Here is the final part of the novella, where we learn the fate of the universe(s).
Thanks for reading!
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Just before nightfall Ellen reached Capernaum, a small village made smaller by the fact that all the homes were crowded together along a few main alleyways. There were a few people about, but Ellen still stood out as a stranger. Pretending she was a young widow searching for family, Ellen took a room in the home of an old woman who lived near the synagogue. The woman remarked on Ellen’s strange accent as she led her to a tiny room.
“Oh, yes, Aramaic is not my native tongue,” Ellen said.
The woman didn’t reply as she opened the door to the dark, musty room. Inside there was only a rope cot and a bucket.
“Sleep,” she said. “It’s almost nightfall.”
Ellen got the message: stay here, out of sight, and everyone will be happier.
The next morning Ellen got up early and walked down to the shore of the Galilee. Several boats were preparing to take to the water. Ellen felt drawn to one specifically.
She walked slowly up to the men in the boat, heart pounding. Don’t be silly, she reminded herself, these men could be anybody.
The two fishermen looked up, trying to determine if they knew the young woman.
“Peace be with you, she said.”
“Peace be with you.”
The men were uncomfortable and wary. It was inappropriate for them to speak with a woman not from their family. They guessed she was a prostitute. Ellen knew this, but she was too eager to know if these were the men who would one day walk side by side with Jesus.
“Are you the sons of Zebedee?” she asked, keeping her eyes lowered and speaking softly.
Neither responded immediately. Ellen played her ruse.
“I have traveled from Sephora, where I lived with my father until his death, may God rest his soul.”
She wondered what the men thought of her strange accent.
“I am traveling to join my brothers and hope that you might carry me to Tiberias so I can make good speed. I will pay you.”
The two men looked at her, then the younger one looked down at his nets lying on the sand.
“We do not run a ferry service, young woman. May God keep you safe on your journey.”
He hoisted one end of the net and dragged it over to the boat. His companion got up without looking at Ellen and joined him. They continued to ignore her, and Ellen eventually walked away, taking the road that led to Jericho.
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Benton sat by Ellen’s body for several hours, unmoving. He saw the sun go down, the sky glow red, then orange, then stars appeared—so many stars. For long periods of time he didn’t even think. Sometimes he couldn’t bear to look at the bones sheathed in decaying fabric. Other times he stared at the necklace, or the withered dry skin that remained on Ellen’s shoulders. Eventually, dark, disturbing thoughts emerged from the emptiness.
She was deliberately buried at an epistle site. Someone wanted Ellen’s body to be found. How had she died? Were there any clues? His mind still numb, Benton slowly exhumed the body. As he gently tugged Ellen’s corpse from the shallow pit, Benton saw a scroll underneath the body. It wasn’t parchment and it wasn’t sheepskin, the most common materials in ancient Palestine. It was a man-made fiber, like nylon, and the ink looked like a marking pen. Benton slowly unwound the scroll.
“Benton,
So sorry, but I really can’t let you leave an epistle. That would just spoil everything. Imagine if the team discovered a message from you before you even jumped, claiming I sent you to the wrong century on purpose. No dear boy, no epistles for you. But here’s the good news: you DO make it back to the 21st century. It just takes a while.
You always have my utmost respect and admiration, Benton. I’m sorry we couldn’t have been partners, but that possibility was eliminated when I was 10 years old.
James
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Ellen made her way through Samaria, unwilling to take the road that ran around it. Most self-respecting Jews refused to travel through Samaria. Even merchants would often take the longer road that veered west of the region, to avoid setting foot on Samaritan soil. But Ellen needed speed, and suspected that she would be left alone while traveling through Samaria. It served her purposes to be shunned by as many people as possible at this point.
After hours walking on the dusty road, she was furiously thirsty. As she entered a large village, Ellen spotted a well not far from the road. Two women were walking away from the well, jars on their heads. Another woman was beginning to lower a jar into the well. Ellen walked over, hoping that another woman would be hospitable to her.
“Pardon me,” she said in Aramaic. “Sister, I have traveled long on the road, and I lack water. Please let me have some.”
The woman glanced up warily. She had long black hair and dark, deep-set eyes. The woman’s lips were full, but her mouth was pinched. Perhaps 30 years old, she was attractive, but seemed to have had a hard life.
“Help yourself,” she said, nodding to the pail on the well and backing away a few paces.
Ellen thanked her and reached for the pail. A rope was tied to a large stone on the ground. Apparently the rope was shared, but everyone brought their own buckets. The woman watched her.
“Where is your husband?” she asked abruptly.
“I am widowed recently. My husband died suddenly. I am returning to Jerusalem to join my brothers.”
“You’re from Jerusalem?” the woman asked suspiciously. “I’ve never met a Judean with an accent like yours.”
