“You and I might have been the same person once,” I said, “Not anymore.”
I raised my gun and fired. The trigger was pulled, the barrel of my revolver rotated, a shell fell, and a bullet zipped right at his forehead. He couldn’t move out of its way. In the next tenth of a second, his brain would be oozing out of his skull. My ordeal would be over.
I blinked.
###
“You and I might have been the same person once,” I found myself saying. “Not anymore.”
“You bastard, how dare you shoot at me?”
I couldn’t remember shooting him. But I remember wanting to.
And then I realized. He had reset. He had reset the last 10 seconds.
He leaped towards me in long strides.
I fired. Reset.
He appeared behind me and punched me. Before I could find my balance, he grabbed my hair and jerked my head backward. I fired again. Reset.
Again. And. Again.
Reset. Reset. Reset.
I fired at him multiple times… from his perspective. But in the end… I had all six bullets intact in my gun.
There was no way to stop him. He was prescient. He was invincible. That was the only thought that came to my mind as my desperate bullets seemed too slow to catch up to him.
“You are not worthy of this power, you scumbag.” Dodging my every blow, he grabbed me and forced his hand around my neck in a strong grip. I struggled for air.
“You are so pathetic... a fucking disgrace in my name. Look at you—” His face contoured. He spat out without loosening his grip. “—I can kill you right now, but that would make your whole life a big waste. And whatever crappy version of me you are, you’re still me. I am sparing your life. But for the last time. If I see you again, I’ll kill you. Even if it’s you.” He said, tightening his grip. “Understood?”
I tried extracting a sound from the throat and a meek gurgle of “Yes” came out.
“Good.” He tossed me away. I gasped as my starved lungs refilled with air. He stared at me with contempt as I struggled to get on my feet. “Save your bitch and don’t cross my path again. Else I’ll kill her before you. Now fuck off. And don’t come back.”
###
Tomorrow #122
Time: 12 PM
Location: Nandi hills, Chikkaballapur (50 kms from Bangalore)
I sat on the ledge of Nandi hills overlooking the Bangalore city. From this far, there was no sign of 10 million people that inhabited it, only a static visual of tall buildings and a wide expanse of the metropolis streching till the horizon. A gentle wind passed through my hair as I purposelessly threw stones at the chasm below, watching them bounce off the jutted rocks. It looked calm and peaceful, almost quaint. However, in one hour, a giant mushroom cloud would rise from the south-west, clearing out the whole city and most of its 10 million residents as if they never existed. But this time, I won’t hear any of the screams. This time, I won’t be running against the clock to topple any dominos. This time, I’ll not reset. This will become the final reality in which Bangalore would be incinerated, but I will survive… along with Shazia and Rahim chacha.
“Seems like you’ve given up,” said someone from behind me.
I turned back with a start and saw the Masked Man leisurely walking towards me, his hands in his pockets. As he came closer the infinity logo became clearer. RAW had a penchant for creating their insignia. I thought bitterly.
“How did you know where to find me,” I said, and realizing that from his perspective he was meeting me for the first time, I added, “Do you even know me?”
He didn’t say anything. He sat next to me on the ledge and took a deep breath.
“Bangalore looks beautiful from here, isn’t it?” he sighed. “Too bad it’s going to be destroyed soon.”
“So, you do know that there is a bomb in Bangalore, and yet RAW is unable to stop it,” I said disparagingly. “So much for an intelligence agency.”
I continued throwing stones in the air. The Masked Man silently watched me for a while.
“They can’t,” he said, gravely. “And you know it. But you were supposed to stop the bomb, and save everyone.”
“Don’t be condescending,” I snapped. “You don’t know who you are up against. I did whatever I could... but the terrorists are simply too powerful.”
“And you think you are not?”
“Look. I am grateful that you once saved my life at the police station though you wouldn’t remember it. But this is something you can’t understand. You gave me this power but it’s not enough.”
“Amusing. So, you think that the power was given to you. Then tell me this: Why do you think RAW chose you for this power?”
“Because I am disposable. No one will come looking for a poor orphan even if he dies trying to save the world.”
“Wrong,” he said loudly. “They chose you because you always had this power within you. They merely ignited it. But once you realize your true potential, you can be much, much more than you are. One of a kind.”
“’One of a kind’. Huh. You seem to forget the other guy... it’s like fighting a tank with a kitchen knife.”
“By ‘The other guy’, you mean the other Iqbal.”
My hand stopped mid-throw and the stone plopped out of my hand to land on his lap, my eyes widened. “You knew?”
“We do.” He said. The mask around his lips stretched as he smiled widely. “The other Iqbal is your echo, from another timeline. He is what you might have been, had you made some different choices in the past. But he inadvertently made a mistake. He jumped his own timeline and landed in yours. He, of course, doesn’t know that.”
