Day 237 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 10.4 - (1162 words)

 ©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10.4

“How far ahead are they? Or are they behind us?” George was asking Brian.


“I can't tell from here, what we have to do is jump to the next instance, where the machine is and see what we can find there. We could, I could I mean to say, set the machine to freeze on our arrival, it should be straightforward enough to pre-set the bracelets to trigger a cascade of instructions on our arrival to create the stasis field about us. If we land and freeze the surrounds, well all of time in that instance to be exact, then we can examine the machine and see if there are transit coordinates for the next jump. We can see the instances one behind and one ahead from this machine, and I am guessing that we can see the forward and back on the next one, we can move up and down the chain, or side to side if you prefer that analogy?”


“I really have no preference for analogy, knock yourself out.” Ivan's humour was returning now that they had a plan of sorts, something to do and something to focus on. The guilt was still there, but it was buried under the necessity of action.


“Well, back and forth it is then. So we move forward on to the next instance and find out what we can.”


“Should we freeze the instance in place? Perhaps that way we can preserve as much as possible in that one until we can come back and fix whatever's wrong? We know that there are consequences to the actions in each dimension right? So we should freeze each one until we find the others, the ones causing this, the other versions of you, and stop them. We could use the help I am sure to come back through the instances and put them right.”


Ivan raised his hand, as if he were back in class. Brian stared at him waiting for him to ask his question, until he realised that Ivan would not speak unless prompted. “Yes?”


“Can't we just stop them when we arrive?”


“Excuse me?”


“We have a time machine, so we just go back to the moment when they arrive, before they have created the other versions of the world, worlds or whatever, and then stop it all from happening.” Ivan had been thinking it through, but he was unsure, his hesitation betraying the lack of confidence in his thinking.


“Not exactly no, we can't. If we reset time and try arrive before they arrive, that is what causes the rift, the thing that initiates the break, the copy and split of the new instance. If we want to arrive at an existing instance, then we have to jump in at the point where they are at in sequential time. So if the next instance was created three hours after this one, for instance, oh ...” Brian smiled at the humour of the phrase. “For instance? Funny how that is applicable now yeah?” He looked at the others but neither of them laughed. They either did not get it or they did not appreciate the perspective of context on language. “Anyway. If the next instance was created a few hours after this one then we would arrive a few hours ahead, plus whatever the time differential is in real time. Minus any use of the time freeze options of course. Since you knew nothing of that, then it seems that I may have been keeping that mode to myself.”


George was ready to go and stood, shaking out the kinks in his muscles for sitting about waiting for the calculations to be done, the figuring out to be sorted. “Lets go then shall we?”


“Are you ready Ivan?” Brian asked.


“So we can't change the past, we can only create more versions where we don't make mistakes?”


“As far as I can... in theory, no.” Blunt answers was the best option, it would be tragic ton hold out false hope and then dash it as soon as he tried to take reparative actions.


“We can stop any more from being hurt, that will have to do for now. And we can undo the thefts of the gems. The loot being returned is probably going to save a few lives. The people you, and your other selves, stole from are bitter and angry people, the idea that you should give it back to them and then get out of the reality where they know your name? That is a good idea, a grand plan.” George,like most of the cops in the local system, knew who the owners of the robbed boxes were, and while they made no official claim for their 'missing property' it was a very safe bet that they would be taking heavy action against the suspects, and ignoring laws regarding proprietary rules for evidence and jurisprudence.


“The longer we go away from the places where the damage has been done, the worse that damage is right?” Ivan was still thinking he could fix things, save things, save people. He knew that it was impossible, he knew that Brian said it was impossible, but that was this Brian, the Brian he knew had been at this longer and let on more than he had said. Maybe they were all like that?


“We need to find the others and stop them, stop them creating these worlds, these alternates and leaving the trail of consequences for other realities to deal with. The people you killed? They are … “
“We.” Ivan interrupted.


“What now?”


“WE. The people WE killed.”

“I? I have not killed anyone. No. One.” Brian was indignant.


George was watching the interplay intently, deciding now was the time to say something. “Haven't you? You will kill someone very soon, you are only days away from being the person that does kill someone, or by omission of action lets someone be killed. You can't get away scot free. I don't know how to make any of you pay, because here and now there is just a bunch of traumatised citizens and some missing, and very wanted property. But.... elsewhere? There are widows and grieving families and more heavily pissed off gangsters, organised criminals who want their stuff back. You know that when they can't find you, the people responsible? They'll take it out on someone else, they'll make an example of someone, and it won't be nice … it'll be ugly and public and scary. That's how they do business. That’s. On. You.” He pointed directly at Brian now.


Brian said nothing and instead tapped the button on the console, changing the light in the room instantly to night time in a blink of an eye.


“We are here, and it's late.” He said, though the others had guessed as much.

