A Time to End

            Peter completed teleporting and settled on his feet. Darn that Keijay. He thought. Wasting my precious time with his philosophical ideals. I’ve already wasted a week of my vacation. “Who cares if I use the word ‘time’ interchangeably with ‘change’?” He said out loud.

He checked the time. It appeared in his vision at the same moment the information was sent to his brain. It was 8:00 in the morning, November 8th, the year 2589 R.C., the age of Heaven’s Rule. Currently, local time was in perfect sync.

            Everyone else had already been on vacation for a week. He’d had to stay an extra week to polish up on details. He sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

Seven days from now the time machine would revert to this moment. Seven days from now Peter would help…he might…he might put an end to the time machine forever. This vacation might be the last he would use the machine’s powers, and perhaps the last he would see his family.

            Peter looked around himself. He was on a dirt road at the top of a gently sloped hill. The sun was low in the east, casting long, deep shadows across the land. In those shadows the dew looked like sky blue snow on the grass, melting to glowing sun drops where the light touched. Fog clung to the winding stream flowing from the hill to his left and down into the shallow valley. The fog glowed where a ray of sun touched. In the shadow, the fog still slumbered in twilight.

            This is why he always picked this spot to teleport to before walking the two miles to his parent’s home. He could see the land all around and their house on the other side of the valley.

He began to walk the shallow decent into the valley. His tennis shoes made a soft crunching sound as he walked.

            Peter breathed in deeply, and his chest swelled against his T-shirt. That was the smell of night rain upon dirt and fallen leaves. He could still feel the cool humidity against his skin. A chill breeze began to pick up with the coming of the morning, rustling drying green leaves. The forest’s bright yellows, oranges and reds were doused blue in the shadows but burned brightly in the sun.

            Peter smiled. His walking was easy going downhill. At one point, the path curved to one side to avoid a bulge in the stream. Peter kept walking through the grass and along the bank of the stream. His jeans became wet with the dew and a few chill drops from the trees above landed in his short hair. He shivered.

            A week’s vacation was barely enough time to cool his nerves. After working through the ranks from a Special Field Agent to a Senior Narrative Engineer for millennia, a week felt like a day. He shook his head. Don’t think about work. You’re on vacation. Just don’t think about it.

            The chirping of birds caught his attention and he stopped, watching them flit about the trees. He continued forward and stepped on a stick, making a loud crack.

            The red and white coat of a fox caught his eye further down the hill. It bounded casually between the trees and through the wisps of fog. It stopped around the edge of a bush and eyed him for a moment.  Then it sprang away, fading into the fog. Peter’s last sight of it was when it jumped through a ray of sunlight, its coat flashing for a moment before it was gone.

            Peter looked after it, wondering if it would show itself again, but it didn’t. He looked around for other stirring wildlife, but he couldn’t see any.

            Peter brought up the interface for the time machine into his vision. He couldn’t feel the full body scan to confirm his identity, but he knew it happened. Like anyone else at his level of work, he had access to localized time reversion. In this instance, he was pre-cleared to revert everything within the fence around his parent’s property back to the moment when he first completed teleporting.

            A 3-D landscape of the property projected itself into his vision. He zoomed onto his location with a thought and looked about himself from a minute ago. With a thought, he turned on the lifeform filter for animals larger than a rat. He didn’t need the visual. The knowledge flowed through his brain as easily as walking.

            “Ah, found you.” He whispered. The fox had been watching him before he had stepped on the stick. He checked on the fox’s current location. It was nearing the property line’s fence.

            It’ll get away if I’m not quick about it. Peter quickly activated the time machine to revert to one minute ago. The feeling was like teleportation, only physically disorienting since his body ended up in a different position. In his years as a field agent, he’d gotten used to it. He stopped all motion for a split second, orienting himself. His foot was just about to step on the stick. He lengthened his stride and stepped over it. Carefully, he approached the fox’s position.

Even knowing where it was, Peter couldn’t see it with normal light. He would be able to see it in the infrared spectrum, but its appearance would be ugly.

He crept forward carefully, watching where he stepped. The rain had softened the leaves, making his approach much quieter. He got within 20 feet of the bushes it was hiding in before the fox bounded away with a shot, running at full tilt. It jumped into the creek bed and out of sight. Peter heard a few splashes before there was silence again. The fox didn’t show back up.

            Peter had gotten a closer look, but it felt like there was something missing from his first sighting. Why was my first experience more…satisfying? Peter thought. No, that wasn’t the word. It hadn’t been satisfying at all.

            He stood out of his crouch and stuck his hands in his pockets. He looked back at the way the fox had run, then along the streambed. Fog heavily covered parts of it. There weren’t many places he could see clearly. He considered trying again but a sudden distaste for the idea came over him and he started walking again.

