Convergence

Convergence

“I have totally lost track of how many times we’ve done this,” Coda said, his left hand hovering over the pulsating green orb. “I’m exhausted and truthfully I’m bored and aggregated.” This wasn’t supposed to be a competition, it’s science for Gods sake, science. It’s for the good of all humanity.”

“That’s very noble of you, Coda, but really a bit naive. There’s always been competition in everything. Who would be the first to market with a vaccine, who would solve an unsolvable math equation, who would achieve artificial general intelligent first, and in our case who would create the first time travel portal.” The Hologif shimmered, then buffered, the image and voice in visual staccato. Stephen Hawking appeared, froze, blipped out, then stabilized next to Coda. “When you reached out to me for help I never thought something of this magnitude would surrender to the lowly instincts of one man’s ego,” he said in a mechanical voice.

“Well, it’s not just one ego, now is it? No, if it was we wouldn’t be doing this over and over and over again, would we? No, we would not!” Codas face reddened. “Malik is to blame, he broke off from our research team and went rogue.”

“Yes yes, as we’ve discussed time and again, no pun intended,” Hawking droned.

************

Malik turned towards the pulsating image on his left. “I’ve tried, I’ve tried, over and over again but he’s so stubborn,” Malik said to the hologif of Albert Einstein. “If we just agreed to share the credit this whole circus could end, but I won’t be written out and denied the acclaim I’ve earned and duly deserve.”

“So, you’re going to try to one up each other again and again? Seems rather juvenile, if you ask me, and you did, remember?, Einstein said. “The futility of this endeavor is embarrassing,” he said, running his hand through his thick white hair. “Have you considered just going back and killing his father?”

“That old trope? No, that’s not how this works. Biological systems cannot be altered, the timeline simply won’t allow it,” Malik said.

“So, the two of you just keep going back to try and publish your findings first, in order to outdo the other. Each time, a bit earlier than the time before. And, how many times have you done this?”

“I’ve actually lost track, and the credit keeps see-sawing between the two of us. It’s exhausting.”

*****************

Einstein flickered, his expression contemplative behind the distortion. “You know what’s fascinating about infinity, Malik? It doesn’t care about your exhaustion. You’ve created a perfect prison for yourselves, two rats on adjacent wheels, running faster and faster, going nowhere at all.”

Malik slumped into his chair, the weight of countless timelines pressing down on his shoulders. “What do you suggest then? That I just let him win?”

“Win?” Einstein’s holographic eyebrows arched. “My dear boy, you’ve already both lost. Look at what you’ve become. When you first contacted me from across the veil of death itself, I thought, ‘Here is a mind that has truly transcended.’ But now?” He shook his head slowly. “Now you’re just another man clinging to pride like a drowning sailor to driftwood.”

***********

Across the city, in a laboratory that was simultaneously identical and completely different, Hawking’s projection stabilized fully. “Coda, I need you to listen to me very carefully. Have you noticed the degradation?”

Coda looked up, his eyes bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles. “What degradation?”

“The timeline. Each jump back, each alteration, it’s creating fractures. Small ones at first, but they’re compounding. The fabric of causality isn’t infinite, it’s elastic. And you and Malik have been stretching it to its breaking point.”

Coda’s hand finally made contact with the green orb, its surface cool and somehow alive beneath his palm. “What are you saying? That we could destroy everything?”

“Not could. Will. If you continue this pattern, there will come a moment when you both jump back and neither of you will be able to return. Or worse, you’ll fragment the timeline so completely that both versions of history exist simultaneously, creating a paradox that collapses in on itself.”

“Then what do I do?” Coda’s voice cracked, the veneer of confidence finally shattering.

“Something novel,” Hawking said with what might have been a smile. “Stop, just stop.”

Malik stared at Einstein’s projection, his jaw tight. “Just stop? After everything I’ve sacrificed? The years of research, the funding I secured, the sleepless nights?”

“All of which Coda could say as well,” Einstein replied. “Tell me, in all these iterations, have you ever once tried to contact him directly? Not through time, not through sabotage, but simply… talking?”