‘Oh, I’m not from Jerusalem,” Ellen responded quickly, delivering a well-rehearsed line. “My family are traders from Spain. We moved to Tyre after pirates became too frequent in the West. My brothers went on to Jerusalem and I lived with my husband in Tyre until his death. Now I am joining my brothers.”
The woman at the well was unconvinced. She wanted nothing to do with Ellen.
“Take your water. I know a bit about women without husbands. I’ve had five myself. I would not stand before the altar and repeat that story of yours. So I suggest you keep your mouth shut and hurry up to Jerusalem. Maybe you’ll find some widows there who are willing to believe you.”
Ellen lowered the wooden bucket into the well, tugging at the rope to make the edge of the bucket dip into the water. The woman clucked in disdain. Ellen eventually raised a bit of water and tipped it to her lips. It was cool, but it tasted metallic. After she’d gulped down the contents of the bucket, Ellen handed it over to the woman. The woman uncrossed her arms, took it and looked away.
“Thank you for your kindness,” Ellen said. The woman said nothing. Ellen was so daunted she couldn’t speak another word. She left the village wondering if she would survive until Jerusalem.
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After Benton had finished burying Ellen, he rested on the hillside. His body ached and his soul was barren. The grief had abated somewhat, and even the anger had been reduced to a simmering fire—constant, never ceasing. Benton rested his weary, aching head on his knees.
Should I even bother? Must I continue on, an outcast in a dismal century, lost and alone? Must I struggle on, just to try to return to my own time? For what? To be a hero? A shocking, mutilated hero? Will they invite me on to Letterman to talk about the past and how I saved the world?
Benton started to cry. The tears soaked into his wool sleeve. Eventually he stopped. Benton raised his head and looked out over the valley. In the distance, where the storm clouds had been, he saw a rainbow. Benton watched for a long time, as the arch grew brighter, then dissolved. When it was gone, he had made his decision. He would write a message to Badri, place it in the epistle site and hope somehow he could warn him. And he would try to return to the future, to stop James.
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Ellen had been able to fall in with two families who were traveling to Jerusalem for the feast of Passover. They didn’t seem to believe her story either, but allowed Ellen to remain on the fringes of their group. They never spoke to her. Ellen moved when they moved and camped when they camped, always keeping to herself. Her proximity to them provided sufficient safety. The fact that she was treated as an outcast was inconsequential.
Two teenage boys in the group were constantly stealing glances at Ellen. They were no doubt convinced that she was a prostitute, and excited by the scandal and the possibility. The patriarch of the group was stern and devout. He refused to even look at Ellen. He provided tight control over the travelers, so Ellen was not concerned that anyone would try to sneak over to her blanket at night. The boys’ attention annoyed her a bit, but in her self-appointed role as assassin, all mundane items like social conventions had lost their meaning. She was a killer on a mission, and the judgement of 1st century Jews was of no importance.
The day before they arrived in Jerusalem, Ellen had to take a bath. She had not washed in days, and could not stand the smell and grime. She made sure the teenagers weren’t following her, and snuck off to a stream that was nearly a kilometer away. Ellen felt far too exposed and fearful to disrobe, so she dabbed a cloth in the water and wiped away as much of the dirt and smell as possible. Finally, after 20 minutes of careful cleansing she felt refreshed and clean. Ellen walked back to the camp, where the families were just finishing breakfast and preparing to move on. As she picked up her bag to put the cloth inside, Ellen immediately noticed that it was lighter than it should be. Frantically, she searched through the meagre contents. The gun was gone. Panicked, she glanced quickly around the campsite. Everyone was there except the two teenage boys. Ellen ignored the conventions of Jewish society and briskly walked over to the patriarch, who was packing a tent onto the families’ one donkey.
“Uncle,” she called out. The man recognized her voice and turned away. “Uncle,” she repeated. “I am sorry to disturb you, but there is an emergency. I notice that an important item has been taken from my bag. It is…”
Suddenly a gunshot rang out from the other side of the yellow hill. The old man wouldn’t know the sound of a gunshot, but Ellen recognized it immediately and instantly guessed what had happened.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, putting her hand to her mouth.
The old man turned when he heard the sound, but seeing nothing, looked back at Ellen. His eyes were not kind. He obviously resented the mere fact that he must look at this lying prostitute. On the eve of an important feast, he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. Her very presence threatened to make him ritually unclean.
“We are not thieves, sister. I doubt anyone in our company would even want to touch your bag.”
Just then one of the teenagers appeared at the crest of the hill, shouting and waving his arms frantically. The old man turned to look, and Ellen began to back away, seized with foreboding and the dread of what would happen next. The old man ignored her departure, watching instead as the other men in the family ran to the hilltop. By the time they reached the boy, Ellen was already out of sight, running up the road, then darting into the olive groves on the opposite side. When she found her way to Jerusalem it was already dark.
