Chapter 3
Washington, D.C.
September 20, 2049
"Imagine for a moment, class, that you have just invented the first time machine. What do you do? Where should you go? To the future, to see how things turn out? Or to the past, perhaps, to fix a grave mistake? Such was the question that MIT grad student Marty Emmett faced on May 17, 2043. After attending a lecture on time paradoxes given by Phineas Flynn, he went home and constructed the first working time machine―well, that we know of―certainly the first to be replicated. That day, the world was changed forever. The very meaning of history was changed forever. Suddenly, we historians could study the story of ourselves in not just one direction, but two: past, and future! Therefore, today we will be starting our unit on the history of the future."
PJ stood on a stool in the back of the classroom, garbed in the Secret Service's signature black suit and earpiece, hands clasped behind his back, keeping his eyes moving from person to person. There were about forty students arranged in neat rows in the cozy classroom. Marie sat at her desk close by, listening intently to the lecture. The teacher at the front of the room was actually a holographic projection, yet his appearance was so crisp and clear one would not have been able to tell from this far back. The other students posed very little threat, but it was his job to be wary, so PJ maintained a sharp alertness.
"Now, by show of hands, how many in this room have traveled through time?" asked the teacher, whose AI went by Mr. Mondragon.
About half of the room raised their hands. PJ didn't react, even though he belonged in the category.
"Not bad," Mr. Mondragon stated neutrally. "Why don't we take a brief sample of this class's time traveling experience. Mr. Simpson, what made you travel through time?"
A boy in one of the front rows spoke. "My family took a vacation to a hundred years in the future around three years ago. We booked a space cruise through the solar system."
"Ah, yes. The space cruising industry won't be kicking off for another six decades or so," Mr. Mondragon said. "Any others who took a vacation to the future? Let's go with you, Ms. Miller."
"My parents were visiting Hong Kong in 3366 CE when I was born," a small girl with large glasses said. "They're from our time, so they're technically 1,350 years older than me!"
A smattering of laughter reverberated through the room.
"That does sometimes happen," acknowledged Mr. Mondragon.
"My parents are from the twenty-ninth century," one boy shouted out. "They moved to this time because my dad wanted to be a welder, and in his time, that job doesn't exist."
"You will please raise your hand before speaking, Mr. Hedges," Mr. Mondragon adjured. "Although you would be correct, not very many nation's economies require metalwork in that era. Metals are too heavy for the kinds of products consumers in the 2800's use."
Another hand shot up belonging to a girl with long, sunshine-yellow hair.
"Yes, Ms. Lacroix?"
"My parents are from the 2300's, and they moved here after they were married because they loved nature. They wanted me and my brother to see what forests looked like before all the Earth's forests are replaced with digital trees. They still work in the 2300's, though, they just have to take a three-century commute every day."
"Thank you for your comments, class," Mr. Mondragon said, waving away the other hands that had gone up. "We unfortunately do not have time to hear them all today, even if we had a time machine!"
Nobody in the room laughed at his joke. As a computer program, that didn't phase him. "As you can see, time travel offers plenty of new opportunities for people. But can anybody tell me why we can only come and go from the future?"
Marie raised her hand.
"Ms. Flynn?"
"Because after Marty Emmett showcased his first time machine, laws were quickly made to ensure that nobody was allowed to go further back in the past than the date he finished his invention. If someone were to try, they might accidentally alter the spacetime continuum and drastically affect the history of the world, which would be bad."
"Very good, Ms. Flynn. I suspect you are quite aware of these things, given your mother's influence on the UN's decision to make travelling to the past illegal."
"Mm-hm!" Marie nodded.
"As a historian, I do wish we could conduct a few controlled research ventures into the past," Mr. Mondragon sighed. "For instance, an operation to recover the hundreds of thousands of lost scrolls at the library of Alexandria before Julius Caesar burned it to the ground. Or a chance to have a recorded interview with a significant religious figure, such as Jesus, Mohammed, or Buddha. But alas, it is too dangerous.
"On the other side of the coin, interaction between the present and the future suddenly opened wide. A flood of technology, resources, scientific progress, and more, will sweep over this very generation. We know that it will take some fifty years for people living from before time travel's discovery to fully acclimate to the newfound wealth of information and technology. Why, it is only because of the advances made by the great scientists of our age, Phineas and Ferb, that humanity was prepared at all for such a crossroads of trade and prosperity. We have the future given to us, and already know that in less than ten years, we will have wiped out the last of the plagues of humanity. Hunger is already gone. AIDS and Zika, gone. Malaria is almost gone. Cancer, well, there's still no one-size-fits-all solution, but for extreme cases, we can at least send patients to the far future where they'll receive advanced treatment options.
