Time Leap (13 page)

“
You do know
it’s Chinese Valentine’s Day, don’t you?” Niki said. “You want us
to kill a man on Valentine’s Day?”

“
It will
demonstrate your love for the World,” Mike replied.

Whilst Mike
was filling us in on Kim’s visit to China, the reality of
assassinating a president gradually became real. I still had no
clear idea
how
we
should do the deed, but I knew we should use Mike and Yoyo’s
knowledge of events to make this happen.

***

Eighteen

The next day, things took
on a very different complexion.

Niki awoke around 6am in
a troubled frame of mind. Whilst I was still half–asleep, the first
thing she said to me was, “Joe – I’ve been thinking about
yesterday.” Her tone of voice reminded me of countless previous
occasions she’d drop a bombshell. It always meant that I had to be
flexible in my thinking – and prepared to change my best–laid
plans. I was suddenly fully awake.

“
Yesss…
and?”

“
Who’s going
to pull the trigger?”

I couldn’t resist
replying, “Well, I thought you would…” even though I could guess
her reaction. And anyway, if there was a trigger to be pulled, it
would have my finger on it – no question (but I wouldn’t mind her
loading the bullets).

“
It’s just
that I don’t think either of us has to,” she replied.

“
You mean Mike
or Yoyo could do it?”

“
No.”

“
O-kay,” I
said slowly. “Well, as we said yesterday, there’s always poison –
or we could start a fire… or maybe we could leave a gun in his room
with the message, ‘Please point gun to head and fire’…”

“
Joe!”

“
Sorry baby –
what’s your idea?”

“
F**k
off!”

It was very rare for Niki
to swear, but when she did I knew I’d really crossed the line –
badly. In China, sarcasm doesn’t really work, and nobody seems to
do it. So I try not to use it with Niki, even though she’s lived in
the UK for so long now. But every now and then, it slips
out.

“
I’m sorry,
that was wrong. Please tell me your idea.” Her face told me she was
not going to grant me that favour – I would have to beg for it. She
got out of bed quickly and started to dress.

“
Pleasssse
baby… I really want to
know…”

She stopped dressing and
looked me in the eye.

“
We don’t have
to kill Kim at all – no–one has to.”

This was the bombshell.
Okay I thought, be flexible – be open to other options (something I
have to say I am not really good at – unless those alternative
ideas originate from my particular anatomy).

“
Okay, go
on.”

“
Think about
it: Mike and Yoyo have returned to our time, where there are no
World Wars – and won’t be for another forty years. If they want to,
they can live very comfortably here. How old do you think they are
now?”

“
Well, Mike
must be over seventy – my age plus forty–two years.”

“
Right – and
Yoyo will be in her late sixties. So even if they live to be a
hundred, they’re not going to live through this new Korean War – if
they stay here, in our time.” I suddenly knew exactly where Niki
was going with this. “We can choose to live in any time period we
want,” she continued, “so why not choose a comfortable one, where
there are no big conflicts, no nuclear wars, and we can enjoy
life?”

I thought about it. From
a personal perspective, you had to say she was right – absolutely
spot–on. But how could we step away, knowing what we know now, with
this amazing power in our hands.

“
You’re right
Niki, it makes so much sense – it really does…”

“
I can hear a
‘but’ coming.”

I grimaced and let out a
deep sigh. “You know what I’m going to say.”

“
What about
helping people, right? What about stopping suffering all round the
World – preventing wars, stopping genocides, eliminating World
hunger… what about making the World a more comfortable place
for
everyone
– not
just us?”

“
Exactly… we
can’t just turn a blind eye to all that.”

“
But we can,
and we have to when we can’t do anything about it.”

“
But we can do
something!”

“
No we
can’t
! We think we can, we have all these
big ideas – like stopping the Nazis, or saving Steve’s life… but if
it’s meant to be, then we’re powerless.”

“
I stopped
nine–eleven…” I said weakly.

“
Yes – I
really believe you did Joe – even though I have no
recollection
whatsoever
of the event – I do believe you. But look at the
consequences: you manage to kill my mother
and
two World leaders – and who knows
how many others died because of your meddling.”

“
Meddling!”

“
I’ve had
enough Joe – I don’t want to risk my life seeing off a dictator
that hasn’t done anything wrong to me. North Korea’s an ally of
China – don’t forget that. You can keep your time–travel
assassination game – I want no part of it.”

Niki stormed out of the
room and slammed the door. There was an empty quiet.

A few minutes later,
there was a gentle knock on the door: it was Mike.

“
Everything
all right?” he said.

“
Yeah, great.”
I sighed. “Sorry, we must have disturbed you.”

“
It’s okay, we
weren’t sleeping – we were just talking.”

“
Did you hear
us?” I asked.

“
It was
difficult not to.”

“
I’m
sorry.”

“
Don’t be. I
remember it like it was yesterday.”

For a moment, I’d
forgotten that I was talking to me, Mike, who’d lived through more
or less exactly what I had, and experienced the same things. Being
with Mike was so much like being with my father.

“
Well, I guess
that you and Yoyo got through all of this shit. I mean, you’re
still together, still time–travelling, right?”

“
Sometimes,
it’s better that you don’t know the future Joe.” I looked at him
closely for a moment. There were a lot of things he wasn’t telling
me, but I knew it was no good asking.

“
Yeah, well
that’s exactly what Niki would say,” I said.

“
Perhaps she’s
right. Once you know the future, it’s difficult to turn back.
Changing the past is very different from affecting the future. You
have to be careful meddling with the past because you don’t know
how it will affect your present. But there are countless possible
futures, and we choose the ones that will become our own realities
every day, every minute, every second. There’s nothing at all wrong
in affecting the future – particularly affecting it for the better.
Niki knows this.”