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James stepped out of the shadows into Ellen’s path. His eyes narrowed slightly, but he betrayed no sign of emotion. An elderly man in a filthy robe grumbled and sidestepped the pair as they stood facing each other in the narrow alleyway. “Khypyata,” he said. Be careful.
“Yes, we will,” James replied in English. The man hadn’t heard him. Ellen was surprised that James so nonchalantly threw English around in this circumstance. He now had a slight smile on his lips, the smile that could indicate so many things, or sometimes serve only as a mask.
“Ellen,” he said, with a casual nod.
Ellen replied in Aramaic. “Surprised to see me, James? I’m surprised to see you. You’re not supposed to be here.”
The smile disappeared and James abruptly stepped closer to Ellen.
“Oh, I certainly am,” he hissed, then reached into his tunic to partly display a semi-automatic pistol.
“We need to talk,” he said, concealing the gun again and taking her arm. Ellen considered running but chose not to. The knife in her pocket was no match for James’ weapon, but this might be the only chance she got to use it. They strode swiftly past a date salesman seeking shelter from the sun’s rays under a crumbling section of wall. A beggar whose face was little more than a massive, hideous sore groaned as they passed, his thin arm held out shakily in their path. James turned down an alley. There were no merchants. This was a residential area. Ellen wondered if he knew where he was going. But a few steps later he was rapping at a door. A young boy, maybe ten, opened the door a crack.
“We have some business to conduct,” James said gruffly in Aramaic. The boy immediately opened the door, keeping his eyes on the floor.
Oh, for God’s sake, Ellen thought. James is pretending I’m a whore. He’s got a room in here. Great. Always marked as a prostitute in this century.
James hauled her into a stuffy room and pushed the door shut, hard. Ellen saw heavy dust in the shaft of light from the one window, high up on the wall. There was a bed, with dirty, coarse blankets. A bowl and a clay pitcher rested on a wooden table. That was it.
“You wanted to talk to me, Ellen. Now we can talk. I hope you’re aware of the danger you have placed us both in.”
“The danger I’ve placed us in? It seems to me all the danger has been created by you, James.”
James shrugged.
“Never mind. I was expecting you,” he said.
“Expecting me?”
James stepped closer to her.
“Yes. Didn’t you know that I could control the future?”
He had a sly and maddeningly smug look on his face. She wanted to slap him. But his words triggered a thought process in her mind, which he had no doubt intended. James stared at her as Ellen considered the meaning behind his words. It was pretty clear what he was suggesting. She backed away.
“I get it, James. You’ve been through this event already, in another universe. You know what’s going to happen. Been there, done that. Is that what you want me to believe?”
James smiled, reaching out to pick up the small granite bowl on the table. He held it in his delicate fingers, and spoke without looking at Ellen.
“That is a possibility, isn’t it?” he said smiling, then set the bowl back on the table and looked at her. The amusement went out of his eyes very suddenly. “But there are others, Ellen. You have options.”
Ellen turned her fury on him.
“And what about your accomplices? Did they have options? What about Ken and Jeremy?”
He continued to look at her, but said nothing. The answer to that question was also implied. Ellen felt a wave of dread. She remembered what Benton Scott had told her in his tiny loony bin cell: “He’s destroying the evidence. But I’ve seen it. I’ve seen your body.”
She mustered her courage, thinking simultaneously about escape routes and weapons. James still hadn’t answered. The room was silent. Ellen turned away to give herself a moment to think, and maybe disrupt whatever scenario James had planned.
“Tell me what happened to Jeremy and Ken, James.”
“Why don’t you tell me what you think happened, Ellen.”
Ellen turned back to face him. James was holding the gun, and Ellen could see that there was a silencer screwed onto the barrel. The sight was so incongruous she almost laughed. Her adrenaline was kicking in. Ellen was thinking very clearly.
“You don’t need to kill me. I can’t alter your plans. Look what happened to Benton.”
No response. James just kept watching her.
“Or I can go to another time. Victorian England. Renaissance Florence.”
She backed toward the door, slowly, talking. “You don’t have to kill me, James. You know that.”
He smiled slightly “Yes, I know that. But…I’ve learned that I enjoy it. It’s kind of a thrill. Who would have thought, eh?”
He was gesturing with the gun as he talked, very casual and self-secure.
“You know when we used to have all those bull sessions on the grandfather clause and mulitverses and all that?”
He didn’t wait for her response.
“It became clear that the only real challenge we can pose to God is by creating our own universes—using his handiwork as a template of course—-why bother to re-invent the wheel, right?”
James thought this was quite clever, and he laughed out loud.
