"Come with me, Master! We'll finish this mission together!"
"Marcus, I... can no longer be of use to you."
"How can you not!"
He raised his hand, cutting me off.
"Master doesn't want to go back ten years again... She's there, your master's wife... If I see her, I won't be able to leave."
His aged hand rested on my shoulder.
"Master wants to stay here... and wait for your new timeline."
---
66—End of the Gate
March 4, 2006, 9 PM. Hospital, private room.
Jessica's mother had undergone surgery half a month ago. Fortunately, the operation was successful, and she'd regained consciousness, but her body was extremely weak, her immunity dangerously low. She needed round-the-clock specialized monitoring and continuous medication to sustain her life.
According to the original history, Jessica's mother would die of organ failure within a month.
But after Project Rebirth intervened, they brought a therapy that wouldn't exist until 2018 directly back to March 4, 2006, and used that month to prepare the medical equipment, train surgical staff, and ultimately saved Jessica's mother's life.
This was the promise between Jessica and me.
Once her mother was resurrected, I would destroy all the Gates.
When I opened the door to the ward, Jessica and Victor were seated on opposite sides of the bed.
A beautiful woman lay on the hospital bed, whether unconscious or asleep, I couldn't tell. The monitors beside her showed her heartbeat—steady but weak.
Victor had his back to me and didn't turn around.
"You must be the thirty-year-old Marcus."
He said this, then pointed at his daughter. "And you must be the thirty-year-old Jessica."
"When did you switch?" he asked Jessica. "Not a single sign."
I remained on guard, because the man before me was the fifty-year-old Victor. The leader of Project Rebirth. The most powerful man in 2019.
"Relax, Marcus. This time, no one traveled through time with me."
He smiled.
He looked like he'd aged a great deal.
"Let me guess—Captain Reeves helped you?"
I didn't answer.
The room fell silent for a long moment. Jessica stroked her mother's cheek, then spoke.
"Dad, this time, you really have to stop."
Jessica was right.
What Victor relied on was his "unsolvable" ability to predict.
He could "foresee" everything because he retained memories from every timeline.
Defeating Damian's repeated time travels, founding Project Rebirth, manipulating everyone like puppets—it all depended on these "memories."
Given Victor's intellect, he naturally knew that seeing me in this situation meant his "memory" ability had been cracked.
"Actually, I've imagined this day for a long time," he said. "Marcus, you're impressive."
"Worthy of the man my daughter chose."
It wasn't like the old days.
Hearing those words, neither Jessica nor I smiled.
Victor had said the same thing before, when we first met.
Back then, Jessica was only eighteen.
I was twenty-eight, Victor was in his early forties. We sat together, and no matter what we talked about, Jessica always had to interject, and the conversation always circled back to her.
Victor had offered me a cigarette, and Jessica wouldn't let me smoke, saying that anything concerning Marcus was her business.
That was in 2007.
Now, it was 2006.
Our appearances hadn't changed, but our hearts had aged over a decade.
Victor pulled out a pack of cigarettes and tapped one out.
"You're not going to stop me this time, are you?" he asked Jessica.
"Dad, this is a hospital," Jessica said softly.
Victor nodded and looked at me. "Then let's go to the roof to smoke."
All three of us knew that going to the roof was just a euphemism.
I couldn't very well do it in a hospital room.
I nodded and walked out with him.
Jessica didn't follow.
She'd made it clear long ago—she was traveling with me to ensure her mother's safety and to take over her mother's treatment.
As for her father's crimes, as long as I delivered a fair judgment, she wouldn't interfere.
Much less be present.
---
67
The sun was setting in the west, the breeze cool and crisp.
He lit a single cigarette, and his cheap lighter ran out of flame. It seemed that in 2006, he didn't yet own that Dupont lighter.
So I leaned close with my own cigarette and lit it from his.
"Really no one hiding to ambush me?"
I asked.
"Ambush you?" He laughed, then choked on the smoke.
"Uncle Victor, if you go back to 2007 and destroy the first parameter, disband Project Rebirth, then I'll—"
"You'll let me live? I won't do that."
He said this, then stopped looking at me, taking a few drags in silence.
We were both quiet for a while.
"I don't want to kill you."
"I know. That's what you were like ten years ago, and look—the entire world has been changed by me."
"Changed the world? Founding a cult counts as changing the world?"
"No, what I founded wasn't a cult. It was a brand-new worldview."
I paused. "Bullshit."
"A worldview where you can be reborn."
"Come on. Rebirth? Your Project Rebirth has hurt plenty of people."
"But we've saved even more."
I gave a soft laugh.
He ignored me and kept talking.
"Every year, across the world, over a hundred thousand people die from environmental disasters.
Every year, over a million people die in traffic accidents.
And those are just the death tolls.
Not counting minor injuries, severe injuries, disabilities, and irreversible economic losses."
He took a deep drag on his cigarette.
"And Project Rebirth has pushed time travel back eleven years. That means in 2019, we can travel back to 2006, and theoretically, we could help most of the people who died in environmental disasters that year, and—again, theoretically—save everyone who died in accidents in 2006."
"Victor, who are you kidding? Your Project Rebirth practically has listed companies, and I haven't seen you use the Gate to save anyone."
"Oh, that's my fault. I've kept you too marginalized these past two years." He laughed. "Actually, we have. A small Ebola outbreak in Africa, a locust plague in East Asia, and a minor flood in our own southern region—altogether, we saved seventy-nine lives."
There was nothing in his eyes to suggest he was lying.
Besides, I knew him.
He was a scientist, an entrepreneur, even an ambitious man.
So he was proud enough not to lie about something this consequential, something that concerned the welfare of others—not as a strategic move, anyway.
"Why not save more people?"
"Because Project Rebirth doesn't have enough computing power." He sighed, lit another cigarette from the stub of mine.
"You mean you can't calculate how changing the past would affect the timeline?"
Victor nodded. "That's right. The more people we save, the greater the unpredictability. We can't risk the entire world."
I didn't know how to respond.
I could feel that his vision and his abilities had long surpassed mine by an overwhelming margin.
But I still had reasons to kill him.
Only now I was beginning to hesitate...