Fate. Money. Time

Ben could not breathe.

Sick with anticipation, he found he had been holding his breath since the clock ticked over, the small and large hands now aligned at twelve.

'Why hadn’t they rung yet, Tim? It isn’t a good sign.’ Ben’s words hissed out from behind clenched teeth. The stress in his voice was palpable.

Tim turned, letting out a large exhaled sigh. ‘I don’t know, Ben, maybe they’ve mixed up things with the time zones?’

'So what’s going to be our plan B then if this all doesn’t come through?’

'You know that we are way past plan B. This is it. I don’t have any more ideas. If this doesn’t work, well, then I think we should say it was fate and give it all up.’

'Are you kidding? So, Tim, you are actually suggesting that we throw it all away? This project has been my whole life. I have nothing else.’ Ben shouted.

Tim’s shoulders dropped in defeat.

'Ben. Listen, I’m just so tired of it all. The stress is killing me, and what kind of life is that? I’m thirty-four, but I feel sixty-four. I think it’s a sign. Sometimes you need to know when to quit. I think it’s time for us.’

Tim’s soft words, intended to calm, managed only in further enraging Ben.

'I’ve spent my whole career on this. There is no way back now for either of us. The only way now is we get the money, and we get started. It’s too late to turn back now.’

As Ben’s raw aggression filled the small room, Tim found himself unable to respond, his thoughts frozen.

'We’re both tired and under pressure. It’s not like you to be like this, Ben. I’m just going to head downstairs to the lab for a while. I think we both need a break’. said Tim as he exited the room.

Ben’s slumped in the chair. His nerves shattered. Tim was right, they had been working too hard for too long. And now, with the anticipation of the $20,000 lifeline, things between them had been fast deteriorating. The project would be at an end if they didn’t get the money.

As he rested his head upon the boardroom table, a new idea suddenly came to Ben. ‘What if I’ve been looking at it the wrong way? If I reversed it all, could that work?’ Inspired, he looked around the room for his little black book. His black book was everything. He kept all his ideas and principal methodologies scribbled away inside its pages. He had hundreds of them, stored safely away in the fireproof safe purchased many years ago now. As Ben saw it, they weren’t just books, but they were a part of him. His mind’s extra storage space.

Searching, he finally spotted the book sitting upon the boardroom credenza. But there was not one, but two resting there. How did that happen? Ben wondered in surprise. He was meticulous with his system. One book at a time. Completed to the very last page, then categorised and filed. He never worked with more than one. Had he pulled another book to review something? Perhaps he was more sleep-deprived than he realised.

Taking the two books, he opened the first at hand. It appeared to be his current working book. He turned to a clean page, quickly scrawling his idea. Satisfied, he closed the first little black book and turned to the second. Odd. What was that? He flicked through the book, which was almost full except for the last three pages. Being meticulous and a little obsessive, he never had started a new book before ultimately finishing the previous. But this was his writing. Had he lost his mind? What was going on? The incongruity of the incomplete book sending a small shiver across his body.

He turned to the first page of the strange book and started to read. After only a handful of words, he stopped. What was this? He didn’t remember writing this? Was he going mad? The writing and tone of the book his, but when did he do this? As he continued to read, his concern only further deepened.

These concepts were way past anything Ben had ever thought of before. They were advanced. Too advanced. What was this? A wrinkle of an idea started to form. Ben pushed it hastily aside, don’t be ridiculous, he told himself. You’re sleep-deprived and stressed, take it slowly and read through.

The hours soon passed as Ben made his way through the book. The sun was making a fast retreat beneath the horizon. He had almost finished it. The earlier small niggling thought slowly gaining moment with the turn of each page.

A sharp pain jolted down his side. He had been sitting for far too long. A feeling of Deja Vu overcame Ben. ‘I’m just tired, and so my brain is just getting the past and present mixed up’, he theorised, but that doesn’t explain the writing. Maybe I’m going mad?’

He sat back down at the table. ‘I’ll finish it. There’s only a couple of pages to go’, he said himself, and then I’ll head home. I need sleep, and there’s not much point sticking around here’.

As he turned the page, he immediately noticed the strange coloured red-brown ink—the hastily scribbled words in sharp contrast to Ben’s usual neat font.

He read the first line over and over again. He found himself unable to comprehend the meaning of the words blurring on the page. A hard knot was forming in his stomach, twisting and forcing its meagre contents back up into his mouth—a sour mix of warm bile and old coffee.

What was this? I must be going mad. Ben slapped himself across the face, hard. Ben looked back down at the notebook. The sentence was unchanged.

'You need to follow these instructions entirely. All life depends on it. You are reading this and it is Wednesday 2nd March 2021. It is almost 7 pm.

You don’t have much time left.

Get up and lock the boardroom door.

NOW!!

Ben stood up, making his way to the door. As he turned the lock, he could hear the sound of Tim’s footsteps making their way towards the room.

The door handle rattled as Tim pulled down, the irritation in his voice loud as he found he was unable to open the door.

'Ben, what are you doing? Open the door.’

Ignoring Tim’s cries, Ben returned to the book.

'Just after 7 pm the phone will ring. You must answer it.

They want to give you the money.

The $20,000, it’s all yours for the taking.

You must refuse it.’

The sound of Tim now banging on the door pulled Ben briefly from the book.

'You might think you can solve it, but you can’t. Our invention works. It works. We finally did it.

This pathway only leads to one outcome. I’m sending this back because I didn’t listen. I read these pages just like you are now, but I thought I could fix it, we can’t. I’m living testimony to it.

We destroy the future.

It happens from the very first jump—1st July 2034. We send a simple recording probe forward T+100 years. It was due to return after 90 days of observations, but it never returned. We send a second probe T+50 years. It also never returns.

We experiment, each time dropping the dates back. Nothing has ever returned, until today. I sent a probe forward T+24 hrs. It came back in a terrible state. The casing turned to dust as I picked it up. Only a small fragment of the memory chip remained. Most of the recording was lost. I have spent almost the whole day trying to restore what was left. It was too damaged to send to you.

I wish you could see it so you could comprehend what we’ve done. Words cannot adequately describe how horrific it all is. I have heard the sound of the world dying. Every single living thing, screaming, crying, wailing in collective pain. I cannot stop the sound now. It rings loudly in my ears. I am terrified, knowing what is to come. The only thing that comforts me is dying will release me from this sound.

I have been unable to stop weeping.

We are the evilest monster ever to walk this earth.

I don’t have much more time left. You MUST listen.

Turn down the money. Destroy the research. Burn every single one of the black books. Wipe all of the servers. It is the ONLY way to fix things.

Whatever you do, don’t say yes.’

Ben turned the page. That was it. There was nothing else to read.

Ben glanced up at the clock. The small hand was at seven, with the large hand second edging towards twelve. His mind was racing. A thought, an idea, something was niggling. He flicked through the book until he found the page. The formula was wrong. He could see the error now.

The conference phone on the table lit up.