Lost: Somewhere in Time [Published - Sample Only]

Chapter 5 - Time Travelers Never Try to Kill Hitler, Stalin or bin Laden

Chapter 5 - Time Travelers Never Try to Kill Hitler, Stalin or bin Laden

//Log entry/ 2041-315 Bravo/ TIME-COORD: 11/11/2041/1100hrs. GEO-COORD: Cleveland, North American Alliance. Vector: TIME-COORD: 10/14/1918/0230:00:05hrs. GEO-COORD: Ypres Belgium. Vector: -0123yyyy:00mm:28dd:08hh28mm:55.0000ss.ssss//

//Entry begins/Project Valkyrie. My experiments with both open and closed timelines and the mysterious closed time loops have verified the theory. The butterfly and ripple effect has been proven but can be undone if the time traveler returns to a time before the start of the ripple and prevents his past self from performing the act. I tested the theory in the lab after an accidental drop of my coffee mug. At just after 1011 hours, I carelessly knocked my nearly full coffee mug off of my lab table. It crashed to the gray concrete floor and shattered into 100 pieces. I cursed under my breath. I stooped down to clean up the mess.

I then glanced at the large blue LED chronometer on the lab wall and I was hit with an epiphany, an insight to...to possibilities. I left the broken mug and puddle of brown liquid exactly as it was. I then removed a digital imager and portable chrono display. I checked that the chrono was synced to the time coordinate display on the machine and then set it on the floor next to the broken mug. I took a few images showing the time display next to the mess on the lab floor. Next, I uploaded the image file to the time comm unit and added a simple text message. Don't knock the mug off of the table at 1011 hours//

//log entry 2041-315 Alpha/ Something very strange happened this morning. I'm sure that I am now, that is the entire universe is an alternate timeline. I was working on some modifications to the coordinate transfer equations. I finally derived a function which correctly accounted not only for the expansion of the universe but for the acceleration of the expansion caused by dark energy. These functions had to be exact or the time traveler could find himself materializing in deep space rather than on the edge of the Roman forum. The expansion factor was trivial for trips of days or even a few hundred years but became critical for longer journeys. I was startled when the message received icon in my control panel illuminated. The origination vector was 20 minutes into the future. The message had a series of images showing my favorite coffee mug shattered on the floor. The text was from me, a future me. It simply said don't knock the mug off of the table at 1011 hours. I looked at the main chrono read out it said 1010:30. I held my breath for a moment and then remained motionless. 1011 hours came and went. Nothing happened. For good measure, I waited 10 more minutes. I absently sipped my cooling coffee and then laughed at the irony. I carefully put the still intact mug back on the lab table. I looked again at the image file showing the broken mug, I half expected it to disappear into the aether. I then waited until the origination time of the message also came and went.

The implications were staggering. In some alternate and now closed timeline, or more specifically closed time loop, I had broken my mug and then sent a message to this me telling me to be a little less careless with the crockery. That first me was gone? Or had he never existed? Over the next several weeks, I did many experiments verifying my hypothesis. I even sent myself the winning lottery numbers. That me no longer exists but I now have several million more credits more to fund my research. [Note to future self: be very careful here. Probably not wise to win the lottery again for a while]

It was at that moment that I decided to kill Hitler or to be more precise, allow the universe to kill him. I thought about killing him as a child, but that was too much like the Pharaoh in Exodus. I selected the time and place carefully. My preparations would have to be perfect. Lance Corporal Schickelgruber as Hitler was known at that time was gassed and blinded temporarily in the trenches of the Western Front at Ypres in Belgium on 14 Oct 1918. I had a copy of a famous (infamous?) photo which had been taken just two days earlier.

My plan was simple: I was going to steal Hitler's gas mask, the one that saved him. I obtained a replica uniform complete with insignia of the same unit as Corporal Schickelgruber and was a message runner just as he was. I grew a mustache in the style of the time. I used my old sleep teacher to read write and speak the archaic German in use at the time. The day before I was to leave, I was not at all surprised to see the message icon alert.

//ABORT MISSION ABORT MISSION. Europe devastated by nuclear war in 1961 between German Empire and Soviet Union [IMGS attach] alternate history as follows:/ Starting in 1918 the events of the alternate timeline were eerily similar to the one of my universe. The Treaty Of Versailles was signed in 1919, the Weimar Republic collapsed in 1933. Rise of National Socialist Workers party as before. Then the deviation began. Hermann Goering elected Chancellor 1935. Germany re-armed in violation of Treaty. Germans occupied Alsace Lorraine, Ruhr Valley and Sudetenland in 1937 just as before.

In 1938 Poland is again divided up by Germany and Soviet Union. In 1939 Germany invaded to the West. France and Low Countries fall in 1940. Goering's Germany does not invade Soviet Union. In 1941, United Kingdom Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signs an armistice. German Empire and Soviet Empire share a common border along Vistula River until 1961. With a failing economy, Khrushchev invades west. Tactical nukes used immediately by both sides. Escalation to general thermonuclear war quickly followed. Europe became a radioactive swamp. ABORT MISSION ABORT MISSION/Log Entry Ends//