Professor Ronald Mallet of Connecticut University is on the verge of completing the world’s first time machine. It is a well-known fact that distortion of space is equivalent to distortion of time. Space distortion, however, requires a tremendous gravitational force from an enormous mass. A black hole is therefore a natural time machine. Acquiring a mass of such magnitude is evidently impractical. Fortunately, Professor Mallet realized that the alternative to using mass is simply using energy, which is the essence embedded in Einstein’s famous equation, E = mc^2. He plans to generate that enormous energy through circulating beams of lasers. The more he slows down the speed of the lasers, the more energy is generated. In order to slow it down, he needs a bath of media with a temperature approaching absolute zero. This is only the first of several difficulties to overcome. The currently proposed time machine is only large enough to propel subatomic particles through time. Even if the size was increased to fit a human being, the particles and cells of the human must be kept intact and safe from obliteration during time travel. Furthermore, a method must be developed for the machine to enable it to set destinations for the journey. A means of getting back from the journey should also be included. Fifty years has passed since Professor Mallet successfully built his first minute time machine… Max, an eighteen-year-old college student, prepares for his class. He glances at the letter sent by his parents, but decides to read it after he returns from school. As he heads to physics lecture, he bumps into his girlfriend, Alice who is also of the same age. They attend class and once again are confused about what Professor Bertro had said during lecture. As they leave for school, Alice tells Max that she has an appointment for a job interview. Max agrees to pick her up after the interview. As she departs for the train station, Max pays a visit to Professor Bertro’s office. The professor reviews the relativity principles with Max in his office. Ultimately, Professor Bertro tells Max the applications and benefits of these principles. He shows Max about the time machine, describing how Professor Mallet’s tiny time machine has evolved into a successful vehicle for humans to travel. A scientist named Edison Vergo thirty-five years ago developed this newest machine. Rumors say that Edison had hidden the machine and protected it with some sort of force field before he died. Max shudders because his last name is also Vergo, but he has not heard of a relative named Edison. Professor Bertro tells Max to study hard since the relativity exam is coming up soon.
The first thing Max does upon returning home is reading his relativity book. Five hours have passed and Max receives a phone call. Alice yells at him for forgetting to meet up with her. She has gone home alone and angry. Max apologizes, but then immediately tells her that he is busy. He hangs up the phone and resumes reading relativity. Before he continues, he notices the letter from his parents. Upon reading the letter, Max discovers that his parents have moved and that they will no longer be able to watch over him. Within the envelope contains a strange looking card. Max becomes emotionally unstable, refusing to believe what he had just read. He tries to get his mind off of the subject by constantly reading relativity. Test day has arrived. Max had not slept for the past two days and had ignored all phone calls. He feels confident that he has mastered the material, however, having read so much. While taking the exam, Max realizes that he cannot arrive at a solution. All the methods he used yielded zero equals zero. When the test is over, Max realizes that he has failed. His phone rings, interrupting his thoughts. It was Alice. She ends the relationship with him on the spot. Emotionally depressed, Max travels to where his parents used to live. Upon his arrival, Max observes the deserted area. All that is left in the house is a strange looking machine. He takes out the letter and reads it once more. Holding the strange card in his hand, he punches the wall out of frustration. The blood from his hands has caused the card to glow. Realizing that the strange machine is most likely the time machine Professor Bertro was talking about, Max feels hopeful again. He approaches the machine with the card and is able to enter it. The destination he chooses is seven days before the day he received the letter from his parents. As he exits the time machine, he discovers that the house remains deserted. As a result, he reenters the machine and chooses a destination further into the past. Every time he exits the machine, the place remains deserted. Ultimately, Max travels all the way back to the moment the machine was turned on. This time, he sees a man in a lab coat on the floor crying. The man was Edison Vergo. Noticing Max, Edison rises and becomes defensive. After Max introduces himself and tells Edison what had happened, Edison explains to him that his parents have entered the time machine the moment it was turned on. Consequently, his parents are on a different timeline than the one he and Edison are currently on. He also explains that there is no way for Max to return to his original timeline having used the time machine. Max decides to improve his relationship with his girlfriend and improve his upcoming test score on the relativity exam in order to compensate for the loss of his parents. He suddenly realizes, however, that he is too far into the past, so he does not even exist yet. He needs to travel back to the future in order to see his girlfriend again. As he heads towards the machine, Edison warns him that he entering a series of timelines that have branched off from their current one. It is thus possible that the future he ends up in might be one where Alice no longer exists. Having lost his parents, Max decides to gamble with the machine. He enters. The house is once again deserted. He travels to his apartment but finds it occupied by another tenant. With fear, Max immediately travels to his school. Coincidentally, he encounters a girl who resembles Alice. As he calls out the name ‘Alice’, the girl continues to walk. He quickly approaches her and grabs her by the arm. Shocked from a stranger touching her, Celia screams. Through their conversation, Max discovers that her name is Celia and no one by the name of Max exists in the school. As Max leaves the school, he realizes that he should not let this opportunity slide. It was very unlikely for someone who resembles Alice to exist anyway. Consequently, he turns around, carefully approaches Celia, and asks her to have a cup of coffee. Just around the corner, Sam, who is the Max of the current timeline, arrives and kisses Celia by the cheek.