An Odessa Obsession

"Memory is the diary we all carry about with us."

– Oscar Wilde, Irish Poet

1965

Leaning heavily upon his cane, the old man struggled to mount the stairs leading to the porch of the little, blue farmhouse. Reaching inside the breast pocket of his coat, he felt the journal. Please, let this work, he prayed. Knocking on the door, he waited several minutes before turning to leave. Hearing the door open, he turned back. Seeing her, he struggled to not weep.

"Rabbi?" the woman asked, a blank stare leaving her face with the sudden recognition.

Entering the home, they moved to a sitting area, wherein they passed more than an hour in excited conversation.

Rising to leave, he hesitated, then presented her with the journal and a set of very specific instructions.

"Rabbi," she said, when he had finished. "I've heard large numbers made it to South America. They had some sort of organization set up as a contingency plan."

"They call it 'Odessa,' the Organisation der ehemaligen SS-angehörigen."

"So, it's true?"

"I have always believed so. Someone I loved very much made me promise to help stop them, and I spent several years since my liberation working toward that end."

Driving away, he wept the tears he had before denied himself.

2020

Downshifting his Dodge Ram, Chaim Yacobian considered the carefully laid plan. Looking over at B'nai, his brother and would-be partner in crime, he shook his head. "I don't know about this."

"Tell me you're not backing out on me."

"No. At least not completely."

"So, you are. I can't do this without you."

"I said, I'm not backing out. I just think there has to be a better way."

"You're the scientist. You know how this works. For crying out loud, you helped build the thing. Without you, I've got no chance."

"And you're the historian. You, of all people, should understand what this could lead to. Everything leads to what happens next. Absolutely everything is causal to the next thing. If we change even a little, seemingly insignificant thing, the long-term effect could be unpredictable in magnitude. We could contaminate the timeline, change history as we know it, erase our own selves from existence –"

"You sound like a cheap, dime store, sci-fi novel, or a B-budget movie with a recycled script. Besides, I happen to think the world he created could use a little changing."

"It's dangerous, what you're wanting to do. Even if we make it to 1940, and that's a big 'if,' and even if we succeed in killing the Fuhrer, we could be stuck there. The technology's too untried."

"Have you ever even read the Talmud? If we have the ability to do right, to save the people who were killed, our people, and we don't do it, we're as guilty of their deaths as the German Worker's Party members who actually did the deed. Besides, I have no intention of killing the Fuhrer or anyone else. I swear, you've read way too many sci-fi books."

Shutting the headlights off, Chaim turned the truck into the nearly empty parking lot. "What do you mean?"

"Something like half the time travel stories I ever read, had some well-meaning fool traveling back in time to kill the Fuhrer. I'm smarter than that. Killing him would change too many things. We're just going to sideline him, prevent our people from being mass murdered. If we succeed, he'll live, but there will never have been a Holocaust, millions will be spared from terrible deaths, Savtah will never suffer the trauma, and –"

"And there will never have been an Odessa?"

"Exactly."

"There never was one."

"The Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen is only too real."

Choosing one of the hundreds of empty parking spaces, he killed the engine. "Come on. If we're going to do this, we don't have time to argue."

Exiting the truck, they crossed the parking lot in silence. Reaching a side door, both checked for any sign of their having been seen. Extracting a key-card from his pocket, Chaim ran it through a scanner, unlocking the door. Taking the lead, he made his way through multiple corridors, using the key-card as needed to enter the facility's most secure section, only occasionally glancing over his shoulder to confirm B'nai had not become lost. Arriving at a door marked "Above Top Secret: Eyes Only," he again scanned the key-card and watched the door open.

Standing in the middle of the lab was a table, and on it the object of their quest. Resembling a matching set of video game controllers, it would not have drawn the attention of any normal burglar.

"So, that's it?" B'nai asked. "Not very impressive."

"Sorry, we weren't exactly aiming for aesthetics."

"Haven't you seen the movies? It's always something fashionable. This seems, I don't know, a bit ghetto I guess."

"This isn't TV, or the movies, and we're not a couple of actors." Taking one of the controllers in his hands, he began the initialization process. "This is a government owned research and development facility, and we're a couple of guys on a fool's errand."

"You're second guessing the plan? It's our plan. We said it has to be done."

"You said it has to be done."

"It's already been done. Remember? It was just done wrong."

"According to you."

"Yes, according to me. Now, are you going with me or not?"

"I don't see as I have much choice."

"Oh?"

"I promised Savtah I'd keep you safe." Hearing the door through which they had entered open, Chaim motioned for B'nai to hide.

"Hey, what are you doing in here?"

Even as he heard the familiar voice of Sergeant Greulick, Chaim saw recognition cross the Marine's face and knew he would never be able to deny his part in the operation. Raising his hands in surrender, he found himself being shoved hard against the wall by the larger man, then saw him reach for his sidearm. Closing his eyes, he prepared himself for what he knew would follow – then heard the crackling sound of an electrical surge, followed by the sound of Greulick yelping and falling to the floor. Opening his eyes, he saw B'nai standing over Greulick, holding a taser.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, thanks."

"No problem, I made Savtah the same promise."

"Right." Turning back to the table, he returned to the work of initializing the time machine. "I doubt very much she imagined keeping that promise would involve you committing assault against a member of the armed forces."

"You never know," B'nai said, watching Chaim's work from over his shoulder. "She met the guy who wrote the journal."

"Yeah."

"And we both also promised her we'd do our part to put a stop to Odessa."

"A promise made to a senile woman, by two foolish kids."

"Still, we made the promise. And now we have the ability to do her one better. We can go back and stop the Fuhrer from ever coming to power. We can stop the Holocaust from ever happening. We can stop Odessa from ever forming."

"If Odessa even exists."

"I've studied the evidence."

"And how much is your interpretation of the evidence skewed by your belief Savtah was right?"

"You question Savtah's knowledge of the matter?"

"I'm a scientist, I –"

"I know, you question everything."

"I don't question Savtah's knowledge. I question her obsession. And yours."

"Obsession? With saving our people?"

"With Odessa. Savtah was obsessed with the idea of its existence, and so are you."

