Pay It Backward

As the man writhed on the ground, reeling from the roundhouse blow I had given him, I almost lost my nerve, almost lost the will to go ahead with what had to be done.

Eddie Turner, 25, average white male, living on the slum side of Oakland, had not hurt me, had never looked at me or Sandra, had never broke into our home, had never panicked being caught redhanded by a woman during a home invasion, had never pushed her against the closest wall, which turned out to harbor a window , the glass panes breaking under her weight, a shard cutting her aorta and part of her trachea.

Eddie Turner had not held her hand and pressed on her wound while she lost her blood, suffocating from lack of air, darkness spreading over her eyes, the joy of my life extinguished over a few hundred dollars' worth of baubles and jewelry.

A human life robbed of her time on this earth for a handful of dollar bills...

No Eddie Turner had not done all of those things.

Yet.

My resolve returned as I recalled all the trips to the cemetery, flowers in my hand. How she loved flowers, especially the white ones. ' The only innocent thing in this world' she used to say with a wink, for she had an unsurpassable sense of humor.

Innocence didn't exist, the best we could hope for was to keep our loved ones safe, keep them with us for as long as possible.

" By the power vested in me by the 56th amendment, I hereby declare that you will be the primary cause of the unnecessary death of Sandra Hills on the night of May 9th, 2104. According to the 56th amendment , I am in my rights as citizen of the United World States to impose the death penalty for your future crime. The grievances you caused me have been approved as inhuman and so demand preemptive removal. "

Eddie Turner managed to turn on his back and look at me with confusion as well as spite. " What? " he spurted out, spitting out blood as well.

" In 11 years you will kill my wife in a failed home invasion. I will spend the next 15 years suffering unnameable torments because of your actions, and the Time Restoration Justice Council has granted me time passage to set this wrong right. "

" Dude you are out of it, " Eddie blurted out.

" No I am in full possession of my means and in my right, to eliminate the future threat you pose to my wife and my mental balance. "

I had literally dreamed of this moment for years, and yet, seeing him lying there, helpless, I almost felt guilty. But I had gotten the legal permit, gone through ten psychological evaluations and hypnosis rehabilitation and nothing would heal me. The only thing that could allow me to live a normal life was if Eddie Turner's actions was eliminated from the face of time.

He must have sensed that my resolve was strengthening again for the eye that wasn't puffing out and purpling at an alarming rate grew wide with fear. " look, man, don' t hurt me. I got a kid, I got a wife. I won't hurt anyone, I never hurt anyone in my life, you got it all wrong - "

" I know what you will do, I know the pain you will cause me! She didn't deserve to die! "

" I haven't killed anyone! " Eddie protested.

" De Facto, you have. And this is your rightful punishment. "

He was still pleading when I shot him. A dissolving tranquilizer dart. He looked at it for a time, watching it melt into his skin.

It was painless, or so I had been told. But he suddenly gargled and grew rigid, screaming as though he was in terrible pain. I backed up a few steps, jumpstarting in fear.

He then went limp, his eyes staying open... and fixed on me.

Strangely, it wasn't the satisfaction I had hoped for. The righteous action that made everything right.

But I had to go back, and see what my action had yielded as results. My heart did a somersault in my chest when I thought that I might... see her again...

After all these years of pain, I finally had him in my grasp. How many sleepless nights had I spent hearing my mother crying, how many times had I been thrown from foster home to foster home after she had killed herself from the grief, how could a man just take away my childhood and get away with it? Had he really thought I wouldn't come for him?

My heart was pounding in my chest, I knew I was justified, but the whole process had been so long and draining. I wasn't sure I was in the best of shape to face a cold-blooded murderer such as he was.

The house was so non-descript. I will admit I expected a mansion out of of novels, complete with cushioned coffins as beds. But it had an unkept lawn, was in need of a paint and sidings job, had seen better days... but the light coming from inside made it seem homely... welcoming. The kind you would expect for a middle-class couple, just a few kids missing, a hoverbike thrown carelessly on the lawn, to complete the portrait.

I hardened my nerves. If I hadn't had moments like these growing up, it was because of this monster.

Still, pushed by I don't know what concept, I rang the doorbell.

"Come in honey, what's with ringing? Do you need help with the groceries? " came the man's voice from the kitchen.

Such confidence, such trust, the world belonged to him, that much was certain.

Hatred blasted through me, and my cold trembling hands became steady again. They only allowed one humane weapon for this but that didn't mean I couldn't give him a lesson he would remember for the last two minutes of his life.

I walked into the kitchen, warm and smelling of heavenly foods, as he was deep in cooking.

"I hope you didn't eat too much at lunch, Sandy, because you are in for a treat - "

He whipped back after glancing casually - and realizing I was not his Sandy.

Words strangled in his throat but I was almost sure I heard: Eddie. And that made me lose it. The fact that he remembered, after all these years...

I sprang forward, grabbing the frying pan as I did, spilling the food while I swung: it connected with his head with a satisfying thunk and he went down like a rock.

I almost kept swinging, kept pounding on him to unconsciousness and death... but something held me back. I wanted him to know who I was, I wanted him to know why he had to die now, when he had his whole life and happiness ahead of him.

"Sandy, " he mumbled after a few minutes.

While keeping an eye on him, I had been eating some of the food, the best I had ever had. Showed this guy had never been in the slums... he didn't know what a crap life was, and still... had made mine hell without a second thought.

"This is between you and me, " I countered, which woke him up completely.