"You are the generation that is witnessing the greatest period of change history will ever know. In fifty years, the flow of knowledge between present and future will have finally stabilized and plateaued. Past that, all technological advances mankind will ever know will already have been made and shared across time, thus only certain fads in lifestyle will go in and out of fashion as the centuries pile on. By 3000 CE, humans will have spread out into the Milky Way galaxy and mixed so thoroughly with alien cultures and life forms that human history as we know it will once again change, and ultimately come to an end, transitioning to a peaceful galactic federation.
"I am sure most of you will be pleased to hear that looking any further than that into the future is beyond the scope of this class. If you are interested in learning more, you can visit with me during my office hours. All you need to know for today is that we know what the future has in store for us, just as we know the past. Just like Mr. Hedge's father, time travel has made historians somewhat obsolete and a niche occupation, which is why I am not a live teacher. However, it is still as important to study history as it has ever been, if not more so. After all, who doesn't want to know the future? So let's dive into the first section of our unit, which should be an easy enough section for most of you since it covers the time period we are living in right now: 2043-2075, The Present and Future Crossroads. Let's pull up the section on our desktops now."
Every student's desk top was literally a desktop; a wide, touchscreen interactive workspace digitally recording the students' work in the teachers' systems. It held everything, from the ebooks students needed, to citation apps for help in citing references in their essays correctly, to folders for students to turn assignments in. The class all swiped around on their desktops to follow along with the lecture.
"Back to 2043 and Emmett's original invention. Emmett revealed his creation to the scientific community shortly after completing it. When word quickly spread he had created the first working time machine, he had to seek out government protection from the many businesses, corporations, even competing national governments and other factions trying to bid, buy, bribe, or even steal it from him. Most first reactions centered on how knowing the future would affect the stock market, which promptly crashed. Aid instantly arrived from the future, of course, nipping the oncoming recession in the bud. The economy was able to adapt to a broken stock exchange because investors could already know what products would be successful, rather than gamble on stocks, and we took our first steps into the new world of perfect knowledge.
"The government debate was just beginning, however. We already discussed how measures were quickly taken to prevent travelling back to the past and disrupting the timeline. These measures were spurred on by the actions of one James Ricardo Louis, who illegally obtained a time machine with the intent to go back in time and assassinate President Clayton as a baby in the 1970's. President Clayton, who was being advised by Phineas and Isabella Flynn and Ferb Fletcher, welcomed an era of prosperity and growth ushered in by the new prospects of time travel. Louis had encountered financial hardships under the micro-recession and blamed President Clayton. Fortunately, the Secret Service were able to trace Louis's movements and stop him. This event, most of all, was the final proverbial straw and the UN saw no choice but to ban all travel back to the past permanently. This law has been upheld as far into the future as we discussed earlier.
"President Clayton, of course, was able to complete his second term in office and was succeeded by President Flynn in the election of 2048, just last year."
A number of her classmates briefly glanced at Marie before turning their attention back to the instructor.
"Since we're on the subject, allow me to indulge in a brief tangent. As you all remember last year, the election process has become a little more complicated since the introduction of time travel. It is now a simple thing to find out who will ultimately win, so we ask, is there still a point to campaigns, all the polls and debates, the appearances and speeches, and everything else that goes on? Not just for the United States, but for democratic nations around the world. This past election was simple enough due to President Flynn's enormous popularity netting her an historic landslide win. There are great public fears, however, that narrower margins will upset the political climate in future elections. How should the candidates change their campaign plans if they know with certainty beforehand which way the voters are going to swing, for instance? Yet we also see that candidates will still run even knowing they are going to lose―often to make some political or moral point with their defeat. Unfortunately, we don't have time to go into the fascinating details in this class.
"There is one positive to be found in this, though: war is essentially meaningless now. Time travel lets the world see the outcome of the fighting, and opens the eyes of the warring sides to the costs going to war will exact. Additionally, using time travel to understand the underlying principles causing the beligerince of each faction allows the UN to remedy the issues before the bloodshed starts." Mr. Mondragon glanced at his watch. "Forgive me, we have to get back on track with the regular class material.