Masked Man knew things that I didn’t. How could I be so stupid. “You are not RAW. Are you?”
“I never claimed I was RAW,” he said. “You assumed it.”
He was right. I was so blinded with my own mission that it never occurred to me. “Who are you?”
“You can just call us temporal agents. We have more... err... specialized purpose than RAW.”
“Temporal agents?”
“Yes. You can think of us like time police. Our job is to make sure that the Universe remains in temporal balance. We see everything: all pasts, all presents and all futures, across all timelines. Most of the time, the errors correct themselves, we just have to wait out. But this other Iqbal became a bit of a problem after the timeline jump. Now, your timeline has two Iqbals, while his has none. Moreover, his interference is too great to be ignored, so we had to get involved.”
“If you know so much about him, then why don’t you stop him?” I asked, perplexed.
“It’s not as simple as you think. And I can’t tell you everything right now… you’ve to just trust – what’s that – “
A faint subdued scream interrupted us. He immediately sprang to his feet.
“That’s Shazia, isn’t it?” he asked, pointing towards the slant on the other side of the hill.
“Yes. And Rahim chacha too,” I confessed. “The effect of chloroform must be wearing off now. That is the only way I can save them. I can’t save the city but at least I can protect them.”
“So, you’re just going to hide here while the world burns?”
“Why not? It’s a radiation proof bunker with enough food, water and supplies to last at least a year. We’ll be safe there from everything that can kill us. There will be a war, sure, but I will not be a part of it. And neither will they. All world wars came to pass and this one will too. And when the dust settles, we’ll be the last ones to survive.”
His eyes narrowed, and nostrils flared. “You are a coward.”
“Easy for you to say, you haven’t suffered like me. This war is inevitable, I am just doing what I think is right.”
“So, you think you’ve saved them from the inevitable?” he asked pointing in the direction of the bunker, Shazia’s muffled cries for help still echoing.
“I can never be sure, but this is the best chance they h
ave. I also have weapons inside that bunker... they will live. Once the war is over, everything will go back to the way it was. It always has. History has been a witness to that. And so, will the future.”
“If you are so confident of the future then why don’t you see it for yourself?”
“See what?”
“The future,” he said, closing his eyes. He waved his arms in a peculiar fashion. “Realize your power, Iqbal.”
“That doesn’t make any sen—” Before I could complete, he punched at my chest with his fists. And then I woke up.
###
TOMORROW # UNKNOWN
Place: Unknown
Time: Unknown
Masked Man sat on his bed and looked around his plain room. On his wall, a small poster that he had created for his own amusement, stared at him. It said:
LAWS OF TIME TRAVEL
Respect the destiny.
Nothing is insignificant.
Tomorrow is just another yesterday.
Anything you finish, remember to start it off.
There are no mistakes and there are no coincidences.
It was six months ago when he was brought here. He remembered his first day as he lay on this very bed and met the Superior for the first time. He had so many questions and the answers were confusing. Even after six months and three missions, he was still an infant at this place.
But today was a very special day. He would become one of them today - a real temporal agent. He’d not be restricted to just one Universe. He could go in any timeline and at any point in time. As he pondered upon his next mission, the large infinity symbol on the door separated from the middle and the Superior entered. Masked Man stood up to greet him.
“So, I have heard that you performed your third mission successfully,” Superior said, coming right to the point. There was a sense of calibrated authority in his voice.
Like a Sensei whose student was about to face his first battle.
“Yes, Superior,” Masked Man said with a courteous bow.
His usually impenetrable face gave way to a tight smile. “Good,” he said. “How do you feel now?”
“I’ve never been more alive, Superior,” he said, truthfully. “I consider myself to be very lucky.”
“Never use words like ‘luck’ here,” Superior snapped. “Of all the people, you must know that there are no accidents and there are no coincidences.”
“My apologies, Superior. Old habits.”
“You will learn of course,” said the Superior. “At any rate, I think you’ve adjusted here quite well which is no mean feat. However, I didn’t come here for an evaluation. I have a good news for you.” He took out a piece of paper from his pocket, opened it and cleared his throat. The Masked Man stood in attention.
“As a Superior it is one of my paramount responsibilities, and in your case, my paramount pleasure to inform you that you’re no longer a trainee. You are now promoted to an Agent and I now grant you the access to the other timelines. However, you agree that you will be bound by standard rules and regulations of the Temporal Agency and any breach, as adjudged by a committee of no less than five agents, will be punishable by death. Congratulations, agent.”
The Superior enthusiastically shook hands with the Masked Man.
“And now, with that done,” he said. “Why don’t I show you something that might interest you.”
Masked Man’s eyes glittered with childish joy. “Temporal Opus?”
Superior nodded.
