Charles

4. Einstein?

It's been 2 years since my first and only experience with time-travel. I honestly don't plan on doing it again. The headache and feeling of sickness in my stomach was too much to bare.

On the same evening of the TCA event, I took a taxi home and I made some interesting discoveries about this world and myself as well. When I stepped inside my home, the lights went on as usual. I didn't notice anything different. The walls were all still the same. The same width, the same colour and every passage, exactly the same. Perhaps my life hadn't changed at all in this timeline, or so I thought...

I went to my room and saw my bed, that I supposedly would have died on and perhaps will one day. I'm not an old hag anymore and I'm not in pain anymore either. I better be grateful.

What I usually did when I had plans, was that I would record them in my diary. So it was the very first thing I did. I wanted to check what kind of things I was up to in this timeline and what kind of person I was. Everything would be in the diary. So that night I spent quite some time on my tablet, scrolling through the many pages I've written.

Here's what I've found from my diary...

Apparently I'm the owner of the largest prison in the Aluben region. Not just that, but according the diary, I hunted down a criminal named Jax, and especially built this prison to keep the world safe from him. And here's the interesting part... The security in the prison is super high tech, not that it was cheaper to build, but to stop this criminal if he somehow tried to escape using his 'abilities'. The first thought that came to my mind when reading that part, was, "Do humans have super powers in this timeline?" Just the thought rattled my brain. During these last 2 years, I haven't seen anything special from anyone whatsoever and I've never heard anyone speak anything of the sort.

Was this Jax, the only one with some sort of special abilities and I was the only one who knew?

According to records, Jax has been in prison for 38 years now. His crime? He was a murderer. He killed a reported amount of 177 people and all of them in the same 24 years, from 2001-2025. And from 2030-2042, there were 16 similar cases pointing towards our greatest killer. He went quiet for a while, and in 2066 according to the diary, I finally found him. He was just lying lifelessly in an alley, not a single scratch on him. No sign of injury, like a lifeless doll. Who could do this to the most notorious killer of the century? According to the diary, I tried everything I could to get a word out of him since the moment he regained his consciousness, but not a single word came from his lips up to this day. Because of this unfortunate circumstance, the death penalty could not be placed upon him, we'd need a "Yes, I understand", kind of response from the condemned, before we went through with something like that. The only things we know about him is his name, some of whom he killed, and that he should be kept under heavy surveillance till he eventually dies in his cell. That was my idea.

Jax must have been very dangerous. I wonder what it would be like to live in early 21st century. A killer on the loose, madness! Now he just stares at the walls without a sound. I must say, being incharge of a prison feels really cool. I get to walk past inmates like a boss.

There are some other interesting things I found out from the diary as well. Like an extremely famous scientist called Albert Einstein. Famous for something called General Relativity. I read a bit on it, it's a theory where the speed light is the fastest in the universe, and traveling this speed would allow you to travel to the future. And something about mass distorting space and time to create gravity. My word, the amount of experiments that was done during the past century to try and get time travel done was enormous. Twenty three attempts and four deaths. This kind of experiment is now banned for forty years. I don't think they'll ever do it though. Wouldn't you need an infinite amount of energy? Where would you get that from anyway? And many other names like Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton and Niel 'something' Tyson. I can't get to the whole name right now, it's a bit difficult to pronounce.

There were also World Wars in the early 20th century, I and II. What a hectic era to live in. I'm glad I grew up in the 2050s and 60s. In my original timeline, there was only the Big War in 2070, which lasted for 3 years. Apparently here, it's called WWIII (World War Three). In this timeline, the earth has never been the same since. Crippled governments and wide spread disease were the order of the day for twelve years post WWIII. Then in 2087, everything seemed to go back to normal, and like any other event, the 21st century TCA would be able to continue with its planning process, since it's the biggest event of the century.

During the time of WWIII, Jax was already imprisoned. I kept wondering if he had any direct connection with it, but it seemed unlikely. I do have a note in my diary saying, "JAX = WWIII?? OR SPOT??" This 'Spot' is the most interesting thing. It's something I've been observing since 2092, according to the diary. Some strange frequency was picked up via one of my IPRs (Inter-Space Receivers) just outside my prison's walls on the far back side. I'm the only person who possesses this technology, so no one knows about it except me. It's been ten years now and tomorrow is the day that the frequency will jump. Then I will discover exactly what it is.

-to be continued