"Now then, can I ask someone to read beginning on page one-sixty-six where it starts, 'After the advent?'" Mr. Mondragon asked. "Ms. Taylor, go ahead."
"After the advent of time travel, one of the most complex social issues that arose was the treatment of human lives lost in accidents. Insurance companies battled in the courts to limit time travel after suffering huge losses when customers could simply use time travel to prevent loss of loved ones, property damages, personal injury, and more. In Ensurinsure V. United States, the Supreme Court overruled Ensurinsure's efforts to block customer cancellations or require payment for any damages averted through the use of time travel. Effectively, insurance services were no longer needed at all, a decisive blow to the industry after it was already hit hard by the rather thorough eradication of automobile accidents due to the mass-scale production of self-driving cars a decade earlier."
"It sucks for anyone who died the day before time travel was invented," interrupted a boy towards the back. A half-dozen students snickered.
As the room broke out in whispered conversations, Mr. Mondragon strictly declared, "If one more person speaks without being called on, you'll all be assigned a 200 word essay," to regain control. There was instant silence.
Another boy raised his hand. "Yes, Mr. Groves?" pointed Mr. Mondragon.
The Groves boy cleared his throat. "When my brother was getting his time machine driver's license for his job―he was delivering pizzas, and they used a time machine to go back in time and deliver the fresh-baked pizzas thirty seconds after the person ordered it―how come he didn't accidentally change the future by, like, stepping on a butterfly, causing a chain of events that would ultimately blow up the world, or something? Couldn't that happen, like, pretty much every time someone goes back in time to change something?"
Marie raised her hand.
"Ms. Flynn, perhaps you would be the most appropriate person to respond to this query," Mr. Mondragon yielded.
"My Dad and Uncle were the ones who wrote the physics books on time travel," Marie said factually. "The first theory of chronodynamics states that all outcomes must abide a self-consistent loop of narrative causality. That means that if Effect B has already happened, then changing Cause A from resulting in Effect B to resulting in Effect C triggers a loop where Effect C must also be Cause D resulting in the eventual return to the result of Effect B. In other words, it's theoretically impossible to change the future."
"Then wouldn't that mean that the people who went back in time to stop someone from dying and stuff wouldn't be able to stop them from dying, since that would be changing the future?" countered Groves.
"Not if, from a future point of view, they had already gone back to stop them from dying."
"That makes no sense!"
"Well, remember that in physics, there is no preferred frame of reference. So the narrative we see, where cause and effect flow in the direction of past to future, isn't necessarily the only frame of reference. Sometimes a frame of reference flowing in the direction from future to past paints a better picture!"
The confused look on Groves' face manifested that that didn't clear anything up for him.
"It's still just a theory, though," she added sheepishly. "For what it's worth, my Mom feels the same way you do. She believes we can control our future. That's why she led the fight to outlaw traveling back to before '43. My Dad thinks physics shows that the law is unnecessary, even though he supported her anyways since it was still a good idea in principle."
Mr. Mondragon spoke up. "Statistically, Mr. Groves, history is on Ms. Flynn's side. There have been-slash-will be millions of time jumps, and not a single one of them changes the future. If there's one thing I want you to take home from today's lesson, it's this: the future is bright and the world is safe. Crime is down to all-time lows, because law enforcement can know when and where a crime will be committed before it happens. Natural disasters, such as the next big earthquake to hit the California coastline, are known well in advance and are adequately prepared for, in many cases they can even be prevented altogether. Economic downturns are likewise planned for, often receiving additional relief sent from future points in the timeline when economies are stronger. Even consider this: you do not need to lose any sleep worrying over climate change or nuclear war as your parents and grandparents did! From studying the history of the future, we now know humanity will prevent and overcome all these crises, so do not count on any of these working as reasons not to do your homework!" A hand went up in the center of the class. "Go ahead, Ms. Mooney."
"It kind of sounds like fate," a girl with midnight-blue hair dye said, mystically. "Or destiny."
"We'll leave it to the philosophers to decide on what this all means regarding the state of our free will," Mr. Mondragon said with a shrug. At that moment, the bell rang. "In the meantime," he added quickly, "please read the rest of the chapter before our next class, and have a good day!"
PJ moved closer to Marie while the bustling students grabbed their things and exited the classroom. Marie flipped her bag over her shoulder as she stood and joined the crowd, the platypus at her side. "That was probably the best history class I've ever had," Marie said. "Isn't time travel fascinating?"