Within the eponymous building, Temporal Opus meant the sanctum sanctorum of the building that kept the living map of Universe’s space-time.
“I’ve always wanted to see it. Andrea and the twins talk about it all the time.”
“Well, follow me then.”
Masked Man followed the Superior through brightly lit but narrow passageways. The Masked Man had been out there a few times, always escorted by another agent, and had been surprised by hidden doors that blended-in seamlessly with bright white walls. They passed by temporal agents appearing from the hidden doors almost like apparition. All of them were dressed in identical black uniforms with infinity logos that contrasted sharply with pearl white walls. As the agents noticed Superior, they greeted him and respectfully gave way.
The Masked Man wondered at the sheer amount of power these people represented. Just how many men and women can travel through time? Tens? Hundreds?
Superior seemed to read his mind. “Including you now, there are one thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine agents at the Temporal Opus. Apart from these, there are five Superiors who report to the Temporal Council.”
“Th… Thousands?” Masked Man exclaimed.
“Maintaining the temporal balance of the Universe is like keeping a river on course. It has to be consistently checked, monitored and corrected. Now that you have access to the library, I’d recommend you read a book called “Tales from Temporal Opus” – it has an account of some of the most fantastic missions our agents have accomplished. It will give you some scale of operations here.”
As the Superior went deeper into more restricted areas of the facility, passageways got narrower and agents fewer. They took several turns before ending in a completely deserted aisle. It seemed like a dead end and he wondered if Superior had taken a wrong turn somewhere. Superior calmly pulled up his sleeve to uncover a wrist watch with absurdly large dial. He pushed some buttons and a soft humming filled the aisle. Masked Man looked at Superior questioningly but received a cryptic smile. Suddenly, a cuboid chunk of the roof above them shifted inward creating a vertical tunnel. An elevator became visible that was descending rapidly downwards. As the elevator ‘landed’ Superior motioned the Masked Man to get in. Once they stepped in, Superior pressed another button on the dial and the elevator started upwards again. They rose to the higher levels of the Temporal Opus; Masked Man noted that the cuboid pieces walls were filling the elevator tunnel making the floor beneath them whole again. He couldn’t help but marvel at the ingenuity of Temporal Opus engineers.
“We are going towards the core of this building, the dome of Temporal Opus. This is what encompasses everything that we know of our Universe. The only bottleneck is our capacity to interpret.”
Once the elevator stopped, the door automatically opened to a long empty passageway. Superior stepped out and started walking towards the far end. The Masked Man silently followed, observing the walls cautiously for any rogue wall-cubes. A discomforting thought originated in his mind. They were surrounded by concrete on all sides for hundreds of meters with no way out. He was reminded of ancient Egyptian Kings who were buried in a central cell of the great pyramids.
The Superior stopped at the end of passageway and pressed a spot at the wall. For a second, nothing happened. Then, slowly, an outline of a door appeared on the wall, first faint and then quite visible. It was as if it was always there. Superior pressed the same spot again with the other hand, and the door slid to unravel a dark room.
“Welcome to the Temporal Opus,” said Superior with utmost reverence.
Masked Man stepped in. At first glance, he couldn’t see anything but as his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he realized that it wasn’t a room, but a gigantic spherical dome and he was standing at the exact centre. It was mesmerizing. It was like witnessing a magnified brain from inside. Long fluorescent strands slithered through the entire sphere of the dome. Whichever way he looked, all around him, complex web of light dimly glowed as if it was one single complex organism. Some strands branched off into thinner tendrils that connected to other thicker ones. Some of them pulsated at different intervals occasionally sending out dots of glow across the spherical surface of Temporal Opus, crossing through multiple strands and connecting through multiple tendrils.
At times, but not often, he saw new branches emerge out of the parent strand and creep long lengths to connect to another part of the dome. Even less often, he witnessed a new branch extending forward and then extinguishing altogether. What he w
as witnessing was nothing short of divine. “A... All these are timelines?”
Superior nodded.
“Each and every one of them. The Temporal Opus is a time-map of the Multiverse. Everything that has happened, might have happened and will happen is all there. The thicker lines you see... like that one there... are called the Prime Universes – they are the main branches in the history of the Multiverse. They are the most resilient timelines that span billions of years. They have been there long before humans walked on earth… or for that matter… even before when dinosaurs walked on earth… and most of them will be here long after we are gone till the heat death of the Multiverse.”
As he spoke, a small tendril branched-off from a thick line.
“What is that thing that just came out from the Prime?”
“Let me show you,” Superior said. He stood next to a small panel and put his hand on its slot. The entire dome shuddered. He zoomed-in into the specific timeline and the whole dome responded with such a visual speed that the Masked Man checked for support. It was like flying within a complex neural network. To his surprise, new strands became visible as the view became bigger and bigger.
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