            While he could change time at a whim within the property, time continued forward everywhere else. Local time now read a minute behind the master control time. By impulse, he checked the location of the fox. It was out of the streambed now and trotting further into the valley out of his direct sight.

            His mind easily turned to the butterfly effect process, tracking the possibilities of the divergence he’d created. First, analyze origin point. The fox actually jumps over the property line. Peter pulled up the movements and mental intentions of animals in that area before the reversion. It’ll scare this mouse, whose home is here, it’ll run to that. The fox will likely start hunting again after running a half-mile along its territory. Death of a rodent likely. Effect on ecosystem, minimal. Possible effects on major events, incomprehensible. Beyond that the prediction accuracy dropped significantly.

Second, analyze impact of divergence. Fox will not disrupt movements of smaller animals by its passing. A rodent may not die as soon. Effect on ecosystem, minimal. Possible effects on major events, incomprehensible. He tracked the fox’s new movements and the movements of animals around it, as well as any damage to vegetation done. New effect on ecosystem, minimal. Possible effects on major events, incomprehensible.

Third, analyze possible outcomes. Likelihood of fox to attempt stealing from henhouse in the coming day increased, however, inevitable in the lifetime of the fox. Fox kills rodent in the valley instead of outside of property line, effect minimal. Likelihood of fox to run into native pred…

Peter smacked his forehead. “Darn it.” Don’t think about work. Don’t think about it. The analyzing had only taken fractions of a second, much of the processing being off-loaded to the time-machine’s main frame. He turned his attention to the scenery around him instead, trying his best to enjoy it. He walked another four minutes and fifteen seconds, hoping his mind would clear.

The muffled crack of a rifle jolted Peter. “Dag-nab-it.” He said under his breath. “Still using that novelty hunting-rifle.” The report had come from in front and to the left of him on the hillside. And I’m still cursing like him. He thought.

His mind turned to what his father had shot at. The enhanced vision the time machine granted him swept towards the source of the gunshot. Peter guessed his father had shot successfully since he didn’t hear the frustrated string of shots that usually followed when his father missed.

His father was further up the hill, masked in the mists of a tendril of fog as he walked down towards his trophy. At the bottom of the hill was a clearing where the fog was thin and a ray of sun shone in, already burning it away. In that clearing, lying among the flowers was a fox, the same fox from before.

It didn’t surprise Peter. He’d seen many people die from his decisions, planets reduced to dust, lives shattered beyond their own means to repair them. However, Peter wielded the very power that could restore everything.

He wanted to bring the fox back to life. He could step on that stick again and let it run away across the fence. However, he couldn’t go forward in time. He couldn’t see if the fox’s death by his father could be avoided forever. He only had the power to return to any moment within what the machine had recorded. He’d seen events change to his whims, only to have the very outcome he had attempted to avoid come about years later.

By over-practiced rote, he changed time back to right before he stepped on the stick. He hesitated. His body felt warmer. His feet were less tired. By hesitating he knew he was changing something, maybe something that could only be traced back to this moment after hundreds of years had passed. He stepped on the stick and watched the fox spring from his cover and bound away.

Does it even matter if I turn back time? He couldn’t shake the feeling there was a force even greater than the time machine working its will on the universe. The secret resistance within the ranks of his nation thought so. Too many attempts to prevent the cataclysm from happening had been thwarted by unlooked-for means, blindsiding the analysts and himself. So, they decided the power of the time machine was not for men. Seven days from now would see the culmination of their efforts to return time to the original time-line. Without Peter, their plans would fail. If he was against them, there would be nothing they could do to stop him. If he was for them, their plans would succeed.

He walked onward on the same path he had taken before and at the same pace.

When the time machine had been created, it had recorded history for several hundred years. The philosophy at its creation had been, “To change the past, one must first know the future,” a quote by Bhen Munoc, the time machine’s creator. This span of recorded time, untouched by the time-machine, was named the Origin. The resistance wanted to return to the moment right before the first change by man occurred.

Was the Origin untouched by the time-machine? Peter wondered. Or is it the present? Meant to be, despite men’s efforts? Men have always been changing worlds and the universe. Is the time machine any different from a bomb or terraforming? Was the original time-line simply a figment of the imagination? Even by returning to the Origin, the knowledge of all the past millennia would be retained by individuals such as himself. Wouldn’t that be an alteration of the Origin? Is there even a right answer? A truth? His thoughts turned to the millennia-old debates over global warming that culminated in the Terra Directives. Men argued men’s miniscule actions greatly unbalanced the fragile laws of nature. Is the same thing happening to the universe? He thought. The time machine has a massive range but doesn’t cover the whole universe. Technically, we have irreplaceably put the Known Universe out of sync with the rest. What worlds or stars might we have split in two?

