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Fiction. © Copyright 1997, Jim Loy
I had been taught that there is no worse crime than to go back in time and change the past. Is it a greater crime than murder? Yes it is, so I was taught. Murder (execution) of a time traveler may even be necessary in order to keep the past from being changed in some important way. Sometimes the lesser of evils must be chosen.
What is so important about preserving the past? The people in the future, some of whom I work for, are very concerned about the past. Prevent a couple from meeting, and maybe their descendants will never be born, maybe thousands or millions of people. Maybe my employers would never be born. Maybe I would never be born.
I have been working for the Time Police, Inc. for fifteen years now. I am a time detective, Detective Jennifer Cope. But, except for vacations, I have never traveled in time. I merely did research by computer. I got pretty good at it, too. No one has discovered more time crimes than I have. I never made an arrest, or a hit. The field operatives did that.
Time travel is used for research purposes: history, archeology, paleontology. Or to apprehend time criminals.
Illegal time travel is done for profit: theft, stock market "speculation" and manipulation, oil and mineral exploration, poaching of extinct animals. Illegal time travel is done for political purposes (and profit): win an election, change a law, destroy a government. Illegal time travel is done for personal reasons: find true love, kill a rival. Illegal time travel has even been done by psychopaths.
Let's back up. So what if I go back to the Cretaceous and kill a tyrannosaur? His descendants were going to become extinct anyway, right? It's amazing what ripples in time can be caused by such an event. Maybe this tyrannosaur was going to spread a disease that would wipe out all tyrannosaurs. Who knows?
My job is to monitor the above-mentioned ripples of time. Changing history causes measurable effects to propagate into the future. My computers measure these waves, with the help of the investigations and reports sent to me by the time policemen in the field. They send me newspapers and tapes of news programs from radio and television. And my computer analyzes this great quantity of data.
I used to think that I did a pretty good job. I got raises in pay, plenty of vacation time, commendations. I was doing what I liked to do. And I had the best record in the office. There are five of us time detectives, in the office.
One day, I read a newspaper article, from 1849. It said that gold had been discovered in California. The article said that this had happened in 1848, and was just now being announced in 1849. Now, I knew that gold had not been discovered in 1848. Gold was discovered in California in 1852. I checked the computer, and it said 1848, history had not been changed. History books in the library said 1848. Almanacs from various years all say 1848. I'll bet that you readers even think that gold was discovered in California in 1848. It's now in all of your encyclopedias and history books. And yet, I knew that that was not true. Someone had changed history, and covered it up on my computer. All of the books had changed as a result of the ripples from the change of history.
I sent a message to one of the time policemen, asking him to investigate. He reported back to me, saying that everything was OK. No time paradoxes were detected. Gold was discovered in 1848.
Then I was told to report to Donald, my supervisor. He told me that from then on he would be monitoring my computer, from his computer. And I was not allowed to communicate with time policemen, without his say so. When I asked why, he said that it was new policy. My co-workers said that they had not been told of any new policy.
Later, my computer printed out the report of a time crime. In 1850, someone had seen a woman break into a mining office in California. A large amount of gold was reported missing. The woman was described as being about 5'10", thin, with long blond hair, a pointed nose, wore glasses, and wore a red dress. The witness was not identified. I happen to be female, 5'10" tall, have long blond hair and a pointed nose, and wear wire-rimmed glasses. And, at the very moment that I read the report, I was wearing a long red dress.
I showed the report to Donald, my supervisor. He said that he was already aware of the crime. And he suggested that I take a vacation. He suggested a nice place he knew in the Hawaiian Islands, in about 500 A.D. And he suggested that I be accompanied by a time policeman, for my own protection. I asked him why I needed protection, as I assumed that there were no humans on the Hawaiian Islands in 500 A.D., and there were probably no predators bigger than an ant. I felt that I was being given no choice. So I agreed to take a vacation.
I was given an hour to prepare for my vacation. Donald supplied a small propane stove, some food, and eating utensils, from the supply room. I went home and got a swimsuit, and some books. A policeman watched my every move.
The policeman and I entered the time machine and went to Hawaii, 500 A.D. It looked like a nice place. I disabled the policeman (not permanently, I found out later), and left him in Hawaii.
I know a few things about time machines that the policemen don't know. Donald, of course, was tracking my time machine. I disabled the tracking circuits, just before I left Hawaii. It's just a back door in the program, which I had discovered years before. Donald probably didn't realize that I had escaped Hawaii.
And I went back to the Cretaceous, to think things over. I always found it peaceful there, even with the constant noises of distant dinosaurs. I suspected that there had indeed been a large gold robbery in 1850. And Donald was framing me. He was, at least, involved in it. Getting me out of the way, to Hawaii, was suspicious. He should have interrogated me, instead.
I needed time, on my computer in my office, to dig for evidence of the frame and Donald's involvement. I developed a plan. I went to California in 1850, to the top of a mesa overlooking the mining office, on the day of the crime. It was daytime. The time machine had instruments which told me that no one was in the office. So, I used the time machine to enter the office. I, of course, had the electronic equipment necessary to open the large safe. And I stole the gold. It was very heavy. And I left.
I hid the gold in the Cretaceous. And then I went back to work. Some people were surprised that I had cut my vacation short. But no one seemed to know that I had been framed for a crime. Donald saw me at my computer. I smiled at him. And he panicked. He fled. And, he stole a time machine. And he escaped, temporarily. Policemen tracked him down and arrested him.
It seems that Donald's superiors had already been on his trail, for months. They knew that I had been framed. They rescued the policeman in Hawaii. He now spends all of his vacations there. They didn't find out that I robbed the gold. Donald's still in jail. He had committed numerous other robberies.
I returned the gold to the mining company, most of it. I kept a little.
Author's note: Are you disappointed in the lady keeping a little gold? I am. But, it really is tempting to keep a little. I struggled to make her put it all back (I control her actions, to a great extent). And I felt guilty about it, but I really wanted her to keep a little of that gold. But I would never steal, of course.