by Aaron Frale
The well-dressed man jumped to his feet and went to the counter. I stumbled to my feet in pursuit. The clerk was hiding behind the counter whimpering. He cried out in fear while the well-dressed man rounded the corner. I rushed him again and hit him right as he shot. The bullet tore the flesh of the clerk's arm and sprayed blood onto some books. The well-dressed man anticipated my attack and kicked me in the kneecap. I felt my bone crunch and pain shoot throughout my body. My legs were useless, and I sprawled out onto the ground. I was persistent because I made a lunge for his legs, but he stepped on my hand and used his other leg to crush my elbow. The machines from this time once again did not knit the bones as quickly as my current machines.
He turned to the clerk and raised his gun. The clerk looked pitiful and cradled his wound. Tears flowed down his cheek, and he was shaking with fear. He barely managed to get out, “Why are you doing this?”
The well-dressed man hesitated. He leaned in closer with the gun, and the man screamed in fear. The well-dressed man could not pull the trigger. Instead, he redirected his rage on the books and the countertop. He slammed the books and kicked them repeatedly crying out in anguish. After he had unleashed his rage, he sat down next to the frightened clerk and simply said, “I have to.”
My nanomachines reduced some of the pain by now. I could feel the slow process of the bones reweaving themselves. The tech in this version of myself was behind. It seems the experimentation on the people from my future led to some advancement. I forced myself up and crawled toward them. The well-dressed man continued, “Somebody is manipulating us.”
“I don't know what you are talking about...” the clerk said.
“You're a history student,” the well-dressed man said to me.
“I...” I stuttered.
“I know you are a time traveler. Like me... I saw your pad. Standard University issue,” he said.
“Mister... I don't know…” the clerk began, and the well-dressed man pointed the gun to silence him.
“Get your pad. Your bones should be good enough to walk,” the well-dressed man demanded. “We don't have much time. The police of this time period will be here any minute.”
I limped over to the mess of Heinlein books and found my pad. In addition to a writing device, it was a mobile library. While network communications to the future were impossible, books, films, etc. could be stored on external devices. The pads were out of date in my time. The nanomachines in my body could store all the information and more without an external device. People from my timeline gave up the idea of clunky external devices a long time ago. This memory was another timeline of myself, but the tech was so different that there had been a clear manipulation of the technology. For some reason, I had much more advanced technology than this other version of myself. The human experimentation was probably the reason. The people from the future would test nanotech and send the discovery back. Each time a new branch in the timeline was created, the tech would be better and better. These versions of us must have preserved this memory to play it back to our younger selves to justify their actions.
”Search for this man's face in the historical archives,” the well-dressed man said. I called up the search results. I must have been shocked at the information in the past because I could feel my body tense. But reliving this memory didn’t shock me at the number of instances the clerk’s face appeared in history. Each time, it was at a different place and a different bookstore. The well-dressed man motioned for me to show the clerk the data.
“What is this? Some sort of joke?” the man said and fell silent again. There was fear in his voice.
The well-dressed man turned to me. “You are a history student. Tell me. Can you manipulate time?”
I gave him the textbook answer, “You can’t. You’ll just end up creating a new branch in the timeline. The one where you kill your grandparents so you’ll travel back to a future where you don’t exist.”
“Right, but that’s for personal timelines. But what about history as a whole?” the well-dressed man said.
“Let’s say you kill Einstein before he develops relativity. The information for relativity was already out in the world. Somebody else will develop the theory instead. You won’t change history as a whole. You’ll just change dates and names,” I said.
“But what if you could place multiple people throughout history in key positions?” He said.
I glanced over to the clerk. I am sure my alternate self and current self had the same thought. If he was part of the conspiracy, then why would he be in bookstores? The clerk was a pawn in some sort of game. A bookstore seemed like a poor place to have a person attempting to manipulate time. “I suppose if you have many agents working in tandem. But why a bookstore? If you wanted to manipulate history, why not put a person in the government?”
“Bookstores shape history more than you give them credit for,” the well-dressed man said. “The right book put in the hands of particular people can inspire them in ways you couldn’t dream.”
“But who?”
“The question is where and when?”
“We are in Oxford, England, 1961.”
“Good, and there is a man going to school here in Oxford. He loves science fiction. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will be responsible for major scientific discoveries. This is the bookstore where Stephen Hawking buys his science fiction novels.”
“So this man is feeding him information.”
“More than that. He is manipulating the future. While you can’t uninvent science because there will always be someone else to make the discovery, you can manipulate its direction or even accelerate it. Imagine being able to plant ideas in the minds of the world’s geniuses. A bookstore is perfect. It’s one of the few places that mold people’s minds without blatant manipulation. You could supplant a professor, but then it’s obvious. A professor would be teaching theories that are way too advanced. A clerk is subtle and personal. You could truly target information to one person.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about,” the clerk said. “This is absurd. I’m just a clerk.”
