Divergence - A sci-fi short story

Mark loved the exhilaration and rush playing handball gave him. Two athletes were locked in a room, running, jostling; the only noise was the echoing booms of the ball slamming against the walls. It was his serve and he was going to make his friend, Arnie, work for this one. He tossed the small rubber ball into the air and slapped it into the wall as hard as he could. “Damn!” He’d screwed up his serve, and now the ball was being delivered to Arnie like it was on a silver platter. But, to Mark’s surprise, it hit him in the arm and fell to the floor.

“What the hell was that, Arnie?” Arnie was standing motionless, looking at the clock that was visible through the Plexiglas window separating the handball court from the outer hall. “What’s the matter, man? You didn’t watch Schindler’s List again, did you?” Arnie just looked blankly at Mark. “Oh for Christ’s sake, you did. Arnie, you’ve got to stop obsessing about this. It happened over 50 years ago, and there’s nothing anybody can do to change it.”

Arnold Bauer’s grandparents, Wilhelm and Gretchen Bauer, were among several relatives killed at Auschwitz during World War II. Arnie’s father, who was just 7 when the infamous concentration camp was liberated, still bore the tattoo on his arm. Mark thought a lot of Arnie, but felt his obsession with the Holocaust bordered on psychotic. Mark had known Arnie since high school and was worried that his friend was wasting his life with this obsession. They were in their early 30’s, but Arnie had never married. Mark had been married for 8 years and had two boys, ages 3 and 6.

Mark Porter was a physicist with the Lauderman Research Institute (LRI). Arnie was also a physicist, working with the same organization. LRI was under contract with the U.S. Department of Defense. They had been science nerds in high school. When they were seniors they’d partnered on a project demonstrating the matrix required to measure dark matter around black holes. It got them noticed by MIT and, after receiving their PhDs, they both were scooped up by LRI before the ink on their doctorates was dry.

Mark was working on a project to develop micro technology for tiny fission rocket engines. Arnie was working on a very advanced project that had a very high security clearance. He couldn’t discuss it. Mark had an idea it had something to do with the recent discovery of minute, but measurable, time shifts around certain neutron stars. What he knew for sure was that his budget had been drastically cut because of it.

“I would think you’d have enough on your mind with the project you’ve got going.”

Arnie looked at Mark. “Why? What would you know about it.”

Mark looked back at his old friend, a little put off by his less-than-cordial attitude. “Nothing, man, but I know you guys are doing some pretty serious data modeling, if the time you’re spending tying up the mainframe is any indication.”

Arnie hung his head and sighed. “I’m sorry, Mark, you’re right. I don’t know why I do this to myself. It’s just that I feel so helpless about it. I can’t help thinking about what could have been. My grandfather was a brilliant physicist. Who knows what he could have done if he’d been allowed to live.”

Mark put his hand on Arnie’s shoulder. “I hear you, but what can you do? Just be the best you can be, and let that be their legacy.” The two men decided to call it a day, and showered before heading back to the residential quarters. The military had decided that, with the terrorist threat, it was best for the scientists to live at the complex.

Later that evening Mark’s wife turned in early, and he decided to go back to his lab for a little after-hours work. He wasn’t surprised by the sight of light shining through the frosted window obscuring any view of Arnie’s top-secret lab. Arnie was single and was known to burn the midnight oil fairly often. Mark knocked on the door. “That you in there tonight, Arnie?”

“Yeah, it’s me, but I’m kind of busy with something right now, I’ll catch you later.” And with that, Mark headed on into his own lab. He had barely got his modeling routine going when he heard a loud bang from the direction of Arnie’s lab. Mark ran out of his lab into the hall and knocked on Arnie’s door.

“Everything ok in there, Arnie?” There was silence at first, and then he heard some shuffling.

“It’s all right, Mark. I just knocked over a specimen rack.”

“Need any help?“ Arnie refused, reminding Mark he couldn’t allow him into the lab. Mark conceded and returned to his work.

As he worked on his computer modeling project, Mark could hear a lot of racket coming from Arnie’s lab. It sounded like he was building something in there. By 12:30 Mark was finishing up with a modeling run, and was contemplating heading back to his apartment, when a sound like rushing air caught his attention. It was coming from Arnie’s lab. Just as he was about to get up and investigate, the sound grew to a deafening roar and the room was filled with bright light. Mark felt himself rise out of his chair and then was flung violently against the wall. knocking him unconscious.

**************

The sound of the striker banging off the bells on the Big Ben alarm clock jolted Mark to consciousness. He felt confused as he forced himself to roll over and turn it off. What the… where was he? He was lying in bed. How did he get here? The last thing he remembered was being thrown against a wall, but he wasn’t hurt. He sat up and looked around, but it was not his bedroom. Just then his wife, Karen, walked in with an armload of clean laundry. “Well good morning, sleepyhead. I was beginning to think you were going to sleep all day.” And before Mark could open his mouth she rushed out.