"Come on, we need to get ready." Reaching into his backpack, he withdrew several items of folded clothing. "The guard will be waking up soon, and we can't exactly be showing up in 1940's Germany, dressed like a couple of Jewish guys from the 21st Century."

"If it works."

"You keep referencing a possibility it won't work. The journal says –"

"I told you, the technology is untried at this level."

"You said you tested it."

"We did. We set the machine to auto jump several times. We watched it disappear and reappear several times over the course of a month."

"And you said everything went well. No trouble for the travelers."

"I said everything went well with the tests. I never said there were any travelers. We're still waiting for results of the structural integrity tests we conducted following the experiment. We have no clue what lasting effects the simultaneous compression of time, space and matter could have. Apparently, time and space are able to 'reset' themselves. Matter might be a whole other, um, well, matter."

1940

Stepping out from amid a grove of trees at the edge of a dirt road, B'nai studied a billboard. "This doesn't look like Germany to me. That is, unless the Germans of 1940 all spoke and read English."

"The device only allows for movement through time, not space," Chaim said, joining him. "Wherever you are when you jump, you land in the exact same place."

"Even if something else is already there?"

"There's a fail safe built in. It's supposed to detect anything that would interfere with a safe reentry and continue moving whoever is using it in the same direction along the temporal plane until the obstruction is no longer an issue."

Turning away from the billboard, B'nai began walking down the road in the opposite direction. "So, travel backward is easier than travel forward?"

"Backward and forward are relative terms with regard to temporal mechanics," Chaim said, following him.

"What do you mean? The future is anything after the present. The past is anything before it."

"No, you're thinking with a linear, Newtonian mindset. You need to take that mindset off and put on an Einstein-Rosen mindset. We have traveled 'backward' to get to this moment, and we could now travel 'back' to our starting point without obstruction but, depending upon what is built on this spot following the demolition of the building we were just in 'back' in 2020, we might be propelled ever farther 'back' into the future, if the foundation of the next building is built upon that of the one we just left 'back' in 2020 which, seen from either side of the temporal equation, was built 'back' in the 1980's."

"It's so much easier being a historian. You only have to look ba … I mean, you only have to look in one direction."

"Pish posh. Let's get moving. What we know as the international airport is barely a touch and go strip in this time. It might take us a while to charter a flight."

Stepping into the passenger section of the airplane, B'nai handed his passport to the waiting stewardess.

"Guten evening, Mr. Brauman," she said, obviously attempting to hide a thick, German accent.

"Guten nacht, Fräulein, but iffin' Sie do not mind Ich vut much prefer to converse mit sie in Deutch. It is gut practice ver ich."

"Sehr gut, Herr," she said, smiling and returning his papers.

"Und the same fur sie, Sir?" she asked Chaim.

"Um … da, das vut be most preferential, Fräulein."

"Sehr gut, alles scheint in Ordnung zu sein. Komm, ich zeige dir deine Plätze."

Leading them to the middle of the plane, she indicated the appropriate seats.

"What the heck?" Chaim asked, taking a seat next to the window. "What was that all about?"

"We have to brush up on our German," B'nai said, settling in. "This is a perfect opportunity. From here on out, no English."

"I guess that makes sense," Chaim said in as fluent of German as he could muster. "I can't even believe it worked."

"Did you doubt it?" B'nai replied in like form.

"Well, honestly, I …"

"The anti-fraud measures of this time period were so primitive as to be nearly pointless. Besides, I used real names and information. Like us, the real Brauman brothers were a couple of twins. American businessmen with deeply German cultural roots. Mine, Geoff, died just last year."

"But if he died in 1939 and this is 1940, couldn't somebody –"

"And here, you said I was the one who was stuck on Newtonian temporal mechanics. I mean he died back in 2019. He died back then at the ripe old age of 99. Back now, he is only 20."

"Right, gotcha. And me?"

"You're my several minutes younger, scandalously dependent, and not nearly as good looking, brother, Karl."

"Of course."

Hearing voices in the seat ahead of him, Chaim opened his eyes. Checking his wristwatch, he realized he had slept two hours. Realizing B'nai was listening intently to a conversation taking place in the row ahead of them, he leaned his head forward.

"I can't believe you're being so flippant," a young man said. "This is everything we've got. We've put our entire life savings, yours and mine, your family's hopes and my family's dreams, into this one venture that you said was a sure thing. Now we might lose it all."

"Calm down. I'm sure everything we've heard is just rumors. Surely the Fuhrer isn't crazy enough to stop the import of products, based solely upon the ethnicity and religious beliefs of the manufacturing company's owners."

"Not crazy enough? He invaded Poland, for crying out loud! He basically dared anybody to try and stop him. He's a madman."

"He's not a madman. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize."

"Don't even get me started on that!"

"He must be doing something right."

"Or something very wrong."

"Like what?"

"Like setting himself up as a dictator?"

"Germany has been extremely weak since the end of the Great War. Somebody needed to pull all them Germans together. The Fuhrer's done just that. Did you notice how, when he made that challenge, absolutely nobody took him up on it? Sure they're mobilizing now, but for months all the world just stood by and watched."

"He has a point," B'nai said, whispering.

"Which one?"

"Pick one. The final solution is coming, if we don't stop it … stop him … stop them."

"There's no 'them.' There's no Odessa. There's no postwar conspiracy."

"There won't be when we're done."

Purchasing a newspaper, B'nai read the date. Sunday, April 4. Shaking his head, he showed the date to Chaim.

"I know. This was supposed to be an in and out sort of operation. Who would have guessed it would take us three months to get this far?"

Looking around, B'nai pointed to a coffee shop. "Come on." Entering, he found a table.

"What are we doing here?"

"Research. I want to observe the locals, learn everything I can."

"I thought you were an expert."

"I'm considered an expert on the Holocaust. I did my doctoral dissertation on Jewish history in the early 20th Century. To be honest, I was less than enthused about the idea of studying what our German counterparts were doing at the time, outside of those things which directly related to what was done to us."

"I've got something I think will help." Reaching into his knapsack, he withdrew a large book, placing it on the table between them.

