Caught Somewhere In Time

Start reading from the beginning…

Cole felt nervous about going back into the lab again, but thought it’s a normal feeling of distress, not something that Novikov’s Effect was doing to him. He was merely afraid of getting caught, not just by his other self, but by anyone who could jeopardize his later theft of the ship. Then he considered it a moment and realized that no one would be able to stop him from stealing the ship, because it has already happened, at least for him. Val was outside somewhere right now, waiting to re-dock, something that she couldn’t do if the ship were not going to be stolen in the first place. The sense of nervousness passed given the logic of the situation, so Cole walked through the open door Audrey was holding. At the very worst, he guessed, he would be thrown out of the complex. Novikov’s Effect would take care of everything else.

Audrey followed behind him until they rounded the corner in the hall. She swept past him and then past Val’s door, leaving Chan’s luggage in the hall and pushing her own into her apartment next door. She stepped back to open Val’s door and walked inside, leaving the door open for Cole. When Cole walked in, he saw the blind was up. He walked over to the open window and looked out at the Earth hanging in the sky.

“Would you mind shutting those?” Audrey asked. “The view is more awe inspiring when you watch it emerge for the first time rather than just walking in and seeing it there.”

“Sure,” he said to her, then to the room in general, “Close the blinds.” He watched as a tapestry unrolled downward, covering the entire wall, curious to see the one in this room. The one in his room showed some of the constellations, but he knew they were different in every room. Just before it lowered past his eye-level, obscuring the view, he thought he spotted a strange, smooth area of the ground outside, and a flicker of light He didn’t have time to give it a second though it before Audrey began questioning him.

“So why did you come out to meet me at the ship while no one else was around? That is highly unusual, especially for you.”

“I told you before, I was worried that Chan might be thinking about firing me.”

She was unloading a few suitcases through the attic door. Audrey rolled the first one over and set it at the foot of the bed. “I know, but that doesn’t make any sense. This is your project. Why would the Admiral want to terminate you from it?”

Cole knew that if he was going to get anywhere, he needed to lay out all the facts he had. Audrey would only probe until she had the truth anyway, and he didn’t have the time for that. “I don’t know, but he will fire me, in about a half hour.”

“How do you know? Did you use the time machine to find out what is going to happen?”

“No,” he said, looking at his feet while she rolled a second suitcase to the foot of the bed. “I didn’t use the time machine until after I was fired.”

Audrey, who was headed back to the attic door stopped stone still mid-step. She turned and looked him in the face, her expression totally unreadable. “You are from the future then? It actually works, the machine works?” A wide smile spread across her face, igniting a fire in her eyes. “If you were fired though, that means you stole it!”

“Actually, yes.” She didn’t miss much.

“You are not a pilot though. I thought that’s why we hired Valentin…” Her voice trailed off as she put it all together. “She stole it with you, didn’t she?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s not her fault though. She was trying to help me, and she didn’t know I was fired. She was just following orders,” he lied.

“That is spectacular!” Audrey laughed for the first time that Cole had ever heard. “I liked her before, but now I positively adore her! I always have thought this place needed to have a rebel or something to stir things up! Don’t tell the Admiral I said that though, OK?”

It was Cole’s turn to laugh now. “Only if you don’t tell him I stole the ship.”

“How could he not find out though? I mean, that ship is the culmination of all the work that has happened in this lab for at least the last several years.” She turned and grabbed a third bag out of the attic, this one smaller, and headed toward the bathroom.

“If we return the ship a few moments after we steal it, then it’s really only borrowing without permission. Val is waiting for time to catch up and then she’ll land right after we leave the dock. The ship will be gone only a minute, two maximum.” He considered for a second what he had seen out her window. Could that be her, waiting just outside this apartment? No, that would be too bold.

Audrey was rummaging around in the bathroom putting a few things away when she called out to him, “So you travelled through time for what?”

“To find out why I was fired.”

She walked out of the bathroom and said, “You travelled through time because you wanted to know why you couldn’t study time travel anymore? I hope the irony of this isn’t completely lost on you. I think this is amazing, personally.”

