The Person Problem

        Francisco never forgot the day of the rally. As a boy, he’d always enjoyed going to town; she always got him one of those ice cream sundaes with the mashed strawberries in the bottom - but his mother dragged him to the rally. Francisco had never really wanted to know what a man’s head looked like after repeated hits from a nightstick, but he’d found out that day. After, whenever he’d wanted an ice cream sundae, it was always the ones with the blueberries.

               He remembered his mother screaming at the men on the courthouse stairs even as the officer hit them again and again. She added her voice to the chorus of shouts. In the coming years, when he asked her about it, his mother could never quite put into words why she’d been shouting. The men wanted something that might take something from her. Every time, she would become frustrated and end the conversation.

               “Don’t think about it, Frankie. Some things just aren’t worth thinking about.”

               Except he couldn’t keep himself from thinking about it. His mind returned to the beaten men with every idle moment. So did a lot of other peoples, until one day things just sort of changed, and then people stopped thinking about it. Not Francisco.

               One of the men on the courthouse stairs was looking his way, and Francisco accidentally made eye contact. The stranger’s eyes locked onto his, and held it, even while the blows were landing - until the man couldn’t see anymore. Francisco noted that the man’s eyes were like his own, or maybe his father’s. He couldn’t understand how his mother hated such a man, and since she evidently couldn’t either, they grew apart.

               In school, he found he had a love for physics. As a homework assignment, he calculated the momentum of moving trains and dropped apples. When he finished with that, he moved on to calculations about swung nightsticks, falling bodies, the muscle strength of an overweight policeman. These extracurricular activities never hampered his actual education, because as his mother liked to tell everybody, Frankie had brains.

               Eventually, Francisco went to college. His professors helped him get scholarships. He double majored in physics and mathematics, and wound up working in a government lab funded by stern men who didn’t talk. These men never failed to remind him of the overweight police officer, though they wore more medals.

               According to the Project charter, the goal was to win a war before anybody could fire a shot.

               “Isn’t that a job for the diplomats?” That was what Francisco asked at orientation, prompting the Project manager’s laughter, though it wasn’t unkind.

               “We should talk about that, after you sign the contract.” There was a twinkle in her eye that Francisco quite liked, so he signed, and that was when he learned about the Sceneshifter Project.

               It was time travel, of course; the stuff of recursive movies and confusing books, only real.

               “This is all theoretical?” Francisco asked.

               “Let me show you the device.”

               The Sceneshifter was about the size of a cellular phone with a similar display, but instead of sending messages, it sent things via a particle field it generated. It did not send people, though. Never people. When he still seemed doubtful, she showed him the math.

               “Do you remember the conflict last year between the mountain rebels and the borderland governors?” the Project lead asked.

               “No.”

               “Nobody does. It didn’t happen, thanks to a well-timed delivery and a lovely note that I wrote myself. That’s what we do.”

               “If it works so well already, why do you need me?” 

               “The hope is that you can crack the Person Problem. The gold-stars want nothing more than to send a hit squad back with modern gear. It would really boost efficiency.”

               Francisco shuddered, but played it off as a nod. He had a couple of ideas already.

               Over the next several months, he ran through simulation upon simulation. The problem seemed to be one of power. The device - the Sceneshifter - simply couldn’t hold enough energy to generate a complete shift-field around the user - a potentially dangerous situation if one wanted to stay intact. Previously, the team always had to operate it via remote. That wouldn’t do forever.

               It was starting to seem impossible.

               Over time, Francisco and the Project lead grew close. He found out her name was Cindy. Cindy enjoyed smoking pot and offered him some from her own supply frequently. He could never say no to Cindy.

               One night, while they were coming down in Cindy’s bed, she asked him how things were going.

               “Fine,” Francisco said.

               “Are you sure?” She got right up in his face, her eyes twinkling again.

               “I think so.”

               “Do you know, they wanted me to fire you as soon as I hired you.”

               “Is that so?”

               “Yep. As soon as we assigned you to the Person Problem. I think they expected Future You to shift back and deliver the finished device as soon as you signed the contract. You haven’t done that yet, which means you’re never going to crack it.”

               “Does it?”

               She sat up and gazed at him. “Did you know that the Sceneshifter, as it is now, represents over a century of research? That’s true.”

               “What? How long has the lab been around?”

               “Only five years. It’s just that I’ve sent it back that many times and it just goes around in a time loop, forever.”

               “That’s impressive.”