Turning it to face him, B'nai read the title. The Life and Times of the Fuhrer: The Rise and Fall of Adolf – "What are you thinking?"

"An experiment," Chaim said with a smile, then placed the book back in his sack.

Seeing the attendant approaching, B'nai indicated they would take two coffees. "Experiment?"

"Of course, I'm a scientist, it's –"

"I know, it's what you do. But I can't believe you brought evidence with you of what the future holds. If that fell into the wrong hands, say those of a member of the German Worker's Party, it could be used to change the future. You're the scientist. Aren't you worried about creating a –"

"A temporal paradox? Yes, but I also realize no great scientific discovery has ever occurred unless someone was bold enough to take a chance. We're here, we have a plan to change history. Just a small one, but a change, nonetheless. When we execute your plan, I'm going to use this book to determine the level of validity in the Duplex Ripple Theory."

"Thank you, Fräulein," B'nai said when their coffee arrived, then turned back to Chaim. "The what?"

"The Duplex Ripple Theory. It's a theory about alteration of past events. We've traveled back to this point in time, and anything we change is going to have a ripple type effect on events which follow after these. Like dropping a stone in the water, the effect is a movement of change throughout time, moving toward the point of our departure and beyond."

"I've heard of that. It makes sense."

"Some of us on my team came up with the notion of a duplex ripple. We believed the ripple could work in both directions. Like if someone brought a record of past events with them from the future, when the ripple reached the point at which that record was plucked from the time stream and transported backward in time, it would cause a reverse ripple, something like a ripple hitting a rocky shoreline and reversing direction, back toward the first ripple's point of origin. Theoretically speaking, when that second ripple hits the point in time wherein the record of events exists, the record should be changed to read as it would have prior to having been removed from the new reality."

"I guess now you have your chance to test your theory."

'And your obsession."

"What?"

"Your Odessa obsession. This book has two whole pages in it concerning the so-called evidence of your conspiracy theory."

"Its not a theory."

"Sure. I'll let you know when those pages change."

"For that to happen, we have to get close enough to the Fuhrer to complete our mission."

"Where would he be at this point in history?"

"Here, in Berlin. That's all I know. His movements weren't exactly broadcast to the general public, and most of the records were destroyed toward the end of the war. We'll have to use the one skill we share."

"And that is?"

"As I said, 'Research.'"

Lifting the page of the wall calendar in their rented room, B'nai smiled. Turning to where Chaim was sleeping on one of the room's two beds, he shook him by the leg until he woke. "I've got it!"

"Got what?"

"I know how to get close to him."

"Okay?"

"Today is May 1, 1940."

"Yeah. So?"

"According to your book, later today, nine of his personal servants were, or from our perspective, will be, … um … shall we say, released from service?"

"Released?"

"Apparently someone in his innermost circle will attempt to kill him. He won't be able to figure out who it was, so he'll have every possible candidate shot."

"That sounds like his methodology. But how does that tell us where he's going to be and when?"

"It doesn't. But it does create a bit of a vacuum of power within his administration. He will have to elevate people who already have some access to him into the newly vacant positions –"

Sitting up abruptly, Chaim leaped from the bed. "And that will create lower level openings within the immediate rank structure, and –"

"And if we can get one or both of us into one or more of those positions, we would be someplace where he is on a regular basis, and –"

"And maybe give us the opportunity to know when he is going to be there."

Looking at the wall calendar, B'nai shook his head. May 29. Tying the tie of his newly purchased used suit, he checked it in the room's only mirror. "I can't believe this is actually happening."

Giving him a momentary, perplexed look, Chaim returned to the process of shining his equally newly purchased and far more used dress shoes. "Are you serious?"

"What?"

"You sound like some sort of gushing fanboy!"

"Of the Fuhrer? Are you crazy?"

"I'm just telling you how that sounded. Besides, you're the one who wanted to come here. I was perfectly content to stay back in good old 2020, and to assume Savtah's journal was just a piece of fiction, or a record of some old man's delusional ramblings. You're the one who insisted we take on this fool's errand."

"Fool's errand? Why on earth did you build the time machine, if not to save our people? Remember, 'You know not if you came into the kingdom for such a time as this.'"

"Leave it to you, with your vast knowledge of history, to pick out the one ancient text I'm least likely to consider as evidence, and present it as your evidence."

"Then why did you build it?"

"I didn't build it. I invented one part of it, and they put me on the R and D team. I didn't even realize what we were building until it was halfway done. I had invented a means of creating controlled, specially relative, spacial distortions. That's what I thought we were doing. Free or cheap trips around the world. Prolonging of lives until transplant organs could be secured. Those were my goals. Not risking our necks in Party run Germany, so you can derail the timeline, dethrone the Fuhrer, and delete an organization from existence that probably doesn't even exist to begin with."

"I'm sorry," B'nai said, hanging his head. "I guess I forget sometimes how far apart we've drifted."

"Look, I'm sorry, too," Chaim said, rising and crossing the room to face his brother. "It's just that, while you've spent the majority of your life studying what went wrong in this time, I've spent mine studying what could go wrong if we change too much."

"That's why our plan isn't for him to die. He'll live to a ripe old age. He'll even be happy. He'll just be incapable of leading a country."

"Well, it's time. Are you ready?"

"Show me the man who was ever 'ready' to meet the man we're about to meet."

"Fanboy!"

Arriving at the Fuhrer's residence, the Yacobian brothers were greeted by the steward and shown into a foyer. Choosing two of the more than twenty chairs which lined the long room, they watched as others entered and found their own seats. Tiring of waiting, each began a conversation with others in the room.

Sitting beside B'nai was a short man with a peculiar mustache. Holding an easel and other art supplies, he struck B'nai as being very much out of his element. "Don't I know the two of you from somewhere?" the man asked.

"No, I don't think so," B'nai said.

"It would be highly unlikely," Chaim said. "We only recently arrived from the United States."

"Oh, yes, that's it. I met you a few years ago in … Vienna? Yes, that's it. I was applying to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. I was struggling to survive, and you bought one of my paintings. Don't you remember? I'm Addie Schicklgruber!"

"I don't think so, but –"

"Strange … it appears as though you have not aged a day."

