[ WP ] You are a time traveler . You have never traveled past 19,000 A.D. Today you did , and you did n't like what you saw .

`` Scorched earth, that was all I saw. Radiation pegged out my meter, I could n't leave the ship.'' Tom stood with Gerald and Manuel as the video recording played on the screen. Playback started as he descended below the churning clouds, the screen grew dim but after almost a minute of travelling through thick gray wisps, the ship's camera broke through the cloud ceiling. 
 
 Fires raged and columns of black smoke fed the blanket in the sky that stretched to all horizons. Tom called up the air quality, temperature and radiation sensors' recordings from the trip. Even with an EVA suit, he would have only lasted a few minutes before the heat cooked him inside it. Just a few seconds outside the ship's walls would have resulted in death from radiation poisoning within a month. `` It was all gone.'' Tom hit a button on the terminal and the feed sped up, `` I used the conventional fuel to fly as far as I could, low oxygen concentrations caused the burner efficiency to go to shit, I only made it around a thousand miles. I left Washington and made it to Miami before I had to jump back to now. The entire eastern seaboard was gone.'' 
 
 Gerald and Manuel watched the accelerated feed, hot spots of inferno covered most of the land, there were no signs of life, if something was left it was either circling the Earth in orbit, hiding deep under the waves or buried far underground. After ten minutes the feed ended as the ship returned to the current time, Manuel was the first to break the silence. `` All of nineteen thousand did n't show any signs of instability, neither did the first few months of nineteen oh-oh one. I do n't understand, what could have caused it?'' 
 
 Gerald cleared his throat, `` Tom, any idea? Nuclear war? See anything that might point to that?'' 
 
 Tom shook his head, `` Our report was that the stockpile had greatly diminished, their bombs also create very little radioactivity, it all goes to flat out destruction. The fires would make sense if everyone launched everything they had but not the radiation.'' 
 
 `` Gamma ray burst?'' Manuel asked. 
 
 `` Maybe'', Gerald was staring at the feed again, `` we'll have to take a look at the data in detail. Maybe the eggheads downstairs can make sense of it.'' 
 
 Manuel looked at Tom, the only pilot in the room, `` Should we send him further out? Maybe a few years further? Nineteen oh ten or thereabouts? The radiation levels should have gone down by then.'' 
 
 `` No, not yet'', Gerald said, `` it'll be a while before any decision is made, we have a good long time to figure out what happened. The next nine hundred years are all peaceful, we'll have plenty of time to study these couple of months, he'll go back just not until we figure out a plan.'' 
 
 Manuel nodded and Tom felt relief wash over him. `` Assuming I get sent again, how will I pinpoint what happened if there is no one left to ask ten years after the fact, just keep going back until I find someone?'' 
 
 Gerald shook his head, `` the upper atmosphere did n't seem to have any type of contamination. You'll go back on March third nineteen-oh-oh one and sit in orbit until you get the exact time this happened, we'll continue to try and pinpoint the cause.'' 
 
 Tom had never had to observe this way before, no one had. Normally a pilot would study the major events available on the internet at his or her future time and confirm that the reporting on the larger events was accurate. It took men their entire careers to cover only five years. `` That will take much longer than usual. I'll have to record and analyze everything, every single thing.'' 
 
 `` Yes, your observation period will probably be cut in half, probably more.'' 
 
 Tom would spend the rest of his career studying less than two years, less than half the time of any other Temporal Pilot in history. It would be shorter but it could answer the question his group had been hoping asking for the last fifty years. What exactly would cause humanity's extinction and when would that fateful day occur? His work would likely be the first where interfering would not only be allowed but encouraged, Tom smiled, `` let's get started then.''