"That isn't exactly the word I would pick," he replied thoughtfully.
When school got out and Marie had finished chatting with her friends, PJ led her to a flying car with a US Government issued license plate. After they were safely inside and the vehicle's autonav had charted out its course, PJ allowed himself to relax on the comfy leather seats.
"What about you?" Marie asked him from his side. "What was it like for you?"
"What was what like for me?" he asked, having apparently missed the reference nested in her pronoun.
"Time traveling! Duh!"
"It was a job, Marie. I had to conduct myself professionally."
"What were Mom and Dad like as kids? Were they cool? Or were they―more like they are now?"
"They were―what do you mean, more like they are now?"
Marie giggled.
"Ooh, you better hope I don't tell them you said that!" PJ exclaimed. "When I went back the past to protect them from Suzy Johnson, it was just like how the stories go―Phineas and Ferb were building stuff all the time, and Isabella and Candace and Buford and Baljeet were always around helping and having fun. It was Independence Day, the day I spent with them, and they set up a swimsuit fashion show with robot versions of all the past presidents."
"That's it?" Marie asked. "No rollercoasters? No trampolines on the moon? No ice skaters or sculptures made from cotton candy or hundred-foot tall, rocket-powered swingsets?"
"I guess they didn't always make a brand new rollercoaster every day," admitted PJ.
"Weird. That's not the way Dad makes it sound."
"Well, you know how he always likes to try new things. He'd have probably gotten bored if the only things they ever built as kids were rollercoasters."
Marie nodded. "True." She turned and looked out the window. The ground was fifty feet below. Traffic zones were organized by varying levels of elevation―slower moving vehicles remained closer to the ground, faster moving zones were much higher above the city.
"What about the future?" she asked. "Have you ever been there?"
PJ shook his head. "No. There's nothing for me there." He sighed softly, then added the next part as a quiet afterthought. "No reason for me to leave this time."
Marie shot him a sideways glance. She recognized that same, lonely look on his face he used to always have. "PJ, I told you, you don't have to feel alone anymore!"
He realized he had let his emotions show through, and immediately the look was gone. "I'm fine!"
Just then, an idea hit her. Marie snapped her fingers. "I know what you need! PJ, we need to find to find you a nice platypus girlfriend!"
He looked very taken aback at that. "What? No, no!" He did not like the goofy grin she was giving him.
"Yes! That's exactly what you need!" Marie was starting to radiate excitement, ripping through her backpack and pulling out her notebook and a pencil. "Brainstorming time! PJ, what kinds of, er, platypus girls do you like?"
"None! No, we are not doing this!"
"Oh, yes we are!" Marie started scribbling furiously. "Tall ones? Short ones? Medium ones? Blue eyes? Green eyes? C'mon, PJ! You can tell me!" She poked him with her eraser.
"Stop!"
Marie paused and brought her pencil to her chin. "But where would you go to meet platypus―es? Platypi? Platy―whatever." She nibbled on her eraser in thought.
"Marie, I don't need a girlfriend!"
"I could ask Aunty Vanessa to call around the pet shops back home. There are a surprising amount of platypuses in Danville."
"Marie, listen!" PJ snatched the pencil away from her to grab her attention back. "I don't want a girlfriend, okay? It wouldn't be―kosher, I guess."
"Kosher?"
"I mean, a platypus girlfriend wouldn't be someone I could talk to or do anything with. After all, she is a platypus. They don't do much. It'd be like talking to a brick."
"I hadn't thought of it that way," Marie said.
"And while sure, everybody had a crush on Phoebe the Poodle back at OWCA Academy, that was years ago! And I didn't fit in there, either. I've never fit in anywhere except here, in this family. With you and―Mom and Dad." He felt weird calling them that. "Look, thank you for trying, but I just don't think there's someone for me out there. Not like that. It's one of the burdens of being the only talking semi-aquatic mammal in the world."
Marie knew PJ wasn't a fan of touching, so after a moment of watching him (try not to) sulk, she hesitantly put her arm around his shoulders. When he didn't resist, she let it rest there. "Okay, PJ," she said understandingly.
Somewhere in the Appalachian mountains
The future...
The King battered his way up the overgrown path, and the platypus followed, hot on his trail. A dense patch of thick, green brush with nasty thorns caught at his robes, flaying the expensive gold threads, slowing his movement. He braced against the snag and tugged himself free, tearing his cloak in the process. Onwards he rushed, willing himself to go faster.