He was more confused now. Why was she wearing a dress? Karen never wore dresses. He looked over at his nightstand. There was a radio there that looked fairly modern in design, but was huge. He reached over and turned it on, but nothing happened. Then he noticed a growing red glow through the ventilation slits. There were radio tubes inside! Then the music faded in. What the hell was going on?

He got up and looked out his window. He quickly realized he was in a house in a suburban neighborhood, not his apartment at the research complex. He then ran into the hallway and into the living room. There he found Karen standing at an ironing board. He looked around. Zeroing in on the TV, he noticed that it, like the radio in his bedroom, was modern-looking but much larger than it should be. He went over and clicked it on. As with the radio, nothing happened at first.

“What’s wrong with the TV, Karen?”

She cocked her head in confusion. “Well, it has to warm up, silly.”

Just then Mark saw the picture fade in, and the sound as well. It was a news report announcing that the president was arriving back from his trip to the World Governance Conference in Berlin. As the anchorman continued his report, film footage of the president’s plane taxiing up to the gate was being run. Mark blinked his eyes and then rubbed them in disbelief. It was definitely Air Force One, but it was a propeller aircraft. It was large and very modern in its design, but there was no way to mistake propellers for jet engines.

Now it was sinking in. Something was horribly wrong, and Mark had no idea why. He decided not to question Karen because it was obvious none of this was strange to her. Mark ran over the last 24 hours in his mind. The last thing he remembered was sitting at his desk in his lab. There was a light, and then he remembered being tossed in the air, and then nothing. What was going on right before that? Arnie… Arnie was working on something, and he was making a lot of racket. Mark wondered what it was Arnie was doing. He remembered that he had been working on the time shifts they had discovered near neutron stars. Mark deduced that it must have been something Arnie was working on. Mark was worried he might freak Karen out but he had to take a chance.

“Karen, do you remember me ever talking about a guy named Arnie Bauer?”

“No, that name doesn’t ring a bell, Sweetheart. Who is he?”

“Oh, just a guy I went to college with.”

Karen looked at her husband as if he were from Mars. “College? When did you ever go to college? You were a sergeant in the army when I met you. You better get ready for work; Buddy will be here any minute.”

Mark knew he was in a precarious spot. If he let Karen in on what he was thinking, she might panic and he might find himself locked up somewhere. No, he’d have to go along and try and figure out what was happening for himself. Just as Karen predicted, a man pulled up into the driveway and honked his horn. Mark had gone into his bedroom, found the gray uniforms of a city sanitation department worker hanging there, and put one on. It felt a little strange hopping into a car with a guy he had never laid eyes on before, but who nevertheless believed himself to be Mark’s best friend.

Buddy’s car had a fairly modern design, but the oversized AM radio and the obvious lack of any micro or computer circuitry couldn’t be missed. It was weird watching Buddy pat the accelerator a couple of times before cranking the key to start it. Mark had a hard time imagining how he could be satisfied with a profession like this as they pulled into the yard full of garbage trucks. Then he found out. As they pulled into a parking slot, Buddy commented how he should have just shot himself when he received his career assignment back in high school.

Mark quickly realized things were a lot more screwed up than he’d thought. He spent the next 8 hours riding the back of a stinking garbage truck emptying garbage cans into the thing. At the end of the day Mark was thinking he had to figure out how to set things straight, if for no other reason than never to have to do that job again. After showering and changing, he headed for a library he’d seen earlier in the day. After a few minutes of searching he found what he was looking for. After finding a book on 20^th century history Mark sat down tentatively, just a little apprehensive about what he was about to learn.

From 1900 until late 1924 everything was just as Mark had remembered. But then things changed, beginning with a small item, barely a footnote in the text. The leader of an obscure political party in Germany, known as the Nazi party, had made a failed attempt to overthrow the democratic government in early 1924. He had been arrested and, after being convicted, served 9 months in prison. On Christmas Eve 1924, just days after being released from prison, the man was shot and killed. The unknown gunman was never caught. The name of the murdered leader was Adolph Hitler.

It had to have been Arnie, Mark thought. Somehow the discoveries his team had made allowed him to travel back in time and carry out his fantasy of stopping Hitler from carrying out the Holocaust against the Jews.

The resulting divergence in the time line ended in disaster for Arnie’s relatives, and had given birth to a confusing modern world free of poverty and war. But the price paid was a technologically stagnant world blindly doomed to extinction.

Hitler’s death had left the vacuum of desired social change in Germany. With the Nazis out of the picture, the Communists rushed to fill the void. By 1930 the newly elected communist government of Germany was signing the Berlin Accord with Joseph Stalin, forever binding Germany as a member of the Soviet Union. As the economic depression of the 1930’s dragged on, other European countries joined the movement. With so many countries joining the Soviets, communism began to prosper and the people of those countries were experiencing the benefits. Construction projects made housing readily available and food was becoming more plentiful. By the mid 1940’s, Asia, Africa, and most of South America had joined the Soviet Union.

