by Eric Black
Jasper toiled with time travel for many months and learned how to do it well. As the six month timeline arose, he made the decision he would not return to his family. He knew he had become a monster and there was just enough love left in his heart to not want to share who he had become with his wife and daughter. He knew he would break their hearts but wasn’t sure how he could avoid that.
In the end, the love for Marni and his daughter gave him the rational thought that he could spare their pain (even though it would cause them great pain in the beginning) by doing what many other men who had traveled through time had done. He staged his own death.
A few days later, his wife and daughter received a visit from two police officers. The men told the crying Marni and their ten year old daughter that the laboratory Jasper had been using exploded. Jasper was last seen inside and after the fire was contained, a body was found. The remains of the body were so damaged by the fire that identifying the body would be difficult without DNA testing.
The test was done (Jasper arranged for the records to reflect that it was indeed him) and Jasper was pronounced dead. He would regret later that his daughter had to experience the loss of her father but at that moment, he felt the decision he had made was done in the best interest of everyone.
His next step, he decided, was to find Jack. He would finish the job he had started in their kitchen – the job that was interrupted before the bullet had the opportunity to finish its task.
Then, who knew? Time was limitless.
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN
London, England – August 1888
Jasper went to Whitechapel Road just before the moment Jack arrived the first time. In the shadows, Jasper observed Jack as he retched upon arrival. He almost laughed at the memory of Jack’s device originally causing extreme disorientation followed by nausea.
Jasper followed Jack for two hours as he wandered the streets of the East End. After some time, Jack disappeared, returning back to his own time to explain everything to an excited Jasper.
It was strange watching Jack. This was the Jack that he had once known, before Jack became the Ripper. He was intrigued with the prospect of watching that process.
Jasper went back to Jack’s second trip to London. He hung back and could feel the exhilaration of the moment. He knew this particular trip was the one in which Jack learned he was the Ripper. The thought of watching Jack transform into that legendary person was euphoric.
Jasper turned north and followed Jack down the street. They reached Buck’s Row where the first victim of Jack the Ripper would be found.
Jack reacted as if he heard something and turned sharply. Jasper knew he could not see him as he was tucked away neatly in the shadows. Jack opened the gateway and Jasper followed him slowly down the path towards the stables.
Jasper was elated. This was the moment: this is when Jack would become renowned.
Jasper watched Jack crouch down in the shadows between the house and the school near the gateway. He was absolutely still for a moment. Then, both Jasper and he heard the footsteps. Jasper knew who it was but Jack had not seen her yet.
The footsteps came closer, until they were right next to Jack. In the moonlight was a woman. Jasper was mesmerized at the surreal moment.
Jack rose and walked out from the shadows. The woman saw him and Jasper could tell he had startled her but then she relaxed and smiled. That’s when Jasper first heard the voice of Polly Nichols.
Jasper watched as the scene progressed and witnessed the crescendo – Polly’s murder. Through the act, Jasper gained a greater understanding of Jack, as well as a new respect for him.
Jasper changed his mind about killing Jack right away. His direction in life had changed. First, he would learn from Jack. Then, he would kill him – and replace him in history.
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT
Washington, D.C. – November 1921
Vincent was lost. He had just seen Wilson killed in front of him – his throat slashed swiftly before he even had time to react. They had gone there to kill Phillips. Instead, Wilson was now dead, killed by a man whom Vincent did not know.
It was more than the causality paradox. It was more than coincidence. The man who appeared just after they did knew they were going to be there. He knew who they were. But how? Did he know why they were there? Why else would he have killed Wilson?
Vincent needed answers. Only he didn’t know where to get them. Not only that, he didn’t know where to go.
He had thought of Wilson’s home and had gone there but he knew he couldn’t stay. It was bad enough that the police were investigating Jack’s murder. How would he be able to explain that since he had begun living there that one man in the house had been murdered and the owner of the home had disappeared? Two men from one household would be way beyond coincidence. Wilson’s home wouldn’t be safe either. The man who was there with Phillips obviously knew who they were and so would know where Wilson lived.
He didn’t know where to go.
The man was a time traveler; that much was certain. The man had appeared which gave evidence enough. But as Wilson had told him – those who could travel were drawn to one another. He could feel the man’s presence. It was something Vincent could not put into words but that didn’t mean the natural connection between them didn’t exist.
Vincent had no idea from where or what time the man came. There was really nowhere safe. If the man knew they were coming to the police station what else did he know? Did he have a way of tracking them?
Vincent didn’t know what was real. He was a man without a time and without a place to call home. But one thing was sure: he had to leave. He would figure it out later.
If Jasper could have seen Vincent at that moment, how he would have laughed. The joke was that he was behind all of their discomfort. Jasper knew the exact moment when Jack would kill Libby Williams. At the moment of her death, Jasper turned on the device he had created himself – one that blocked time travel. His device tampered their devices, stopping them from working.
