TIMEEMIT

This story appeared in persoplus -09. Thanks to sam rueben(hope i spelled it right!) for bringing this in paper!

Munich, Germany

Now.

“Good Morning, Chris”

The spectacled white-haired man in T-shirt and brown shorts saluted him enthusiastically.

“Good morning, Professor Kauffman”. Both of them chuckled.

Kaufmann drew chair from nearby table and Christopher Vijay sat on it.

Chris VJ, as his mates call him, is third and youngest son of Indian father and German mother. He inherited much of his father’s appearance. The twenty year old felt uncomfortable from the sudden invitation by this eccentric professor.

“So what’s the purpose of calling a history student to your science lab”, Vijay tapped his wristwatch, “that too so early at 6.00 AM”.

Professor Ariel Kauffman signed Vijay to follow him and hurried to the basement. Vijay doubled his steps beside him.

Professor stood before a table and gripped a cloth which covered something.

“And I take pride to present to world...Oops! To you, the TIMEEMIT”.

And in table was uncovered four-feet machine with translucent loop at its top and small display with keypad at its side. Vijay circled around the machine while Kauffmann cleared his throat.

“So, after twenty years of hard-research on photon reversal, is born my brainchild, TIMEEMIT.Hmmm, Let me start from the beginning.Well, speed of light is 3*10power8 meter/sec.So,if a photon from here reached 3 lakhs kilometer, then its one second. So forward motion of light which is universal is the seconds ticking.Yet, there is no reversal of light, that is, light starts from object to its source.isnt it?”

Vijay nodded in agreement.

“So, I reversed it. When light on travelling 3 lakhs kilometers per second advances earth clock by 1 second, it on reversal should retard earth clock by 1 second and thereby neutralizing it. And a second has not occurred. Confused?”

“Yes”.

“Hmmm, take this view. You are in room and see man behind glasses in another room. As long as light is in forward motion, from a wall light to his body, which absorbs certain part of spectra, you can see him moving. But if you reverse light from him back to the source, then light will not be absorbed by him which will show you his previous position even though he has moved. So you are in past while he is in future as long as light is reversed. “

“Partly”

“Well, let me show you this.”

Kaufmann sounded excited. He took CD-ROM from his table locker and slid it into his pc. The ten minute video showed Kaufmann searching for rubber in his table while making sketches .It was table where TIMEEMIT stood now.

”That was me 2 weeks back. Now I place this rubber on the machine and”. He sealed shut the box and keyed in something on keypad. There was whirring of circuits and flash appeared on loop.

“Abracadabra!!Here comes the rubber.”Kaufmann stopped and played the video again. And on the 6^th minute, a rubber appeared from nowhere while Kauffman was absorbed in sketches. He grinned at the camera holding the rubber he had searched for.”Well, I can’t bring back the rubber unless I send machine to that point. I can send those automated TIMEEMIT from that big one to the destination which will return within an hour from your start.”

The wall to which Kaufmann pointed showed six feet copy of the machine on table and three 4-feet TIMEEMITs besides it.

Kaufmann walked over to coffee machine and came with cup of coffee. Chris finished the cup in a gulp.

“Well,professor,If you reverse light at the same speed as it travels forward, then the rubber should have appeared on video two weeks hence, but..?

“But you should wait for me to share many astounding results. And on reversing light, I found peculiar character of its photons. The reversed photon travels whooping speed of 10800 lakhs km/s. And the photons can be deflected at that speed and it also bonds with other ions while still maintaining such speed. That means the reversed light can cover the distance in one second which the forward light takes a hour to cover.”

“Wait, but the theory of relativity says..”

“Forget it! We aren’t speaking about ordinary light Chris VJ.We are speaking about special reversed light. Now the object placed inside this box is excited by multiple lightning strikes created inside. It completely breaks the ions of object and those ions bonds with the photons of the lightning. This light is reversed by Photon Reversor, another invention. Now these reversed photons are led to the loop which is coated with photon limiter cum deflector, yet another invention by me!!”

Vijay could recognize the childishness in the old professor as he described his inventions.

“So this deflector regulates photon-ions and keeps it in reversed motion. Now universe splits into two frames. One is frame inside loop where time goes backward and other is frame outside the loop where time goes forward. For every one second in our frame, the ions in loop go back one hour. We may not feel it as we see invisible thingy in loop, but your 8 days here is 80 years in the past for the ions in loop. And I have called you to go to that time in history.”

“Professor…Err...Here you refer to one who travels, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely not. You meant you. You are going to 1923”

“No”

“November 9, 8 minutes hence this time.”