He passed by the spot he had heard the gunshot at. He heard nothing but the sound of the stream in the distance, the chirping of birds and the rustle of the breeze through the leaves. He continued walking, he was losing precious time with his family. The master control time put him at almost an hour past when he had first arrived.

Peter had joined the resistance due to his long-simmering disgust he had formed for repeating and living out time. It had felt morally wrong to revert the changes of the universe. But now, what was time or change? Time was the measurement tool of change, as a ruler was the measurement tool for distance. That was the logical answer. Time was nothing more than a ruler for change. It was not a dimension, it was not some unexplainable energy or mass. It was simply change. The rate of the workings of physics, the timings of the movement and discovery of information, and the rate of the degradation of energy.

Some of Peter’s colleagues disillusioned themselves by believing they had full control over time. The very control room they worked in defeated their belief. Everything in the known universe would change outside that control room, but the control room, by necessity remained untouched. Normal time, the same that flowed from the beginning of time, was in that room and outside the unfathomable reach of the time machine.

No, change is not a flow, it is a rate. He thought.

Peter shook his head. He was beginning to think like his fellow analyst, Keijay. Keijay was lately most fascinated with their enemy’s own time travel technology. The technology of Nebiezar was far inferior to the technology of Kasdeon, Peter’s nation. The method was simple explosions that reverted the time of everything within their blast, however, they did not need to record like the time machine did. Not to mention, their technology had stopped the recording of the Origin.

The Origin had initially been planned to be a millennia long stretch of history to be picked apart and analyzed to create the ultimate utopia. Dissidents would be culled, murders stopped and entire wars averted. That never happened.

In a preparation for their grand conquest, Kasdeon closed in on all sides upon Nebiezar’s home world. Nebiezar’s retaliation was one of desperation and to spite of Kasdeon’s plans. Nebiezar set off the Cataclysm Bomb. A bomb that was set to erase the entirety of history back to when men still walked upon only one planet. Total destruction, annihilation, near-extinction. It boggled Peter’s mind to think how fragile humanity would be with only a few billion souls living on a single planet.

Peter breathed in deeply, over and over again until he started to get light-headed. He couldn’t get enough of the smell of night rain mixed with the mustiness of fall. To allow the Cataclysm Bomb to go off would kill all life. But was it worse to play god over them all?

He began the shallow ascent up the road to his home. His hand clasped and unclasped as he breathed in and out. Think of something else.

Mom said Harold would still be here. He’ll likely want to go out and hunt with me. He thought. He caught a whiff of breakfast cooking when the breeze suddenly changed direction. His mouth watered. Eggs, bacon, toast…is that pancakes? He licked his lips.

He lost sight of his house as he walked through a grove of trees. It appeared again here and there through the trees as he walked along the path. It came into full view as he rounded the last bend in the path.

The white two-story house basked in the glow of the morning sun. The chatter of chickens reached him along with the occasional neigh of a horse. Wumpy gave out threatening warf! from the porch and streaked towards him.

“Wump! Its me boy!”

Wumpy’s sprint slowed into excited bounding and he barked over and over. Right before he came into Peter’s reaching distance he stopped and his barking turned into whines as he excitedly wagged his tail and circled Peter.

“Pete!” Peter’s brother came out of the front door rubbing his hands with a cloth. “On time as always! Come on in! Mom won’t let us start until you sit down!”

Peter waved. “I will once Wump’s calmed down!” He heard the sound of wood chairs being pushed back and his two sisters burst out of the door.

“Pete! Welcome back! Since you’re out there, go find Dad too!”

Peter bent down as Wump’s excitement waned enough for him to come closer. Peter scratched him behind the ears and under the chin where he liked it most.

“Come back inside or we’ll never eat!” Came a voice from inside the house.

Peter smiled. He knew his mother would say that.

“Go find Dad will you?” Harold yelled and threw his rag on the house’s porch railing.

“I heard him shooting on Maple Hill!” Peter yelled back. “He’ll be here soon!” Well, he did in another time line. Eh, technicalities, he’s on Maple Hill one way or another.

Harold waved and went inside. The screen slammed with a clack behind him.

“So that’s what’s got Wump’s attention,” said a voice behind Peter.

Peter turned. It was his father with a gun over one shoulder. His face was set in grim lines.

            “You ever going to catch that fox?”

            “Hmph, maybe never, but it gets me outside. Don’t know what’d I’d do if it went and killed itself.”

Perhaps it was a good thing I let the fox live, Peter thought.

“Been trying to get the lil varmit for five years. It’s like magic the way he escapes me. I’ve got a guy who still does taxidermy by hand and doesn’t charge an arm and a leg. He says he’ll stuff the critter for free if I can ever kill it for him.”