               “It will all have been for nothing,” Cindy said, “if you can’t crack it, Frankie.”

               Francisco smiled and kissed her. Her mouth tasted bitter from the smoke. He hoped she might believe he had some trick up his sleeve. After they’re lovemaking, with Cindy napping quietly in his arms, and cellphones silently charging, he thought about the mountain rebels and their aborted conflict with the borderland governors. Terrorists, the lot of them. Only… one man’s terrorist was another man’s freedom fighter, didn’t they say?

               That made him think of Mother, and the beaten man from the courthouse. Francisco joined Cindy in sleep, thinking about what he might do with a working Sceneshifter. He could return to the courthouse, see what all the fuss was about from an adult’s point of view. Or, for fun, he might just go back to the start of this night in Cindy’s apartment and find some way to live it over again. It would be hard to explain where the second Francisco came from, but he could make it work. He could make it work…

               Sometimes things happen, and sometimes they never do. In another timeline, Francisco never did manage to crack the Person Problem. But in this one, he did.

               The solution was actually simple. That surprised him; he hadn’t thought of it before. In their time together, Cindy had a habit of plugging her phone into an external power supply. Francisco did the math, drafted some blueprints for a stronger power bank, and had the boys down in engineering churn out a prototype. 

               Later, when they asked how it had performed, he got angry and told them it burned out, nearly destroyed the Sceneshifter, and gave them all an unforgettable tongue-lashing. That was all a lie, though. It worked perfectly, built exactly to his specifications. Frankie, his mom would say, had brains.

               He wasn’t sure why he lied about it, but having started, he had to see it through. Listening to himself scream at the engineers reminded Francisco of his mother. She’d screamed at the man on the courthouse stairs, and when asked why, couldn’t say.

               Don’t think about it, Frankie. Some things just aren’t worth thinking about.

               Cindy came by later and began furiously pacing a hole in the floor near his workstation. She snapped at him when he looked up.

               “Did I not say you were on thin ice? Why? Why are you trying to get yourself kicked off the Project?” 

               “I’m not.” He saw she was on the verge of tears. “Why are you so upset? It’s just the engineers.”

               “If it turns out you were a waste of everybody’s time, they’ll have me send a note saying not to hire you at all.”

               Francisco understood. It would be like he had never joined the Project… because he never would have. 

               “I’ll apologize to them tonight.”

               Cindy hugged him and left. Francisco wondered if she would remember his lie for the rest of her life, or if she might forget. 

               Truth be told, Francisco had always been more interested in the mechanics and mathematics of time travel rather than its application. The thought of sending hit squads into the past was disturbing, and obviously the silent starred brutes in charge could never be trusted with that kind of power. He’d seen what men like them did with even a little. He’d seen it firsthand, and he never ate strawberry sundaes again.

               Francisco decided to steal the Sceneshifter. He knew he could do it, no problem. The portable power booster he designed only had enough juice for a one-way trip, but that was alright. He didn’t plan to zip around. He would depart from the project on his own terms, right from the testing chamber. 

               When he picked up the device, he looked at his reflection in the matte black screen. Several things fell into place. Then he plugged in the coordinates.

               You can’t fire me, he thought. I quit. 

               And then he hit the button. The starred men who didn’t speak never saw it coming. 

               It didn’t feel good to betray Cindy’s trust the way he had, but the thing that felt worse was the willing creation of the paradox. The scientists at the Project had created a time loop around the Sceneshifter, sending it back every time they accomplished a major advance. Francisco had broken that loop, apparently. The implications of that were mind boggling. He half expected it to disappear - just pop out of existence - but when the shift field dispersed, leaving a metallic taste in his mouth, there it was.

               He thought it might even happen to himself, but no. The Universe continued to tolerate him.

               Unfortunately, he could not tolerate himself. So long as he remained alive, the solution to the Person Problem would remain in his head.  

               When he saw his reflection in the Sceneshifter, he locked eyes with himself. Those eyes were very much his father’s eyes. Francisco knew then. Knew it with certainty. He’d caused one paradox; he had no desire to cause another. He would head to the town, the town he grew up in. He would order a strawberry sundae from the local ice cream slinger, and it would be so sweet. When he was finished, he would drop the Sceneshifter in the glass and let the ice cream fry its circuits. Then, he would go to the courthouse and take his place on the steps.

               After, well…

               Don’t think about it, Frankie. Some things just aren’t worth thinking about.

               But maybe, just maybe, there would be a young man in the crowd who would do a little better than he had.