“NO!!”

“You will be given Bavarian police identity “Ernst Sullivan” and you’re going to shoot Adolf Hitler and his companions.”

Professor’s voice seemed so cold to him that he thought he may hit him. But he felt weakened every second and as his eyes closed, he gripped a lever-like object  on table and fainted.

After fixing Vijay with police costume, Kaufmann shoveled him to box and sealed him inside. And punched 9.11.1923 on the keypad and the machine whirred to life.

“I know Chris, you won’t agree but I had to. The pills in your coffee worked.”

Kauffman sighed and opened the box which is empty.

 

Munich, Germany

85 years ago

Vijay awoke to shouts and orders. He rubbed his eyes and saw himself in some basement. He went up to the house and was shocked to see shoe shop but there was no Professor or single trace of lab there. His heart pounded as he crossed to the entrance of the deserted shop. The Munich now is not as he sees it daily. There were thousands of Bavarian policemen standing in files holding barricade at the front. And far ahead of the policemen, he saw tsunami of brown shirts marching towards him. He saw scattered newspapers and picked one up. In it was in bold letters, BEER HALL PUTSCH –A FAILURE in german that happened YESTERDAY. He dropped the paper shaking nervously.”That sonofabitch professor!”Chris Vijay gritted his teeth.

Just then a Bavarian policeman approached him and spoke in German which is in English as follows.

“Hey you neurotic freak! Fill in the front file”

“What?”

“Just shut up, hold this gun and get going to the front...Err...Sullivan”

‘Sullivan!’Vijay jumped back as he heard that name. He bent and saw himself in Bavarian police costume with name plate having ‘Ernst Sullivan’ etched on it.

He moved on to front line of the policemen and saw brown shirts approaching nearer to them. He could spot out Adolf Hitler, Ernst rohm, Goring, Himmler and WW1 veteran Ludendorff marching among them.

As they came very nearer, Hitler shouted in high pitch and policemen to the right of Vijay spread tear gas among the brown shirts. Vijay slipped out of police files and went to nearby street where he was confronted by two brown shirts with sticks. They flung their stick towards him. Panicked Vijay shot the both with his gun and they fell dead.

Trembling, he turned back to the crowd at the road. Just then Rohm has bullet at his body and Ulrich Gauf shielded Hitler from bullets of policemen. Hitler immediately was escorted to a car. The professor’s voice echoed in his mind and without thinking, (though he cheered inside at thought of changing history) Vijay shot aiming Hitler and bullet pierced his chest. And there fell a lifeless Hitler. Gripping the gun hard, he shot Himmler in head and Goring in neck and fled back to the shoe-shop without turning back. And he was relieved to see backup machine at its basement and without wasting a moment, he jumped into it .And the machine vibrated.

Munich, Germany

84 years, 364 days hence.

Vijay fell down on the floor and woke up to see staring eyes on him. He again gestured as though he slipped on floor. This avoided the attention on the TV showroom. He had nothing in mind except to hit the professor straight in his nose.

The Munich he saw now was entirely different or whether he felt like that, he can’t tell. He bought newspaper and the headlines read, 85TH DEATH ANNIVERSARY OF ‘MUNICH MARCH’ Revolutionary martyr Hitler”. Vijay chuckled and pedestrian nearby eyed him suspiciously.

Vijay threw away the newspaper and hurried to find Kaufmann’s lab. After hours of frantic searching, he went to municipal office. The clerk behind the table looked perplexed at hearing him.

“Sorry sir! But there is no Ariel Kauffmann alive here in munich. our computer database shows a dead Kaufmann, aaron.His whole family died in car mishap on outskirts of munich.And he had 3 year old son, ariel, who died along with them.Sorry!”

Shattered, vijay sat there on spot. And the world seemed to spin around him. He got up and ran to his residence but was shocked to see playground which would have been his lane. It was then he noticed that there are no mobile phones users or shops in town. And not a single internet café and no Japanese products. He could spot NSDAP offices here and there with swastika flags fluttering in cold night. There prevailed hatred for british and French among the people and there was no world war after the first one.

His origin India got its independence from british people on 1974 and also were Pakistan and Bangladesh. Yet british is in stronghold in most south Asian countries and the league of nations is still persuading them to grant independence to those nations. He heard rumble of thunder and looked up at the pinkish clouds. He churned a decision in his brain. It was then he felt something hard in his pants and saw tube which read “photon reverser” and inside its hollow was other processor which counted the years the photons travels to past.