He looked at me through the sheen of blood in his eyes. " You can't come and take her away again, you have no right, " he said desperately.

"No right? You ruined my life! "

" All this time, I waited and waited, what would go wrong, something would go wrong... and today was just perfect, everything it was supposed to be, finally I would be free of the fear... how are you alive? "

"That's what I'd like to know, " I answered spitefully. " All these times I thought my life was worthless, done for... but I clung on to the hope, that one day I would make it right. One day I would stand here and tell you: By virtue of the 56th amendment, for the murder of my father Edward Turner, I have been mandated to eliminate you from the face of this good Earth. "

His eyes grew wide as saucers. " Oh my God! But no, what is this? "

"11 years ago you killed my father and destroyed my life. By ruling of the Time Restoration Justice Council, I have been given the right to exact justice. "

"And kill me today? Today i the day your father killed my wife! " he protested.

" My father never killed anyone, you liar! You killed him in cold blood, you are the murderer! "

My hands were trembling now but I still aimed straight. The poison dart dissolved in his chest while he tried to say a few senseless words.

"It was my right, it was my right to save her - "

I wish I could have kicked him but I didn't have much time left before returning to my place in time, and hopefully back to my life.

I couldn't stop the tears from falling. I blinked in this new world, was it full of hope? Or just another illusion? How could I be sure?

Since the day he had been taken from me, all I had thought about was getting even, giving the pain back, I couldn't stop grieving.

I had such good news to bring back to him, I thought our dreams had finally come true. To find him like that had taken everything away from me.

We had been trying so hard to have children, and finally I was about to tell him he would be a father, his one dream above all else.

But the grief had been so overwhelming, even under sedation and fed intravenously, I had not been able to keep the baby.

Which caused even more depression, internment at a psychiatric facility, reeducation through hypnosis, but nothing would change the fact that my life had been stolen from me.

The courts had not been easy to convince, that I was mentally stable and able to make a rational judgment, but with the help of my family and friends, who had always been behind me, I was able to recover enough mental balance to prove without a doubt that I had the right to self-determination, the right to act on the 56th amendment.

And so I found myself in the slums of Oakland, on a beautiful summer day, crying my eyes out.

The moment I stepped out of the 'bubble', if it could be called that, I felt nauseous, dizzy, disoriented. How could this be true, how could this be real?

They said the AI in charge of Time Displacement Justice decided the moment to appear that would hurt the offender the most. They said it was impartial and never wrong. That all I had to do to gain justice was shoot my offender. And then I would be free to resume my life.

Earlier stages had been influenced by the victim's mindframe, a desire to set things right, but it had been improved since then. Completely impartial to end suffering.

I was in front of a house, if it could be called that. It had seen better days, better decades maybe. Buildings did not age like fine wine...

And filling a inflated tub ( it was so small it could not be called a pool) was a very pregnant woman with dark hair. She was pretty in that somewhat vulgar way, but she just looked tired and sweaty today. Just wanted to get into that tub and cool down a bit.

I felt a surge of hatred and envy... but I did not know her, I had no clue why I had been brought here.

" There's my girl, looking hot, " said a masculine voice that made me jumpstart. Although he had never been identified formally, the AI security footage of our home attack had given me the voice of my husband's attacker.

Almost that voice, but he didn't look exactly like the DNA- reconstruction ( from the bites of food he had taken ) portrait of the man who had callously killed my husband.

But he could have been his brother... or?

" Excuse me, " I said, drawing their attention. " I am so sorry, I am a little lost, where am I ? "

The woman rolled her eyes in annoyance as her husband checked me out in appreciation ( the pig).

"Well lady I think you took a wrong turn. No Hiltons around here. Just the residence of Edward Turner and Rosa Potora and soon to be ... Ed junior? "

" In your dreams, chico! " his wife retorted playfully.

Edward Turner. My skin covered in goosebumps. So this man was the father of the man who had killed my husband. And that meant ...

I almost faltered when I realized what this meant.

The impartial AI had chosen this moment to exact my revenge?

I felt even more dizzy and sick, how could this be?

But as I thought about it, I realized it made perfect sense. The killer had taken everything from me, so I was taking everything from him. De Facto a murderer.

Even in the womb.

"In accordance to the 56th amendment, Jordan Turner, you are guilty of the murder of my husband, and I was given the right by the Time Restoration Justice Council to exact just revenge. "

I took aim at the woman's swollen belly and surprised myself by firing.

But this was justice.

" All right class, this is a clear example of? "the teacher asked.

One of the AI-learning avatar hovering over the students lit up, meaning it had the answer, drawn from the brain of the student it represented.

"Escalation! "

"Correct! " the AI teacher avatar beamed. " And such quandaries were so common that they led to? "

Another avatar lit up. " The revision of the 56th amendment, the right to self-determine and self-inflict reciprocal pain through the Time Justice Council. "

" Correct, " the teacher said. " And this led to ? "

" The restoration of the natural grievance laws, the dismantlement of the Time Restoration Justice Council. "

" And what have we learned through this time-travel and self-determination fad of 50 years ago? "

This time the avatars failed to light up spontaneously.

One blinked tentatively.

" Yes? " the teacher asked mercilessly.

" That nothing can change the grief of having lost loved ones and no amount of revenge can repair the damage, any attempt to do so will only lead to more pain? "

"Well said... but have we really understood this concept?.... Anyone? "

The class failed to answer this question adequately.