A World Without Secrets by Thomas DePrima Read Free Book Online Page A

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    Since first activating the viewer my heart had been racing wildly, but now it was beating so hard that it threatened to burst from my chest, and I realized I was hyperventilating again. As I again worked to get my breathing under control, I knew that what I was seeing was impossible. It was totally, undeniably, indisputably, irrefutably impossible. Yet, there it was in front of me.
    I put a shaky hand to my forehead and was surprised to find how much I was perspiring. My mouth felt as dry as the Sahara. Grabbing a stack of paper napkins, I wiped my face, stood up straight and walked to the refrigerator. Taking a cold beer from the bottom shelf, I drank it down in almost one swallow. Then I leaned against the sink counter and stared at the image of my apartment building. I recognized neighbors as they passed by on the sidewalk out front. It was a real-time image from a camera that didn't exist, shooting from an empty lot. But since it could be instantly transported to any other place simply by entering the map coordinates, 'camera' didn't begin to describe it.
    "This is a window in space," I finally said aloud, as if saying it would help me accept the evidence of my own eyes. "It might even be…"
    I walked to the image without finishing the sentence and pressed the square that brought up a keypad reading of 2014. I hesitated for just a second, then entered the number 1004. Almost instantly, I was looking at a forest.
    "Idiot! You went too far," I said reproachfully.
    As I changed the number to 1904, the image changed to one that showed people dressed in turn-of-the-century clothes as horse-drawn carriages passed by my house. The street was paved with cobblestones, and my building looked brand new. I grabbed another beer from the refrigerator and chugged it down even faster than the first, then sat down to contemplate this discovery.
    "It's not a window in space— it's a window in time," I said breathlessly as I stared at the image on the device. "This is worth millions. Maybe hundreds of millions. Billions! My money problems are over. I'll be able to start my own publishing company and never again face the heartbreak of a rejection letter."
    Then the realities began to sink in and I started hyperventilating again.
    "My God," I said aloud as I jumped up and began to pace madly around my small kitchen. If anybody learned about this, I'd be dead. The government agencies involved in spying and collecting information would kill to get their hands on this, and no crime syndicate would hesitate to kill me for it because they needed to prevent the government from learning secrets such as where all the skeletons were buried— literally. And it wouldn't be limited to the U.S. Government. Any government would kill to possess this. Hell, any politician would kill for this. They'd be able to spy on their opponents in order to learn of scandals that could lead to defeat in an election, or simply to learn the opponent's strategy so they could develop a counter strategy. For that matter, any big corporation would kill to own a device that allowed them to spy on their competition. And wealthy individuals would also kill to possess this, either to spy on others or keep others from spying on them. Then a new thought struck me. Why would it be limited to wealthy people? Everyone had secrets they didn't want others to learn. And what if someone got their hands on this, duplicated the hardware, and turned them out like iPads? A device like this meant no more secrets, anywhere, anytime, ever again. It would throw the entire world into chaos.
    We're not ready for a world without secrets. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I'm dead. And someone already knows I have this.
    I stopped pacing and ran to the bedroom again for a look outside. There was still no one in sight other than the normal street traffic.
    "So where are they?" I mumbled to myself nervously. "Why haven't they come? Why aren't they breaking down my door to get it back? Why have they