TW10 The Hellfire Rebellion NEW Read Online Free PDF Page A

only that didn't happen until
after
I was shot. What Dr. Darkness did was go back into the past and snatch my double's corpse. He then clocked to the moment of my 'death.' and moving faster than the speed of light, he took me out of the bullet's path and teleported me away. Then he put my double's corpse directly into the path of that bullet, so that it would impact in the exact same spot left by the wound inflicted when Delaney killed him. An autopsy would probably have revealed that there were two wounds in the same place. but the point was that no one had any reason to believe it wasn't me. Darkness had snatched the corpse seconds after death: the blood hadn't coagulated yet and the body was still warm. And I was officially reported killed in action."
    "So then you never really died at all." she said. "The past
wasn't
changed."
    "Yeah, well, unfortunately that's the part no one can figure out." said Lucas. with a sigh. "Looking at it logically. I
did
die, because you'd think there had to be a moment when my death actually occurred,
before
Darkness went back and altered the scenario, but when it comes to temporal physics, all logic breaks down. By doing what he did. Darkness changed the
past so that the bullet struck my double's corpse, not me. and
that
became the past. Or maybe it didn't
become
the past, maybe it
was
the past, because what Darkness did was part of the temporal scenario. Or maybe what he did was create a sort of temporal loop, in which there was a kind of . . . a kind of skip or something in my own personal history, but not the history of the timeline. Maybe, somewhere in time, there exists an instant in which I actually died . . . only nobody knows for sure and chances are no one will ever know, no matter how many damn tests they run on me. How the hell is something like that supposed to show up on some test?"
    "Good question." she said. "But as the saying goes, why look a gift horse in the mouth? You're alive. That's all that matters, isn't it?"
    "Maybe." Lucas said, “But how'd you like to go through life knowing that somewhere in time, there could exist a moment when you'd died, only you can't remember it because in a certain sense it never really happened? How'd you like to be the only person in the world who ever experienced a temporal paradox. but has no memory of the experience? And what if ifs some sort of temporal ripple that could, at some point in the future. somehow catch up with me?"
    “Do you really think that's possible?"
    "I don't know," said Lucas. “That's the exasperating thing about it! I don't think even that Darkness knows and he understands temporal physics better than anyone alive. The thing that really gets me is that he didn't give a damn about me one way or another. He only did it because he'd implanted me with the only existing prototype of his new telepathic temporal transponder and he didn't want to lose the only working model. I've got what amounts to an ultra-miniaturized, thought-controlled warp disc implanted in my body, bonded to some molecule somewhere, and any stray thought is liable to send me on a trip through time. Its already happened several. times. You have any idea what it's like to go to sleep and dream you're back in ancient Rome, then suddenly wake up to discover that you're actually
there
?"
    Dr. Hazen shook her head. "Wow. I hadn't known about that. I can't say I envy you. Lucas. Frankly. I'm amazed they're letting you go back on active duty. I hate to say it, but after what you just told me, I honestly feel that it’s my responsibility to pronounce you medically unfit.
    "You can't.”
    "I'm sorry. Lucas." she said. “Under the circumstances. I really have no other alternative.”
    “You don't understand," said Lucas. "I'm not asking you not to do it, I'm saying that you
can't.
Under ordinary circumstances, you would certainly have that authority, hut then these aren't ordinary circumstances. By all means, do what you feel you have to do, but I'm