as the four men and four women have to live together in close quarters for 16 years. The friction, jealousies, violence, and even perversions of the crew eventually make themselves known. But there is nowhere to go and no escape from each other. What will they discover in the future? What happened to humanity? And will they survive to tell the people of the past about it?

Stephen Fritz graduated from The University of Mount Olive; raised a family and retired from the Air Force after 23 years of military service. He worked in the Pentagon, and at the Defense Intelligence Agency in Washington D.C., as well as serving in a number of countries abroad. After his military service, he started a number of small businesses. His interests include human social organization, customs, traditions, and individual personal development. He has written a book in philosophy where he presents a new conceptual model of human moral sentiment called Our Human Herds and the Theory of Dual Morality. His most recent book is a fictional story titled Timenell.