Wump quickly became distracted by something in the forest and he rushed off with his nose to the ground. Peter had seen the dog die because of its stupidity too many times. Once, Wump had drowned when Peter had been swimming far out in a lake with Harold. Watching what had happened on the time machine’s recording showed Wump pacing back and forth in worry along the shoreline before jumping in after them.

Peter walked with his father to the house. “How many chickens did it get?” he asked. He already knew the answer.

“Twenty-three, and he choses em like a champ. I tell you, every time a chicken wins a prize, he’ll get it not more than three months later. Damn varmit.”

Peter washed up with his father and then sat down to the table and waited for him to put his gun away. His mom allowed herself to get up and greet him, kissing him on the cheek and hugging him before sitting back down again.

Once his father sat down everyone bowed their head in thanks before digging into the meal.

“You work for the military, right?” Harold asked. “Teri could you pass the syrup? What’s been going on lately?”

Peter shrugged and took a spoonful of eggs. “Don’t know what I can talk about.” Harold had been asking him this question for hundreds of years. Well, for him only a few decades, Peter thought. He’d even tried to see what Harold’s reaction was before reverting time. Because he had revealed classified information to a civilian he’d ended up with a stern warning and had to compile a report on the event. A report that he had disliked giving to his higher-ups.

“Come on, anything on those no-for-goodians? They’ll get us if we don’t watch it.”

That’s one future I’m sure of, Peter thought, we’ve never been able to stop them from detonating the bomb.

“Why are they against a Utopia?” Terisha asked. “We’re already half-way there.” She delicately skewered a piece of pancake and placed it into a beautifully modeled mouth. A mouth that matched the rest of her perfectly designed body.

Peter’s mother, Wanda, looked at Terisha over her glasses but returned her eyes to her plate. Her wrinkled face and graying hair told one enough of her stance on utopian ideals.

Peter waited for her to blow up, but remembered he was in a point of time after a lot of that drama had ended. Terisha changing the body Wanda had worked so hard to give birth to naturally hadn’t gone over well.

Peter’s father glanced up from his plate at Terisha, then at Wanda. He cleared his throat. “No talking politics at the table.” He cleared his throat again. “I nearly shot that fox today. Got away over the fence.”

“You’re never going to give up on that animal, are you?” Harold said, “I’ve told you to just get one of those sentry drones to look after the chicken coop. You have the money for it.”

“A bullet’s cheaper. Besides, we’re going hunting for it today.” Peter’s father smiled through his chewing. “You don’t want to ruin the reason for our hunting do you?”

From there the talk turned to hunting and then how everyone’s families were doing.

            Peter didn’t have much to say with that last part.

            “Petey, when are you going to get yourself a wife?” Wanda asked.

            When we stop the cataclysm bomb. “When the right one comes along.” He couldn’t tell them how many times he had married in the past. Or rather, in futures that were stored in the memory banks of the machine. Every time there had been a reversion had tolled on him too much. He didn’t marry anymore.

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After breakfast they all helped clean up. Peter absently twirled a plate in his fingers after drying it. He’d lost count of how many he’d dropped in the past ages. He’d spent an entire vacation once angering his mother by breaking all the plates, turning time backwards and trying again. He’d mastered the form about a hundred years ago.

Wanda stepped through the door to the kitchen and let out a scoff of exasperation before turning around and leaving.

Peter smiled.

“Mom can’t stand it when you do that. You drove her out of the kitchen!” Peter’s sister, Vona, said. She finished washing a plate and handed it to him.

“It isn’t fun any other way.” Something particular Peter found with Vona was she always married the same man or not at all in all the pasts he knew of. “How’s Anard?”

“He had to stay another day for work, but he’ll be coming after that. You need to go hunting with him. He’s really looking forward to seeing your marksmanship again.”

Peter dried another plate with a flourish. “Hmm, I might.” Anard’s fascination with the military had killed the man several times before. Peter had eventually stopped indulging Anard’s interests altogether.

Peter looked side-long at Vona. She took after her mother and didn’t perfect her body. His eyes lingered on the lines and tones of her face, how it moved when she talked, the flash of her eyes and the way her straight hair frizzed in the humidity. He could see every imperfection that was culled from Terisha’s own appearance.

Terisha came into the kitchen carrying more dirty dishes and sat them down. Her every movement was graceful and not a hair of hers flew out of place as she turned on her heel and left the room.

After finishing the dishes, Peter sat around with his family and ‘talked politics’ as his father put it. Opinions of what would happen with social struggles were mulled over. Arguments were put forth and in the end everyone came to one agreement.

Except Peter, though he didn’t show it. These were the most boring times with his family. For him, there was no speculation or opinion. He simply knew a hundred different factual outcomes that had happened before. Instead of trying to convince his family of the truth the future most likely held, he sided with one of the opinions of the others and spoke sparingly.