Jasper did nothing to affect Bagster Phillips’ device as he wanted Phillips free to travel at will. He wanted Phillips to find and kill Jack. In fact, Jasper was the one who had arranged for Phillips to receive the device from Vacher in the first the place.
Jasper had met Vacher in his cell in the quiet of night. Vacher was surprised and enraged at first and came at Jasper but Jasper simply disappeared and reappeared until Vacher finally calmed down. Once Vacher was compliant, Jasper gave him the device. He told Vacher that the device would help him cheat death at the guillotine. Jasper further explained that he was an angel there to deliver Vacher from the sufferings of humanity. Vacher, who actually was quite insane, believed Jasper.
It was Jasper who sent Phillips the letter that he should look into the Vacher case, knowing that Phillips would investigate thoroughly and find the time travel device. When Vacher woke and found the device missing, fear overwhelmed him and he went into a violent fit as he knew he no longer possessed the means to stop death from coming.
Everything else was real.
Jack’s conscience did come back after he killed Libby because his time travel device was disabled. Vincent and Libby were both caught in an unstable time slip and entered the lives of other people in history as those people. Jack and Vincent were drawn towards Wilson’s home during their time of need for each other (Jack’s issues when he tried to turn a direction away from Washington, D.C. were orchestrated by Jasper).
Jasper was content with what he had accomplished. He had killed Jack, as well as every other time traveler with the exception of Vincent. And now, as far as Jasper was concerned, it was in Vincent’s hands what came next for him. If Vincent chose to leave time travel behind and try to make a new life for himself in a time and place of his choosing then Jasper could leave him alone. Jasper would go on with his life and all would be well.
But, if Vincent chose not to follow that path, if Vincent decided he needed to avenge the deaths of
those he had lost, then Jasper would be there. If Vincent couldn’t leave the past alone, then Jasper would make sure that Vincent was reminded that he should have made a different decision.
Vincent decided he would try to move on. But without a target in mind he had no idea where to begin. After much self-deliberation, he chose to go back to Belgium during what had formerly been his present day. He knew that Libby would be dead and that the life he had grown to love would not be there for him but it was what he knew.
He would start in Belgium and work his way across Europe. He knew it would be dangerous. He had no idea what the world would be like. When he had left, Libby had been the President and World War III was underway. Since the timeline had changed and Libby was no longer the President during that time, he was uncertain as to the landscape of warfare in the world. He had nowhere else to go.
Then, just before he was about to travel, an idea came to him. He had changed everything by killing Adolph Hitler; what if he went back and saved him? He couldn’t believe he was suggesting such an action but he was alone and desperate. He knew it was a very selfish decision. He was choosing his happiness over the happiness of millions of people who would die in camps and in combat because of the Nazi regime. I have to do something about that also, Vincent justified to himself.
He vowed he would work to stop the Holocaust at all cost (except for Libby). He had changed history once and would do it again. Only this time Libby wouldn’t die. She would live. She might never be his wife but she would be alive and that would be worth everything to him.
Once she was alive and safe, Vincent would use all of his knowledge and resources to stop the senseless killing of Jews by Nazi Germany.
Vincent had made his decision and he disappeared.
CHAPTER FORTY NINE
Passchendaele, Belgium – November 1917
Jasper had remotely downloaded a tracking application onto Vincent’s time travel device. The technology was quite complex but it worked. Jasper looked at his monitor (which to the untrained eye was a series of lines and waves) and expected to see Vincent return to his original time in Belgium. That was the safe bet for Vincent and Jasper saw no reason that Vincent would take an alternate approach.
Jasper was wrong. He looked down at his monitor and was shocked to see that Vincent had returned to the Battle of Passchendaele. He was furious.
“How dare he try to undo what I have done?” Jasper shouted to an empty sky. “So he thinks he can stop Hitler from being killed and that will change everything back?”
Jasper was tempted to laugh off the anger, considering briefly that Vincent’s actions were futile but then uncertainty entered his mind. What if stopping Hitler’s murder actually did undo everything that had happened? Jack would still be alive and would continue to murder his way through life. Phillips never would have shown up at his doorstep (in which case Jasper never would have went back in time, making arrangements for Phillips to find the time travel device in the first place).
Jasper thought on his old life. How commonplace. Deep down, there were feelings of anguish at how much he missed his wife and daughter but these emotions were masked by the rage that now consumed him. He felt the pain of their separation but he mistook the emptiness for anger. There was more anger than sorrow in his soul.
Jasper had to stop Vincent. He could not let everything go back.
The ironic aspect of Jasper’s new life was his time travel device. He could have switched his newly created time travel device for one of the devices from the future that Vincent and others used. Switching devices would have regulated his personality, removing the killer. He still could have traveled through time and enjoyed the benefits of that without the added aspect of having murderous tendencies. But he didn’t and it seemed the causality paradox wasn’t finished.