Creaking loudly and heavily, the door leading to the inner recesses of the house opened, revealing the steward.

"The Brothers Brauman?"

"Yes, that's us," B'nai said, rising and motioning for Chaim to do the same.

"Come," the man said. Motioning abruptly, the man indicated the necessity of B'nai and Chaim moving quickly. "The Fuhrer will receive you now." Leading them through a long hallway, he brought them to another door. "Wait here," he said, turning his back to the brothers. "I will announce you."

Retrieving a syringe from his pocket, B'nai covered the steward's mouth from behind and stuck the needle into the man's neck. Pressing down upon the plunger, he injected the contents of the syringe into the steward, causing him to collapse. "Quick, help me hide him." Opening a closet, he worked in tandem with Chaim, to slide the incapacitated man inside.

Reaching inside his jacket, Chaim withdrew a half empty flask of wine. Uncorking it, he sprinkled some of the contents onto the sleeping steward, then tossed the bottle close to the body. "Poor feller. he doesn't even realize he has a problem." Closing the door completely, he fastened the latch.

Walking to the door, B'nai knocked.

"Come," was the response.

Opening the door, he saw the Fuhrer sitting at the head of a long table. Sprawled across the table was a plethora of papers. Looking to the Fuhrer's position, he saw a half-eaten meal.

Appearing confused, Adolf rose. "Where is Hans?"

"Um, I'm not certain," B'nai said.

Stepping forward, Chaim joined his brother. "He said he had some pressing business, and told us to come ahead in."

"This is unacceptable! No help, would be better than this! Who are you people?"

"We, Herr Fuhrer, are the Brothers Brauman. You requested an audience with us."

"Oh, yes, I did!" Adolf said, crossing the room to greet them. "Gentlemen, welcome. Thank you for accepting my invitation. We have much to discuss." Motioning for them to follow him, he walked back to the table. "Herr Brauman? Errr, that is, Herr Karl Brauman?

"That would be me."

"The scientific credentials you included with your letter of introduction are impeccable, and your desire to further the cause of the Party is clear. I have a special project my people are working on. It is only in the beginning stages, but it is very exciting. It promises to end all wars, while ending Germany's current plight. Having read your credentials, I realize I simply must have you on the team. Perhaps as a research leader?"

"I would be most honored, Herr Fuhrer."

"And you, Herr Geoff Brauman. Apparently, you are a historian of some note in your country."

"Thank you, Herr Fuhrer. You are most kind to say so."

"My people have been badgering me. They say I need to have a personal biographer, to record my influence upon future history. Since you are such a historian and your desire to further the cause is at least equal to that of your brother, I would invite you to become that biographer."

"Oh, Herr Fuhrer, I cannot tell you how great of an honor this is."

"Wonderful! I will call for my steward and we will make it official." Finding a bell among the papers, he rang it several times. Seeing no one was answering, he left the room.

Taking another syringe from his pocket, B'nai injected its contents into the Fuhrer's food.

Walking along a sidewalk, three blocks from the Fuhrer's residence, B'nai checked his watch. "It's been an hour. Surely, he's finished his dinner by now. I would have liked to have seen him eat it."

"Are you serious? I thought we'd never get out of there! I thought sure the steward was going to wake up and we'd be found out."

"But he didn't wake up, and we did get out."

"I think I'm going to vomit."

"What? Why?"

"Do you not realize what you just did?"

"Yeah, I saved millions of lives."

"You poisoned a world leader and drugged his personal steward, and I was party to it."

"Were you not listening to the madman? He was recruiting you for a 'special project to end all wars.' He was clearly referring to the atom bomb." Stopping, he turned toward Chaim, placing his hands firmly upon his brother's shoulders, then stared him in the eyes. "We just stopped the Holocaust from ever happening, and Odessa from ever forming."

"It was never going to form, anyway," Chaim said, pulling away from his brother and continuing to walk. "Can you not see how obsessed you are?"

"Either way, our mission was a success. By this time next month, the Fuhrer will be delusional. Happily so, but entirely unable to run a country. They'll have no choice but to replace him, and the Holocaust will never happen."

"I hope you're right. The universe has this weird way of sorting itself out, no matter how much mankind messes with it. Like when Mother Nature takes back a parcel of land. We can spend centuries destroying it and, in a decade or less, she can take it back."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying, time is a part of the natural order. A very important part. What if Mother Nature has a way of taking it back, too? What if she somehow changes everything back to the way it was before we got here? Like we've tied the time stream in a knot, and it's a slip knot, and the only thing keeping it tied is our being here. Then we leave, and she pulls at both ends of the time stream, and it's perfectly straight again."

"You've read too many sci-fi novels."

"That one was actually mine. I came up with it for a paper I wrote on the Einstein-Rosen Effect."

"So why are you thinking about that now?"

"Do you remember that guy in the foyer? The painter?"

"The one who said he had met us before? In Vienna?"

"Yeah. Wasn't that strange?"

"So? Mistaken identity happens all the time."

"So we tend to assume. But that assumption only holds the weight of probability in a world in which time travel doesn't exist. The second you bring time travel into the mix, anyone who has never left the time stream, who says they know you but you have never met them, may have met you in their past and your future. For all we know, he could be a time traveler himself."

"But he said he met us 'years ago.' We're not going any farther back in time. We're going back to 2020."

"Yeah … I hope."

"What are you talking about?"

Reaching the building wherein they had been staying, they entered, climbing the stairs to their room.

"Are you going to see what kind of trouble you've caused?" Chaim asked, sprawling out upon the bed.

"What do you mean?"

"The book. Look at it. Does it say anything about today? Or, rather, a month from now when our friend Adolf is due to lose his marbles?"

Opening the bottom drawer of the room's dresser, B'nai dug beneath his clothes and produced the history book. Opening it, he laid it upon a table, took a seat, and began searching for any mention of the time period in question. "No!"

"What's wrong?"

"We've failed … and … and …" Hanging his head, he handed the book to Chaim.