“That’s the elegance of the plan. Implanting a suggestion to recommend a book to a particular individual is so small. The person doing the implanting may not be aware of it,” the well-dressed man said. I could hear distant sirens getting closer. The police of this period were on their way. The well-dressed man turned to the clerk. “You should have a book waiting behind the counter for your customer Stephen Hawking. Let me see it. Your life may well depend on it.”
The clerk dug through the books. He pulled a book marked reserved for Stephen Hawking. From the cover, I guessed the book was about black holes. The well-dressed man didn’t even look at it. He tossed it over to me and motioned for me to look through it. The sirens were louder now. It was hard to tell how far away because I wasn’t quite sure how loud a siren of this time could be. My past self’s hands were shaking. I knew how I must have felt. I should have left the moment I heard sirens. Time travelers causing an incident in the past were very serious offenses.
My past self didn’t blink away and alert the time agency. My past self was too curious like myself. Curiosity was the reason I obviously got trapped in this loop time after time. I browsed through the book. I scanned for the mention of black holes, and the science in the parts about black holes was way too advanced for this time period. Stephen Hawking was legendary for his discoveries regarding black holes, but the knowledge in this book was well beyond what Stephen Hawking did. But if Stephen Hawking was given knowledge beyond himself, even in a science fiction setting, imagine what he could do with it. He could innovate science in ways well beyond his time. I flipped the book over and scanned the author and the title.
“This book doesn’t exist,” I said. “Part of my dissertation covers science fiction’s impact on science reality. And this book is not any known title or author I’m familiar with. But the knowledge in this book is well beyond 1961.”
“This book
was designed specifically to inspire Stephen Hawking.” The well-dressed man turned to the clerk. The sirens were really loud now.
“Amazing. Who are you?”
“Jerry.”
“Roman.” I turned to the clerk. “Where did you get this?”
“I ordered it for Stephen,” the clerk said.
“Do you remember when?” the well-dressed man interrogated.
“No... we were talking...about science...and I thought of this book he would like.”
“Did you order it?”
“Yeah... I think. I can't remember...”
“This is why I have to do this.” The well-dressed man cocked the gun back. The police sirens were outside the bookstore.
“Take the book to the future with you,” I said.
“No good. He'll just get another one.” The well-dressed man steeled his nerves.
“Please,” the clerk cried.
I could hear the commotion outside, and then my vision blurred. My mind sunk deep within itself. I could feel myself fall into my subconscious. Pressure held my arms down. A void of existence left my mind adrift. Light began to fill the darkness.
Event 11 - N
Nanette coughed and hacked. It was especially bad today, and there was probably blood. The nanomachines would have taken care of her condition long ago if they still had been in her body. She wheezed and thought of Russia. She smiled at the memory and cleared phlegm from her throat. The cough sent shutters throughout her body. The iron taste of blood filled her mouth. It wouldn't be long now. She would be dead soon.
She coughed a third time, and there was a rustle. The curtains were drawn on her four-post bed. The room was ornate and fashionable for the early nineteenth-century England. A maid befit of a wealthy lady entered the room. The room had all the panache of a Jane Austen novel aside from the drawn curtains hiding the dying lady inside. The maid stood next to the bed and asked, “My lady. Are you well?”
“I'm fine,” Nanette croaked from the bed.
“I'll fetch you a tonic,” the maid insisted.
“No... but you can fetch me something important,” Nanette said again from behind the curtain.
“Anything, miss,” the maid said in earnest.
She was a good servant and would be missed. But everything needed to come to an end eventually. It was time. The servant had kept her secret well. “Do you remember the box?” she said and coughed some more.
“I think I should get you a tonic...” The servant was obviously nervous about the box, as she should be. It had technology from well beyond this point in human history. In fact, the box had the only items, which could identify the lady of the house as a traveler from out of this time.
“No,” Nanette said. “Please, do as I ask.” She coughed again. This time, it was long and hard. The footsteps of the servant disappeared from her room. She probably wouldn't last the night. Death was coming for her. Her life seemed liked ages. In comparison to the people of this era in human history, she was practically immortal. Everyone died at some point. At least she had the luxury to choose her death.
She picked this house because she loved reading Jane Austen books when she was younger. There was something intriguing about the time period despite the oppression of women, the poor healthcare, and unclean living conditions. The manor she acquired was going to the government anyway. There were no living heirs, so it was easy to cook up some paperwork about a distant relative so that she could inherit the estate. If she was going to die, she at least wanted to die in lavish style. The government could always inherit the estate when she was done with it. History wouldn't notice. And considering her maid would have been in a less than honorable trade, she was doing the staff a favor by taking over the estate. It's a shame she came here to die. She would miss her life here. Did near immortals have an afterlife? Her chest heaved in a fit of coughing, and she spat up blood.
