Rolf was nearly ready to make his own jump to intercept his two test subjects. The problem was that the algorhythms just weren’t able to be made exact, and that meant that he would be guessing as to exactly when in a jump he’d be landing. For this jump he knew they were in 1987, he just wasn’t sure exactly when. He could probably hit the month they existed in, possibly the week, no way would he find the exact day. He couldn’t just dissolve into existence in front of them, either, he had to jump his consciousness into his body as it existed in whatever time he was jumping. If only the scientist had been present for the couple’s analysis of their situation as it related to time travel in television’s pop culture. He would have thoroughly enjoyed that discussion. It would have been geek science fiction convention heaven for him to talk which television show’s version of quantum time theory they were experiencing. In reality, their situation was far closer to Quantum Leap than it was to Star Trek. Rolf wasn’t going to be beaming in and appearing before them, he had to use the physical space that his body already occupied. That’s why there were no jumps into the future, it simply wasn’t written yet, and therefore, there was no body in 2024, for instance, to inhabit. That meant that wherever he was when his primary consciousness arrived in 1987’s destination body, he’d have to pick himself up and get himself to the couple.
In 1987 Rolf was already working for Stefano Dimera. He was the genius behind turning the maniac’s brother into the Pawn. Getting away from the compound in Tuscany on an extra-curricular field trip was going to be tricky. He had several scenarios for how this was going to have to happen, and the best way for it to go was for him to actually physically intercept the Johnsons. If that wasn’t possible, then he was going to have to pick up a telephone, as there was no globally commercial email in 1987. The former would be difficult to pull off but easy for explanation. The latter would be very easy to pull off, but the explanation was going to be harder as a disembodied voice.
These side effects were also completely unexpected. The nausea was terrible. Was that what these two got to deal with every time they jumped? Well, at least it wasn’t him, thank God, he hated being nauseous. Rolf was taking copious mental notes on the effects of this displacement of the consciousness on the physical destination body, and it was enthralling.
The other big problem that posed a grave risk was the fact that he couldn’t discern exactly how long a jump was slated to go. He had a rough idea once a jump happened, but the slipstream was completely unstable. It could change on a dime. One of the things he very unhappily gave up on was forcing it into stability so that jumps were finite and reliable in duration. It simply couldn’t be stabilized. He couldn’t come up with anything to make that happen, and for once, he acknowledged that he wasn’t likely to ever find a way because a way did not exist. Time was not meant to be travelled. Space was not meant to fold in on itself like a curling ribbon. It was not meant to be flexible or given elasticity. It was meant to be a linear constant.
Science was fascinating.
The latest numbers did not give Rolf any indication that things would change in the immediate future, but leaving the lab was a risk. So, he was almost ready to make his next jump. The first one was experimental, this one would be the real thing. He was intent on getting to his test subjects and making them understand what they were doing to themselves, not to mention him and his experiment. He just hoped he’d be able to find them.