Scanning the page before him, Chaim found an anomaly and read it out loud. "'A successful poisoning of the Fuhrer rendered him mentally crippled and unable to continue his reign. No proof could be found of the would-be assassin's identity. However, the Fuhrer, delusional as a result of the attack, believed the culprit to be one Addie Schicklgruber, an artist whom the Fuhrer had commissioned to create his official portrait. The same image remains the face of the Deutchmark into present day …' Well, there you have it. We went and made the Fuhrer a martyr."

"And we got that painter killed."

"Well, if we stopped the Holocaust, I guess it's worth it. I hate it, but it's better that one man die than –"

"Better? How is it better? There wasn't supposed to be collateral damage. If anyone died doing this, it was supposed to be us. Not some innocent painter."

"So, what are you saying? We have to go back in time and stop ourselves from following through on the plan? Do you know how dangerous that could be? We can't coexist in the same time and place with ourselves. The same time or the same place, yes. Not both. It's –"

"I know, I read sci-fi, too, you know."

"Then what are you suggesting?"

"We have to go back farther, to before we arrived here. Probably to a whole different year. We have to unseat the Fuhrer earlier, so this Schicklgruber guy never gets called to do the portrait."

Sighing, Chaim closed the book. "I'm so going to regret this."

1935

Turning in a circle, Chaim took in the alley in which they stood. "I can't believe we're doing this … a second time." Walking toward the connecting street, he placed his portion of the time machine in his pocket.

"Don't worry, this time it will work."

"It had better. Something isn't right with the time machine. Did you feel how rough the reentry was this time?"

"Yeah, I figured it was some sort of temporal turbulence or something."

"Temporal turbulence? You read too much sci-fi. There's no such thing as temporal turbulence."

"I thought you were a scientist. Doesn't that mean you always have to allow for the possible existence of something, based upon the fact it may simply have not been discovered yet?"

"Yeah, but –"

"So, we just discovered temporal turbulence. When we get back, you can write a paper on it. They'll call it 'the Yacobian Effect' or something like that. You'll be famous."

"And dead, for having stolen the government's first ever time machine."

"We're not going to be executed. We're going to be heroes. Think about the number of people we've already saved."

"If you say so."

"Come on, we have to figure out where old Adolf is living these days."

"Young."

"What?"

"You mean 'young Adolf,' not 'old Adolf.'"

"Right, because he's five years younger than the last time we saw him … I mean, the next time we'll see him."

Stepping off the train, Chaim looked down at a newspaper in a stand. At least it wasn't months this time. "Doesn't this bother you?"

"What?"

"Being here."

"You mean being now."

"No, I mean being here, in Vienna."

"According to the book, it's where Adolf is living in this time."

"And according to that painter, Addie, its where we met him the first time. The time we don't remember."

"Oh, yeah …"

Sitting across the table from his brother in a Vienna pub, Chaim took a deck of playing cards from his knapsack. "Wanna play a game or seventeen? It looks like we're going to be here, now, for a while."

"I can't believe it. It's been three weeks since we arrived here, now. We have every skill he needs, and he won't even interview us."

"We have every skill he will need, but apparently not for another five years."

Placing two glasses on their table, a server poured drinks. "Haven't seen you two in quite a while."

Recognizing the voice, B'nai looked up in shock. "Addie!"

"You remember?"

"Of course. How's the painting going?"

"It's going. It's not going well, but it's going."

"Do you have anything we could look at?"

"I'll do you one better. I have some you could buy."

Laughing, B'nai slapped the table.

"I have a couple in the back room. The owner of this place is an artist, too. She lets me paint back there during the slow times." Leaving them, Addie stepped into a backroom.

Clearing his throat, Chaim glared at B'nai. "You're seriously going to buy a painting in 1935? Are you hoping this guy turns out to be famous and you can sell it for a fortune in 2020?"

"I guess I'd rather be a part of him making a living, than a part of him dying."

Returning with two paintings, Addie held them up for the brothers to inspect. "These two, I just did today."

"Very nice," B'nai said. "I like this one. How much?"

"Same as before. I haven't raised my prices. That's probably why I'm still working another job, too."

"I'm sorry, but I don't remember how much it was the last time."

"Five."

"I'll take it."

Barging through the doorway, two loud and rough acting guards from the German Worker's Party drew the attention of everyone in the pub.

"Hey, Schicklgruber," one of them said. "Give us a round!"

"Great!"

"What's wrong?" Chaim asked. "Do those guys give you trouble?"

"Only every time they're in here."

"Really?" Rising, Chaim crossed to where the two men were waiting to be served. "Are you two fellows giving my friend a hard time?"

Turning to face Chaim, the second man poked him in the chest. "What's it to you?"

Putting his hands up, Addie attempted to get Chaim's attention. "Herr Brauman, it's fine. Just let it be."

"I don't like people messing with my friends."

Stepping toward him, the first guard laughed. "Do you have any clue who you're talking to?"

"The village idiots?"

Doubling up his fists, the second guard swung at Chaim, who in turn delivered a crippling kick to the man's knee. Screaming, the man went down hard. "My knee! You broke my knee!"

Turning, Chaim faced the man's companion. "Next?"

"You fight dirty, Stranger," the man said, ignoring his friend's cries for assistance. "I like that. Who are you?"

"We're just two American businessmen, looking to explore our Germanic roots. We think our grandfather lived in these parts as a boy."

"Are you visiting, or looking to stay?"

"That depends. Are you offering us a job?"

"Well, I do seem to have just had a position come open."

Wearing the uniforms they had received upon taking positions among Adolf's personal guards, Chaim and B'nai moved stealthily through the halls of his house. Arriving at the future Fuhrer's bedchamber, they checked behind them. Exchanging nods, they turned in opposite directions, Chaim positioning himself as a lookout and B'nai pressing gently upon the door.

Six months in this horrid uniform! B'nai thought, entering the room. Seeing the sleeping form upon the bed, he drew a syringe from his pocket. Creeping closer, he held his breath as he placed a pillow over the sleeping form's head and injected the contents of the syringe into the neck. Six horrid months, and six million saved.

Closing the door of their rented room, B'nai dug out the history book, then just stared at it. "I … I … can't look. You do it."

Taking the book, Chaim flipped through it, stopped at a page, and hung his head. "I don't believe it!"