“
Your Niki or
mine?”

“
Both. One
knows it now, and the other will realise it soon.”

I sighed deeply. “Okay,
but here’s the thing: how do we square what you said yesterday with
what Niki wants? Yesterday you asked us to kill Kim Jong-un. Now
she doesn’t want that.”

“
I never said
that both you and Niki should be involved in it, Joe. You have to
remember that we’re from the future – we know what has happened,
and what will happen if nothing is done. We jumped forward just six
months, and went to Hampstead Heath and looked across the City of
London: it was all gone. It was just like the pictures of Hiroshima
after the bomb. We couldn’t breathe the air and had to jump back
quickly. And that’s just one city. We’re not talking about a big
war – we’re talking about the end of this civilisation. The planet
will become unliveable.

“
Why don’t you
stay here – in our time period – like Niki said? Then we don’t have
to change anything.”

“
If you’d seen
what we’ve seen, you’d know that we can’t do that. We can’t make
the future any worse by eliminating Kim Jong-un – trust me. And if
you don’t trust me, come and see it for yourself – come to the
future. But we can’t stay long.”

*

I felt that I was in the
middle of a big dilemma. I had to agree with Mike, but I also
understood Niki’s perspective only too well. We really didn’t know
what would happen if we assassinated the Korean leader. Mike said
we couldn’t make things worse, how did he know? And another thing:
Niki and I always agreed to never go it alone, but now Mike was
suggesting I went solo.

When we started to use
this time–travelling ability, I’d thought we could change history
for the better – no question. Now, I could see that this was not
always the case. Apart from changing nine–eleven, the only other
success I’d still clung on to was stopping Niki’s ex–boyfriend
topping himself. But as we discovered, he ended up being killed in
a car crash a few years later. So what had we achieved? We’d added
a few years to his life – during which he couldn’t be with the girl
he loved. All this challenged the core of my beliefs, and I had to
ask myself the question: can we, in our limited view of the World,
really say what is for the best? How can we differentiate between
doing good and interfering?

I recalled an incident
when I was a student in London. I was waiting at a bus stop when a
man ran across the main road from a pub on the other side. He was
closely followed by a second, older man who dodged the traffic and
caught up with the younger man – just as he reached the bus stop.
The second man then gave the first a severe beating – and I mean
severe. People at the stop either looked on in amazement, as I did,
or hurried away. It was like watching a movie. The older guy then
adjusted his shirt, shrugged and walked calmly back across the road
– job done. Meanwhile, the young man was lying against the bus stop
with blood on his white shirt. I didn’t want to move him – we’re
always told we shouldn’t in these situations – but I thought I must
do something. So I called the emergency services. They said they’d
send an ambulance, and asked me to wait at the scene. I did as they
instructed and stood at the bus stop, waiting for the ambulance to
arrive. But moments later, the younger man came to, staggered to
his feet, and ran off!

The next thing I knew I
could hear the familiar wail of an ambulance in the distance, so I
scarpered! Well, I didn’t want to be around when questions were
asked about which joker had called the emergency services on false
pretences, wasting taxpayers’ money.

Later on, after I’d
married Niki, I relayed this story to her, and she said, “Why do
you think this happened? I mean, why did the second man beat the
first?” I had to admit that I really had no idea – but it looked
like the young man had been attacked for no reason. It seemed
totally out of order, and perhaps the older man should be arrested.
“But what if the young man had just tried to rob the guy’s bar? Or
maybe he tried to rape the owner’s wife. How would you feel if
someone did this to you?” I had to admit that is someone had tried
to rape Niki, I wouldn’t just call the police – I’d kick the shit
out of him first.

This incident went over
and over in my mind for a long time. I thought about things that
happen in the World, and our limited view on the reasons they
happen. Niki comes from a Buddhist background, though she doesn’t
have strong religious leanings now. But what she still has is a
karmic way of looking at life. I’m not saying that I totally
believe all the things she’s told me, but I do think there is a
reason for everything, and that ‘what goes around, comes around.’
There’s all the obvious sort of paybacks in life: a man robs a
bank, gets caught and goes to prison. A man kills another man, and
gets life. You hit your sister, and your dad hits you back. It’s
normal – everyone knows this. But what about the unseen links that
we miss? If we only see the payback and not the cause, how can we
make sense of life without some sort of karmic ideology? And how
can we have the right attitude to events – or any real
understanding of them?

What if there
really is system of Universal Justice which balances every action
and every thought in life – in such a way that over a period of a
life, or even several lifetimes,
nothing
is unjust? Perhaps sometimes
we’re working against this Universal Justice system, and doing more
harm than good. And it could be the same with trying to change
history.

***

Nineteen

Later on that day, Niki
suggested a walk to the local coffee bar. I really felt I needed
some air to clear my head, so the walk and coffee sounded like a
good idea. Nik said she’d had a long talk with Yoyo, and wanted to
share this with Mike and me. So we sat with our coffees and
listened to what they had to say.

After chatting with Yoyo,
Nik had realised how bad things had become in Yoyo and Mike’s time
zone, and how the future looked as black as black can be. Not only
that, but her idea of Yoyo and Mike living with us (or with any
other versions of us in other time–zones), was not really on.
Apparently, they’d tried it a couple of times, but it didn’t work.
It was impossible to have duel identities, with two Joe Coopers and
two Niki Lings wandering around. In the end, it meant creating
totally new identities, with new passports, new bank accounts – new
everything. It was highly problematic, and they always felt like
criminals. Yoyo was always worried that the authorities would track
them down one day and check their DNA or something. On top of that,
it was difficult to leave the children, who really didn’t want to
go and live in a previous time period, now that they’d built lives
for themselves in their own time.