Temporal Tales by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: graogonzo
Published: 2019-06-09T00:00:00+00:00

The Man with the Gun and the Time Machine

By Rob Wickings

The plan was to put a bullet in Einstein's head while he was sleeping. But where's the fun in that? If he was going to be erased from history anyway, there was no harm in getting some kicks along the way.

I booted the end of the bed, hard enough to shunt it a couple of inches. He woke quickly, and his intelligence lit up the room better than any lamp could have done. He was calm, assessing the situation in one glance. I made sure he got a good, long look at the gun in my left hand, just to make things perfectly clear.

"There's money in the dresser," he said. "A little. But take it, if that's what you're here for."

I chuckled. Then figured, what the hell. He might as well see. I pulled the silken hood off my face in one smooth movement. I'd changed a lot over the years, but his eyes still widened when he saw me. I guess some faces are tough to forget.

"I'm not here for your money," I said. "I'm here for your future."

"My future."

"Uh-huh. I'm here to end it before it gets started."

I could see his mind spinning at that. He glanced across at the chalkboard that took centre stage in his tiny garret of a room. Everything else he did was secondary to the waltz of numbers and letters, a dance into which he could slip this new beat of information.

"You know things about me that you should not know," he said. "You know things about me that have not happened yet. You wear a face that is supposed to frighten me." He was thinking out loud, piecing together tiny clues and inferences out what I had and hadn't said. The clothes I wore. The gun. God, that mind. That terrible, magnificent mind.

"Here's what I know," I said. "You will be one of the most celebrated men on the planet. You are weeks away from a discovery that will change the course of science. The beautiful and the powerful will fall at your feet." I grinned. "Unless, of course, I change all that." I lifted the gun slightly, letting the faint wash of moonlight from the single high window flow down the barrel.

He nodded faintly. "I'm right then. About everything."

"Yes. And no-one will ever know."

"I see." He thought again for a moment, factoring in everything he knew, figuring out the right tactic, the correct thing to say. "What if..."

I pulled the trigger. I don't know what ammo goes into the frail-looking silver gun that the Exarchs gave me, but it does the job. Einstein's head exploded. That magnificent, astonishing brain blasted across the back wall of the room, an action painting in arterial red and chunky grey. His corpse slumped back onto the bed. His right hand gripped the bedclothes convulsively for a moment, then relaxed.

“What if.” Still not bad for a final quote. Appropriate for one of the greatest scientists that the world would never know.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.