"What? What happened"

"It's like the guy is cursed."

"Adolf?"

"No, Addie."

Taking the book from his brother's hands, B'nai began to read. "'While living in Vienna, Austria, the man who would become Fuhrer narrowly survived an attempted disablement by two newly selected house guards, Karl and Geoff Brauman, twin brothers. The guards entered his bedchamber by means of subterfuge and executed their plan, failing to realize their victim was not the future Fuhrer, but rather a body double …'"

"Keep reading, it gets worse."

"How can it get worse? And how does this have anything to do with Addie?"

"Read!"

"'Although the Braumans were never captured, a suspected accomplice, Addie Schicklgruber, a local server and aspiring painter, was arrested, tried, and executed for his apparent part in the plot.'" Closing the book, he looked to Chaim. "Slipknot?"

"Not exactly. At least not according to the theory. For that to be what's happening, we would have had to have jumped to another point in time. Somehow this is all happening while we're still here. It's like Schicklgruber is somehow intimately tied to Adolf's rise to power."

"But that doesn't make any sense. He'd be in the book."

"He is in the book. You just read it."

"But why? I've never heard of Addie Schicklgruber. Never once, before we made our first jump. He's not a part of the original history, except for having done the portrait for the Deutchmark, but he keeps showing up and he keeps ending up in the middle of our plan."

"Like I said, he could be a time traveler himself. He could be from our future and just be coming back here to stop our plan."

"But he's not stopping the plan. He keeps getting the blame for it."

"The question is, 'Why?'"

"I don't know, but I do know one thing."

"So help me, if you say –"

"We have to try again."

"You said it."

1932

Looking around him, Chaim considered how little had changed since he had last stood in the same alley, only moments before, but three years yet to be. "I can't believe we're doing this again … a second time."

"We have to. We can't let an innocent person take the blame for what we've done. If we do, we're no better than the Fuhrer himself."

"Did you feel it? The temporal turbulence?"

"The Yacobian Effect?" B'nai asked, leading the way toward the connecting street.

"This is no laughing matter. It's getting worse with every jump. We need to stop with all this nonsense and get home, to our own time. You need to accept things for what they are, and stop trying to change them. The Holocaust was a terrible thing, but we can't get stuck this far back in time for the rest of our lives. The longer we're in the wrong time, the more likely we are to completely skew the time stream."

"What do you expect me to do? Just let Addie die? He's not in on the mission. He didn't choose to be a part of all of this."

Straggling, Chaim watched his brother disappear around the corner of the building. Stepping out of the alley only seconds later, he was just in time to see B'nai trip over the leg of an easel, catch himself, then find himself staring directly into the face of the artist to whom it belonged. "I don't believe it. I just don't believe it."

"He did make a good run of catching himself. Didn't he?"

"Addie!" B'nai said, finally overcoming his shock.

"I'm sorry, do I know you? Herr … ?"

"Brauman," Chaim said. "We're the Brothers Karl and Geoff Brauman. You don't know us?"

"No. Should I?"

"No, I don't suppose you should," B'nai said. "What are you selling here? Paintings?"

"Well, they're paintings, but I'd be lying if I told you they were selling."

"What a shame. We'll have to change that."

"I don't believe this!" Chaim said. "I just don't believe this!"

Handing Addie the appropriate fee, B'nai chose one of the paintings, then noticed the painter's expression. "Are you alright? Is something wrong?"

"This feels … I don't know … strangely familiar. Like we've done this before. But I'm sure I would remember you. I never forget a face."

Sighing, Chaim shook his head. "Do tell."

Three weeks! We have a new record. Looking down at the overalls he had only moments earlier removed from the body of one of two service workers B'nai had drugged and then dragged behind a row of bushes, Chaim pondered how many times they might succeed at failing in their fool's errand. Exchanging nods with B'nai, he led the way into the house wherein the future Fuhrer was living. Arriving at an access to the home's central chimney, he stationed himself as a lookout, then listened as B'nai poured a serum between two logs in the fireplace one floor below Adolf's personal study. Tonight, they'll light the fire, the serum will turn gaseous, and up it will go into Adolf's air supply …

Entering their rented room, B'nai closed the door and dug out the book. "We did it!" he said, following a brief search of the text.

"Seriously? Addie didn't put himself in the middle of it again?"

"He never put himself in the middle to begin with. We put him there. If we hadn't been so sloppy in how we did things, he would never have been involved."

"So, what does it say?"

"It says, a failed attempt on his life left him mentally diminished. He never becomes Fuhrer, and the assailants are never caught. We're home free."

"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm way past ready to get out of here."

Standing in the alley wherein they had appeared in 1932, the brothers prepared to make the jump back to 2020.

"Ready?" Chaim asked.

"You'd better believe it."

"Alright, here it goes," he said, clicking the button which would propel them toward the temporal coordinates he had just entered.

Blinking, B'nai looked around. "Um, something isn't right.

"That's not good. What's wrong? What happened?"

"I don't know. I set it to take us back to 2020, but we bounced … backward … to ..."

"What? What is it?"

"We just got here."

"I know, I –"

"No, I mean the other us. The us that haven't been to 1932 before. If my calculations are correct, they just went around that corner, and a three week younger you is buying a painting from Addie."

"You've got to be kidding."

"I only wish I was. You remember the Yacobian Effect?"

"You mean the temporal turbulence?"

"Yeah, that. I think it threw us off course. In fact, I think it threw us back to our last safe landing."

"Not cool."

"Not cool at all. Come on, we have to get out of here. Let's try it again."

Setting the controls again, Chaim gave B'nai a nod, then clicked the jump button.

Looking around, B'nai began to panic. "We're stuck here!"

"Not exactly. We did move in time. We're back on the day we poisoned Adolf, just about five minutes before we tried to go back to 2020. It's like there's some sort of blockage in the time stream and we bumped it hard enough to move it, but not hard enough to get past it."

"So now what?"

"I don't know, but we should probably not be here when we arrive."

"Huh?"

"The other us. They're going to be here in five minutes to try to jump back to 2020. If we're here, it will –"

"Create a paradox. I know, I read –"

Grabbing his brother by the arm, Chaim pulled him toward the street. "Shut up, there's not time for jokes."