Event 22 - R
My mind began to awaken slowly. I was standing. There were shapes around me. The world began to come into focus. The pressure in my arm was two goons holding me up. My bearded future self was staring at me. Jerry was being held by another goon. He weaved in and out of consciousness. The Heinlein books were scattered on the floor.
“Why didn’t you tell me my name was Roman?”
“I guess it’s something you just don’t think about. It’s kind of weird to introduce yourself to yourself.”
“Hi Roman, you’re Roman too… I see your point. What’s wrong with him?” I indicated the woozy Jerry.
“Don’t worry about your friend. He experienced the same memory from your perspective. It’s very hard on the mind when the memory is not yours. He’ll take a while to recover,” my future self said and handed Jerry the gun.
“If the clerk has to die, why don’t you do it?” I asked.
“Trust me. It has to be this way,” my doppelganger said and found the black hole book on the shelf I had seen from the memory. “People can't travel into the future beyond a certain point.”
“To hide your experiments,” I spat.
“But what about the future beyond that?” my doppelganger said. “There are points in the future where I can't go. Someone is accelerating technology. Everywhere in history where there is a leap forward in technology or science, there are these cloned booksellers. Humanity is innovating and discovering technology earlier and earlier with each timeline. The experimentation and the “reprogramming” chambers were used to collect these men. We've experimented with them, but they are perfectly human. They are identical in every way. In fact, the only difference seems to be the person they are targeting. The books themselves are designed to inspire the geniuses of every time. If Stephen Hawking reads this book, he will advance science much more than he did. They are manipulating us all.”
“Why did you scale up to regular people? They have nothing to do with it,” I said.
“We've turned off our emotional centers. It wasn't an easy decision, but it was necessary. In order to find out how the technology acceleration is affecting the population, we needed samples. The ability to advance nanotech was just a benefit. There is something shaping humanity from the future. We can't travel to the future just as you can't travel to ours. But what we can do is share our research with our younger selves.”
“How do you know all this?” I said.
“Because my future self told me this too. The tech you grew up with is much more advanced than when I was young. And my tech was more advanced over my future self’s. In every loop, the technology gets better and better. People make discoveries earlier and earlier in history. And it's by design.”
“So you are aiding them by providing the research!” I snapped.
“We believe if we advance our technology enough, we’ll be able to travel to the future too. If we can out tech our future, we can travel to what is beyond our reach. I need to make sure you know what’s at stake. There is very little time left.”
“For what?”
“For me. My future self went back to share research with me because he knew he was going to die. Just like I know I am going to die. I tried to avoid it, but it’s impossible. The only assurance I have now is that you may do what I cannot. I built you an army in the shantytown. They should follow you now. But the clerk must die, so I know you both will do whatever it must take to change the future.”
I felt a nanomachine presence drift into the room. It was from the female time agent. Jerry must have received it too because he snapped to attention.
“What did you do with her?” Jerry demanded.
“The woman is an anomaly. Please take the gun and shoot the clerk,” my doppelganger said.
“Where’s Nanette?”
“Dead by now.”
The goons holding us down flew into some bookshelves. They probably died on impact. My future self cried out in pain and blood gushed from his eyes, ears, and nose. Jerry looked as if he could strike down an army. There was a raw and terrible emotion deep within him.
Jerry dug deeper, and my doppelganger cried out in pain. His body convulsed. It was gruesome and violent. My doppelganger’s body sputtered and shook. Foam formed around his mouth. Jerry tore his victim apart from the inside. My future self looked at me before he died. Despite Jerry shredding his brain, my future self displayed relief. There was a burden my future self was carrying. He could finally find peace. And his eyes went blank. Jerry dropped the body and returned control to me.
Event 12 - J
Jerry was out for blood. He felt no sympathy for the future version of Roman he tore apart. He knew there needed to be change. The future Roman was the symbol of a future Jerry didn’t want to exist. Jerry knew that love kept him going. Every part of the agency existed to crush emotions. A love like his was forbidden to make way for a passionless future where cruelty was excused in the name of science. Love was the only way to see a better future. People who can experience love will strive to make the world a better place for the people whom they love. Love was not a hindrance to objective reasoning. It was an asset to avoid faulty reasoning. When a person realizes how they can hurt the people they love, they can make better choices for themselves and others.
The living Roman climbed to his feet. Jerry narrowed in on the coordinates he had retrieved. The future Roman’s brain had a visual image of the building where Nanette was being held. It was the best he could retrieve before killing the brain cells holding the data. The building had to be located in this time period because the nanomachine alert she sent wouldn’t go through time. So she was close.
Jerry grabbed the living Roman by the shoulder, and they blinked out of existence before the sirens could get close to the bookstore. There would be a very strange unsolved murder in history. However, it won’t be the clerk. Jerry was determined to take a different path and killing their future was the first step.
Event 23 - R