In the mid 1920's, a man by the name of Herbert King, inspired by the works of his heroes Einstein, Edison and Tesla, set about to develop the world's first working time machine. He did this in an effort to inspire his fellow man, and not at all to show up Mike Quinn, the pretty boy know-it-all who shared an office with him and insisted that King was "nice enough, but a bit of a kook" when he didn't think King could hear him, all while denying his obvious guilt in the repeated theft of the bologna sandwiches that King would bring in for lunch. For years, King spent all of his waking hours outside of the Brown & Moore Insurance Company working frantically to develop a device that would allow him to travel into the past.
In 1929, he succeeded.
Taking a moment to stop by the office, he announced that he would be testing his device that afternoon, and invited the entire office to bear witness to the event. His office mates gathered in his back yard, happy for the excuse to enjoy a warn June afternoon in Detroit, where they were presented with King's device. One of those present described the device as looking "kind of like a car, if you didn't know anything about how cars went together". With much bravado, King announced that he would be travelling precisely 100 years into the past, where he would collect a document to authenticate his journey and then return. As his amused coworkers looked on, King entered the machine, which made several rude noises before attaining a consistent humming sound. The machine then popped out of existence with an unsurprising popping noise.
Dutifully, his office mates "oohed" and "aahed" at the disappearance. Then they spent several minutes carefully inspecting the area where the device had previously been, wary not to step into the actual space should he return as promised. They discussed the ramifications for science as well as mankind, and overall were very impressed. After almost an hour, however, the initial excitement had dissipated, and discussions turned to whether they should return to the office, or wait and see if he returned as promised. Eventually it was decided that the group should convene to Eddie's Tavern to further celebrate King's accomplishment, whatever that may have been. Quinn left him a note stating as much, adding "Congratulations, Herbert. That was really something.".
Unfortunately for King, he had put a lot of though into how to move through time, but that was pretty much it. When he arrived at precisely the spot he had been 100 years in the past, just as he had predicted that he would, he discovered that the Earth had moved approximately 1.3 trillion kilometers through the universe, give or take a million. As such, his celebration on the successful creation of a time machine was short lived, as he had prepared the machine for a reasonably temperate climate, not deep space. On the bright side, he was technically the first astronaut as well, but that isn't really as impressive as time travel and all that.
While King's achievements are largely unknown in modern times, he is much celebrated in the future, where his machine has been recovered and corrected to take into account that our planet is moving along at a preposterous clip through space. I cannot say that his invention is widely used to benefit of all mankind, but only because I've been told not to in the manner that I would describe as "stern, with a hint of menace". Where the device currently resides, the Herbert King Space Station and Shopping Center will be established around 2657.
Throughout that particular quadrant of space, it will be known as not only the best but the only place to get a genuine Earth-style bologna sandwich.
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