Criminal One

Blip-blip, and I drop out into reality once more. I had to make a quick getaway from the last place and hadn't had time to set up some proper coordinates. I just selected something random, so here I am. I wonder where and when it is.

I take a quick look around, point my chronometer at some stars and wait for it to analyse what it sees and then produce an answer. A few seconds later the data pops into my head via the neural implant.

Date: Time period 16424.993, Fourth age, twenty-sixth millennium of the ninth extra-galactic empire.

Location: Outer spiral arm of Galaxy reference QDS102243.

Planet: Cauxitron, inhabitable/inhabited, subject world.

Technology Level: Mediaeval.

Current Ninth Extra-Galactic Ruler: Imhotekka the Magnificent.

Well, that's just his opinion – I have a different one and they don't include him being magnificent for much longer.

They say it's not paranoia if they really are out to get you.

In my case, it's definitely not paranoia.

They've been out to get me for ages.

Currently, that number of ages is fifteen, with each age being between three and rather a lot more than three millennia in length. Then again, after I've thrown a few of my usual spanners in the works, the number of ages, along with the length of them, tend to become a tad flexible in their finer details.

I'm good at throwing spanners into things. It's what I've been doing for most of my long lives – about ninety-five thousand standard time units worth, if I've done my sums right – and I probably haven't. Still, it's hard to keep count when you keep screwing with time and history. There's few precious fixed points and events in all of history. And I'm pretty sure I know all of them.

And that's why it's not paranoia.

They call me the most wanted criminal in the universe. They call me Criminal One.

Good for them – gives 'em someone to look up to apart from the jumped up little shits who think they rule whichever part of the universe they've conquered at any particular time.

It's all bullshit, of course. They build 'em – I knock 'em down.

They keep trying to stop me, but they haven't managed it yet. Possibly they will one day. Oh, they've come very close more than a thousand times, but they usually make the mistake of imprisoning me or not killing me properly. The latter always works to my advantage – I don't die easily, and when I do, the succession is always waiting in place.

I concentrate as my mind dials into whatever the hell it is that enables me to do all this. One day I may even figure out what it is. I scan the news channels noting that his so-called magnificence was due to attend some sort of banquet three days ago and several star systems away, on a planet with the unlikely name of Gribbley. Apparently, nothing untoward happened to Imhotekka there.

"Time for some spanners," I chuckle.

I concentrate once more and set some coordinates, aiming for Gribbley and seven days previously.

Well, that could have gone a bit better. I look down at the holes in my body from which blood oozes. The nano-bots in my bloodstream are doing their best to rectify the damage but, according to my diagnostics, this old body is on the way out – yet again.

At least I was in better shape than Imhotekka.

"He won't be attending any more banquets," I chuckle as my life ebbs away. "Okay, time to go back and screw up the timelines once again."