Entering the same local pub wherein Chaim had broken the knee of Adolf's guard in three years yet to be, the brothers found a table and caught the attention of the owner.

Coming to greet them, she offered a sincere smile. "You look like a couple of weary travelers, on a long journey you wish you'd never started."

Grunting, Chaim shook his head. "You have no idea."

"I've been doing this long enough to know how to read my customers."

"You're obviously good at it."

"Most times it isn't too hard. Like that feller over there," she said, pointing toward a lone figure at a corner table. "He came in here tonight, and I could just tell he hadn't eaten in days. I told him what he needed wasn't a drink, but a job. He starts tomorrow."

Glancing in the direction toward which she had pointed, the brothers turned back toward each other, a shared look of horror on their faces.

"We should go," Chaim said.

"Yeah."

Standing to leave, they stopped halfway across the room when the door was flung open.

Stepping into the pub, Adolf's personal guards looked the place over.

Pointing at them, the guard whom Chaim would befriend three years yet to be, directed his subordinates. "There they are! That's the two 'service workers' we've been looking for!"

Stepping forward, the guard whose knee Chaim would break three years yet to be tapped him on the chest. "You're coming with us, now!"

"I never used to believe in déjà vu."

"I said, 'You're coming with us."

"We've got to stop meeting this way," Chaim said, kicking the guard's knee, breaking it.

Hitting the floor hard, the guard screamed in pain.

"That's our cue!" B'nai said, grabbing Chaim's arm and turning him toward the pub's rear exit.

Running past Addie, they exited the building. Finding a row of bushes between two lines of houses, they hid.

Opening his knapsack, B'nai took out the book. Flipping through it, he searched the text.

"What do you think you're doing? We don't have time to read. We need to get out of here."

"We just changed history. Or, rather, you did … again."

"What? How?"

"You broke that guard's knee three years before you were supposed to break it … not that you were supposed to break it in the first place … second place … I'm so confused, but that's sort of a big deal. Now he's going to recognize us three years from now when we were here before … or will be. He'll have the upper hand, because you didn't remember doing this the second time, before. Or, he might never walk again, and you might have to face off with a whole different guard. Either of those scenarios could change the whole outcome of our escape, the first time, three years from now. And besides, Addie was in there when it happened … both times … who knows what might have happened after we left."

Sighing, Chaim shook his head. "Read."

Turning to the page he had read earlier, B'nai froze. "Oh, no!" he finally managed to say.

"What? What now?"

"'Although the would-be assassins were identified and located, they escaped with the help of one – '"

"Don't say it!"

"'Addie Schicklgruber –"

"You said it."

"– who stepped into the path of the pursuing guards. Although Schicklgruber, an aspiring painter, claimed he had only ever sold a painting to the two men, whom he correctly identified as one Mr. Karl Brauman and his twin brother Geoff, following further interrogation, he admitted to feeling as though he had known the brothers for some time. Unwilling, or unable to disclose further information, Schicklgruber was summarily tried and executed for his apparent part in the plot to cripple the future Fuhrer.'"

"Are you satisfied, yet? Have you made a big enough mess of history, yet? We're getting out of here, now."

"But the machine. It doesn't work. The Yacobian Effect."

"We'll risk it."

1908

Looking around him, B'nai realized he was not in the 21st Century. "Where are we?"

"When."

"Right! Sorry, when are we?"

"Well, if the readout on the machine is to be believed, this is 1908."

"1908? What are we doing there? I mean, then?"

"I don't know. The Yacobian Effect was the worst that time that it's ever been. It's like we hit something going forward and then bounced off of it, and –"

"A duplex ripple?"

"Yeah, that's my thought."

"Okay, so we try again, and again if we have to. We keep trying until we get to 2020, or at least to the 21st Century. If we're a few years early, we'll hide out someplace and then take our own places when the younger us jump back to 1940."

"And what? That guard, the one in the R and D facility, he saw our faces. He saw me come and go every day. I guarantee you the first thing he'll do when the effects of the taser wear off, is go and report everything that happened. Dropping back into my life would be a death sentence. The same goes for you if you're identified."

"Right, our mission hasn't exactly turned out in a way that would make us seem like heroes."

"Come on, we need to find a place where we can dig into the book and find out exactly how much of a mess we've made by being here."

"We can't get a room."

"What are you talking about? We have plenty of currency."

"Right, but it's the wrong currency."

"Something we did changed the currency in 1908?"

"No, the currency was already different then … now. We only planned to jump back to 1940 Germany. When we crossed over into Austria, it wasn't hard to exchange the currency we had before jumping back to 1935. Now we're in 1908 Austria. I didn't bring any money for then ... I mean –"

"I know what you meant," Chaim said, shaking his head.

Moving as stealthily as possible, the brothers made their way out of the city. Finding a barn, they holed up in its loft. Pouring over the history book, they considered anything their presence might have altered.

"It doesn't look like anything has changed since 1932," Chaim said, after more than an hour of reading.

"Yeah, like our being here hasn't affected anything."

"Yet."

"And it looks like the Fuhrer isn't anywhere near here. No chance of derailing his plans now."

"Would you give it up?"

"If we're going to be stuck this far in the past, we might as well give it one more shot. More than likely Odessa hasn't even been thought of yet, so –"

"How about getting home? How about giving that one more shot?"

"You know how to fix the machine?"

"No, but I know how to fix this whole mess."

"Do tell."

"We wait."

"Until?"

"Until 1932. We stop ourselves from poisoning the Fuhrer. Then we wait again until 1935, and we do the same thing all over again. Then we wait until 1940 and we do it again."

"That's thirty-two years. We'll be 62. We'll have given our whole lives –"

"To the cause of correcting what's wrong? That's what this started out being about. We were going to fix something, and we were willing to give our lives for the cause. This is no different, except this time we'll be doing it to correct what we made wrong. Besides, if my plan works, we'll be the same age we are now."

"But, how?"

