Vietnam
Abandoned Perseus Bunker
1981
"How is this even possible?" He sighed. "This is insane, even for Adler."
"Thats probably why Hudson started the project and not Adler himself." Beck said.
The entire sequence of events sounded made up by a child's wild fantasy. The CIA, somehow discovering the unfinished business of the Nazis. Then furthering it into the testing stage where after two failed attempts, Hudson had brought in Adler from present day of 1981 and explained the entire situation to him. Where they then proceeded to snatch up Benedikt from a previous moment in time, only a few months prior to present day and force him through time on the same mission they would later send present day Benedikt Romanov on. Upon his return, he brought back two journals containing vital info concerning DNI just before he bled to death. With half the job finished, all they needed now was the DNI chip itself. What better person to send in than the same guy... but from present day. It was a massive advantage to the CIA. Not only did he complete his mission but he also had even greater knowledge on the Perseus collective as a whole and proved to be much more stable and useful than the other subject copy from months prior. Had the Americans been more prepared they wouldn't have met their demise brought by Romanov's team. It was crazy... insane. Some might even call it perfect. Benedikt considered it to be genius. A plan taken to that extent, he couldn't be mad at. Just frustrated and confused. It was disturbing.
"This hurts my brain.." he sighed, sitting down trying to grasp reality while the others passed the book around, reading for themselves. "We need to continue on." He finally spoke up. "Beck, Park, what else did you two find?"
"Simple laws of traveling through time. You wouldn't know if your own copy was in the same year as you. There are no known affects if any that would happen on the body. However, if one were to recognize their own copy, the one out of time would soon become unconsciouss and as the book describes 'the body will dissapear into what looks like thin air'. Park explained.
"So they die?" Portnova asked.
"It seems its a gray area. It implies it, but doesn't specify." Beck shrugged. "I don't think the researchers themselves understand."
"What else?" Benedikt asked.
"Its been proven to be possible to return back to the traveler's original timeline. When they take themselves out of time and in a place where they were not intended to be it becomes their new future. The future they had prior to jumping, no longer exists for their own timeline but may still be found in other branched timelines. To put into simpler terms, imagine you and your identical sibling are presented with two choices. You can either wait until your parent gets home to cook dinner or fix yourself a sandwhich. You decide to fix a sandwhich while the other decides to wait. Because you have already ate, you can no longer eat with your twin sibling and your parents, however you can still watch your twin eat. You yourself experience what it would have been like had you simply waited. It is also important to note that intervening in the past or future of one timeline doesn't affect... I'm not reading that part its just written more complicated than it sounds." Park said. "Basically, Benedikt went to 2065. Because it wasn't supposed to happen, that created a new timline in which he did appear there. The same can be said if he was from 2065 and came into 1981. Original timelines can exist and remain unaffected, its only when time travel intervenes does it create a new seperate timeline." She explained.
"I understood every bit of that." Beck said with false confidence.
It took a bit of time for everyone to fully understand the concept of time. Benedikt was suprised they all did considering the overload of info they've been given the past few days.
"And the suit?" Beck asked.
"Theres not much on it. Its leather just improved with a few other materials that make it more resistant to weapons and weather conditions in their time." Portnova took her glasses off.
"Sounds like thats the least complicated thing we can come across today." Benedikt chuckled.
Stitch would be back for them the next day. With some downtime on their hands, they decided to get some sleep. With his own troubled mind, he decided to keep watch from outside.
He climbed a tree and found a somewhat comfortable spot to sit and keep an eye out. The view was wonderful. He could see above some of the trees, the moon appearing in full circle, lighting the tops of the jungle. The moonlight shone on him as it leaked through the leaves and onto the ground below him near the bunker entrance. He never should have complained.
Not long ago he would have said that the worst hardest thing to ever go through was having his own identity taken from him. He was made to be someone he wasn't and when it was all done he was left with nearly nothing. He recovered, not fully but he had retained a sizeable portion of his memory. Having to relive his past life was a journey of its own. Discovering time travel was unfathomable.