The only holdouts were the commonwealth of Great Britain, the United States, Mexico, and Argentina. And things were not going well in those countries. In the 1932 election Hoover was using the fall of Germany to Communism as a cautionary tale, warning that the same would result from the reforms Roosevelt was proposing. The strategy worked and he defeated Roosevelt by a narrow margin. The defeat was devastating to Roosevelt, and he died a year later from pneumonia.

Without the leadership of Roosevelt the U.S. fell even deeper into economic ruin. With Great Britain, Mexico, and Argentina as its only trading partners, the United States, and the other holdouts, sank into third-world status. By the early 1940’s the unemployment rate in the holdout nations was above 60%. Cities looked like the slums in the Mexico City and Hong Kong that Mark remembered. The rest of the world was racing past them. Even remote towns in countries like Uganda and Pakistan saw the paved and sidewalked suburban neighborhoods Mark equated with Middle America long before The United States of this time divergence had.

Finally, in 1945, the people of these holdout nations could take no more, and forced their governments to relent and join the Soviet Union. The entire planet ended up under communist rule. But it was what happened to the Jews that was an even bigger shock to Mark.

As a show of celebration, the world communist council voted to establish a Jewish district in Palestine as a show of fairness. Since everything was done by mandate the Jews had no choice, and within 3 years had all been relocated to the new Israel. The move was followed by a catastrophe of Biblical proportions. In May of 1948, three hundred thousand soldiers from six different Arab provinces slipped into the new Israel under cover of darkness. By morning they had slaughtered over three million Jews. Among the names of the victims were those of Arnie’s grandparents. Mark wondered if Arnie knew this, and what his reaction might have been. Retaliation for what was dubbed the “most heinous act in human history” was swift and violent. The Arab states paid for their aggression with three decades of martial law. But by the 1970’s, living conditions worldwide had improved so dramatically that few could remember what all the hubbub was about. By 1980, martial law was suspended and the world was completely at peace.

As Mark read on, he saw that the communists had been right about one thing. With the whole world living under communism, there was enough for everyone to have plenty. By the year 2004 things like war, hunger, and homelessness were unheard-of. But despite the lack of direct acknowledgement of it in the history books, the capitalists had been right about something else. Despite what was good about this time divergence, technological advancement had slowed to a point of nearly stalling. So far the only changes Mark could see in the technology from 50 years ago was aesthetic. They did have computers, but they were still huge refrigerator-sized boxes with giant magnetic tape reels on the front, taking up whole warehouses.

And, with no World War II to drive it, no leap forward in atomic research was needed. Rocket technology was never given the kind of funding it needed to allow it to achieve fruition before being abandoned as “impossible.” Without the leaps forward these two sciences contributed, this world had become an anachronism. When he read about two items in recent history, the stalled advancements in another science gave Mark more cause for concern: the science of medicine. From what Mark could gather from the history book, doctors were still diagnosing and treating their patients pretty much as they had been in 1940. One of the articles was about an African doctor who had discovered, in a small monkey, a virus he called HIV. A year later, the doctor died of a mysterious illness which had completely destroyed his immune system. Another article was about a deadly bacterium, called Ebola, which had nearly wiped out a small village in central Africa. But the conclusion seemed to be that these “rare” events were restricted to Africa, and were so isolated that even the Africans need not be concerned. It was nothing but party propaganda, Mark thought to himself. These people were facing a world wide AIDS and Ebola epidemic. And with medical science as far behind as it was, Mark could foresee a huge segment of the human population being lost.

With a pretty good idea of what this divergent world was about, Mark set out to see if he could find out what had happened to Arnie. He was convinced it had to have been Arnie who had gone back and killed Hitler. And the history book said that the assailant was never found. Did he have the ability to travel back to this time?, Mark wondered.

Without computers, much less the Internet, Mark would have to resort to some pretty old-fashioned ways of looking for a person. He started with the phone book. In a city the size of New York he found 18 Arnold Bauers. He systematically called them all, and not one of them had an idea who he was. Then Mark had an idea. After about 3 dozen phone calls, and a couple of days of driving around, he found him. It was what Mark feared most. Arnie was at the Shady Grove Cemetery in Montana. He had died at the age of 82, in 1976. But Mark also found that Arnie had married and had a son he named Joel. He was now a man in his late 50’s, living in a remote cabin about 40 miles from Kalispell, Montana, and working as a logger.

But Mark had a problem. Living under communism meant he wasn’t free to go anywhere without good reason. And his reasons were not something he could afford to talk about. His only option was to request his annual holiday be at Glacier National Park for camping. Luckily, camping was not very popular and he easily got on that year’s list. But he still would have to wait 5 months before he was scheduled for his two-week holiday. And he would have to listen to Karen complain about his decision to go camping.