Pine trees were everywhere, tall and mighty evergreens that blanketed the steep mountain banks. If his long legs were an advantage in flight, it was nullified by the slope he had to climb almost as it were a flight of stairs. Still, the crunching sounds of his pursuer seemed to fall behind. His goal lay just ahead. Only a few more bends in the path to go, if he remembered correctly. He was close, so close to reaching it―
The King burst into a small clearing. The grove of pine trees on the far side towered into the sky. He whipped around, still panting heavily, drawing his Glock. The platypus had to be close. Squinting down the sights, The King scanned for any signs of movement.
The platypus darted around the final bend and into view. The King pulled the trigger, flinching as the hammer slammed down on the barrel. He had always been repulsed by the weight of the weapon and by the dirty work of killing things himself, and his lack of training showed. He missed his mark, allowing the platypus to dive behind the cover of a big pine trunk at the edge of the clearing, quite unharmed.
Keeping the gun aimed at the base of the tree, The King backed away slowly. The platypus peeked around the left side of the trunk. He fired two more bullets into the tree to force him to retreat again behind it.
"You know, usually, this is the part where the bad guy starts to monologue," the platypus said. "Telling me about their evil plan, about how their tragic backstory set them on a path inevitably leading them along to this very moment."
The King cautiously took another step back.
The platypus peeked around the tree again. He fired one more round into the tree, but this time the platypus swooped out at unbelievable speed, close to the ground and practically on all fours. The King got off two more rounds before a beaver tail swiped across his hand, slapping the gun out of his grasp and knocking it clear across the grove.
A barrage of punches landed on The King, packing far more power than their deceptively small fists seemed capable of unleashing. The King felt himself keel over in pain, and he face planted into the ground. He spit a clod of dirt out of his mouth while his arms were wrenched behind his back and snapped into restraints. The platypus stood on his shoulder triumphantly. "Your Conspirium is no more," he sneered.
Only a few paces away, The King watched unnoticed, quite hidden by the trunk of another majestic pine, as his time-clone was cuffed by the platypus. His likeness was surely humiliated beyond degree, as he was led on a leash like a dog by the platypus back down the path they had just come up. Waiting until they were well out of earshot, The King finally stepped out into the clearing and approached the digital tree his other self had been striving to reach.
He placed the palm of his hand against the bark, and the digital illusion vanished to be replaced by a biometric scanner and pale blue door. Also materializing was the outline of a tiny shed, the entrance to the Conspirium's secret underground bunker. When the scanner recognized his prints, it hissed softly and the door slid open, letting the soft glow of the interior lights shine on him. He regally paced down the steps to where his time machine awaited, stepped into its chair, and with the press of a button, he disappeared.
He arrived back in his present. The blonde, golden curls of his first lieutenant, Suzy Johnson, were covering her face as she kneeled before him. "Welcome back, My King," she greeted. "What did you learn this time?"
"We are close," he said in return, emerging from the vehicle. "The final plan is nearly in place. However, the platypus is still causing us problems."
Suzy's reverent gaze turned into a frown as she listened to him explain what had happened.
"I think it is time we eradicated him once and for all," The King said as he swept his flowing robes out of the way to sit down on his golden throne. "This, I leave to you."
Suzy bowed her head. "As you wish, My King." With that, she swiftly rose and exited the room.
A/N:
Let me just start by saying time travel is OP. There's simply no way around it. Believe me, I really wanted to set up some strict rules about time travel for this story as a way to nerf it. The thing is, I also have to accept the way time travel is treated in the episodes It's About Time! and Quantum Boogaloo from the show as canon, so my beautifully elegant ruleset for time traveling will just have to wait for another story. So just like how the way the show treats time travel is sort of inconsistent at times, I'm afraid this story will be, too. It's just the hand I was dealt by those particular episodes. (Same goes for some of my creative choices from way back in Despotism. I remember that a couple of reviewers more or less pointed that out back in the day.) Hopefully it won't be too much of an issue for you guys, or at least that this story will still be engaging despite its imperfections. Thanks for reading!
Guest review response:
Hey, Derek the Stuntbat! I finally caught you! Or, you finally caught me? Whatever the case, thanks for the reviews! I've enjoyed all of them that you've left, including those for some of my older stories. I'm really glad that some people out there appreciate my stuff. I worked hard on it, after all! Enjoy your retirement from flying through hoops!