A selection from "The Woman Who Came to the Paradox" by Derek J. Goodman

The Woman Who Came to the Paradox

by Derek J. Goodman

R

eggie stepped out of the light and onto the streets of Braunau am Inn, Austria. It was dark and the general look of the street seemed about right, but until he found a newspaper or something he couldn’t be certain that he’d arrived on the night he intended. He looked down at himself, making sure he hadn’t lost any part of his costume in his journey. It looked intact, but he really didn’t expect to need it for long. All he needed to do was walk down to the Gasthof zum Pommer and kill the newborn baby Adolf Hitler.

He heard footsteps on the street somewhere behind him. Reggie turned, afraid that someone out late at night had seen his miraculous appearance, but it was an old woman just now coming onto the street. She was hunched over and walked very slowly, but she looked up briefly at him, nodded, and carefully sat herself down against the side of the nearest building. Reggie thought she looked vaguely familiar, but that couldn’t be possible. It wasn’t like he had time traveled before. This lady was just some anonymous footnote in history, and Reggie had no reason to pay her any more mind.

He took a deep breath and looked around to get his bearings. He wasn’t nervous, not really. He was more excited than anything else. Here he was, only twenty-five years old and inventor of the first time machine. As soon as he had invented it, however, the government had swooped down like vultures off their perch and tried to regulate his brain child. He couldn’t have that. He’d used it before they had the opportunity to stop him, and he’d come here to prove his point.

In truth, he really didn’t care about whether what he was about to do was right or wrong. Everyone always used this hypothetical scenario as a test of morals, but Reggie only cared about this point in history because it was high profile. He would be the first person to completely reshape history as he saw fit.

The old woman made a noise that might have been a snort or maybe a snore. Reggie ignored it and started down the street in the direction of the gasthof.

A light flashed five feet in front of him, and someone stepped out of it. Reggie blinked, not realizing who he was seeing at first. He recognized the clothes as the same ones he wore now, except they were ripped, dirty, and charred in a few places. The face was more difficult to recognize through the smudges and blood, but as the person fought to catch his breath, Reggie realized this was him.

“Thank God I made it,” the other Reggie said (Reggie immediately in his mind labeled the other as Reggie-B). “You can’t do this.”

“You’re me?” Reggie asked.

“You from two weeks in your future,” Reggie-B said. “I’ve come to stop you. You can’t kill him.”

“You can’t be me. Why would I try to stop myself?”

“Because you have no idea what kind of changes you will cause. The destruction, it’s unimaginable. You see, if you actually go through with this…”

Five feet to Reggie’s right, a light flashed and another Reggie stepped out from it. “No!” the new Reggie (Reggie-C?) said to Reggie-B. “You can’t do this!”

“You’re me?” Reggie-B said. Reggie looked from Reggie-B to Reggie-C, trying to understand this.

“You from three days in your future,” Reggie-C said. “I’ve come to stop you from stopping you.”

“But why would I try…” Reggie-B began, but Reggie-C stopped him with a groan.

“Really,” Reggie-C said, “I don’t have time for this.” He shoved Reggie-B backward, and the light flashed again, swallowing Reggie-B back up into the time stream.

“I did it,” Reggie-C said unbelievingly. “I stopped myself from stopping myself. That means…whoops, I’m about to cease to exist.” And he did just that, vanishing immediately into thin air.

Reggie blinked at the quiet street, trying to wrap his head around what he’d just seen. Cautiously, he took another step in the direction of the gasthof.

There was another flash of light in front of him. “Really?” Reggie said. “You again? Or, I mean, me again?”

“No,” the new Reggie, just as dirty and beat up as before, said to him. “I’m not the one you’re thinking of as Reggie-B. I’m you from two weeks in the future, but not the same two weeks. An alternate possible two weeks.”

“Reggie-B2?” Reggie asked.

“Basically. Now listen, you can’t do this. You’ve set something in motion…”

Two more flashes, two more Reggies. These two looked exactly like the ones who had disappeared earlier.

“What the hell are you doing back?” Reggie-C asked Reggie-B.

“When you stopped me from stopping me,” Reggie-B said, “you ceased to exist because I never became you. But if I never became you then you never existed to stop me from stopping me.”

“Well I’m here to stop all of you,” Reggie-B2 said. Both B and C looked like they were ready to attack B2, but they were stopped by another flash as a version of Reggie ten years older than all the others stepped into the street.

“I did it,” the new one said. “I got out of the whole mess. I’m…” He looked at all the other Reggies and screamed. “No! No, I can’t be back here! I’ve become Reggie-T63! This can’t be!” He ran screaming down the street and disappeared in another flash.

There were more flashes all the way up and down the street. What had been a quiet road minutes earlier was now loud with arguing Reggies, each one trying to stop another from doing something at some point in Reggie’s personal timeline. Reggie, the original Reggie, backed away from the growing crowd. When he was far enough away from all the bickering, he finally heard the old woman laughing. Reggie turned to her and saw her watching the whole scene, cackling softly to herself.

“This is what you get,” the old woman said. “This is what you get for trying to mess with time travel.”

“What do you know about time travel?” Reggie asked.