It took a while’ but Mark finally started to become more comfortable with the new Karen, as he would refer to her to himself. She was quite different from what he had become accustomed to with the old Karen. The hardest part was getting used to living in a world that seemed like a gigantic museum. He had to keep diligent about keeping his mouth shut regarding things that, for these people, didn’t exist. But he longed for those things he had taken for granted. It wasn’t just the convenience of the technology; it was its connection to his culture and his sense of himself. Now it was all gone and the memory of it was beginning to fade, making Mark feel like he was losing himself.

The day finally arrived, and Mark’s friend Buddy gave them a ride to the train station. Airlines were reserved for the military and party leaders. The train ride took 5 days. Luckily travel time was not counted as part of his 2 weeks. It was a strange concept for Mark. No tickets were needed for the train, you just showed up when scheduled. At meal time you just went to the dining car and ate. And there were no checks, you just got up and left. It was like the whole world was a summer camp. After 2 days at their “designated” camp ground, Mark was wondering if he’d ever get a chance to try and contact Arnie’s son. It seemed every minute of their “holiday” was scheduled out for them. There were mandatory trail hikes and historical lectures, and if you didn’t eat with the group, you didn’t eat.

After dinner on the second evening the director announced that the next day would be a personal day, and the campers would be free to explore the area unsupervised. It was the chance Mark had been waiting for. He’d already worked out directions to Joel’s cabin, and he set out right after breakfast. From the camp it was a 12-mile hike cross country. Mark was nervous as he approached the remarkably well-kept cabin. It was a lot larger than Mark imagined it would be, too. Mark’s mind was whirling. What would he say? What if Arnie never told his son anything? Mark was standing at the door, still trying to figure out how to approach the situation, when he was startled by a man suddenly opening it.

“Hello, can I help you?” Joel was taller than his father but had the same dark curly hair, and his eyes were so similar it was almost spooky.

“Hi. My name is Mark Porter, and I’m an old friend of your father’s.” Joel raised his eyebrow at the stranger at his door.

“I hardly think so. My father has been dead since before you were born, young man. How could you know him?”

“That depends on how much he told you about himself.” With that, Joel looked intently at Mark.

“What do you mean by that, Mr. Porter?” It was pretty obvious to Mark that he had triggered a reaction. Perhaps Joel knew the truth. Suddenly the other man’s demeanor changed to one of annoyance.

“I think maybe you should just mind your own business. I don’t have anything to say, so I think you had better go now.” And Joel began closing his door.

“You know the truth don’t you?” Mark was very insistent as he placed his hand against the door.

“I don’t know anything! You just need to go.” He tried to muscle the door closed, but Mark pushed back even harder.

“Well, I’m betting you do. Like I’ll bet you know that your father actually traveled back in time from the year 2004 and killed Adolph Hitler, causing a major divergence in the time line.” Joel let loose of his door and just stood looking at Mark with a dazed and confused expression.

“How the hell do you know about that?” Mark was relieved that Joel had been told about who his father really was.

“I was working in the lab next to his. I must have been caught up in whatever it was he did to travel back in time. I really can’t explain it, but I woke up the next morning in this divergent reality, but with my memory of that other time line intact.”

Joel invited Mark into his cabin and told him to follow. He led him into a small but neat kitchen, and pushed the table from the middle of the floor to one wall. Then he removed the rope rug that was under the table. At first Mark was confused, because there were only the wooden floor planks underneath. But Arnie reached up inside one of his cupboards and suddenly Mark could hear the sound of a small electric motor. He watched as a segment of the floor about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long lowered about 4 inches and then slid to the side, revealing a stairway. Mark looked at Joel and asked what was down there. Joel said it would be easier to show him. Mark made his way down the steps into a basement room that turned out to be a lot larger than the cabin that stood above it. The ceiling was nearly 20 feet high. At the center of the room was a machine Mark recognized as a small reactor, similar to the one used in Philadelphia back in 1943 during the Manhattan Project. The difference was that it was wrapped in a metallic box with one side funneled.

“Pop was only about half finished when he died. I’ve spent the last 28 years finishing it.” Joel went on describing how. At first, he and his father had worked scavenging materials suitable for the reactor. Mark asked what the metallic box with the funnel was for. Joel explained that its purpose was to focus the explosion.

“Explosion? I think you should explain how this thing works.”

“My father stumbled onto the idea while studying the phenomena of red shifts around neutron stars. He had found these minute shifts in time were the result of the collapse of the star itself as it approached the point of collapsing into a black hole. As the star approached the point of quantum singularity a side effect was these rifts, or tears in the space-time continuum. After recording several thousand of these rifts he began an analysis of their behaviors. He found that not only were they predictable, but they also revealed a duality that could be measured. In other words, these quantum dualities were actually the openings of wormholes that connected two different places and times. He then tested the calculations and found that, by focusing the resulting explosion of a nuclear reactor meltdown into an infinite point, he could create an artificial quantum duality.”

Mark was amazed as he listened to his friend’s son explain the process. “I suppose it sounds logical, but how did he manage to travel through the hole? And how did he control where the other end of the worm hole would be?”

“I’m afraid that the answer to that is not very scientific. As you know, my father was very interested in the connection between the universe and the human mind. He concluded that the only force that could focus the energy of the quantum duality was the power of thought.”

