Chapter 19 - Time Travel

After killing Cronus and Metis, my new goal was to destroy time travel itself.

The first thing that I did was to destroy the very first sample of timetanium.

When I did that, a humongous amount of changes happened to the timeline.

The biggest change was that time travel was discovered three years later than it originally was, meaning that time travel still existed. However, other changes happened as well. In 1945 CE, an atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima instead of Kyoto; in 2000 CE, Al Gore won the United States presidential election instead of George W. Bush; and in 39 TTE, Kayla Liu won the World Chocolatiering Championships instead of Bastion Williams.

Many changes had happened all over the timeline just because of that one little change that I made. It was just like Dr. Potter had said, the timeline was a mess of non-linear causes and effects. One change could affect the timeline at many different points, in both the future and the past.

However, time travel still existed. The one change that I wanted didn't happen.

So I continued on my quest, jumping around time and preventing key events that led up to the discovery of time travel from happening.

Every now and then, some TPA agents would show up, but I took them out easily. In fact, I suspected that some of them had probably succeeded in killing my past self, while I continued on. I was probably a walking time paradox by now.

After a long time - I didn't know how long, the constant time travelling had messed up my sense of time - I was finally nearly finished.

There I was, in 1 TTE, holding the very last hard drive that contained a backup of the notes that would lead to the discovery of time travel. All that I had to do, was drop it on to the ground to destroy it.

As I was about to drop the hard drive, a time portal opened in front of me. Even more surprisingly, it was Matthew who came out from the other side.

"Stop!" he yelled at me.

I stared at him in surprise, "Matthew? How are you... how are you existing?"

Matthew smirked a little, "Considering the insane amount of changes to the timeline that you have been making, is it really that surprising that one of them might have undid my death?"

"No..., I guess not."

Suddenly, Matthew's face turned serious, "I hear that you have been trying to destroy everything that would make time travel possible."

"That's right, Matthew. I've destroyed all the notes, destroyed all the prototypes, destroyed all the blueprints, and so on. All that I have left to do, is to destroy this hard drive, and time travel will have never existed!"

"James, if you do that, you'll be changing every single point in time!"

"Yeah, yeah, I've heard Dr. Potter explain it."

"Do you know how many paradoxes you'll create?!" Matthew yelled at me, angrily.

"I won't be creating any at all. In fact, I'll be getting rid of all the paradoxes."

"What are you talking about? You've seen how time travel 'works'. You're a walking paradox yourself!"

I laughed, "Didn't Dr. Potter tell you about the theory where the rules of chronodynamics change every time the timeline gets change?"

"Yeah, he mentioned it in his class. So?"

"Since time travel has affected every single point in time, then if I cause time travel to never have existed, the timeline will get changed so irrevocably that the new rule will be that time travel isn't possible. This will reset the entire timeline, from beginning to end!"

"That's just your theory!"

"No, from what I've seen, it's the only logical conclusion!"

"But... but why? Why are you trying to wipe out time travel itself?"

I laughed sardonically, "Isn't it obvious? I'm doing this because time travel should have never existed in the first place!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Has anything good ever came out of being able to travel through time? We were part of the Time Patrol Agency, but we couldn't change things in the timeline, we couldn't stop tragedies from happening. All because we didn't want to create another paradox. Meanwhile, any criminals or terrorists that get their hands on a time travel device get to change the timeline however they wanted. The only people that have benefited from time travel are the criminals and the terrorists!"

Matthew looked at me and decided to try another approach, "Look, James, it's not too late. Let's just stop this and go home. Who knows? I came back, so maybe Judy and Stephanie came back too."

Angrily, I yelled at him, "It didn't work!"

"What?"

"I killed the younger versions of Metis and Cronus, which means that Judy shouldn't have been killed. But when I got back to the future, she was still dead."

Matthew looked at me, with shock on his face, "H- how? That doesn't make sense."

"That's right!" I yelled, "That's time paradoxes for you. Things just randomly get decided without having to make any sense! Do you know what happens in the new timeline? Judy just falls down, dead, from a knife wound caused by nothing!"

Matthew and I stood there in silence, trying to make some sense of it all.

Finally, with sadness in his voice, Matthew said, "You know, you might not even exist in this new timeline that you'll be creating when you drop that hard drive. I might not exist in the new timeline. Even Judy and Stephanie might not exist anymore."

I paused for a moment at the thought. Then, I said, "Even if there is only a small chance of bringing them back, it's worth it."

Matthew laughed a little, "I guess it would be."

I laughed along with my best friend, "Yeah, anything's better than what we've got now."

With hope in his voice, Matthew said, "Well, James, hopefully, I'll see you soon."

"Yeah. See you soon."

I dropped the hard drive.