"Come on... Come on..." mumbled the sniper. Not too far, wild applause and uproar filled the open stadium.
"...And so I present our beacon of hope, the stalwart of peace and the light of our futures and the future of communism, Kayne Obama!"
"I see you know bi-"
The sniper did not even get the chance to put his finger on the trigger.
"Sir, the target has been taken care of. Mission accomplished" spoke Shawn through the intercom. Not so far away, Martin, assuming the role of Overseer, had a sigh of relief.
"Good, now you have 30 seconds to get your ass back here before I kick it. You obviously did not read the manual." shouted Martin.
"Okay, okay, sheesh. I already told you if the manual hadn't been long..."
"Yada yada, just get your ass back here. We have to get back soon or else the chrono plane would become unstable and God knows what would happen to us."
Chrono-folding is not without flaws. By sending something or someone back in time, it creates a something out of nothing effect. Matter cannot be created nor completely destroyed; it can only be transformed into energy. As the famous equation of Einstein puts it, energy produced by transforming matter is equal to the mass of the matter in question multiplied by the square of the speed of light; the inverse had also been proven to be true. This means that at any point in time, there exists a finite and unchanging amount of energy and matter; disturbing this could lead to catastrophic circumstances.
The chrono plane tries to remain stable even after infractions on it have occurred. This is the reason why changing something in the past would not have very major consequences in the present, depending of course on the amount and time of infraction. If a significant amount of matter is introduced anytime where it shouldn't be, the chrono plane tries to adapt by converting matter into energy, an effect known as the Tristan's effect named after its discoverer, chronologist Marco Tristan. Energy doesn't take up space like matter does, and so causes the conversion.
This conversion though leads to more instability, and even more conversion; the longer the foreign matter remains displaced in time, the more matter is converted to energy in the chrono plane's desperate attempt to remain stable. By Einstein's equation, this conversion could result in cataclysmic explosions of energy, although often it's too far away in space to be felt in any degree. Cosmic phenomenon like supernovaes and black holes had been attributed to the Tristan effect, but nobody knows for sure.
"Yo Shawn, what happened to your mission? You got kicked in the ass again haven't you?" Jonathan sneered as he sat down beside Shawn.
"Fuck off assface" Shawn replied, stuffing a mouthful of burger into his mouth.
"No seriously man, you should be more responsible about your duties as part of Chronos. It's not everyday a man jumps back in time you know..."
"Eh, I know... It's just that, I dunno... I'm probably just tired of the constant drills..." said Shawn.
"Tell me about it. But you shouldn't be getting too much of those, I mean, it's not like there had been many missions recently, right?"
"Whatever... I still don't have the drive anymore... I don't know really..."
Shawn took another mouthful of burger, Jonathan sipped from his cup of sparkling water.
"Hey man, is this about Fiona?" Jonathan said, trying to comfort Shawn.
"What?!? Now where did you get that idea?" exclaimed Shawn, knocking Jonathan off his seat and spilling his food all over him.
Fiona Clyde was the youngest High Captain General in the entire military. She was also a favorite contender to the position of High General in Command, the highest position in the hierarchy of Chronos. She excels in everything she does, from History to Time and Space studies; she knows the ins and outs of chrono-folding and the principles and theories behind the chrono plane. Plus she's terribly good looking.
She's graduated from the same school as Shawn and was a year his senior. She was a year younger though, because she was accelerated twice, first in Lower Education Level 4 then in Higher Education Level 3 from the Unified Education System. She was 20 when she graduated Advanced Education; it has been 5 years now since she entered the Chronos Division. She flew her way through the ranks, getting promotion after promotion. And it wasn't over yet.
"Speaking of Fiona, any news about her?" asked Shawn, food in his mouth.
"First you knock me off the chair when I reminded you of her, now you ask me how she's doing?" complained Jonathan.
Shawn simply stared at him.
"Fine... The higher ups are formalizing her promotion. Won't be soon they say before she becomes GC. The election process they say is only a formality now..."
"I see... Wow... To think she entered the division only a year before us..."
"I don't really think about it. I'm just glad I became part of this division. Keeps bread on the table, and its kinda fun at times too."
Fiona Clyde was rumored to be backed by currently the strongest party in the United Congress, the Naturalists. Since they were given representation in the United Congress, they have slowly amassed power and wealth. It has been said that if you seek election into the United Government, whether as a lowly Regions Governor or as the Supreme Sovereign, all you need is backing from the Naturalists.
It wasn't unnatural though for people like Fiona to rise through the ranks quickly. In previous years, similar incidents have happened where people fresh from graduation acquire notable and powerful positions in the United Government. By the turn of the century, it wasn't too uncommon to see a 20 something High Senate Representative, or a 30 something Supreme Sovereign. There seems to be a clamor for younger, more blue-blooded individuals to take up powerful offices, probably in the hopes of ending corruption. It's still not the norm though, but Fiona certainly wasn't an exception.
"Hey man, I better go, still got 'missions' in the morning, if you know what I mean. You better take a rest too, and begin thinking about taking the division seriously" Jonathan reminded Shawn.
"Yeah, says the guy who has 'missions' in the morning" Shawn objected.
Jonathan and Shawn deposited their food trays into the conveyor and parted ways as they headed for their bunks.
Shawn plunked immediately on his bed and picked up his kinetic phone, spinning it a few times before dialing a familiar number. An answering machine picked up on the other side.
"Hello... This is Shawn, if ever you're there, please call me back."
He didn't hang up for a while, thinking of something else to say. Then unexpectedly, a female voice answered.
"Shawn, it's me. I'm sorry if I haven't been answering you back, it's complicated. Anyway, for your sake and for mine, I'm really sorry but please..."