Mark was having a hard time accepting what Joel was telling him. But there they were; Arnie had been right. “So despite the explosion destroying everything for a radius of a couple of miles, Arnie must have been sucked through the wormhole, ending up in 1924. And somehow the scrambling of space and time, combined with my close proximity to the event, must be why my memories of the other end of that worm hole made the trip as well, but to the year 2004.”

Joel put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and asked if he wanted to go back upstairs for a cup of coffee. Mark agreed, and the two went back up to the cabin. Joel dutifully closed the door to the secret laboratory and replaced the rug and table. As he began preparing a pot of coffee Mark spoke.

“Was your father’s plan to travel back and fix this mess he made?” Joel looked at Mark with confusion on his face.

“What are you talking about? This world is a far better place than the one you remember. No, what he intended was to travel back to 2004 and resume his life, but it took so long to find the materials to build this thing that he grew too old for that. So I came up with a plan to go back to 1924 with knowledge of where to find the materials and help him build a new time machine and send him back to 2004.”

Mark looked intently at Joel “You realize that would end your existence, don’t you?”

“No it won’t. I’ll just be born 78 years later. And then we can all live happily ever after.” Mark hung his head in frustration. Joel, sensing Mark’s displeasure with what he was saying, asked him why he seemed so frustrated.

“Look around you, Joel. Doesn’t it bother you that the state chose your profession? I know I do. In that other time line I was a respected scientist, but now I’m a garbage man.”

“Yes, but there is no war, no starving or homeless people. From what my father told me, you can’t say that about your timeline, Mark.”

“That may be true, but this place is stagnant, Joel. There is no freedom for individuals to explore their potential. And I’ve found that some of the same illnesses that plagued my timeline are about to spread through the world’s population in this timeline, with one fatal difference. With the lack of medical advancements, the doctors of this timeline will not be able to do anything to stop them.”

The look on Joel’s face had changed to one of great concern and alarm. “What do you mean, fatal?”

“I mean these diseases are terminal, and without those advances they will undoubtedly wipe out most, if not all, of the population. Do you understand now?”

Joel sat quietly for several moments. “I have to go back and stop him, don’t I? But it really doesn’t matter, because I can’t find any cadmium.”

Mark quickly realized what he was talking about. Without cadmium he couldn’t construct the control rods for the reactor. “With all the silver and gold mines around this area, there should be quite a bit of zinc being processed.”

“You’re right, but the resulting cadmium still needs to be refined into a metallic form before we can use it.”

Mark thought for a moment. “When I was riding on the train I’m sure I saw a railroad wrecking yard near Helena.”

Joel shook his head. “Yeah I know the place. So what? How is that going to help us?”

“Because each of those retired box cars has wheels, and wheels have bearings.” Joel was still confused. “That’s why I used to tell your dad to pay attention to more than our little world of science. Cadmium is one of the alloys used in bearing construction. We’ll weld the bearings into rods and use them as control rods.”

“We’ll have to figure out an excuse for wanting the bearings.” Mark suggested he claim he wanted to build a small mill for his wood cutting, and that he needed the used bearings for the project. The problem was that Mark only had a little over a week before he would have to leave. The two concluded that Mark would have to hide out in the lab while they finished the reactor.

It took Joel nearly three weeks to get permission to take the salvaged bearings from the wrecking yard. In the meantime Mark worked nearly 24 hours a day, calculating how many rods would be needed to adequately control the reactor. Because of the makeup of the bearings, they would need quadruple the normal number of rods to do the job.

After fashioning the bearings into useable rods, Mark and Joel made several tests and concluded the reactor was ready. Joel looked at the completed reactor and sighed. He walked over to a metal cabinet, opened the door, and pulled out a small box about 4 inches cubed.

“What’s that?” Mark asked.

“This is the key to the whole thing.” Joel pulled an object wrapped in tissue paper out of the box and unwrapped it. It was a small cone shaped metallic object. “It’s the focal point for the funnel.” Earlier Joel had explained that the metal box and funnel that had been built around the reactor was rigged up to be charged with an electromagnetic field to contain as much of the energy of the explosion as possible. The focal point was built to attach to the end of the funnel. Inside the focal point was a series of highly polished, curved baffles designed to direct the energy of the blast into an infinite point, resulting in the quantum duality. Joel instructed Mark on the best way to focus their minds on the desired time and place they wished to go.

Joel attached the focal point to the funnel and both men stood as close to the focal point as possible. Using a remote control pad, Joel activated the control rod retractors. Mark stood fast, using all the self control he could muster to keep from running away while concentrating his focus on 1924 Germany. In just a few seconds the reactor began to emit a low rumble that grew in volume. The earth under their feet began to vibrate, then there was a loud boom, and all was white. Mark felt a strange electrical buzz over his entire body and then all went black.