He felt he could not go back and be a slave to a common, everyday way of life. But he was already a slave. Jasper didn’t know it but once his subconscious took control, there was no turning back voluntarily. His subconscious mind made Jasper powerful and his subconscious liked that self-awareness. His subconscious would not willingly give up that authority or let anything alter Jasper’s new existence – especially the removal of the device that made it all possible.
Jasper was changed. And unless someone helped him change, he would remain as he was. Controlled by emotion. Controlled by rage.
The three strongest emotions were fear, love and hate. These three mixed together, unchecked, resulted in the rage. Fear led the way. Love gave him passion for what he was doing. Hate gave him scorn for who he was and what he was doing. These raw emotions all in sundry caused him to hate everything including himself. His passion drove that hate. The fear caused the paranoia of change and was the glue that held the other emotions together.
Jasper, with his unchecked rage, thought only of stopping Vincent. With that, he also thought of Ypres, Belgium during World War I. He focused on the last days of the Battle of Passchendaele and disappeared.
Vincent, unaware that Jasper was able to track him and was on his way to Belgium, arrived at the Battle of Passchendaele. The scene before him was as atrocious as he had remembered. The death, the filth, the mud and rain – all mired by the blood that was spilled and the flesh that was burned – made those memories spring to life. He was quickly placed back into the persona of a man at war, which was good as he would need that instinct to survive.
The moments that make up life are often brief. It was in one of those short moments that the future of the entire world was altered again.
Vincent arrived in the German trench. He knew that across No Man’s Land he existed in his grandfather’s form. He knew in few moments his Other Self would be given the order to fire. His Other Self would then begin firing in short bursts spread out in predetermined areas across the battlefield. Only this time in his direction.
Vincent knew that at any moment, his Other Self would notice a familiar face move to the front line of the German forces.
Jasper arrived at that moment. He knew that his Other Self was also there. Jasper’s Other Self had attended this moment to enjoy the death of both Hitler and the bereavement of war in general.
Jasper scanned the German trench. He saw the shadowed corner where his Other Self was viewing the panorama of the war theater. He saw Jack. He saw Hitler. Then he saw someone who shouldn’t have been in the German trench with them. He saw Vincent.
Vincent saw both Jack and Hitler in the German trench. He knew it was only a matter of seconds before Vincent’s Other Self pulled the trigger, the bullet exploding Hitler’s chest and changing the world.
From the corner of his eye, Vincent saw Jasper arrive. He still didn’t know who Jasper was but recognized him from the Bagster Phillips’ office in London. He knew Jasper being here was no coincidence. He didn’t wait for Jasper to offer an explanation to his presence.
Vincent didn’t have time for that anyways. He had to react.
And so he moved.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Passchendaele, Belgium – November 1917
Jack was about ten feet away from Hitler. The British had opened fire in short, scattered bursts – just the type of gunfire that made it difficult to rise above the top of the trench and fire back effectively.
As he was listening to the bursts, he noticed a change in one of the firing patterns. The bullets that had been firing over his head in a specific pattern stopped. The gunfire around him was still occurring but the gunfire targeted to his area in the trench ceased.
Jack risked a look over the trench wall and saw a British soldier taking specific aim. He stood up. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. The moment was very surreal and unique. In a matter of a moment, his actions would decide the history of the world. He saw Adolph Hitler next to him and saw that he was about to be killed.
Should he run to Hitler, shove him to the ground and save his life? Or should he let him die? Millions of lives hung in the balance of that moment. The thought of
all of those deaths – there was nothing more fulfilling to him than genocide. But Jack had made his decision; he would let the universe sort it out. If Hitler was to die, he would not interfere.
Before Jasper could react, Vincent rose and ran at Jack. Vincent drove his shoulder into Jack’s chest and Jack was heaved into air. The collision was emotionally-charged and powerful and Jack was flung back into Hitler, knocking Hitler backwards.
Then came the grunt. And Vincent knew that grunt had changed everything. Again.
Vincent looked over at Hitler. He was stunned but very much alive. He couldn’t say the same for Jack.
He looked down at the body of Jack and saw the bullet entry hole in the side of Jack’s head. Jack was lying supine on the ground and his dead face looked up into the smoke-laced sky. The other side of Jack’s head was visible and displayed the exit wound. Most of that side of his head was misplaced.
Jasper saw the dead body of Jack. He screamed but it was too late.
In his rage, Jasper ran at Vincent. But at that moment, Vincent’s Other Self had begun firing in short, scattered shots once again. One of those bullets caught Jasper in the chest and he was cast back onto the ground with blood flowing freely from his chest and mouth.
Vincent watched Jasper take a bullet in the chest and watching him go down. But his attention from Jack was only thwarted momentarily. He turned back towards Jack and looked down on his carcass. Vincent didn’t feel retribution at that moment. He didn’t feel anything. He was just glad that it was over – or at least he hoped.
He turned his head back to Jasper who was lying on the ground with blood oozing from his chest. Jasper coughed and blood sprayed into the air and splattered as it landed back on his face. Vincent saw similar wounds the first time he was in this battle. Men with wounds like that didn’t make it.