After they had talked themselves out, he helped put together pack lunches. The plan was to eat them for lunch while out hunting.

Peter hitched his rifle over his shoulder and stopped before going out the door. He looked back in the living room where his mother was sitting down with a book.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? You used to…”

 “I enjoy relaxing with a book anymore.” Wanda smiled warmly. “It’s more than enough fun for me to see everyone together.”

Peter nodded and caught up with the others. Their path quickly took them past their property fence and into the hills. Terisha wasn’t with them. Vona had come along as well as Harold and their father.

Vona had brought a shotgun and took potshots at squirrels. Harold saw a coyote on an adjacent hill and took a potshot. The coyote’s white throat showed more clearly as it perked up at the sound, then started trotting away at a quicker pace.

Harold nudged Peter. “Don’t just let him get away. Finish him off for me.”

Peter raised his rifle to his shoulder. This might be the last time this coyote is alive. The thought stopped him cold.

“Hey, he’s getting away.”

Peter blinked and took a shot.

The coyote jumped and sprinted away as the bullet ricocheted off a stone.

Harold glanced at Peter. “You toying with him?”

Peter lowered his rifle. “I missed.”

Vona chuckled. “Yeah, right. You don’t miss.”

This might be the last time with my family.

“Come on,” Peter’s father said, “I saw some deer to the west of here. Let’s see if we haven’t scared them off yet.”

As Peter followed them through the woods he could smell pine needles on the wind. He could hear the brush and crisp crackles of the sticks, leaves and dirt beneath their feet as they walked the rough trail. Sun dappled their faces.

A bird flew from the trees in front of them. Peter’s father quickly caught it with his eye. “Bluejay,” he said.

Harold looked to where it had perched itself on a branch.

Vona was eyeing the trees, likely for squirrels. The wind blew her hair in her face and she brushed it back behind her hair. Another gust caught it again and she brushed it back again.

Harold watched his steps. A stick would come underfoot and he would purposefully step on it.

“Possum,” Peter’s father said.

A twig snapped underfoot. “Up late.”

The last time with them…to see this place, to be hunting here… His father’s gait was careful and stiff. Harold let his feet fall flat. Though the path was straight, Vona’s walk veered from one side of it to the other, often falling out of the line of the others.

Peter’s father held up his hand.

Peter didn’t look in the direction his father pointed. He’d never watched his father’s face when hunting before. There was an excitement there. An intelligent glint in the man’s aging eyes. An acceptance of a challenge and the will to attempt it.

Harold calmly unslung his rifle.

Vona softly ejected a shell from her shotgun and caught it. She replaced it by sliding a slug in the chamber and clacking the action home.

Harold turned and gave her a withering look.

Peter’s father, Asod, didn’t take his eyes off the deer. He brought his finger to his lips. “Shhh.”

Peter followed behind the others as his father, Asod, led them on a round-about way through a dry riverbed. Asod watched where he stepped. Harold walked toe-to-heel in a quiet half-crouch. Vona’s steps took her further to one side or another as she took wide berths around patches of blown leaves.

The smell of dry earth and rotting wood and leaves was in the air. The wind hushed through the grasses and over the riverbed. A blade of grass swayed under the pressure of the wind, sprung back, dipped and fell and waved.

Peter could feel the changes all around him. Vona lifted her foot, it arched through the air then fell upon soil. It rose again and left behind the print of her boot.

Everything was changing. Before, there was always the machine. A moment would never end with finality. There wasn’t permanence.

A rifle cracked with its report and Peter jumped, feeling the shockwave in his chest. A deer fell.

Asod gave Harold a handshake in congratulations. Vona gave him a high-five.

Peter breathed quicker. Asod smiled with his eyes. Harold grinned widely. Vona smiled, but didn’t show the teeth she’d been born with.

Harold turned to him, expecting something.

Reality seemed to pull back. Everything felt surreal. The world slowed as Peter drew upon the machine’s mainframe computer. What’s Harold expecting? How did I act last time? No, before everything. How did I act?

The machine gave him a view upon himself and millennia flowed through his mind. He saw himself, young, with the same rifle he carried now. He was with Harold. Harold shot a coyote and they tracked it down till it died. He gave Harold a quick hug for his success.

Peter opened his arms as he left the vision and gave Harold a hug. How many years had he gone without hugging his brother? The years of seeing his family in the same state over and over had numbed him. I’ve been with them so long. But I don’t feel like I know them anymore. Even as he hugged his brother he looked in the records of the machine. Where have I not seen my family? The answer, the truest of them, came to him.

The end of the Origin record.

***

            Peter settled on his feet and shivered as a numbing wind blew over him. He snapped his fingers and the machine created a heavy coat around him. Through the blizzard Peter could just barely see the yellow glow of his family’s home in the darkness.

