“I don’t know how you found me,” the dinosaurian hissed, pulling out their unusual gun and leveling it at me, “But I won’t allow you to interfere with my experiment!”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I still jumped at the sight of a gun aimed right at me. Habit. “What’s that thing for?”
The saurian glanced at their weapon and rocked their head from side to side. Then, in a nonchalant manner said, “I’m going to have to kill you now, of course.”
“What?” They had already tried that only a few hours ago, and I don’t think they remembered how it turned out. “With that? But I thought it could only stun!”
They rocked their head at me, mouth agape. “Are you a moron or something?”
“Ah.” That told me more than I really wanted to know. I threw my hands out in the intergalactic gesture of “Hold your fire!”, and blurted, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold on, there! Just hold on! Hold on! Hoooold on!”
I was desperate for something to say, but all I could do was babble. “You could do that, yes, yes, you could, but… but… but… hear me out, now, because I don’t think you want to be too hasty about that! ”
Then, I ran out of things to say. But the saurian hadn’t fired yet, so I was doing something right. If I could just get that gun pointed away from me, I’d feel a lot better.
“Okay… so… so… so… now… now…” I was not having any luck in the old thinking department, and other me wasn’t helping any. I just stood behind the desk watching as I blathered my way through some kind of bluff, and I took a little offense to that, but it wasn’t like he was doing any better in the old thinking department. He was panicking, and that made it even harder to think. Panic in stereo. And I thought single panic was bad! I had to find a way out of that mess and fast!
“Okay, okay…” I was still lost. All I had was babble, so I leaned into it. “Okay, right, so… so… why… why would you want to kill me anyway? That doesn’t make any sense, does it?”
“It’ll keep you from interfering in my plans,” they growled back. They poked at me with the gun. “But you’re not that stupid, so what are you up to?”
“He’s onto you,” I called from the office.
That wasn’t helping, so I decided not to speak to me anymore and concentrated on not getting killed.
“Okay, okay, fine. Good. That’s… good…” It wasn’t though. It was bad. Very bad. I couldn’t let that happen. “That’s… but you still can’t kill me!”
“Why not?” They weren’t buying what I was selling. I had to think faster. I had to be cleverer. The problem was I couldn’t and wasn’t.
“Why?” I admit it. I resorted to schoolyard debate tactics. I was desperate, and snark was all I had left. “Why? You have to ask why? You’re that smart, and you still have to ask why?”
The dinosaurian wrinkled its snout and emitted a low growl. “What are you talking about?”
“What?” I sounded as surprised as I could. “You haven’t figured it out yet? I’m shocked!”
A low growl issued from its throat again. “I don’t have time for games! Just tell me what you mean!”
I did my utmost to keep the stupid out of my expression and instead look smug. “You really don’t know?”
They growled again, but they didn’t fire, either, so things were still going my way. They looked me up and down and I did my best to stand straight, act confident, and hold its gaze. After a thorough scrutiny, they grumbled, “What are you hiding?”
I let them stew. It was the only thing I could do. I really didn’t have a plan. I had no idea what excuse to make. So, I waited, hoping that they would do the thinking for me. And wouldn’t you know it? After a while, they glanced into the office and said, “Quantum entanglement?”
“Go on…” I tried to sound encouraging, like I knew the answer, even though I had no idea what they were talking about.
“I had not anticipated it.” They dipped their snout low and shook their head. “But it’s obvious now. You two are connected not only chronologically, but on a quantum level. You share a single mind, don’t you?”
“Yep!” I had an idea, and I felt my other self’s rejection of it all the way from the office, but I couldn’t let him stop me. This was my only shot at survival. “And you know what that means!”
“I can’t kill you.” That was what I hoped they would say. The “can’t kill you” part, not that other stuff. I had no idea what quarter entanglement was, but if it kept me alive, then I was all for it. Then, they bobbed their head from side to side and grumbled, “Not unless I want my experiment to die as well!”
I felt my office self’s shock. Yes, I’d taken a tremendous risk, but it paid off. Instead of being grateful that that entanglement thing was keeping us both alive, though, I started sulking in the office, and that was downright ungrateful.
