Paradox

Introduction

This is a story for the "Time Traveller" Vocal Challenge which you can read about below.

The music is "Paradox" by Hawkwind

In The Control Room

#1: "It's happened again, someone has gone back to try and save Kennedy"

#2: "Yesterday it was someone trying to go back to kill Hitler, don't they realise how fragile time is and how dangerous any attempt to kill or manipulate events actually is, and where the hell are they getting hold of these Time Jump Doors?"

They were sat in front of a wall of small screens, each one tracking a time jumper going back in time to kill some criminal or save some saint or make a financial killing by putting money on a bet or investing in some scheme.

What they didn’t realise is that the Time Jump Doors they were using were transient and returned to their controllers after twelve hours real time leaving the time jumpers trapped wherever they had jumped to.

#1: “What they don’t consider is the butterfly effect. When they do something it affects everything in the future, so if you bet on a horse that you know won in the past, the very act of putting that bet on can change the result of that race, making what they thought was a winning bet worthless. Not only that somebody else who might have won and benefited others in the original timeline may suddenly become destitute and that may affect so many other situations. These things can cause a temporal paradox and that can never be allowed to happen”

They stopped people from affecting the past by directing electrical impulses across time that made them think they had achieved their aims. Even if they didn’t come back, they still thought they had achieved their aims but were now trying to find a way back to their own time because the Time Jump Door had disappeared. They would never get back.

The ones who did get back thought they had succeeded got back to find nothing had changed. The thing was that they went back to different parallel time streams as time was as fixed as a train on rails, but if they could change their own timeline they would effectively destroy their own future.

The monitors still had to make sure that they did not affect the times that they had found their way back to because they knew that changes in any timestream could affect parallel timestreams adversely.

#1: “Fuck, shit how did that happen”

#2: “What, what’s happened?”

#1: “Screen 23A, the guy we’re following grappled with Kennedy’s shooter, the shooter shot Jackie, John Kennedy lives in that timestream, what the fuck, this wasn’t meant to happen, the guy should have got nowhere near the shooter, we didn't stop him. This is disastrous, we don't what happens if Kennedy survives”

#1 and #2 looked at each other aghast. This had happened on their shift something had gone wrong, and time was going to change because one time traveller had succeeded in what he wanted to do. They called the security hotline or tried to, but the line was dead. It had started, the line was never dead.

The screens started to go black, slowly fading one by one. They were losing the time travellers they were tracking, which meant that other time travellers were succeeding in what their plans were.

Even if the time travellers meant well the butterfly effect meant that even seemingly good deeds could result in absolute disaster.

Maybe someone got their hands on a dirty bomb or a virulent chemical weapon.

Their screens were black, the room was black, they got up and went to the door and opened it.

The corridor had gone, and they looked out into a void, there was nothing.

One success by one time traveller had ended the world.

There was nothing, everything was gone.