Day 236 - Repeat Offenders - Chapter 10.3 - (1228 words)

©Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com, 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Wayne Webb and constantwriting.blogspot.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

REPEAT OFFENDERS

By Wayne Webb

CHAPTER 10.3

“I could come with you, you want me to come with you, but if I do I may never get back? What kind of deal is that?” George was speaking to the unfrozen Brian and looking at the nearly catatonic Ivan. He had barely moved in the last ten minutes, it had taken them an hour to calm him down after the suicide attempt and time was running out, the bullet and glass still hung in the air outside the window, sunlight refracted through casting a shattered rainbow on the floor now far from where they stood. Time was frozen outside of their bubble but light was unaffected by the machine, Brian explained why that was, but it was more technical an explanation than George wanted or could ever hope to absorb.


Brian had invited George to come with them and find the other 'team' the one that was moving forward through the use of the machine, to find them and stop them, tell them what they were doing. Brian assumed the innocence of his counterpart, but he could not fully accept that as true, he had to have know that this was a possibility, as he himself had done before the 'other' version of himself turned up and convinced him to go into the machine, for his own sake. He wondered what that meant for him in the other dimensions, the other versions and time lines set up with every trip.


He had believed himself when presented with his own doppelgänger and a credible story about the machine he knew to work, and knew to be capable of much more than freezing localised bubbles of time. He had, or they both had, he was unsure which was more correct, designed the anomaly field with multiple uses, purposes in mind. Localised stasis bubbles were the first experiment, they had set the bubble as the first 'anomaly' and everything stemmed from that first session. Brian Prime, he felt he could call himself that, was the first person in the chain of events that lead the other versions of himself to take bigger steps, bolder ones in search of quantum entanglement, time travel and time dispersement. With enough time and money he could, they could, read the past and the future with remote sensory software, the vast array of human history and future would open up to them.


For now they were tied to three hours, the half life of the element they were using to control the age of the anomaly field. It could have been longer or shorter, but all the elements he had looked at carried a price, either in money or in danger, this was the right isotope in the sweet spot for this kind of experience. They could move up but what kind of exposure would that bring with it? A fatal one in his summation, and then all the time travel in whole of human history would not help anyone, they'd just appear to die faster as people outside the anomaly saw them deteriorate faster.


George would have been good to have along, he was trying to appeal to his sense of justice and equanimity. They had to catch up with the others and convince them to stop, destroying the machines as they went, the research and the components had to all go, the theory and the parts could have won him the Nobel Prize, but the littered trail of bodies his ' partners' had left behind just illustrated what he already thought. This was like giving a loaded gun to a baby.


If he and Ivan went alone, then the chances of them being able to affect change was lessened, but if they had this detective's assistance, his forcefully present personality would be a swaying influence. Ivan was teetering on the edge of a total nervous collapse, and if he went back to any of the places where he was the murderous person that …


“Shit.” Brian swore and went white, sitting with his head in his hands the same as Ivan had done, was still trying to recover from.


“How many people have you murdered then?” George asked, with a 'what now?' look on his face.


“It's not that. I've just realised my place.” Brian said quietly.


“You created a time machine that allowed criminals to romp through all sorts of craziness, killing and stealing and doing whatever they want without consequence. Except there are consequences aren't there?” George added smugly “This? What you're feeling? It's called a guilty conscience, you should go with that.”


“I didn't see it before. I should have. It's obvious when you think about it.”


“I can see it. You are an accessory before and after the fact, even if you did not pull the trigger yourself.”


“I did not. It was not me, it was never me.” Brian was talking but George got the sudden realisation that he was not replying to him at all, he was talking to himself.


“What? What are you saying?” He pried gently, knowing he was on the edge of losing them both now.


“It was never me.”


“What was never you?”


Brian looked up at George with tears in his eyes, but a laughing smile and a small chuckle, the sadness of the tragic news he had amusing as well as shocking him. “I am not the first. I can't be.”


“Isn't the first the one who left Ivan behind? Isn't that the point?” George was confused.


“Funny how you of all people understand the simplicity of thinking in a straight line.”


“Is that an insult?”


“Yes. No. I'm not sure, but you instinctively know about the nature of my reality, but I … could not see it.” Brian looked at Ivan, his empathy for the feelings had increased, the loss he felt when he knew that he was not who he thought he was, and there were however many behind him, that was a deep cut to endure.


“See what exactly? I don't see...”


“Yes, you do see, you see what I did not. Saw. You saw what I did not. Ivan had to move forward to get to here, that's all he knew, he's reset a few times already, which means I am not the Prime at all. I am one of many, the Prime is before me, probably before Ivan here since he did not know about it. I am a copy of the Prime, I am a copy of the first copy really, because the one who is a few jumps ahead of this point, the one who left the trail of bodies and the trail of ...” Brian looked to the room where the stasis pod was, “... us behind him, that is the Prime, what ever happened to him, only happened to him, he made sure of that, and all of us copies, we are lying in wait for .. I don't know what.”


“That sucks dude.” Ivan finally spoke, looking at Ivan and reaching out an arm to take his in a clasp and pulling the two of them together. They embraced and stood in the centre of the space for about a minute before George cleared his throat.



“Are we going? Or not?”