***************

The squeaks and whistles grew louder and louder until Mark’s eyes snapped open. He was lying on his back. The first thing he saw was the clear cold sky of a German winter’s day. The squeaks and whistles turned out to be the sound of sparrows sounding warning cries in response to the sudden appearance of Joel and Mark on the ground near their nesting tree.

Rising to a sitting position, Mark looked over and saw Joel lying nearby, still unconscious. He shook his friend awake. Looking around, they agreed they were in Germany. But when?

Just then they noticed a delivery truck coming up a nearby road. As it approached it was clear it was a vintage, early-1920’s model truck. Joel had studied the local language during their preparations. He ran to stop the truck driver and ask for directions to the prison that held Adolph Hitler. After a few minutes, Joel returned to where Mark was standing and informed him the prison was only 12 miles away. The truck driver had had a newspaper on his seat, with the date showing as Dec. 10, 1924.

Joel told him he already knew where he would be. Arnie had told his son every detail of what transpired in those critical days leading up to him shooting Hitler. Arnie had taken some gold with him to trade for currency. While waiting for Hitler to be released, he had rented a boarding-house room from a local widow woman named Gertrude Fink, and purchased a .45 caliber pistol for the task. Armed with that information, the two set out to locate the house, and Arnie.

Joel and Mark walked to the town that was near the prison that held Hitler and after a couple of inquiries located Mrs. Fink’s boarding house. As they approached the front steps the door opened and Mark’s old friend came walking out. After pulling the door closed the elder Bauer looked up and upon seeing Mark standing there with a stranger dropped the bag he was holding and stood motionless and speechless.

“Hello Arnie,” Mark said matter of factly.

“Mark, what the hell are you doing here?”

Mark looked intently at his old friend “I think I should be asking you the same thing, old buddy. But to answer your question, I’m not really sure. I was working in my lab when you activated your time machine. I suppose I got caught in some kind of wake in the space/time continuum. All I know for sure was that when I regained consciousness I found myself in a divergence in the time line, but all my memories were of the original time line where you and I are scientists. But if I’d known what you were up to, and knew what I know now, you can be sure I would have stopped you.”

“What are you saying Mark, that stopping Hitler from murdering my family is wrong? Because if that’s what you’re saying, then you can just save your breath.”

“No, Arnie, that’s not what I’m saying. I’ve come from the future you created, a future that is a lot different from the one you came from. But what you don’t know is that you might change the way people live, but you can’t change how people think.” Arnie was looking at Mark with great intensity on his face. Mark knew that what he was about to tell his friend was going to crush him. “Arnie, it didn’t work. Yes, it’s true you stopped Hitler from killing them. But that just delayed the inevitable by four years.” Mark went on to explain how the new timeline evolved and how events led to the murder of his family by Arab extremists. Arnie seemed to doubt what Mark was telling him when Joel chimed in.

“He’s telling the truth, Dad. And that’s not the worst part.” Arnie looked at the stranger curiously.

“Who are you? You seem very familiar, but I’m sure I’ve never met you.” It hadn’t occurred to Mark and Joel that this Arnie didn’t know anything about Joel. Mark looked at Joel with an expression of realization.

“That’s right, you don’t know about Joel.” As Arnie’s jaw dropped in disbelief Mark explained that the future, as it stood, would not unfold as he had planned. That his plan to build a second time machine and return to 2004 would be thwarted by a lack of the required materials and that he would end up dying of old age in this time. And that his son had decided to finish the time machine so he could help his father fulfill his original plan.

Arnie was looking at his prodigy and asked. “So what’s the worst part?” Joel looked back at his father and then at Mark. Taking the cue, Mark started.

“In the divergent 2004, illnesses like AIDS, and Ebola and others are beginning to appear. Because science and technology advancement has become stagnant, mankind is defenseless.” Arnie sat down on the steps of the boarding house and hung his head.

“What have I done, Mark? It’s all screwed up now, and it’s my fault. Not only did I fail to save my grandparents, but I’ve set mankind up for extinction. How could I be so arrogant?”

“I tried telling you that obsessing about your grandparents would drive you crazy. And now here we are.” Joel began to protest Mark’s comments and told him to take it easy on his father. Mark puffed up and angrily replied. “To hell with that! Damn it Arnie, I’m serious man. Who the hell do you think you are? I was a prominent scientist, and now I’m a garbage man. Not to mention you’ve caused the probable end of our species.”

Joel began to protest Mark’s treatment of his father in earnest, but his father stopped him. “I deserve it,” he observed.

With that, Mark threw his arms into the air and turned and walked a few feet away, gazing blankly into space. Joel looked at his father and then turned to Mark.

“Why are you so angry, Mark? We made it, didn’t we? Hitler will live, and the world will resume its original course in time, right?”

“That’s true, but what about us?” Mark interrupted. He turned back towards Arnie and his son. “Your dad spent his whole life trying to get back and died years before the time machine was ready.” Mark’s mind shifted gears just then. “Wait a minute.” Mark turned to Arnie. “You are convinced that Hitler should be allowed to live, aren’t you?”