“Anyhow, Ellen, I am just being a scientist—attempting to prove a hypothesis. A rather significant hypothesis, with implications for all of creation, but still a scientific investigation. This is it, simply stated:
“Assuming that God could accomplish anything he chose to (e.g. creating and destroying entire worlds) and accepting that his one significant creation, humankind, has persistently chosen not to follow his rather simple dictates, we can infer that God cannot change human nature. He can deluge the planet, cause entire armies to die, destroy things as much as he chooses. But he cannot change human nature. The people—his creations—that he so dearly wants to love him and follow him—have basically refused to do so, either by denying his existence as supreme being, or by mangling his dictates to serve their own purposes.
“Hypothesis: God is unable to make us behave. Oh, he asks, demands, threatens, entreats. But I’m starting to see every time period that ever was, Ellen and it’s all the same. I’ve been to the future and God has no more presence there than he does in 15th century Spain.”
Ellen was looking for something she could use as a weapon, since reaching into her pocket for the knife was too clumsy an option. On the table was the granite bowl. That was her best chance. The table itself was probably too unwieldy to use effectively. She unfolded her arms and sat on the bed, within reach of the bowl. James followed her with the gun, but remained intent on his diatribe.
“Now, add to this hypothesis the one thing that God really has over man—the ability to know what will happen in the future. And…let mankind achieve it. Then you’re left with the simple fact that, once the universe is created, a human being who is able to travel through time is just as capable as God in controlling the destinies of mankind. And he can replicate himself in each version. Sure, God can destroy things quicker, he could kill me right now. But he doesn’t. I, on the other hand, can change the destiny of an entire world. Can know the future for any world. I can make the future happen. I can do what God can do!”
He laughed. “Of course, just like him, I can’t control human nature, but that’s okay. The advantage I have over God is that I don’t need humans to love me. That gives me far more freedom, and power.”
Ellen wasn’t shocked by this level of megalomania. She didn’t care to debate James. He had gone insane with his perceived power and he must be stopped. She leaned on her right arm, trying to disguise her slow movement toward the bowl as nervous shifting of her weight. He didn’t seem to notice.
He wasn’t thinking about her possible attempt to prevent her death. James wanted to see how Ellen reacted to his pronouncements. He just loved watching their faces when he told them. Ellen knew she should respond.
“And what if there’s not a God?” she asked, already knowing the answer.
“Oh come now, Ellen. Be more clever. You disappoint me. If there’s no God, then of course I win anyhow. You see, that’s why it’s more interesting for me if there IS a God.”
Ellen shook her head, trying to keep him engaged while she figured out how to get closer to the bowl. She decided to get aggressive.
“You are the worst kind of madman, you know that James?” She allowed her deep-seated anger to emerge. It came forth powerfully.
“You trot out simplistic theories to give a veneer of intelligence to your actions. But this is no hypothesis, James. You are merely bopping between universes killing people. That has no value whatsoever.”
She stood up, slightly to the right, a few inches closer to the table. What would she do when she could reach it? He could shoot her quicker than she could grab the heavy granite object and swing it.
James sighed. “I knew this is how the encounter would develop. You don’t really want to explore the possibilities, or even discuss them. You just want to save your own life, and take mine if you can. Well, although I regret the missed opportunity for insightful debate, I guess I should have known I’d have no other choice.”
He pulled the trigger. Ellen let out a cry and fell.
“Happens the same way every time,” James remarked, putting the gun in his pocket and hurrying from the room.
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James was breathing heavily. Not from the exertion of climbing the gentle grade, he knew. The import of what he was about to do compressed him tightly, straining him physically and psychically. He was about to see Jesus. In Gethsemane. The man about whom so much had been written, so many lives committed, so many lives forfeited. The man who had affected the world more than any other.
He was cold. His light linen outer garment was no match for the chill night air. James shrugged a shoulder to reposition it. An old man carrying a bulging sack on his back hobbled by, nodding a greeting. James nodded back. A small pebble became lodged in his left sandal, and James had to stop to shake it free. When he resumed walking, he heard voices coming up from behind him, young men. He turned. They appeared to be from the upper class. Their garments were clean and well-made. There were five of them, all clean-shaven, talking excitedly. He heard the name Yeshua. James picked up the pace. If these men were going to Gethsemane, they might provide him with suitable cover.
“Yes, but how do you account for all the miracles?”
“Lies, mostly, and exaggeration.”
The young men were talking animatedly as they trudged up the hill. James stayed out of sight, but their loud voices rang out clearly in the still night.
“Isaac! You have to admit that some—even many of the miracles are irrefutable. The blind man at the Sheep Pool. My grandfather knows him. He’d been giving the man money for years. And the Pharisees didn’t want to believe it, so they kept questioning the poor guy, and his parents, when they could have asked some of their own number, like my grandfather! This Nazarene made a man see!”
