Purity Point
“The multiverse is a fantasy concept,” Dr. Daya Rahin said as she addressed the first orientation cohort for FugitCorp. “I know some of you studied it long ago in University, but it is nothing more than nonsense.”
The group of ten experienced scientists did not react cohesively. Some nodded and laughed, others crossed their arms in silence, and one loudly disagreed.
“Dr. Pratcher, did I get your name right?” Dr. Rahin asked in her faint accent. The man with salt and pepper hair on the left side of the table told her she had.
“Why do you believe that a multiverse, or parallel dimensions, or whatever other thing you wish to call it exists.”
“Dr. Rahin, with all due respect, it simply must. The potential paradoxes are such that none of us would be here talking unless the multiverse existed to accommodate the reality changes inherent in the process.”
Dr. Rahin smiled. “I, too, once believed that. Time travel is fraught with danger, of this there is no doubt. Under your multiverse theory, each instance of time travel creates a new branch in the tree of reality. Each of those branches is a different timeline. A different universe, if you will. But that’s the stuff of science fiction. There is only one time line.”
“Then what happens when one travels back or forward in time?”
“A fair question,” Dr. Rahin said. She drew a line on her pad which fed to a projector that displayed her screen on the wall. “First and foremost, assume that the time traveler leaves from here.”
She drew a red “X” at one end of the line.
“The traveler cannot go forward beyond the X in time as that reality does not yet exist. But, the traveler can go backwards. I call the point the traveller journeys to the ‘purity point’.”
Some of the scientists scribbled notes in their pads. Others watched with varying degrees of interest and skepticism.
“Under the multiverse theory, once someone arrives at the purity point, each action they take - no matter how small - would have the ability to create branching universes.”
Dr. Rahin drew lines extending from the main line.
“Some branches would create a universe that is indistinguishable from our own. Others would be vastly different. But, that is all foolishness.”
She made a gesture on her pad and all the branching lines disappeared.
“So, you don’t believe that time travel can affect the timeline?” Dr. Prather asked.
“To the contrary. It very much could. But instead of creating branches, it simply bends the timeline. So, instead of straight line, we may get this.”
She made a gesture and the line remained flat up until the purity point, after which it looked like a wave form.
“A traveller’s actions can warp the time line. This can lead to changes great and small. But the important point of this is that when the traveller returns to their departure point, the world could be very different indeed. And, there are some very real concerns here. Each warp in the line arguably wipes out the lives of some who would have existed had the line remained flat. Indeed, an argument can be made that in some cases, a significant warp could create a massive extinction of lives that would have existed but for the bend.”
“Possibly even the life of the traveller him or herself...” one of the scientists at the table said.
“Precisely. Indeed, that is a serious concern. Paradoxes are fun in theory, but in terms of reality, if a traveller somehow took an action that would result in their demise, for example, then it would be impossible for them to have come back to the purity point, as they would not exist.”
“What happens then?”
“In such a case, it is my belief that a loop would be created,” Dr. Rahin said as she made another gesture. A yellow loop in the line appeared connecting the departure point to the purity point.
“And if that were to happen, the consequences would be apocalyptic,” Dr. Rahin said. “But not in the way you are thinking. The world would not collapse into a ball of ash and the universe would not go through a second big bang. No. What would happen is that civilization would never progress past the departure point. We would instead be stuck in an unending loop, replaying the events between the purity point and the departure point again and again and again. Forever.”
“Wouldn’t that drive us all mad?” another scientist asked.
“No. Because we would not even know it is happening. Fortunately for us, when Dr. Telman perfected his time travel process five years ago, he understood the risks. This is why there have been no significant time journeys to date beyond the initial experimental phases, and certainly not since Dr. Telman’s death in that car crash last year. We do not, of course, know how much those few trips have bent the line. But it is fortunate that the company knew the import of keeping this an absolute secret from all but a handful of people over the years. Top scientists have worked on potential safeguards and processes in the interim, and we believe it is now time to continue the live experiments. Under extremely controlled conditions.”
Pratcher nodded. He had studied under Dr. Telman before the professor took his work to the company that would become FugitCorp. Telman believed that time travel was not only possible, but inevitable. Pratcher thought the idea was absurd at first, but Dr. Telman made a compelling argument and it was clear that the science was almost there. Even then, Pratcher believed that time travel, even if theoretically possible was morally indefensible. Dr. Rahin’s lecture confirmed what the pods he listened to obsessively had told him. Science can never supplant the will of the divine perfection. And, it was clear that time travel is too full of potential danger to ever allow it to be used by imperfect people who may just destroy the world time and time again.
When recruiters approached Pratcher to join FugitCorp., he knew he had to do so. Not to advance the science of time travel, but to crush it.
*****
The science behind time travel was enormously complex, but the mechanics were surprisingly simple. The traveller merely wore a wristband interface to activate the process. A week into his job, Pratcher simply slipped on his wrist, entered the date some six years earlier, and activated the process. It was that simple.
One interesting thing about time travel is that it only moved the traveller through time - not space. The system made sure the traveller did not materialize in a wall or over a chasm, but generally the traveller would appear exactly in the same spot, but simply at an earlier time.
When Pratcher pushed the button, there was no lengthy journey or bright tunnels of light. He simply popped into the same space at the designated time.
He was in a smaller, obviously less well equipped version of the lab he had left. A man was hunched over a table, making calculations on a computer.
Pratcher’s plan was simple. He would kill Telman, destroy his data, and return to where he left, having destroyed the ongoing potential for an untold number of snuffed out lives. One for millions - or billions - was a fair trade.
“Dr. Telman?” Pratcher asked.
The man at the desk looked up.
“Hmm, oh, sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”
“I don’t know if you remember me.”
“You look familiar.”
“Pratcher. I was one of your lab assistants.”
“Of course, you just look, well, older than I remember.”
“I suppose I would.”
Dr. Telman looked at Pratcher. “How did you get here?”
“I think the question should be when.”
Telman grabbed his pad and started flipping through the notebooks on it. “Remarkable! Are you telling me that you came from….”
“Yes.”
Telman clapped his hands together. “Remarkable! Amazing! It works. I mean it will work! This is great news! Why are you here to tell me this? Am I close”
“Too close, Dr. Telman.”
Pratcher pulled a small pistol from his waistband, and pointed it at Dr. Telman. His hands trembled.
“What? Why?” Tilman stammered.
“I am sorry.”
Pratcher squeezed the trigger. The moment the bullet struck Telman, Pratcher popped out of existence.
*****
“The multiverse is a fantasy concept,” Dr. Daya Rahin said as she addressed the first orientation cohort for FugitCorp. “I know some of you studied it long ago in University, but it is nothing more than nonsense.”
The group of ten scientists, mostly in their 40’s and 50’s did not react cohesively. Some nodded and laughed, others crossed their arms in silence, and one loudly disagreed.
As he had done hundreds of times before and would do countless times in the future.
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