Mike fired up the box and the lasers came to life.

The machine produced a small circular area of distortion.

It was a vortex about 8 inches across that looked like ripples above a fire.

This was unexpected.

Mike didn't know what the vortex was or if it was dangerous, so he grabbed a sheet

metal screw and tossed it through the field.

It vanished.

Mike just stared and blinked and waited.

The screw was just gone.

So Mike powered down his machine and turned to head back into the house.

Then he heard something clattering.

It was the screw.

It rolled to a stop about two feet from the box.

Mike thought he invented some kind of teleportation device.

He didn't.

Michael Madman Markham invented a time machine.

Mike Markham from Stambury, Missouri was an amateur inventor who liked to tinker.

He lacked formal science training, but he had a natural aptitude for electronics.

The back porch of his house looked like a home appliance graveyard.

Old TVs, radios, and CD players were all dismantled with their inside spilled everywhere.

There were spools of copper wire and magnets of all sizes.

His current project was a Jacobs ladder, a device that consists of two metal rods which

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