“So you don’t know why I was, I mean will be, fired. Do you?”

She looked him in the eye and said, “I don’t know why you will be fired. I’d fire you though if you stole a time machine you had no business taking. That’s my opinion.”

Cole felt like he’d been hit with a lead weight. Was this what really led to him getting fired? Was it his theft of the time machine that led to his firing? It didn’t make sense to him though. How could something like that be reconciled? He had taken the time machine because he had been fired, so he couldn’t be fired for having taken the time machine. It couldn’t be as simple as that. That would be a future event having ramifications on the past. He had been studying the Effect for a long time, and while he knew a bit about it, even felt it in action earlier and just down the hall, he at least understood it well enough to know that he couldn’t have changed the past like that. It had not occurred to him earlier, because it just can’t happen that way.

“We’d better go. I expect we’ll have company shortly.”

“Company?” Cole was lost in thought, trying to sort out Audrey’s idea, trying to convince himself that what she said didn’t make sense, despite the fact that it has been the only answer he’d received to his problem so far.

Audrey started for the door and Cole began to follow her.”I’ll see you around, maybe,” she said. She grabbed Chan’s luggage and reached around to shut the door behind Cole, who was still dumbfounded. She stood, only a foot or so in front of him, and looked up into his face. “Don’t go getting yourself fired, Cole. It wouldn’t be the same around here without you.” She smiled at him, patted his arm, and walked back to the side hall to drop off Chan’s luggage presumably at his office.

Cole just stared after her for a minute, totally at a loss four rational thought. It simply couldn’t be as simple as that. This is time travel, this is profound ramifications on theories that have been in place for hundreds of years. His presence in the future cannot affect his past destiny. It goes against everything that science had considered possible.

As he stood there, staring after Audrey, convinced he was still missing something about the situation, he heard talking at the other end of the hall. Knowing there would be nothing good for him coming from that end of the hall, he turned from Val’s door and opened the next door beyond hers. He stepped into the empty apartment and began closing the door when he saw Admiral Chan and Val walking toward him down the hall.

He left the door open a little and moved back into the dark room, afraid that a closing door would be less noticeable than one still slightly ajar. As the two approached the door, they stopped, and then fell silent. Cole held his breath, nervous that he was about to be caught, and still trying to reassure himself that logic does not allow for Audrey’s assertion. His predicament became more mind boggling considering he was in danger of being caught and fired right now. What if Chan had just seen him somewhere else, and then found him lurking in this room? But Novikov’s Effect wouldn’t allow that to happen. He couldn’t be in two places at once, because it would cause a paradox, and paradoxes were impossible.

He didn’t have long to consider this however, because the door swayed open and the Admiral stepped inside. “Who is in here?” he asked quietly to the dark room. Cole continued to hold his breath. “I can see your shape in the light cast by the door. Is that you, Cole?”

Cole exhaled.

“Why are you hiding in this room, and how did you get here so quickly? We just left you in the lab.”

Cole was trapped. Chan was right, and nothing Cole could say would change that fact. Never mind that Chan would hear the truth from Doctor Smith or possibly from Audrey before long. Neither of them would be able to withstand scrutiny for very long, Cole guessed.

 “I need to talk to you about that. You see, I traveled…” but Chan cut him off.

“On second thought, I do not want any details. The less I know the better I presume. I want you to answer two questions only, and then this conversation will be over. A simple yes or no will suffice. First, was that the time machine I spotted outside while I was on final approach to land?”

Cole reluctantly said, “Yes.”

“Second, is Valentina involved in this?”

“She doesn’t know anything. She was only following my orders, like she’s supposed to.”

“A simple ‘No’ would have sufficed, even if it was a lie.” Chan put his hand over his eyes for a moment. Cole assumed that Chan’s day had been very long. The Admiral rubbed his eyes, and then put his hand back down to his side. “I have not authorized the use of that vessel yet, and I certainly would not authorize it to be set down outside Valentina’s apartment window where anyone flying by could spot it. At least my pilot did not see it out there. I was afraid she might have when she spotted it so quickly in the hangar bay.”