For a moment no one said anything as they continued walking up on the path up from the valley. In a few moments they would reach the garden that rimmed the plateau above the it. James followed at a distance. He wanted to blend in with a crowd, and he couldn’t risk being noticed as a stranger walking on his own in this place at night. Too many opportunities for awkward questions, especially when everyone heard his accent and imperfect Aramaic. Too much at stake, so James needed to slip into a crowd without being noticed. He could follow these men, perhaps, and join the mob that would gather at Gethsemane.
“Yet he has been speaking blasphemy since he entered Jerusalem, comparing himself to God, proclaiming his own authority,” another voice countered. “No prophet of God would do that. No teacher of the law would speak the words he has spoken. No good Jew would break as many of our laws as he has. He seems to delight in it! This is disgraceful. If he has power at all, then it is the power of the devil!”
Another moment of silence. James suspected these men were the sons of Pharisees, or well-to-do merchants. They would only find danger in the teachings of Jesus, danger and disruption. James wondered why men like this would be part of the crowd that arrested Jesus. He got his answer a moment later.
“Simon, I hope all goes smoothly, and quickly. Be he demon or prophet, things can go badly once he is cornered. Are you sure the soldiers are on their way?”
The man who had just spoken so angrily about Jesus replied quickly.
“Yes! And in sufficient numbers so that there will be no problem. And servants from the Council will be there, too. The Nazarene does not have his crowd of adoring imbeciles around him tonight. Perhaps a few of his close followers, but they are no threat. We should be able to see their torches any moment.”
And indeed, there were torches over the next ridge, converging from two angles. James guessed there were 40 or more people a few hundred yards ahead of him.
A third voice chimed in, so quietly that James could barely hear it.
“You are fortunate to have friends such as us. Who else would come out at this time of night to watch a blasphemer arrested? Just so you can report back to your father how the operation goes. And what next? When this Jesus appears before the Council, do we have to be there to witness the verdict?”
“One thing at a time, Joel. I promised my father I would witness the arrest, that’s all. I assume he will be imprisoned tonight, and the verdict will be issued after the Passover.”
“Then you know little about the ways and wishes of the Council,” said Isaac. They will want him dead before sundown tomorrow. This will end in death, and it will end soon.”
Those words brought a veil of silence over the five young men. James, walking carefully behind them, and on the edge of the path, could see that the two columns of torches had converged, and stopped. Although it was difficult to make out landmarks in the dark, James had been up to Gethsemane enough times to know that the crowd had stopped a few hundred yards from the garden, probably marshaling their forces and preparing to descend on the prophet and his followers.
The men had stopped talking altogether, and picked up the pace as they reached the crowd. Flame glinted off the helmets of the Roman soldiers. So few! Perhaps two dozen at the most. James didn’t know any of the other characters by sight. As he approached, the crowd moved in a mass up the hill, He hurried to keep up, knowing they would pass through the garden gates in a moment. James wanted to blend in.
All went well. The men he’d been following never noticed him, as they also hastened to join the crowd. James was able merge onto the fringes unnoticed.
But because the gate was narrow, the men could only enter several abreast. James was still in the back, peering over heads, when he heard the commotion.
A cry of pain, a few shouts. Then it was quiet again. The crowd jostled to see. James could guess what had happened. That volatile, impulsive disciple of Jesus’s, Peter, had drawn his sword suddenly, swung it wildly in defense of his master, and cut off the ear of the chief priest’s servant.
“What happened?” men in the back of the crowd were asking, jostling to see. They emerged through the gate and spread out. James could see the Romans surrounding a man. It must be Jesus, but James could not see past the glinting armor and capes of the soldiers. No one else was there except two middle-aged men, who must have been from the Council. Where was Judas? James had never seen Jesus and his disciples before. He had been busy killing Ellen and disposing of her body when Jesus made his triumphal entry into the city.
James jostled past a fat, smelly man. He had to get a look. It was strictly for prurient, voyeuristic reasons. James knew what would happen next, and had no intention of diverting the course of history—at this juncture. His time for mischief would come in a few weeks, after Jesus was safely tucked away in heaven.
He moved around the fat man, and his foot slipped on a stone. As James reached out to balance himself, his linen garment came unclasped. He straightened up and steadied himself, glancing up to look…straight into the eyes of Jesus.
He knew who it was without thinking. The man was surrounded by the soldiers, who were quietly binding his hands. Peter and the other disciples must have already fled. Jesus was almost completely obscured, except for the upper half of his head. James was not surprised that he had black hair. He knew with certainty that Jesus wouldn’t appear anything like the popular image of him created by Renaissance artists: a slender, delicate-featured man with light brown hair, so similar to the Northern Europeans who worshipped him.
No, this man was a Semite, dark and swarthy and tough. James could not see his mouth, but he could see his eyes. Suddenly the eyes turned in his direction, blazing and penetrating. They looked solely at James, pinning him to the spot. James froze.