Arnie looked back at his friend. “Yes. With what I know now, of course I am.” And then realization swept his expression. “You two shouldn’t be here.”

“No, we shouldn’t,” Mark added. “And I think I may know why.” Joel was sitting up now, beaming with curiosity. “I’m thinking that our act of stopping Arnie doesn’t prevent him from his act of traveling back and carrying out his original plan, which prompts me to find Joel and so on and so on in an endless loop.”

Arnie looked up at Mark. “My God, how will we ever be able to stop it?” Mark thought for a few moments.

“The fact that Joel and I are still here proves that Arnie did kill Hitler, so despite what this Arnie believes at this moment. The moment after Hitler’s life resumes as it did, the original timeline loops back on itself. THAT’S IT!” Mark yelled, slightly startling Arnie and Joel.

“What’s it?” Arnie asked exasperated.

“Don’t you see, only the original timeline is looping. The divergent timeline keeps going; I know this because Joel and I were there.”

Arnie and Joel looked at each other and then back at Mark, and Arnie spoke. “I suppose I’d have to agree with you, but how does that help us?”

“We cause a new divergence in the timeline.” This caused Arnie and Joel’s faces to wash over with confusion and concern. “If we can stop Arnie from killing Hitler in this timeline, it should cause another paradox, forcing this timeline into a loop and creating a second divergence. A third timeline where Hitler lives and our lives return to the way they were in the original timeline.”

“Yeah, but what’s to stop my father from developing the same obsession and repeating the whole thing in the new divergence?”

Mark looked at Arnie. “Is it possible to use our mental focus to create a quantum duality between the divergent timelines?”

Arnie knew what Mark was thinking. “I really don’t know, Mark.”

“Because Joel is right. The only realistic option, as I see it, would be to go to the original timeline and stop Arnie from ever traveling back in the first place.”

The three of them agreed, and set out to build a new time machine and make an attempt to use it to jump from one timeline to another. They decided to relocate to the United States, agreeing that the remoteness of northwestern Montana would suit their need for privacy as it had for Joel when he had completed the second time machine.

It was Joel who came up with the idea of going into the wrecking yard business as a front for their project. It made it easy to hide the materials they were slowly collecting among the piles of junked cars, boilers, rail cars, and other miscellaneous items.

Mark found it a little annoying that he had to repeatedly explain to Joel that the reason nothing seemed to happen when the moment Arnie had killed Hitler had come and gone without Arnie killing him, was because they now existed in a third timeline. But, as Joel himself had pointed out, that would most likely end with the new Arnie repeating his original divergence, which could result in the creation of endless timelines, each looping back as a new one was created. Mark was convinced such an occurrence could result in the breakdown of existence itself.

It took them 12 years of scavenging to finally complete the third time machine. Arnie tried to argue that he should go alone since they knew so little and the risk was so great. But Mark convinced him that since failure would most likely result in the destruction of the universe, all three of them should go. After all, three chances of stopping Arnie number one are better than just one.

After finishing with final preparations, the three decided to take a break and go into town for a celebratory dinner before making the fateful attempt. After finishing dinner they were riding in their old pickup back to the wrecking yard. As they topped a hill that gave a full view of the wrecking yard, about a half mile away, all three were aghast to see several dozen large military vehicles along with double that number of assorted state police vehicles.

Mark quickly pulled onto a side road and away from their wrecking yard. But they didn’t get far. After only a couple of minutes they nearly crashed into an army vehicle with three MP’s on board as they rounded a blind curve. Mark jerked the wheel to avoid the military vehicle and dropped the front left wheel off the embankment. The road they were on was on the side of a fairly steep hill. If the pickup had gone completely off the road, all three of them would have surely been killed. In the meantime the near miss had forced the Army vehicle into the ditch on the other side of the dirt road, tossing one of the MP’s over the hood and into the ditch.

While the MP’s were shaking off the daze of the impact, Mark, Arnie and Joel hastily climbed out of the pickup and started running down the slope. About 20 yards down the slope Arnie turned his ankle and fell sprawled out on the slope in a clearing about 30 yards wide. Already ahead of him, Mark and Joel hadn’t noticed him fall and had covered the 15 or so yards to the edge of the trees before they did. They had paused at the edge of the trees to look back when they saw Arnie on the ground and 2 MP’s appear at the edge of the road.

“RUN, DAD, RUN!” Joel yelled to his father. But every time Arnie put any weight on his obviously broken ankle he would go down again. Just then the MP’s started firing their weapons and Mark and Joel could see puffs of dust being kicked up all around Arnie. Arnie was making another attempt to get to his feet when they saw the material of his pant leg rip open just above the knee of his already hurt leg. Blood and muscle tissue flew from the impact site in a sickening arch. The wail of pain Arnie uttered reached a pitch that filled Joel with raw emotion, and he burst out of the woods towards his father. Mark knew, as he watched another military vehicle pull up with three more MP’s, that they were about to turn the small clearing into a killing field. He yelled to Joel to come back, but it was too late. As all five MP’s opened fire with fresh clips, it was only a few seconds before Arnie and Joel both lay dead.