Cole stood silently. He dared not say another word. Obviously he wouldn’t need to, since Chan had indisputable evidence of the ship being in two places at once, even if he couldn’t get both Coles into the same room for proof.

“Well, I suppose we can’t have two of you around here at the same time, even if it would get more done.” Chan relaxed a little, like he usually did after he’s been in Cole’s company for very long: always rigid at first, and more comfortable as a discussion continues.

Cole still didn’t say anything. He though that saying nothing would be better than digging himself into a deeper hole. It was confusing though, the way Chan was acting. Not upset at all about the obvious use of the ship without his approval.

“Due to the nature of the situation and your involvement, I am simply going to have to sort this mess out for myself. When there are no longer any duplicate people in this lab, I want to see you in my office.”

“Yes, sir.” Cole nodded at the Admiral’s dim silhouette, the light from the doorway behind Chan making him only a little visible in the dark room. Chan turned and walked out of the room leaving Cole thoroughly perplexed. It appeared that Cole was not fired from the project if he was due in the Admiral’s office later. Except that Chan hadn’t fired Cole yet, that wouldn’t happen for…

It had been himself that had gotten Cole fired. Suddenly, it was very clear to him that Chan was on his way to fire the other Cole right now, the past Cole, and it was because of this meeting. There would be a lot to talk about when he met with Chan later, because this just didn’t make sense when held up to the logic involved in Novikov’s self-consistency theory. There is no way he could have affected his own past that way. Ramifications from this would propel his work in a whole new direction now.

Cole shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts and headed out the door, confident that Chan had turned the corner in the hall by now, but when he emerged from the room, Val was standing there looking at him, with an odd look on her face.

“Where did you come from?” she asked. Cole was caught off-guard by her presence, and knocked out his ruminations by her question.

“Val!” Cole said, excited to see that she was here and not in trouble for her role in this. “What are you doing back so soon? You aren’t supposed to be back for another hour.” Was he that lost in his own thoughts? This wasn’t the Val he was supposed to be talking to. This Val hadn’t helped him yet. This Val had just arrived at the base for the first time.

“What do you mean ‘back’?” Val replied. “ I just got here! Don’t you remember? We met not five minutes ago in the lab.”

“Just got here? Oh, um… yeah. Right.” Cole couldn’t stop from turning a little red. He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he had forgotten that she was standing here with Chan, and that she was the last person he should be talking to. He figured he’d better make the best of it though, so he tried his best to be professional and get away from her at the same time. “Well this is your apartment here, then. If you go straight down that hall, you’ll be in the lobby, and beyond the lobby is the public area of LunaBase.”

“So that’s the tour, is it?” she asked, obviously unhappy that he wasn’t going to stay and chat. He had to get out of here. He didn’t want to mess up the past any worse than he already had. There’s no telling how Novikov’s Effect would apply now that he had been present through a paradox that wasn’t supposed to even be able to happen. Then a thought occurred to him.

“Uh… I’ll tell you what. Meet me at the café across from the lobby in a half hour, and I’ll finish the tour.” Cole was horrible at thinking on his feet like this, or at least communicating when he’s on unsure ground. He wanted to see if he could affect the situation any further without repercussions. “I… yeah. I need to go now.” Cole scratched his beard, realizing both that he needed to shave, and that he just sent Val to go meet his past self, which  he knew that she ultimately would. He turned and walked away toward the lab.

As he walked away, he realized that maybe there was not a paradox here after all. Sure he had been the cause for his own firing, and the reason that Val came to help him, but there had not been a paradox in the traditional sense because nothing had changed for him. He remembered getting fired, and he remembered Val approaching him in the café, so even though there was a circular series of events there wasn’t anything being changed. His past had already happened, even if it was because of his future. A word came to his mind as he walked into the lab: destiny. What had happened was destiny, there was no other explanation for it, or at least none that Cole could conceive of. He was destined to make this loop, because if he hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have happened. It seemed like conscious choices at the time, not a guide in place, but here he was, at the end of a long loop he had put into motion only moments ago.

Destiny, the apparent answer to the question of paradox that Cole hadn’t conceived of before now.

Continued on April 10, 2010