This story idea was inspired by the clip above, which purports to show footage of a woman using a mobile phone in 1928.

FATE VS WILL is a working title.

Several pictures, dismissed by most as a hoax, seem to indicate evidence of time travel and vindicate the theories of Professor Rolfson, who continues to dig through every archive he can find. Three blurry inconclusive pictures prove nothing, but the fourth is different; it identofies quite clearly, the face of a man talking on a mobile phone in 1941 Berlin.

Rolfson calls in his last favour to get a government contact to run facial recognition, and to everyone's surprise a match is found and the man identified as Will Harrow of Topeka, Kansas. But Will is in high school and at least eight years too young to be the man in the picture.

Exhaustive searches into the Harrow family lead to the conclusion that it is indeed Will and not a relative. Rolfson meets with officials to discuss funding for his theories of chemically altered DNA experiments dubbed 'Chronal Slippage,' which he believes could untether the time traveller from the present and facilitate 'slip-back' to other times. He bases his pitch on the supposition that time travel is inevitable and it will work, and already has done in the future, as the picture demonstrates.

Rolfson's work is based on parallel research being carried out by Biogerontologists researching the aging gene. He takes the theories of Marios Kyriazis in a radical new direction, postulating that Kyriazis' theory that human evolution is leading towards the elimination of the aging gene and biological immortality for humanity can be adapted, to not only freeing humans from their own mortality, but also from their fixed position in time and space.

If manipulation of genes and the makeup of a person can halt or reverse aging, there is also the certainty of unlocking what Rolfson calls 'The Physical Tether'. He suggests applications in astral projection, teleportation and most importantly, slippage from one fixed point in time to another using the theory that time is like a river, which logically can flow in both directions. He likens humans to moored boats capable only of slow upwards drift, but by his theory chemical manipulation of the correct gene can allow the boat to 'slip-back' once freed of its mooring - the next application will be to determine controls to the process.

He stresses again - THIS IS INEVITABLE. ITS ALREADY HAPPENED.

Before the government can decide, an anonymous party leaks a detailed dossier to the press, causing a sensation and the global media to descend on the Harrow family home.

Spurred to action, the government takes Will into protective custody and commits itself to funding Rolfson's project. Will is taken to a converted underground base for training and education in his future role.

Will has no choice in the matter but accepts his fate (with some lamentations and occasional regret).

In greater society, these events have a knock on effect - radicals and fringe figures accuse the government of being involved in experiments in time travel, and covering up the existence of aliens, for decades, ascribing motivations ranging from seizure of oil to planning a segregated society for the rich, and leaving the masses to starve. Each conspiracy and anti establishment blog is crazier than the last.

In the scientific community and political circles the sheer amount of media coverage and respected known figures discussing this issue gives 'pre destined time travel' a mainstream acceptance and it becomes a talking point on every level of society.

In religious and wider circles many prominent religious leaders go on record saying this absolutely proves the existence of God. They believe in 'Pre-Determination' and use the topic to talk about God's Great Plan and how it all proves biblical prophesy.

An opposite force grows - The 'Free Will Movement', which mixes religious and secular followers. The Free Willers want the project shut down, and an extreme faction emerges which shows willingness to resort to violence to prevent Will from ever time travelling.

To this end they infiltrate the project with Beth, the young daughter of one of their leaders, who has been trained to get close to Will.

Years pass and ultimately, and in desperation, the radical Free Willers finally launch an attack on the project, in an attempt to destroy the machine that has been constructed, and to kill Will. Beth is torn, but ultimately chooses the love she has come to feel for Will - she helps him, but they both ultimately come to be trapped in the machine chamber. Beth is convinced to shut down the portal that she had turned on.

Will is shot at, but fades away before the bullets reach him.

He falls to the cobblestone ground, rising with his phone in hand, to instinctively call Beth - and at that moment a camera snaps him.  In the background there's a Nazi flag and chants of Seig Heil can be heard.

On 2012, a general asks Rolfson if the project was a success. The Professor tells him the machine wasn't on, at the moment Will vanished - he has no idea what happened or how to do it again!

*

And that's the synopsis. I kept the date as 2012 as originally written, but this could always be updated.

I'm not sure I'd ever get the inspiration to turn this into an actual prose story, but I'd happily allow a studio to option it and use my notes to make a fuller movie treatment.