David and Anna return to the apartment. He is sad and angry, the man who started his life is the same man who destroyed it as well. The lonely angry boy he once was resurfaces, and he is mentally disturbed. He keeps shaking his head, grinding his teeth. Eventually, tears come from his eyes. “What is my life? Why is there never peace? Out of all the people in the world he had to be my father. The man I didn’t trust and now hate to the bones. I won’t help him anymore! I don’t care what happens in the next few days. End of the world...I can’t wait for this bullshit to end!”
Anna lets him take his frustration out and when he is done, sits close to him. She puts his face in her hands and says, “Look at me...even if there was never happiness in your life and we are going to die soon...you still have these moments...these moments with me...the moments with your mother, they will remain a part of you and they will die with you. Come on now, don’t be sad and upset.”
He holds her hands and replies, “How does someone like you happen to someone like me? A fucking low-life mercenary from the streets with a genius and courageous scientist? Maybe all the bad things happened so that I could find you.”
He reaches out for her lips and kisses them, at first she is taken aback, it’s too sudden but gradually she kisses him back. He holds her in his arms and takes her to the bedroom. Her face red with shyness. Lying with him, she puts her head on his chest, “I don’t care what happens next David. I just want to spend my last moments with you. I want to end with you.” he kisses her forehead in return and they both go to sleep.
The next morning Anna wakes up and doesn’t find David next to her, she gets up from the bed and finds him sitting at the dining table. He looks at her and abruptly asks, “Anna...you are still allowed in the MSAT network right?” she nods in return. He asks, “Could you somehow...hack Reed’s terminal and...find some files on the normalizer? I mean I still don’t trust the Overseer. He has lied to us before, maybe he is still lying to keep us in line.”
She fixes her hair, sits at her terminal, and starts working to break Reed’s security. David looks at her, busy on her terminal. It’s almost unbelievable that he has her beside him, she was his destiny. In this world and many others, she was always going to be his. She finally stops and looks at him, she finds him lost in his thoughts and smiles.
“So I was able to break in and I found the plans and schematics for the normalizer, it wasn’t easy but here they are. The Overseer is right, the normalizer has a fatal flaw. It doesn’t have a power regulator. In simple words, it is capable of outputting more power than it can handle.”
“The normalizer will be able to create rifts to the other worlds, but I don’t think it can hold them open for long and if the rifts collide I don’t know what will happen.” he listens to her in silence and once she is done he says with concern, “I think we both know what will happen, this cycle will end just like many others. No you, no me, no Reed, no Bill, yet the Overseer will remain. He will do all those things again, might change them if he likes. I can’t stand him! He’ll ruin my mother’s life again, he’ll destroy Bill’s family too!”
She holds his hand and in her hopelessness says, “We are helpless, we have to believe that he will find an answer.” He looks at her and says, “We are not helpless Anna, right now we can do whatever we want. Let’s fix our enhancers, and go far…far away from this mess. We don’t have to be a part of this, the Overseer can do whatever the fuck he wants, with us out of the picture.”
“Let’s see what happens if we fix the normalizer and give the Overseer a run for his money. Let’s show the asshole that we are the true owners of our lives and he has no power over us. I don’t care if everything ends regardless of what we do. At least our actions will be ours and we’ll have no one else to blame for the consequences!”
She is shocked after hearing him, but she can understand why he said these things. A man who has never felt happiness in his life would do everything in his power to save it when he finally feels it.
She hugs him tightly with closed eyes. “So is that a yes?” he asks but before she could say anything back to him, she opens her eyes, startles, and quickly leaves him. He looks at her face and then turns around.
The Overseer fixes his mask and looks at David, “You know what’s the funny thing son? I wasn’t here when you guys were talking, yet I know what suggestions you gave to Anna. You know in this cycle I didn’t try my best to keep you guys away from each other, in some cycles I even made her hate you.”
“Regardless of what I do, she eventually comes to you and you both fall in love. I guess your love is so strong that it transpires the universes. Anyways, I came here today to take you guys to a different world. I promised a certain someone, something, and I need your help.”