“We’re beyond talking.”

“Are you? Or have you assumed you are because it’s easier than admitting you might have been wrong?”

The words hung in the air like accusation and absolution combined. Malik opened his mouth to retort, then closed it again. When was the last time he’d actually tried to reach Coda in the present? They’d become so focused on outmaneuvering each other through time that they’d forgotten they existed in the same moment, breathing the same air, living the same linear experience between jumps.

***********

Coda’s hand trembled on the orb. He’d been preparing for another jump, another attempt to publish three days before Malik’s last successful preempting. But Hawking’s words had burrowed into his mind like an insistent algorithm he couldn’t debug.

“If I stop, he wins,” Coda whispered.

“If you stop, you both survive,” Hawking corrected. “Which sounds more like winning to you?”

The laboratory door burst open. Coda spun around, his hand instinctively clenching the orb tighter. Malik stood in the doorway, looking equally exhausted, equally desperate. They stared at each other across the sterile white space, two men who’d once been friends, then rivals, then something far more destructive.

“Don’t,” Malik said, raising his hand. “Don’t jump again. Please.”

Coda’s eyes narrowed. “Why? So you can get another iteration ahead?”

“No.” Malik stepped into the room, his own lab’s green orb visible glowing in his pocket. “Because Einstein is right. We’re going to destroy everything. Not just our legacies, but the actual timeline. I analyzed the quantum degradation patterns. We have maybe three, four jumps left before causality collapses entirely.”

“You’re lying. This is another trick.”

I’m not.” Malik pulled out a tablet, his hands shaking as he brought up the data. “Look. Really look. The fracture points are multiplying exponentially. Every jump creates a dozen more potential paradoxes. We’ve been so busy fighting each other we didn’t notice we were sawing through the branch we’re both sitting on.”

Hawking’s projection flickered beside Coda. Einstein’s materialized next to Malik. The two holographic geniuses regarded each other with something that might have been amusement.

“Took them long enough,” Hawking said.

“Indeed,” Einstein agreed. “Though I had faith they’d eventually see reason. Eventually being the operative word.”

Coda looked at the data on Malik’s tablet, his scientific mind automatically checking the calculations, verifying the models. It was all true. Horrifyingly, undeniably true. They’d been so consumed by competition they’d failed to see the larger pattern.

“So what do we do?” Coda asked quietly.

Malik met his eyes. “We publish together. Joint authors. Today. Now. In this timeline, before we destroy it completely.”

“After everything we’ve put each other through—”

“I know. I know.” Malik’s voice broke. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I let my ego drive me insane. We were friends once. We were going to change the world together.”

Coda felt something loosening in his chest, a knot he’d been carrying for so long he’d forgotten it was there.

“I’m sorry too. I blamed you for splitting off, but I drove you away. I did. I wouldn’t listen to your theories, wouldn’t share credit for your contributions.”

The two men stood in silence, the weight of infinite iterations pressing down on them both. Finally, Coda held out his hand. Malik took it.

The green orbs in the room began to pulse in synchronization, their light intensifying until it filled the entire laboratory with an emerald glow. The projections of Hawking and Einstein faded with satisfied expressions.

“One paper,” Coda said. “Equal authors. Everything we’ve discovered, together.”

“Together,” Malik agreed.

They walked out of the laboratory side by side, leaving the orbs pulsing behind them, their glow gradually dimming as the timeline began, slowly, to heal itself. Somewhere in the quantum fabric of reality, infinite versions of themselves made infinite different choices. But in this moment, in this timeline, they chose peace.

Behind them, written in light across the laboratory wall, equations began to materialize—the final gift from their holographic advisors. The complete, unified theory of temporal mechanics. Not discovered through competition, but through collaboration. Not won, but shared.

The story would make headlines the next day. Not as a race won, but as science done right. Two names, side by side, credited equally for humanity’s greatest breakthrough. And in every future iteration, in every branching possibility, that moment of reconciliation would ripple forward, a fixed point in time that even they couldn’t undo.

Some victories, they learned, could only be achieved through surrender.