The eyes held him for a period that was both interminable and ephemeral. James could not look away, but he did not want to hold that gaze.
“No,” he said, and stumbled. James reached out, caught nothing. An arm roughly shoved him aside. James still couldn’t avert his eyes, or control his actions. His clothing slipped down his shoulder as his knees buckled. He might have screamed.
“Ai!” a man grumbled at him. “What are you doing? What’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t want. I can’t.” James was speaking in English.
The men around him recoiled. “He is possessed! He speaks like a demon!”
“He is the blasphemer’s follower!” another man shouted. “Seize him!”
James panicked. He could no longer see Jesus. The soldiers were falling into formation, preparing to go down the hill.
“No,” James moaned, a reaction that he didn’t will, or control. A hand grabbed him and he jerked away savagely. “No!”
Another hand clutched his garment. And the cloth just fell away. James slipped away from the man who now held nothing except his clothing. James was naked, and running, running into the night. He couldn’t see ahead of him, but still he kept running. In time the voices behind him stopped, and the terrain became level and silent. James made his way, slowly and carefully, back to his room.
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“It’s you.”
Benton looked up at the lean, pale figure in the doorway.
“Yes, it’s me, Benton. It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”
“Have you come to kill me?” Benton asked in a whisper.
The figure sat down in a chair by the doorway.
“No. I haven’t come to kill you. I’ve come to say I’m sorry.”
Benton couldn’t sit up. He just stared at the outline of James McPherson, sitting ten feet away. There was no mistaking him. But this James was in his 50’s, hair receding far from his brow, permeated with gray. The voice was identical. But how had he aged so much? Benton couldn’t focus his mind on the question. Fleetingly, he mourned the passing of his once superb intellect. Over the years, Benton’s brain had been pummeled and anesthetized and left to lie fallow. He could no longer grasp and solve complex problems with effortless speed. He could barely keep his thoughts on one subject for more than a few minutes.
James was wearing khaki slacks, as he always did, but he had on a pullover sweater, which had never been his style. Still, the face was the same: sharp, delicate features and drawn mouth. A few wrinkles. It was him. Benton said nothing.
And for more than a minute James said nothing. The two men, former colleagues and rival geniuses who had solved the question of time travel, just looked at each other. Benton’s breathing was heavy, as usual. No other sound disturbed the room. But eventually James spoke.
“You know, in the Bible, the story about Eve and the apple, don’t you, Benton?”
Benton nodded.
“She wasn’t motivated by evil. She just wanted it, and saw that she could take it. It was the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She sought knowledge, Benton.
It wasn’t that her desire was filled with ill intent. Quite the contrary: Eve sought something that could benefit her. Improve her. Something of value.”
James sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and dropping his head so that Benton could no longer see his eyes.
“But that’s never the issue, is it? We justify our actions by stressing our positive motives. But the reality is that we do things simply because we want to. Just like Eve. We see that the apple is attractive and good to eat, so we want it. And we take it.”
He stood up slowly, as if his joints were stiff. Benton turned his eyes to gaze at the face of the man who had caused him decades of torment, who had shattered his dreams and sabotaged his life. James looked intently down at Benton, crumpled on his bed.
“And that is where the problem lies, my old colleague. God merely asks us to follow his perfect will. But we prefer to follow our own, pitifully imperfect wills. It was the desire for knowledge that snared Eve, wasn’t it, Benton?”
James, looking suddenly very old and tired, placed his hand on the doorknob.
“I didn’t even need a snake to encourage me. I reached for the apple on my own. I wanted it, so I did it. But the snake said the fruit would provide a way to become equal with God.”
He stepped through the door.
“The snake lied, Benton. I’m sorry for what I did to you. I am very, very sorry.”
Benton watched the door close, then shut his eyes. It took awhile for the tears to emerge, but once they did, he cried without stopping.
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Ken wandered down the wide, empty walkways of the university, now nearly emptied of students as the Christmas holidays released them from the bonds of scholarship. The large, ancient trees that lined the road to Holliston Hall were bare, except for a few dead brown leaves clinging to the branches. It was not cold, but the sky was overcast.
Ken felt like a disaster survivor—the only person to escape a fire, or the sole survivor of a shipwreck. Benton rotted, old and deranged, in a mental hospital. Jeremy was dead. Ellen probably dead also. James was permanently in another universe—or several. Antoine had disappeared, and Ken hoped he never resurfaced. Badri had been arrested, quietly, on some sort of federal charges. He was incommunicado, and Ken felt it unlikely that Badri would be a free man anytime soon.
For some reason, no one had come for him. Perhaps they would later. For the time being he was left alone, the last member of the Cassandra team, prowling the campus and remembering the days of success and horror. His mind jumped from scene to scene: the exuberant announcement at the pizza parlor, the thrilling first jump (or so they thought) when Benton disappeared into the past; the lies and murderous cunning of James. A fleeting thought reminded Ken that the mind could jump effortlessly in time, without restriction. He let the thought slip away.