By the time the dust had cleared Mark had moved farther into the thick woods. He couldn’t see the MP’s any more. But that was just as well, because that meant they couldn’t see him either. Keeping to the thick woods, Mark made his way towards some caves he and his friends had discovered years before. For two days he could hear military planes flying overhead and the occasional sound of a tank making a pass along a nearby primitive road. Fortunately, they didn’t discover the caves and eventually the sounds of the search ended. Convinced the military had determined he must have gotten out of the area was the reason they had left, Mark carefully made his way to the wrecking yard.

When he got there everything was gone. It was like the entire property had been swept clean. The only thing left was a large hole where the basement containing the reactor had been. Mark just fell on his knees and then collapsed into a prone position. “I don’t believe this. How could everything have gone so wrong?” Mark lay there on the ground for nearly an hour, consumed with indignation.

The fear that someone from the government might return to the scene had finally crept in, enough to motivate him to move on. Mark headed back into the woods. Surviving on berries and roots, he made his way into Canada and drifted from town to town, living on what he made from odd jobs and handouts. Mark had lost all hope. Without Arnie and Joel, and now being wanted by the U.S. government, he didn’t believe he’d ever be able to build another time machine.

Then one day Mark was sweeping up in front of a grocery store when the newspapers were delivered. Seeing the word Nazi in one of the lesser headlines, he decided to take a closer look. It was 1938 now, and the article was about some of the actions the Nazi government had taken to restrict the movement and social status of the Jews. That’s when it hit him. If he could go to Germany and convince Arnie’s grandparents to leave before they are rounded up, thereby preventing their deaths, then Arnie would have no reason to come back and the loop would be broken. All of the divergent timelines would collapse and the original would continue.

It wasn’t easy, but Mark finally found Arnie’s grandparents. But after several weeks of trying, all he could convince them of was that he was crazy. What he didn’t know was that he had also convinced them that he was dangerous and that they had filed a complaint with the local police.

Mark was sitting in a nearby pub sipping a warm beer when two officers came through the door and ordered him to surrender. Mark threw his beer at them and dashed for the door. Just as he reached the threshold he felt the first bullet rip through his upper back and out his chest right through his heart. The sensation was surreal - pain, but not what he expected. It was like he’d been partially displaced from his body now. As he grasped the door frame to keep from falling he felt the second bullet slam into the back of his head. All sensation vanished and he heard a buzzing sound as all became white and then black.

*************

It was a kind of gurgling, mumbling sound at first. As Mark regained consciousness the sound became clearer. “Wake up Mr. Porter, I’m doctor Daystrom. There was a terrible accident in the lab next to yours. You are very lucky to be alive.”

“The lab next to mine?” Mark thought. He looked out onto the street and could see by the cars and buildings that he was back in the year 2004 - his 2004. But what was more amazing was that there weren’t any bullet holes. Mark was completely confused by what was happening. Somehow, someone had broken the loop and returned everything to normal. But who, and how? Mark realized he must have been right about his theory that all the alternative timelines would collapse, leaving the original intact. But how many were created before it was stopped. All Mark had were questions.

Having his old Karen back comforted him, but he decided not to tell anyone about his travels through time. Still the mystery of how the loop had been broken haunted his dreams. Two months passed before Mark’s triumphant return to the LRI labs.

The institute’s director, Dr. Hammond, greeted him at the front entrance. While making small talk, Mark learned that the investigators had determined that the accident had been caused by an unauthorized experiment carried out by Dr. Arnold Bauer. He had constructed a miniature, yet powerful reactor. “Apparently he had been attempting to focus the explosion of a reactor meltdown into a infinite point,” Hammond said. “But the logs we found at his apartment contained a tiny error in the calculations he used in the construction of the containment structure. The error caused most of the energy of the blast to be directed away from your lab, which was what saved your life. Unfortunately it vaporized Dr. Bauer and half the complex.” Mark also learned that if Arnie had been successful, LRI’s scientists theorized that he could have been sucked into another dimension or even to another time.

Mark realized that when he had failed to break the loop in time Arnie had caused, his theory that it would trigger a cascade of endless loops and divergences was correct. But instead of causing the collapse of existence itself, the countless possibilities each successive divergence created increased the possibility of one of them figuring out a way to break the loop. Mark concluded that it must have been Arnie himself who finally found a way to return and sabotage himself, and in a way that saved Mark’s life. Only Arnie could have changed the data in a way that he knew he himself would not notice.

Mark spent the rest of his life keeping Arnie’s secret. He deeply grieved the loss of his good friend, but felt proud that Arnie possessed the courage of histories heroes who knowingly gave the full measure for the good of others.

So, as we have found the ability to heal itself everywhere in nature. Even the fabric of space and time contains, built in to its very existence, the ability to undo and heal the wounds caused by the meddlings of well-meaning yet misguided beings.