            He had to be quick with this. The longer he stayed the more likely it would become that someone from outside the fence would notice the extremely localized snowstorm.

            He ducked his head down and forged his way through the snow. His breath fogged and he snapped his fingers again. A scarf wrapped itself around his neck and a stocking cap was placed upon his head with perfect precision. Peter adjusted them both then thrust his hands in his pockets.

            He picked his legs up over the drifts of snow, leaving a trail of holes in the blowing snow. His nose began to drip.

            He trudged up the shallow hill to the house. Snow was lit orange as it blew by the light of the windows. He carefully tromped up the steps and kicked his toes on the porch to loosen the snow from his boots.

            He heard his mother’s muffled voice within. “Who’s that, I wonder? Soddy get some cocoa ready will you?”

            The porch light was turned on and a drape was pulled aside, revealing the shadowed face of Wanda. Her hair was mostly gray.

“It’s Peter dear!” She called behind her. She disappeared from the window. The next moment she was opening the door and pulling Peter in by the sleeve.

She’s able to recognize me like this? Peter wondered.

“For Pete’s sake! And yours too! Why don’t you just telepo to our living room?! You’ll catch a cold!” She reached up and unwrapped the scarf around him.

“What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be at work? You didn’t get fired did you?” She took his coat from him and hung it up by the fire along with his scarf and stocking cap. She placed her hand on his nose. It was warm.

“Ooh! You’re cold! Sod! Is that cocoa ready? Your boots Petey.”

Peter took them off and she carried them over to the pot-belly stove. “Honestly, I don’t see why you travel from that hill on the edge of the property. None of your siblings do anymore. They’re into that telepo and just pop in unannounced! Sit down, sit! I’ll get your cocoa.” She hobbled off to the kitchen.

Peter sat in the old couch and its old, familiar smell wafted up from it.

Wanda came back with the cocoa and gave it to Peter. Then she sat down across from him.

He sipped at the cocoa and he felt the warmth slowly spread through him. He half-listened to Wanda talk about everything that was going on. He focused on just being there. The howling wind blew outside. The snow was lit momentarily as it whisked by the window to the ground. Peter could feel a cold draft at his feet. It was likely from the window. The mug in his hands was almost too hot to hold. Wanda complained and worried about him. Peter knew all too well she was glad to see him.

Asod came in with two mugs and gave one to Wanda. Then he pulled up a stool to sit on between them. Asod listened quietly.

Wanda complained about another chicken getting caught by the fox. Asod spoke up and said he’d been trying for years. Wanda ignored him and continued in another line about Vona. She was waiting for her husband to return from the war with Nebiezar. She had baked him a cake to welcome him back from his tour of duty. He was supposed to return tomorrow.

The calm of home disappeared from Peter’s mind. That’s right. I encouraged him back then to join the military. If I change everything back to the Origin, he’ll likely be helping with the last push against the Nebeizar home world.

Harold’s business meeting had gone well. The investor was interested in terraforming the planet Harold had pitched.

I never knew he became so successful. I was still an agent when the Origin was being recorded. I only had a few minutes of warning before everything was reverted for the first time.

Terisha was coming over later in the week. She said she had something to talk about.

Peter could see the hurt in his mother’s eyes. This was before they made up, he thought. When he thought about it, in those times when the bomb’s detonation had been averted, it was right around this same time Terisha had made up with Wanda. In the times after the first reversion, Peter had worked to correct his family’s problems sooner. He’d learned exactly what to say and when. His family became as peaceful on his vacations as the rest of the worlds Peter fought hard to perfect.

It had become too much like his marriages. Out of all of them there was one he still wished he could be with. She’s the reason I don’t talk much anymore, he thought. Living that close to her let her see the truth of what I’d seen. Our marriage wasn’t new and exciting after the first few reversions. I knew how to talk to her and eventually, I manipulated her. She would always encourage me though.

There was a large market for hand-made goods in many worlds. Before becoming an agent, Peter had wanted to become a craftsman. Wanda still kept a dusty finger-pot of his on a shelf from when he was just a boy. There were also finger paintings, a woven basket, and a carved wooden dog that he’d made.

I could have mastered all the arts in the time I’ve tried to perfect the worlds, he thought.

***

            Peter’s feet settled on the grass. Before him, rising from the plains around him and from the mountain range on the horizon was a monolithic structure made of gleaming metal.

            Back to work. He’d spent the rest of his week with his family. Any friends he’d had at the Origin he’d pushed away long ago.

            The wind brushed against the grasses and his hair as he found the broad brick path that led into the plain structure. Teleportation into the control center was strictly forbidden. A field kept any from doing so even if they tried to disobey that rule.

            Others blinked into existence around Peter upon the plains. Soon, the pathways became congested with every kind of worker. From Janitor to the Prime Controller, every man had to walk this way into the structure.