Listening to him David gets up from the sofa and says, “Where is Bill, and I don’t want to go anywhere with you, Anna isn’t leaving either. Just leave us alone for the few days we have. I want to die with her arms around me.”
The Overseer laughs and says, “Ah, the sweet love birds, always together no matter what the big bad Overseer does. I figured Bill wasn’t necessary for this trip. Trust me, David, you won’t regret it.”
“I just want to show you...just come with me and you’ll understand. Maybe after meeting that someone, you will start liking me a little. Maybe you can be the judge and decide if I have been fair!” he takes off his mask and says, “This is a request as your father, not as the Overseer!”
David looks at him and then at Anna, after a few moments he sighs and replies, “Alright old man, but you better take me to paradise, if you expect my forgiveness in return!” the Overseer smiles and says, “Looks like I am going to disappoint you one more time! The place where we are going is quite the contrary of what you have hoped!” he shakes his head and says, “Well, when do we leave? I just wanna get this over with and spend more time with her!” the Overseer holds his hand and looks at Anna, “Well, join us Anna, hold my hand!” she moves towards them and holds his hand. The Overseer sets his enhancer and presses initiate.
In a flash they are teleported to the back of Hawkesbay General Hospital, both David and Anna look around to get a sense of what year they are in. The Overseer looks at them and removes his mask and wears a face changer, he also gives them both a face changer, “Wear them and select a random face, I want to show you something.”
They both wear the face changers and enter the hospital. He takes them to a room named “11-C” and stands at the door. They both join him and look inside the room through the window fixed inside the door.
The sight leaves David in awe and he looks at the Overseer with wide-open eyes. Inside, Olivia holds a baby in her arms, she feeds him and kisses him. Tears start flowing from David’s eyes, “Mom...that’s my mom, why did you take us here? Is that...me?” the Overseer takes a deep breath, “I promised myself that one day I will be with her when she gives birth to you. Unfortunately, I could never be there when it happened. Now that our end is near, I just wanted to share this moment with you.”
He hugs David and says, “I’m so sorry for everything that I did to you and her.” a moment later he starts crying, “I tried...to find a different path, but I failed! The rest is history. Olivia’s death...you in the orphanage, then on the streets...the thing which always hurts me is that I saw you through all this time.”
“I have seen you grow into the man you are and yet never once saw you as a son, for me you were just a pawn. I have failed a billion times, as a man and as a father and it’s the latter which hurts me the most! I know my sins are unforgivable, but it would mean a lot if you could only once think of me as your father.”
Seeing him hugging him and breaking down like this; something happens to David. Perhaps this was the moment the angry little boy inside him was waiting for, a warm hug from his father who he never knew, the apology and the regret, the desperation of the Overseer changed him.
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At this moment the old David had died, he had accepted the Overseer as his father and had forgiven him. Anna has tears in her eyes, as she wipes them away from her cheeks David puts his arms around him and whispers in his ear, “You are ruining the moment...father.” the Overseer just keeps on crying, a few moments pass and he lets go of David.
All of them look at Olivia playing with baby David, her precious smile is one that David will never forget. They exit the hospital and the Overseer removes his face changer, both Anna and David remove theirs and he holds their hands once more, “We still have one more place to visit, someone waits eagerly for you Anna!”
He presses initiate and they are teleported to the roof of a building. Anna and David look around and see destroyed buildings and empty houses. It’s Hawkesbay…yes, but there is something fucked up about this place. The air is nauseating, the atmosphere is too gloomy, and it’s dark and terrifying. They can see the MSAT tower from where they stand and it seems to be the only place with lights.
“What the hell happened here? The city...it’s not normal!” Anna asks fearfully. The Overseer opens a map on his enhancer and calls them both to see it, “This is a map, it isn’t complete but this is how I have arranged the worlds I visited. Look at the left most world, it is P: V01D where Issac came from. It is independent right now, whatever happens there doesn’t affect the other worlds.”
“Next to it is your world, the Origin of time travel. The changes that happen here ripple across the other worlds connected to it, but the effect lessens, the more we move towards the right. The world we are in is the rightmost world, the edge of the worlds. A thing I learned while visiting each of them is that the more we move to the right the more fucked up the worlds become. This is the worst world you can imagine. I won’t spoil the story of what happened here, someone else will do it for you!”