The Saurian glared at me out of one eye, then a quiet rumble issued from deep in its throat. “I might be able to use this to my advantage.”
That wasn’t supposed to happen. “Um… what?”
“Yessss!” Their staccato hiss sounded like a chuckle. “This is perfect! A much better experiment! Much better indeed!”
I couldn’t believe it. Was I really so stupid as to give the bad guy an even better villainous scheme than they had come up with themselves? What kind of sci-fi hero was I? The idiot kind, obviously.
“We don’t know that!” But I was just stalling for time again. I still had no idea what we were talking about. “For all we know, your first plan was much better! Maybe go with that one!”
“Are you serious?” I felt pretty confident making the demand from the relative safety of the office. “You’re helping it now?”
“Stay out of this!” I might have been a little rough on myself, but I was being pretty annoying. Besides, I wasn’t making it any easier to think. “This is between the professionals!”
The Saurian cocked their head quizzically. “Professionals?”
“Aren’t we?” I thought we at least had that in common. Granted, I only started a few hours ago, but technically, there was a version of me that had done it for… oh, I don’t know, I guess for years or something. Long enough, at least, to gain a reputation. But they weren’t in the mood for bonding; they hadn’t even stopped pointing their gun at me, although it wasn’t pointed directly at me, so I counted that as a win.
“We’re nothing alike!” The venom in their tone was shocking. “But you will use your evil genius to correct the colossal wrong you have perpetrated!”
“Colossal -?” That was even more shocking. “What did I do?”
“What did you do?” The Saurian hissed angrily, but there was a catch to its voice as if its feelings were hurt. “What did you do? You destroyed my people! That’s what you did! Billions of my people dead because of you! Billions!”
“Uh…” I didn’t know what to say. I was going to say that all I did was restore my timeline, but I stopped before I could utter a sound. Well, a sound other than, “uh” that is. I hadn’t even stopped to think about it, but the Dinosaurian was right. I never meant to, but in restoring my timeline, I wiped out billions of years of alternate history, and probably trillions of lives, including everyone that the Dinosaurian knew and loved. I didn’t want to believe it, or even think about it, but there it was. They were right. I was a murderer, and there was nothing I could say to make it right.
The Saurian rocked their head back and forth. “But you’re going to help me restore them to life! You’re going to help me, or you’re both going to die!”
Then, it clicked. I know. I’m a little slow on the intake. “That’s what it’s all about? Bringing your timeline back?”
I looked into the office and saw it dawn on my face in there, too. From behind the desk, I drew an indignant breath. “You mixed my timeline with another to see if you could bring your people back?”
“I folded timelines together to see if they would remain stable,” the Saurian corrected. “And so far, it’s been a success. With a little more work, and your help, I should be able to do it on a universal scale.”
I was confused. “How is that going to bring them back?”
They shook their head at me. “Are you trying to annoy me, or are you really that ignorant? If I can fold the timelines together, I can bring my people into this one!”
“Wait!” I pointed at myself in the office to warn me against interrupting again, then turned to the Saurian. “What are you talking about, bringing your people into this timeline?”
The Saurian bobbed their snout up and down. “How else can I save them? You’ve closed off every other choice!”
I was startled in stereo at that, and both of us exclaimed, “What? Me?”
“Don’t play dumb,” the Saurian growled. “You know what you did! But if you think making the extinction event a fixed point in time is going to stop me, then you’re greatly mistaken!”
A fixed point in time? I wasn’t even sure what that was or how I could make one, but I wasn’t about to tell them that. Instead, I figured I would sound too smart for my own good and bluff it out again. “So, instead of changing everything back again -?”
“I’m going to fold both histories together and bring my people here!” They did an excellent job of thinking for me, but I couldn’t exactly congratulate them for it and maintain the bluff, so I kept quiet and hoped that if there was any elaboration to make that they would accommodate that, as well. And they didn’t disappoint. “And then, we will take this world back and restore the empire to its full glory!”
And that’s how the Saurian’s plot went from a mission of mercy to a full-blown invasion in only a few sentences.