            A man blinked into step right along Peter. It was Keijay.

            Keijay stretched and looked over at Peter.

            Peter glanced at the sky. “Good afternoon.”

            Keijay smiled. “You have a relaxing vacation?”

            Peter paused. “Yes.”

            “It’s always hard right before a reversion.” He looked around at those walking with them. “As your superior it’s hard seeing everyone come to work with the same grim face.”

            This isn’t just any reversion. This will be the moment that decides our fates. He didn’t respond to Keijay.

            They stepped into the building and promptly stepped into an elevator. It was an old technology, but for security reasons it was essential. For an entire minute the elevator acted as a prison while it checked every aspect of a person against its records.

            The elevator took them to the control room floor. After they stepped out of the elevator it took them another hour to make their way through all the security checks.

            Eventually, they stepped through the main control room’s doors and took their seats at their stations. Each station had monitors and banks of buttons. These only served as rudimentary backups. For Peter’s work, he simply had to sit in a chair and sync his mind to the machine.

            Keijay took his place on a diadem above the circles of stations as more workers trickled in.

            Peter eyed them. Who was for the resistance? Who was against it? He glanced at a station across the room. That man had to be for the resistance. He was the other verifier who turned the key at the same time as Peter to activate the reversions. By regulation, Peter was forbidden any contact with the person.

            Questions filled Peter’s mind as more people took their seats in the large room. How could the resistance make their way past the security systems? How would Peter even change the projected reversion at the last moment?

            Will I even agree to it? He thought.

            Analysts ran their diagnostics of the machine’s systems. Every department ran through digital and physical checks. Peter himself had to rerun a few checks. He had to fight the urge to fidget in anticipation. A moment of desperation threatened to grip him.

            What if I’ve been deceived? Perhaps I’m being set up? It looks like a normal day for everyone.

            “Pete?”

            Peter nearly jumped. Keijay was standing right next to him.

            Keijay leaned on the edge of Peter’s station. His face was a little concerned. “Pete,” Keijay projected telepathically on an encrypted channel, “It’s my job to review my subordinate’s vacation and verify there wasn’t any breach of protocol. I couldn’t help but see that you created a localized reversion at the end of the Origin…I hope everything is alright with you.”

            Peter eyed Keijay. He had the suspicion Keijay was on the rebellion’s side, but he wasn’t sure. Peter allowed himself a telepathic nod. “Perhaps I’ve gotten old and sentimental. I haven’t looked that far back in a long time.”

            Keijay nodded and patted Peter on the shoulder. “Back to work.”

            After Keijay left Peter let out a sigh. Does he suspect me? Truth is… He thought back to his last moments with his family. He’d said his goodbyes and had hugged them all. Each hug felt torturous for him. After he had finished he reverted everything back and hugged them again. He cherished the feeling of their warmth against him each time. Every time he tried to speak his truest feelings to them but he couldn’t put them to words. He could only hug them tighter.

            Vona had left him a parting gift. Homemade chocolate chip cookies. He had them now in his pocket.

            …am I part of the rebellion any longer?

            It took most of the day for the machine to be readied. Small problems were rooted out of the complex machine. The machine was never without them. There was always a small risk.

            For Peter, the time felt like it took the smallest part of forever for the machine to be readied.

            The moment came. Peter checked and re-checked all of the metrics and reports. All systems were green. He readied his key. He felt a panic build within him. What would he choose? A thousand possibilities and arguments rushed through his mind.

            He looked across the room and met the eyes of the other man. He nodded.

            1…2…3…

            Time slowed for Peter as he twisted the key. A bare millisecond before his key clicked into place, the projected reversion time on all screens shifted to Age of Heaven’s Rule: Origin: February 23, 3230.

            Peter heard the click as loud as the strike of a hammer.

            The next millisecond information was fed into his mind. All the information needed to wield a weapon.

            Peter’s mind raced as he saw the reactions of those around him in slow motion. The weapon was controllable cracks in the field around the control room. Right now the machine was “washing” the universe, anything exposed to its effects would be erased.

            Peter mind was actively connected to the machine’s mainframe just like everyone else’s in this room. His body had received every physical improvement available in Kasdeon’s arsenal. The deciding factor here would be speed. Already, a man was pulling a weapon from the air and aiming it.

            A woman fired. A person’s head exploded in slow motion.

            Who is friend? Who is foe? His mind rapidly crunched through calculations. What should he do with the one weapon given to him?

            Peter’s roving eye looked straight down a gun barrel.

            Peter pointed, the gun disappeared. Light streamed in from a hole in the roof.

            Peter forced himself to look around. A man was pointing directly at the person whose gun Peter had destroyed.