Ken had always had a crush on Ellen, especially when it appeared that Benton was going to get her. Then during the first heady days of time travel, his interest cooled. She was too limited by her religious beliefs, he thought. At the time, Ken was appalled that Ellen could believe the ancient dogma and facile explanations of Christianity. Now he had softened in his attitude, but Ken was in no mood to look further into the religion. Not now. Maybe someday.
But he could relate to Ellen’s description of the universe. It was crazy for a scientist to even think this way, but Ken was considering the possibility that God existed, and that he did not tolerate humans messing with his prerogatives.
In a way, Ken thought, free will gives everyone the ability to ‘create new universes’. Our choices, and the choices constantly being made by billions of people, shape the world we inhabit. You choose one way, and the outcome is different than if you had selected another option. But regardless of all the choices being made, Ken decided, God’s universe moves on as he planned it. He brings it back on course constantly, continuously, irrevocably.
Ken walked, not knowing and not caring where his footsteps would lead him. Briefly another thought entered his mind. He wondered whether all of the versions of James were getting along. It would be a supreme irony if the megalomania that fueled James would lead each version of James to seek ultimate authority—that he couldn’t even work with himself. Ken decided he would never know. Suddenly, it began to rain.
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“Things not going your way?”
James recognized the voice. He spun around, and saw himself standing casually in the doorway. He experienced a very brief moment of confusion, and a tinge of fear, which surprised him. If he’d had time to analyze his reaction, James might have savored the fact that he regained his composure quite quickly, even though he was in the room with himself, unexpectedly sharing the same slice of reality. But James didn’t have time to reflect on this moment, because the figure in the corner didn’t appear to be friendly. One hand was tucked inside his robe. A gun?
James straightened, examining his doppelganger. Too bad this was such a serious occasion. The possibilities were exciting. But obviously, his twin had arrived with an agenda of his own. The man stepped into the room.
“I see you found your way into the Bible.”
This surprised James. “You were there?”
“Yes,” the figure nodded. “And maybe more of us—who knows?” He laughed. James recognized it as the delighted laugh that he employed when he was engaged in toying with someone intellectually.
“What’s your purpose in being here?” he asked cautiously.
“I’ve come to stop you.”
James was surprised, but not completely. This possibility had always existed: one of the versions might not play along, wanting all the glory for himself. This thought angered him. How short-sighted. The exercise was only beginning to get interesting
“Or more accurately, destroy your plan. I’m sort of a virus, I guess, Brother James. If I stop you, then leave misleading directions for the other versions, then it will be easy to subvert your scheme. Just takes one renegade, doesn’t it—even when you’re dealing with an operation as tightly controlled as this one, where all the participants are identical.”
He made a tut-tut noise, and shook his head.
James was seething. Without moving his eyes, he strained to determine where he might find a weapon in the room.
“But we aren’t really all the same, are we, James?” his twin said. “It’s what we’ve always known. The fact that I exist, that I’m here, that I’m you, et cetera, means nothing to you. You certainly wouldn’t be willing to die, knowing that I live…because what matters is our own consciousness, your own identity. We experience the universe individually.”
The other James stopped abruptly, and laughed loudly. “Sorry, you know all this. We know all this,” he said.
James realized he hated him.
“Anyway,” the man continued, walking around the table. “I had different experiences than you, so we’re not really the same, are we? And I’ve recognized that you need to be stopped. Now…” he tilted his head thoughtfully, looking up at the ceiling. James instantly thought of how he might take advantage of the moment and grab the gun, but the other James looked down and the moment was gone.
“…don’t get me wrong. I’m not a saint, right? We both know that. I just feel compelled to do this. Of course, it’s easier because I get to go on living.”
“Tell me about these other experiences, James,” James said mildly.
His opponent laughed immediately. “You forget you’re talking to yourself, my friend. I know you’re trying to draw me into dialogue, make me drop my guard, look for a chance to trick me.”
He looked positively euphoric as he leaned forward.
“We are good, aren’t we?”
James fought to contain his rage. He knew he had to keep a clear head, especially with this opponent. But he found it very difficult to control his emotions.
“What exactly are you trying to do?” he asked.
This question seemed to excite the man.
“I’m glad you asked. Well, as you know there are several versions of us now. Can’t be certain, but there should be four at the moment. Although who knows, a renegade could jump into a different timespace, create another universe. But let’s assume there are still just four. I’m going to eliminate the mastermind and see what happens.” The man paused and his face tensed slightly.
