Time Traveller
Frantically, you turn the dials, hit the switches and type the necessary values into the screen. Strapping yourself in, you hit the activate button and feel your stomach do fifty somersaults, making you want to vomit. The machine spins and lurches as it traverses the probability matrix, flips over the time and space boundary and flashes past the myriad paths of eternity. Eventually, it comes to a halt with a violent thud, the seatbelt cutting into your chest. Catching your breath for a moment, you release yourself and step out of the machine.
You feel suddenly faint as the sight outside greets your eyes. This should be the present - the machine is set correctly - and you should be standing in the test chamber of the lab. Instead, you are standing on what seems to be the top of an immense, flat mountain, buffeted by a dry, hot wind. You are standing near the edge, and down below extends a blasted desert, as far as the eye can see, dotted with the grey and black ruins of cities and towns here and there. Nothing seems to be moving.
"Do you see what you have done?" A man's voice shouts over the wind behind you. You whirl around and are faced with a man who looks familiar, but battle-scarred and ragged. He is leaning on a tall wooden staff, and an AK-47 dangles from his left hand.
"Who are you?" You demand, frightened. The man roars with laughter, a strange sound on the top of this lonely mountain.
"Who am I? That's a funny question, a really funny question. Who am I? I am you, of course. Don't you recognise us?"
You realise suddenly why you know those features, weathered though they are, and almost fall down with shock.
"What? But..how? Why?"
The man laughs loudly again. "I remember saying that to me all those thousands of years ago! How, you ask? I have no idea! But I know this. I'm - we're - caught in a time cycle. No escape except one."
He pushes his staff aside and raises the AK-47 to aim straight at you.
"What are you doing?" You say to your older self, in a panic.
"Fixing things, old friend," He says, giving you a grim smile, "The Paradox factor. If I kill you - me - then I'd have never lived to kill you right now. You understand me?"
You nod, terrified.
"Time doesn't have room for a paradox. Everything would come apart at the seams, cease to be, cease to have been. So it will fix itself. A whitewash, if you will. None of this will ever have happened."
"How do you know this?"
"I've had a long, long time to think about it, dear friend," He steps closer, slightly unsteadily, "You'll thank me for this, old friend...or you would, if it had ever happened. Here's to the good times."
He squeezes the trigger and the roar of gunfire thunders about the deserted mountain as bullets rip into your chest. There is a sudden burst of pain, and then, strangely, none at all, yet you are falling to your knees and your clothes are drenched crimson. You catch one last glimpse of your older self, standing with the AK-47, before you slump forward and everything fades to black.
You feel suddenly faint as the sight outside greets your eyes. This should be the present - the machine is set correctly - and you should be standing in the test chamber of the lab. Instead, you are standing on what seems to be the top of an immense, flat mountain, buffeted by a dry, hot wind. You are standing near the edge, and down below extends a blasted desert, as far as the eye can see, dotted with the grey and black ruins of cities and towns here and there. Nothing seems to be moving.
"Do you see what you have done?" A man's voice shouts over the wind behind you. You whirl around and are faced with a man who looks familiar, but battle-scarred and ragged. He is leaning on a tall wooden staff, and an AK-47 dangles from his left hand.
"Who are you?" You demand, frightened. The man roars with laughter, a strange sound on the top of this lonely mountain.
"Who am I? That's a funny question, a really funny question. Who am I? I am you, of course. Don't you recognise us?"
You realise suddenly why you know those features, weathered though they are, and almost fall down with shock.
"What? But..how? Why?"
The man laughs loudly again. "I remember saying that to me all those thousands of years ago! How, you ask? I have no idea! But I know this. I'm - we're - caught in a time cycle. No escape except one."
He pushes his staff aside and raises the AK-47 to aim straight at you.
"What are you doing?" You say to your older self, in a panic.
"Fixing things, old friend," He says, giving you a grim smile, "The Paradox factor. If I kill you - me - then I'd have never lived to kill you right now. You understand me?"
You nod, terrified.
"Time doesn't have room for a paradox. Everything would come apart at the seams, cease to be, cease to have been. So it will fix itself. A whitewash, if you will. None of this will ever have happened."
"How do you know this?"
"I've had a long, long time to think about it, dear friend," He steps closer, slightly unsteadily, "You'll thank me for this, old friend...or you would, if it had ever happened. Here's to the good times."
He squeezes the trigger and the roar of gunfire thunders about the deserted mountain as bullets rip into your chest. There is a sudden burst of pain, and then, strangely, none at all, yet you are falling to your knees and your clothes are drenched crimson. You catch one last glimpse of your older self, standing with the AK-47, before you slump forward and everything fades to black.