There was a short pause.
"Please..."
"... Don't call me anymore."
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Fiona Clyde
Chronos division
"So tell me again, why are we doing this?" Shawn asked, hustling to catch up with his mentor.
Martin eyed him, half-irritated.
"Didn't you read the manual before you went here? It's part of a Chronos Division's responsibility to do that you know?"
"Well, if the manual weren't so long then maybe I could get to reading them..." Shawn complained.
Chronos Division is part of the United Government's military, directly under the Armed Guards. Members of this division are tasked to correct errors in the time line, caused by the tampering of previous generations.
"Fine... I wonder how you could not read the manual and still manage to be part of this division..." Martin said, obviously exasperated at the ignorance of his pupil.
Each year, the Chronos Division recruits fresh graduates from various academies that have shown proficiency in Time and History studies. It's of utmost importance that recruits know history like that back of their hand. One false move could mean the failure of a mission; an unwanted alteration in history that could call for numerous additional missions, which means additional unwanted expense.
"The first time Chrono-folding was achieved, our ancestors were of course very excited, so excited that they began causing alterations in the time line. But contrary to pop knowledge in that era, 'tampering with the time line' doesn't really cause much of a difference to how time flows..."
Chrono-folding is term coined in the early part of the 21st century. It's a fancy term for time travel, but not completely unfounded. Chrono-folding is done by literary bending the so-called "time-space continuum", or the "Chrono plane". Time and space had always been conventionally considered four dimensional: the first three dimensions (i.e. height, width and depth) serve to define space, and the fourth dimension (time) serves to define the constant passing of moments.
By the turn of the decade though, chronologists (scientists who study time) began to think of time and space as a plane; a 2-dimensional plane similar to a movie reel. It wasn't long before a team chronologists in the Integrated University of New Harvard were able to literally bend this 2-dimensional plane, which then became know as the Chrono plane. They did it by shooting photons at a target exponentially faster than the speed of light. This causes a phenomenon similar to the sonic boom, called the "phosphic boom". The tremendous amount of explosive energy forces the chrono plane to warp and fold, sending the target back into time. The energy and speed of the photons determine how far back in time the target would be sent to.
"... The chrono plane is immensely vast and the current by which it moves is extremely strong. 'Tampering' with it would be similar to dipping your finger into the ocean and watching the ripples flow. Sooner or later, something would replace whatever event that was "tampered" with, which means history would remain relatively unaltered." explained Martin.
"Wait, you mean even if we did things in the past to "alter" history, aside from probably a change in surname, nothing really large would change?" asked Shawn.
"No." answered Martin.
"So the grandfather anomaly is..." Shawn continued.
"Bullshit..." Martin interjected.
After chronologists were able to successfully develop Chrono-folding technology, it was of course natural for them to send people back into time. The first Chrono-walkers were uncertain about how "tampering" with space and time would affect history at large. They performed "controlled" experiments on history, going even as far as slaughtering lab animals to see whether the grandfather anomaly and other anomalies like it were real. They discovered that the further you travel back in time, the lesser of an effect tampering with something would have.
Suppose somebody kills on of your distant ancestors. Chances are you would still be born, with the same parents, same physical characteristics, and even lead the same life. Somebody would replace the killed ancestor, and the effect of the replacement would mitigate in due time. This is opposed to killing, say, a parent. There is still a chance you would be born, but from a different parent. Your appearance could remain unaltered and you could still live a relatively unchanged life, but there is also a chance you would never be born at all.
"So why then are we still chrono-folding if we aren't even going to be able to change anything that much?" asked Shawn.
"Well, for one, our ancestors did so many alterations into the past. Experiment after experiment made the public more and more uneasy about chrono-folding. Soon, the public uproar was on such a high level that chronologists were forced to perform experiments underground. For a while all seemed well, until somebody leaked information to the public about the underground experimentations. Feeding on the rage of the people, opposition politicians began including 'Stop chrono-experimentations' as part of their propaganda..."
In the middle of the 22nd century, an opposition candidate was sworn into the highest office of the United Government, the Supreme Sovereign of the Flags or Supreme Sovereign for short. And of course, part of her platform was to outlaw chrono-experimentation for good. This was not enough however to quell the public. A group, calling themselves the "Naturalists" began heckling the government to perform counter-measures to correct the "unnaturalism" caused by chrono-experimentation.
The Naturalists were at first ignored by the United Government. For them, sending people back in time to correct the mistakes were a waste of money; sending a single person to a two-way trip back in time through chrono-folding costs millions, especially since the technology to chrono-fold had to be carried back in time with the chrono-walkers.
This all changed when a string of skyscraper bombings and hostage takings were performed by the New Army, the militaristic wing of the Naturalists. The current supreme sovereign was impeached; her Vice Sovereign being sworn into office in lieu of her. He played to the whims of the Naturalists, even giving them a seat in the United Congress of Flag Representatives. And as part of the administrative switch, the Chronos Division was organized.
"I see..." said Shawn in a partly convinced, partly dubious tone.
The elevator door opened as they walked in. It would take about five minutes to get to the 35th level deep underground, where chrono-folding missions were briefed and held.
As the elevator door closed, Shawn asked something that caught Martin off-guard.
"So, if we are part of the 'unnaturalism' caused by previous chrono-foldings, and as such have no knowledge whatsoever of how things should've gone given that no previous chrono-foldings were performed; how then could we know how things should've naturally proceeded? Who calls the shots?"
For a few minutes, only the silent hum of the elevator could be heard. Shawn patiently waited for the answer as the elevator went further and further underground.
Just as the elevator door was about to open, Martin answered in a hushed, equally perplexed tone:
"It's... Classified..."