“You know what really bothered me—really unnerved me? Just like you, I could go to the future. And just like you, I didn’t want to, because I couldn’t control it. But something kept nagging at me, and I configured a loop to get me to around 2050. Made it to 2052, to be precise. An easy thing to do was an Info search for news of the Cassandra project, and the latest developments in time travel. Guess what I found?”
James didn’t respond. He could guess. The same fears had plagued him.
His twin knew they shared the answer, but he spoke it.
“There’s no mention of the Cassandra project. None. The research at the Electromagnetic Research Center was mentioned. Badri and all the others were named as researchers. But no results. That really got me thinking, and unlike you, I pursued that line of reasoning and realized what we have been doing is wrong, brother.”
“So what are you telling me—that you’ve been born again, that you’ve seen the light?”
“Oh, heavens, no. I imagine if I was truly born again and accepted Jesus as my lord and savior and all that, I wouldn’t be able to kill you. Although,” he said, stroking his chin theatrically, “history is filled with Christians who killed in the name of God. Hmm. Anyhow, my actions aren’t religiously motivated. At least, I think not.”
The opponent stopped, and appeared confused. “You know, I just might be. When I mentioned killing you, I felt a twinge, as if maybe I shouldn’t…”
James knew the opportunity was now or never. He tried to remember that he was dealing with himself, so he had to be careful with strategy.
“So I thought to myself, ‘what would be the right thing to do?” The man made another theatrical gesture with his right hand.
James saw his chance. He leaped straight off the bench, a chaotic move designed only to knock the other man over. Once he was down, James could wrestle the gun away.
At one point James gained the upper hand, smashing his opponent’s face viciously with his right hand. He grabbed for the deep pocket of the robe, where the gun must surely be—but wasn’t.
As James felt futilely for the gun, the man reached swiftly behind his back. James grabbed the man by the throat, trying to crush his windpipe. His twin made a hateful gargling noise, and James tried to move his body forward to pin his adversary as he choked him.
He was so intent on strangling him that James didn’t feel the knife enter his abdomen. He was aware of something pressing against him, something that restricted his movement. As he struggled to shift his weight, James felt a searing pain that travelled up from his pelvis to his sternum. He had been sliced open.
The two men rolled away from each other, one gasping for breath, the other clutching his stomach as blood seeped through the pierced fabric of his robe.
James instantly realized that he was a dead man. No 1st century surgeon was going to be able to repair this, and he wouldn’t have time to reach a loop before he bled to death. James sat up, his belly seething, and leaned back against the bench. His identical twin rose on one knee, regaining his breath, and stared at his mortally wounded reflection.
“I, I wasn’t going to do it,” he panted. “I was going to leave.”
James couldn’t respond. He pressed both his hands against his abdomen, one above the other, but the blood seeped under his palms and through his fingers. He grimaced, one leg curling up under him involuntarily. He stared at the face of his adversary: himself. At first, the man said nothing, just watched James with eyes that seemed to contain sympathy and sadness. Eventually he spoke.
“You probably noticed that our scheme wasn’t working, didn’t you, James? That the variances we expected didn’t occur—that the world looked exactly the same in the future of each version, when of course it shouldn’t have, as the dissimilarities piled up over the centuries. In essence, there was a flaw in our plan, an unforeseen variable.”
James was no longer in pain. He couldn’t feel his legs. His stomach was warm, almost hot. He looked down dumbly at the blood seeping from his gut, the quivering bits of flesh and entrails. Then he looked back up. He saw himself smiling. It was a strange smile. It looked kind, which was a mask James had cultivated many years ago. But this smile looked real.
James looked at himself, as his vision grew dimmer.
He heard himself talking from a long way off.
“It appears that the universe is self-correcting, James. As if it does have a purpose and a plan, and that plan cannot be derailed by mortals such as ourselves, regardless of how clever we are.” He crouched down next to James, and spontaneously took his hand.
“Intriguing, I know. We never anticipated this. Some…function is realigning every version, despite our best efforts to mess things up. Imagine that. A self-correcting universe! This certainly promotes the idea of string theory. But,” he said, straightening, “the strings are all being manipulated by the puppet master.”
He could see that James was fading quickly. He wanted to say one more thing to him before he passed away.
“Of course, I can’t be sure what the force is that causes the realignment. The thought crossed my mind that it is God. In essence, I think he has a plan for the universe—all of them. We can create as many versions as we want, but they will all end up the same way, because ultimately, James, this is his ballgame.”
The hand was growing cold, but the eyes still reflected life. James had just one more thing to say.
“It’s clear to me, just this moment, James, that this is what’s been happening. God has a plan. He always did.”
The dying man’s breathing was shallow, his skin pale and cold.
“How can you know?” he asked with difficulty. “How?”
James smiled, looking down at himself, and felt a surprising surge of love.
“I can’t for sure, my brother. Remember, so long ago, what we said. You can’t prove it. You take it on faith.”
At that moment James died.
THE END
petermaize 