He closes the map and moves towards the rooftop door and opens it with a key. As they head down to the lower floors, David is confused and Anna is terrified. They are both uncertain of what is to come their way and judging by what he has told them it won’t be something pretty. They travel fifteen floors down and stop at floor 35, the Overseer knocks at the door and a female voice asks, “Are you back? Did you bring good news?” he replies, “Yes and I have some guests with me too!”
The woman opens the door and lets them in, she looks at Anna and David and frowns but says nothing. A large hall with a few doors welcomes them, David and Anna are devastated after seeing what’s inside. Many men and women in despicable conditions are lying on the floor, the fit ones carry makeshift weapons and patrol the hall. Many sick children lay together on single beds.
“What happened to them?” she asks with tears in her eyes. “Follow me!” the Overseer replies and they start moving to the room at the end of the hall. A guard in front of the door greets the Overseer. He gives Anna and David the same look the woman gave them and lets them all in. Their gazes make them uncomfortable.
They enter a room filled with medical equipment. A man lies on a bed facing away from them, he has no legs and a huge tube is inserted inside his backbone. He stares at the window wallpaper of old Hawkesbay and doesn’t seem to notice that he is being observed.
The Overseer shouts, “Look what I brought from a faraway world, just like I promised!” the man turns around and looks at them. He is wearing a mask to help him breathe, his right eye is holo and he has scars on his forehead. The moment he looks at them his sad eye glistens with happiness. “The most beautiful woman in the known universes, she looks the same, the black hair, the glasses, I’m afraid my heart is gonna fall for her again!” the man says in a robotic voice as he looks at Anna.
“Come sit next to me, you too David!” he says and gestures them to come forward. They both look at the Overseer and he nods, they sit on the sofa and the man uses a remote to raise him upright, the giant tube raises him in a sitting position and David asks, “Who are you? What happened to you? Why are the people outside in such a bad shape?”
The man looks at him and replies, “I’m you, David, I’m the David of this world!” David and Anna are appalled when he says this and are speechless. They don’t know how to react to this, looking at their silence he starts telling his tale.
“I had a great life once. I grew up like a normal kid, with loving parents, and lots of friends. Dad died when I was 17, but he left us considerable wealth. He was a detective and a good one. I met Anna at a university party and we started dating each other, we were inseparable and I knew that she was my destiny. I married her shortly after we graduated, I had a degree in business and she graduated as a computer scientist.”
“It was a mismatch for sure but our love was not to be taken lightly. It felt as if we were made for each other. Anna had decided to work with her brother on an upcoming project, she didn’t give me the details as it was confidential. In the year 2046, Reed made it public that he had been working on time travel. People were amazed, it was so unreal. Reed was the messiah who was going to lead humanity to the next phase.”
“In the years to come, Reed worked silently with her to improve what he had learned. He created many gadgets and helped prevent a lot of deaths, many politicians were in his debt, the army used the technology to sabotage spy operations and destabilize the foreign threats to Hawkesbay.”
“Everything was working, it was all good. But something else was going on in his head, he had become more than a messiah, he was slowly transforming into a God. The power was getting to his head. In 2049 Anna created a flying robot, its primary purpose was to assist in emergency responses. It was her prized contribution to the good of mankind, but little did she know what her brother had planned to do with it. By the end of 2049, many politicians had left Hawkesbay because Reed had consolidated all the power.”
“Everyone was in his pockets and those who weren’t, Reed had killed them and everyone was scared of what he had become. At the same time, Mary died mysteriously, later we came to know that Reed had murdered his mother to make sure no one stopped him. Anna was torn apart and started a movement against Reed.”
“Then by the end of 2050, things took a turn for the worst. Reed assembled the robots made by Anna with chronoton scanners and weapons. The robot was called ‘Ravager’ and it did ravage Hawkesbay. It scanned people and saw their futures. If they were going to be a threat to Reed they were killed on the spot and their remains were cremated by a plasma burner. They were wiped out of existence, adults, children, babies, no one was an exception.”