            Was that a man or woman? He thought. Battle stress. Is the man a friend? I’m not ready to make this decision. He followed the complex web. The person…a woman, who had tried to fire at him was being aimed at by a couple of others. Those would be the rebellion. Where had all the guns come from? Those two had others aiming at them, and those…some were aiming at each other…he watched as a supposed rebel turned his eyes towards another rebel. His gun starting swinging in that direction…

            Double agents. Peter glanced at Keijay. His attention was focused on fighting the man beside him.

            Peter suddenly felt the spike of cyber attacks being let loose in a flurry. His grip on the machine’s processing power loosened and the world sped up around him. There wasn’t time to tell friend from foe.

            A woman disappeared. Erased. A badly aimed shot tore through the electronics of stations, throwing debris into the air. Light flashed from sparks. Guns fired. Peter threw up an arm and shielded himself with a ray from the machine. The laser round dissipated before his eyes.

            He threw himself to the ground as his station exploded with the rapid-fire rounds of a plasma rifle. Screams. His own?

            He launched himself from his belly, his old instincts taking ahold. His mind frantically fought for control of his portion of the mainframe. He ran, ducking below the meagre cover of the stations. He watched as a man’s mind was hacked and he turned his weapon on his allies.

            Plasma struck machines and men sending gouts of molten metal and evaporating flesh into the air.

            Enemies were becoming allies and allies enemies faster than Peter could keep track.

            Those who wish to destroy your family are your enemy. Those who wish to play god are your enemy. Enemy. Enemy. Enemies.

            He ran into someone, he didn’t look. He struck out at them with his only weapon. A ray of light replaced where they were a moment before.

            He shrouded himself with his weapon and a ray of light followed him where he ran. Plasma and laser fire dissipated harmlessly against his makeshift shield.

            A ray of light appeared at one end of the room and swept towards him. It chewed through the building like a hot knife. It cut people in two and left nothing but a hand of another leaving a chasm as deep as the core of the planet.

            Peter held up his hand as he leapt aside. The beam slipped by unimpeded by his effort to control it. In the next moment he was rocked by an explosion and his face was scalded by the heat of flames spewing from the chasm.

            This is madness. They’re all my enemy.

            He raised his hand, then swept it across the room. The roof was torn away in a moment revealing clear sky. The entire room was leveled to a bare metal floor. The hands that had tried to grasp his mind disappeared. The flashes of gunfire, the glowing fires, the noise, all disappeared. For a moment, the sun was still in the sky. Then, its light was whisked away along with the clouds and the blue of the sky.

            Something landed with a thoom on the floor behind him. Peter turned.

            Keijay stood before him, the lights in the walls of the massive room dimly lit his form. He held his hand raised with its palm facing Peter.

            Above them was an eerily empty blackness.

            Moments passed, stars began to blink into existence.

            Peter trembled as he stood up. He tried to speak, but he found he was breathing hard.

            “What will you choose?” Keijay’s stern eyes burned into Peter.

            “I can’t accept either.” Peter gasped. The field he kept around himself wouldn’t stop another person wielding the same power. More stars blinked into existence. However, that power had a limit.

            Was the machine meant to be? The savior from the Cataclysm Bomb? What if the machine only bred evil? He’d seen what he had done with the knowledge and power it had given him. I ignore the first woman I ever loved because of the machine. I only came to hurt her. Then I cheated on her with other women in other times because they were the only ones I could share something new with. I’ve rejected all my friends. Even my family has come under my manipulation. The machine creates a false existence for them as we manipulate the world they live in. Yet, to murder uncountable souls!

            Keijay waited.

            Peter looked at Keijay’s dim form. “Tell me, what would you choose?”

            “Some of these people were like family to me.” Keijay said through clenched teeth. He lowered his hand. Its power useless now. “You killed every last one of them.” He pointed at Peter. “YOU choose!”

            Peter shook his head.

            “YOU! CHOOSE!”

            “Why?!” Peter yelled.

            The stars finished forming. The moon brightened into existence, bathing them in pale light.

            A tear streaked down Keijay’s cheek. “Nate and I were going to have a drink after this. You deserve to be responsible!”

            A display rose on the far wall. A warning was sent to their minds the same time it was splashed across the screen. It showed the known universe. A red sphere was swallowing the map. The Cataclysm Explosion.

            Peter gazed at the stars above him. He couldn’t see the explosion. It wasn’t something a person saw. The explosion would be upon them before they could notice any change.

The blackness around the stars seemed to swallow their light. They looked so fragile. Like they might be snuffed out forever if one simply threw a blanket over them.

The red orb grew and neared them.

Peter sent a command with a thought. The orb froze in its motion. The stars stopped twinkling. The wisps of clouds froze in their movement across the face of the moon.

Keijay looked from the display to Peter.

Peter shook his head. “I’m not going to choose.”

Only Peter and Keijay moved in all the known universe.