And he rushed to nearby warehouse and purchased 5 feet box and a loop and keypad with wires. But the man at counter refused him his things as he showed euro. Still mark is the currency in Germany.

He saw the clock which showed ten.

“Shit! I have just ten hours to stop my past from shooting Hitler”.

He waited in hiding till shopkeeper closed the shop and he broke in .With the stolen items,he hurried to Munich center .Holding a lightning rod on top of building there; he waited for lightning to strike. And it striked thrice .The machine whirred on third strike and it blew up.

 

Munich again

85 years ago

Vijay rolled down asbestos roof of a jewellery store and hit the road and fainted. When he woke up on the daylight, he was lying in a bench and saw the same files of policemen. He noticed his past striking conversation with a Bavarian policeman. His past soon left the place to join the file. He tip toed to the parallel street and hid there waiting for his past to arrive there.

In a few seconds, his past rushed to the same spot and was confronted by two brown shirts. Vijay launched himself and stabbed one of the brown shirts. His past shot the other. And he was thrown back seeing Vijay.

“Er, you look like me?”

“Im you. From the future which occurred after you shoot Hitler”

“Will I shoot him”? His past laughed maniacally. It was when bullet shots rang and Hitler was approaching his car. As his past raised his gun, Vijay kicked him onto the head. And the bullet killed a policeman who was behind hitler.Vijay dived and  hid himself in nearby house as the other policemen mistook his past as Hitler’s supporter and bullets pierced his past’s body. And Hitler’s car sped past his hiding place.

‘Ufff, back now to the original world!’ Vijay sighed, and started running towards the shoe-shop basement. And jumped into the TIMEEMIT machine which his past would have used. And the machine whirred to life.

Munich

Now

Vijay hit hard floor and fainted. And felt instant chillness and opened his eyes. A worried Kauffman was spraying water in his face. He quickly grabbed his T-shirt and tried to suffocate him. The old man pleaded to leave him. In overcoming surge of anger, he hit him in nose. And paced the basement.

Kaufmann appeared with tissue cleaning his blood on nose.

 

“So Hitler not shot eh?”

“I’m going to shoot you, you filth! You bastard!”

“I’m your professor, chris”

“Fuck off!”

“Well, you’re alive, be cool!”

“Would have died, first tell me how you reconstruct the broken ions into my self”

“Answer me first, chris”

“You only have time to answer me and not question me...Just blurt out or get bruise there on face”.

Kaufmann turned away , “well, err…every ion always seeks bonding with other ions from which it is removed.So,separated ions gets bonded to same ions from which it got separated if the machine works well and present you your self form at past or future. But I still can’t find how it does it and how does you materialize in past?”

“You saved your life, mr.ariel!”

And Chris Vijay narrated all that happened to him to professor.

“so I’m dead by 1941”.Kaufmann whistled.

“May be today also, if your fuckin’ time machine hadn’t worked properly.”

“Hey, I thought I may have my parents back who were massacred by Hitler in babi yar holocaust. They were wealthy Jews and I would have lived different life; not this hard life where I literally begged for money till my forty’s. I was smuggled in coffin by German advocate to France way back in 1941.”

“But you will be not same Kauffman...You’re old and would be in past “

Hearing this, Ariel sobbed holding the windowpane. Vijay sighed and gripped professor’s arms.

“Sorry, professor! But you outraged me to such an extent. Leave it! You know, in every second the world changes. Every species in world influences every second, every minute and every hour. If we remove such participants of non-linear events from past, then there may not be such an event in history textbook now. I saw with my own eyes how the world will be when I shot hitler.No UN, no mobile phones. No technologies .Many advanced technologies and good things propped up after world war 2 and without hitler,there was no world war 2.May be removing Hitler from past may have saved millions of lives but they would have met their death as your parents had. Nature never sees good or bad; it just stops one’s life clock as his destined time is met. If there was no world was 2, then Britain would be in strong position in many Asian countries and it was ww2 which made them lose too many struggling countries. So Hitler should die as he is destined in 1945 for the good of humanity. World need all species to live; it never wishes to remove bad and make good people live longer. All it knows is one have to breathe his last as his time approaches .And time paradox is surely great blunder. Just destroy this damn machine, professor!”

Ariel took his hammer and smashed all his TIMEEMIT units murmuring “for the good! For the good!”

“As bagavad gita says ‘whatever happened, happens and will happen is for good’, professor”

Vijay removed smashed TIMEEMIT and threw it out of window and bade good-bye to professor.