“The society was split into two, people who supported Reed were named the Loyalists and those who opposed him were named the Rebels.”
“Anna was the leader of the Rebels and I stood beside her. We hid in our homes but soon Reed started executing us. It was time to move out of Hawkesbay and go somewhere else. All of us decided to settle in the buildings of old Hawkesbay. Anna had teamed up with engineers who fled MSAT and made make-shift weapons for the Rebellion.”
“We bided our time and once we had enough strength we marched to Hawkesbay to fight against him. It was us versus the Ravagers, I knew it was pointless but if we didn’t fight we were going to die anyway. It was a massacre, we didn’t stand a chance against the robots. Almost all of us were killed and cremated. I saw her murdered in front of me and I couldn’t do anything to stop it...” he breaks down and doesn’t seem to continue.
The Overseer moves towards him and consoles him. Anna hugs David and starts crying too. The Overseer continues the story, “I had made sure Bill was on my side back in the P: 210 and after that, I had to make sure I did the same with you. But you still weren’t in that position yet, so I decided to explore other universes, call it coincidence or fate. I had teleported to this world. I was watching all this happen on top of a building and it was heart-wrenching.”
“A world like this also existed. A world where Reed is the winner, a world in which I couldn’t do anything. I saw David on the ground, his feet dismantled, his body drenched in blood.”
“The rebels were taking him away from the Ravagers, but he was losing too much blood. I had to intervene, so I helped teleport them while the Ravagers were busy burning the corpses. This is where I hid the remaining rebels. I listened to the story of this world from them and something was missing. There was no mention of the normalizer.”
“I couldn’t manipulate the Reed of this universe because he was a different kind of monster, even if I was going to change things here it wouldn’t have mattered. I had to keep my focus on just the Origin. You should know that I am not a scientist or engineer. I had schematics of the normalizer but I needed someone to pinpoint the things which I needed to change to make sure it didn’t work properly, so I could trigger the end of this cycle.”
“So I struck a deal with the rebels, if they were to show me the changes, I was going to get the medical equipment for David. The plan worked in my favor, but the agony in which these people lived didn’t end. In a few weeks I returned to check up on David, he was conscious but he wanted to die, he insisted that I cut off the oxygen but I couldn’t do it.”
“So instead I told him that all of this will end one day, the day Reed turns on the normalizer in the Origin, it will destroy that world and all the subsequent parallel worlds connected to it.”
“Yes! Even this one, before I left he held my hand and requested that when that time is near. He would want to see Anna one last time, it doesn’t matter from which universe she belonged to. So I have brought you here to him.”
He stops crying and looks at David and Anna, “Take care of her David! Don’t lose her as I did. You are nothing without her and when the end comes, take her in your arms and look into her eyes. Even death will be bearable with her! As for me, I will wait for the black hole to appear to end our agony and Reed’s reign of violence.”
Listening to his words the Overseer says, “It’s time for us to leave. Say your last words to him and meet me on the roof.” he leaves them to each other and exists the room.
Anna gets up and hugs him, he closes his eyes and tears flow from them, he gives her a beautiful ring and says, “This was her ring, it is the last thing which reminds me of her. I would appreciate it if you could wear it from now on!” she takes the ring and wears it. She kisses his cheek and David says to him sadly, “Goodbye...David! You are a brave man, braver than I could ever be!”
They join the Overseer on the roof and see a Ravager in the distance. Anna looks scared and David starts sweating, “Don’t worry, we are not from this world so these stupid things cannot scan our chronotons, we are invisible to them! As for the rebels, I designed a blocker with them. It’s what I wear so that our Reed can’t scan me and they wear it to hide from the Ravagers.”
“When we teleport back to the Origin two days would have passed. It will be the day when Reed turns on the normalizer, we’ll have a few hours before it happens. You see taking both of you here was important, if I didn’t do that Anna would’ve fixed the normalizer and the rifts would have been stabilized. One of the rifts would be of this universe and well...just imagine what the Reed of this world would do to your world!”
David holds Anna’s hand and says, “I don’t care what happens, all I can say is that…even if my life was hard it was better than what most had. Whatever happens, when we return, I am ready for it!”