It was far more mentally and physically degrgrading than MKUltra ever was. He could grasp the concept of cryptogrophy, battlefield strats, weapons, even the concept of time. Yet he could never understand why he always had to bring himself into the most heavily weighted and draining situations ever. And somehow it always seemed to involve the fate of the world.
"It never ends..." he mumbled to himself with a sigh.
He had an epiphany. It seems no matter the situation, it always involved Perseus. Even some 80 plus years from now when they're all dead and gone Perseus is a name still brought up in conversations. Perseus was the problem, they always were.
He hadn't realised he had fallen asleep until he felt something hit his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see Beck, a small stick in hand.
"Good morning Commander. Figured I would make sure you were still alive."
"Pack the gear up and tell the others to meet me out here. Our job here is done for now. Theres news we have to discuss." He said to the German.
"Copy." He gave a thumbs up.
"Whats the word?" Park asked as the rest followed behind. She handed him the backpack.
"We need to destroy Perseus." Benedikt said bluntly.
"What...?" Portnova sounded confused. "Perseus is our home, its the reason we fight. If we have Perseus we have nothing."
"I thought the same things too. What a stupid idea to destroy the very place that feeds you, suppies you.. for me its the place that made me. I owe everything I have to that old man. That's how it should be. But we're dealing with something that could be catostrophic to the world. DNI and the ability to travel through time. Its the perfect recepie to spark the next world war. And it seems no matter where I go the problem always has something to do with Perseus. Even in 2065, Perseus still has major involvment with their current war. Being a soldier was never intended to be a lifestyle. For anyone, but our world has found conflict so much that it has become just that. A way of living. People forget that we don't have to live this way. Perseus is our way out of this war. Thats almost 100yrs without war. And it hasnt even been 40yrs since WW2 ended. And before that there was WW1 which only had a 21 yr gap before the second one began.
It will take thorough planning and much patients but with proper timing, Perseus will fall. So I'm asking if you three will help me? You can choose not to, I understand. If you run away I can't prmoise Perseus wont send me or someone else to hunt you down. But if any of you oppose me on this, then I can't let you leave this place." He stood infront of them all before pausing. "Stitch is on his way. You have until
he gets here to make up your minds. I'll be over there by that tree, if any of you wish to join me." He said, the heavy weight of it all being heard in his tired voice.
The helicopter could be seen in the distance. Park was first to approach his side, followed by Beck. They both gave me reassuring looks.
"Portnova?" He asked them. They all turned around to see her standing there before walking towards them.
"I hate being the last one." She said.
"Glad you made the wise decision." Benedikt smiled as they boared the helicopter.
"How are things looking Kuzmin?" Benedikt asked his friend.
"Looking well. Perseus thinks that we just took out a squad of Menendez's men last night. Once we got back to the safehouse here in Vietnam you insisted on interrogating one of the remaining survivors. He was as weak as he was stupid and easily gave up the location of a nearby supply house. So me and you lead the squad to burn it all down. Menendez should consider us even now."
"Good good."
1981
Moscow
Perseus Base
Once they had finished their debrefing they had downtime for the rest if the day until the following morning. It was nighttime, the perfect timing to get this over with. While the rest of his teammates were sound asleep he got himself dressed, grabbed the backpack from inside the ceiling and walked out of the building.
He snuck his way around the property to find himself a vehicle. While there were multiple men on night shift doing their duties, beeing seen out would raise much suspicion and questions he simply didn't have the time to answer. He hid behind a crate, waiting for the perfeft moment to grab helicopter. He lifted his balaclava up to see the soldiers roaming around.
"Where are you going?" Park snuck up beside him
"What are you doing out here?" He jumped, pulling out his Redeemer on instinct.
"I was going to ask you the same thing." They whispered.
"Nobody can find this. We already know everything written in these books and how this armor and chip works. I'm sending this to a place where nobody will find it. In order for this plan to work, I need to know that I am the only person on this planet who knows where this stuff is. Because if you or any of the others ever gets captured I have one less thing to worry about."
"Where are you taking it?"
"I can't tell you that." He sighed. "I shouldn't be gone long."
Saying their quick goodbyes, he smiled before pulling his mask down and sneaking out onto the runway towards the helicopters.
"To Norway we go.." he mumbled, flipping switches once inside the aircraft.