"Don't you see? If we go to that grove in 1940, the one in America, where the R and D facility will be in 2020, and leave some sort of message for ourselves, warning ourselves of what the outcome of their tampering will be, maybe that us will rethink it all and jump back to 2020 before anything gets changed. If that happens, the duplex ripple will snap us back to the moment we … they … arrive back in 2020. The alternate timelines we've created will all be recombined and it will be as though we, ourselves, never tampered with history."

"So, we wait 32 years to get our lives back."

"Basically, yeah. But remember, we have to fix 1932 and 1935 along the way. Those changes also created alternate timelines, which means just living through those times and going to the grove in 1940 won't fix everything. In fact, if we don't fix 1932, we might reach a 1935 in which we never actually set foot."

"I'm so confused."

"That's okay, you have twenty-four years to figure it out. Now, let's get going. We need to set ourselves up to live, very discreetly, in this time period. We need appropriate money and … well, everything."

"Yeah, this style of clothing wasn't even invented yet, in 1908."

Strolling through a park, a recently purchased book under his arm, B'nai checked his watch. Plenty of time to get some reading in before my lecture. Its odd how, we've only been here six months, and yet some days 2020 seems like a dream and it seems as though we've been the Professors Brauman for years. Finding a bench, he sat and began to read. Looking up to rest his eyes during a chapter break, he nearly dropped the book. "How much for a portrait, Addie?" he asked, as the painter set up his easel.

Turning, the artist considered him carefully. "I'm sorry, do I know you? Wait … yes, I do know you … but I can't place you."

"It's okay. It's been … a lot of time since we saw each other. So, how much for the portrait?"

"Two."

"That's not enough. Make it flattering, and I'll pay you five."

"Five?"

"Five. You should believe in yourself Addie. Always charge five."

"Um, okay," he said, setting a fresh canvas upon his easel. "So, what is that your reading?"

"Oh, probably nothing that would interest you."

"Try me."

"It's just a book about current political ideals, how they differ, and why different people adhere to different ones."

"Is it interesting?"

"I think so, but I'm a boring professor." Hearing Addie laugh, he broke into tears. "I'm sorry, Addie."

"Sorry? For what?"

"For … so many things."

"I don't understand."

"It's nothing, really."

"No, really. What did you mean by, you were sorry? And how did you know my name? And … why do I still feel as though I know you?"

"Addie, can I tell you a story?"

Sitting on the bench with Addie, B'nai checked his watch. My students will just have to have one less lecture this term. "We never meant to hurt you. We only wanted to save our people, to spare so many of our own from such a terrible death."

"And in doing so, you poisoned a man three times, and got me killed three times."

"Yes, but we intend to fix it, to put it all back like it was."

"Who were you and your brother to mess with history in the first place?" the painter asked. Standing, he began to gather his supplies. "I've never understood before, why so many people hate you Jews, but I think I'm starting to understand."

"Addie, please –"

"No! I'm done talking."

"I'm sorry," B'nai said, standing and taking money from his pocket.

"Keep it, you Jewish pig!"

"Addie!"

"We're done here."

Turning, B'nai walked away, forgetting his book on the bench.

Noticing the book, Addie picked it up. Flipping through it, he looked at B'nai once more, then placed it under his arm and continued gathering his belongings.

Walking into the apartment he shared with Chaim, B'nai found his brother sitting, the history book open on the table before him, his face in his hands.

"Chaim? What's wrong?"

"What have you done?"

"I don't understand. What –"

"What … have … you … done?"

"What are you talking about?"

"This!" he said, sliding the book across the table.

Looking down at the page, B'nai began to read. "'The future Fuhrer arrived in Vienna, Austria in 1908, where he attempted to enroll in the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. Though rejected by the institute, he continued to paint attempting to sustain himself by means of his artwork. Also, during this time, he became interested in all things political and, for reasons unknown, quickly developed a blatantly anti-Semitic position. In time, he would announce publicly his belief he had been 'born to rid the world of the scourge of Jewry.' This belief lay at the core of his 'final solution,' wherein 25 million individuals died, 2 million of them European Jews.'" Staring down at the book, B'nai began to shake. "I … I … I don't understand. The initial death count of the Holocaust was only a little over a million. Only about half of those were Jews. Another five million died within a few years from the irradiation. Most of those were Gentiles. Where are these numbers coming from? And Adolf isn't even in Vienna, yet. He won't be here until –"

"That's what it said this morning. I haven't been outside of this apartment, so what did you do?"

"Nothing! I went to the park to read. While I was there, I happened to run into –"

"Addie?"

"Yeah! How did you know?"

"Look at the cover!"

Flipping the book closed, B'nai gasped. "Addie!"

"Read it! Read the title! See what you've done!"

"'The Life and Times of the Fuhrer: The Rise and Fall of … ?' But, that's wrong. Addie's not the Fuhrer! What about?"

"Dear old Adolph? He still joins the German Worker's Party and is still a major factor in the final solution, but now he never rises as high as Fuhrer. He's the psychotically delusional right hand of our dear Addie. That is, the Addie you're actions have somehow created. The Addie who rises to the level of Chancellor of Germany, then uses a fire which destroys the Reichstag, a fire which many historians believe he ordered to be set, as a means to strip the citizenry of their civil rights, then manages to capitalize on the death of the legitimate president and combine that office with his own. He becomes a dictator! What did you do? What did you say to him?"

"We have to make this right."

"At this point, I don't even know if we can."

"Of course, we can. That's already the plan. We'll just wait until 1932 and leave the first message –"

"But that's no longer the earliest divergence from the original timeline. Today is, and there is no way for us to go back to this morning and convince you to avoid Addie."

1932

Huddled behind a stack of crates in the alley wherein they first arrived in 1932, Chaim watched for the appearance of his and B'nai's younger selves, while B'nai kept track of the time.

"Anything?"

"No, nothing."

"And we've seen no sign of Addie."

"He's taken a different path, served in the military, been highly decorated. There would be no reason for him to be here, now. Which is why we're not here now … even though we are."

"Right, but where and when are they. Were they even born?"

"They were born, or we would not be here now. Or at least that's my guess, based upon what I know of temporal mechanics."

"So, there's still a chance they could show up in 1935."

"Or next week, or last week. Too much was changed to know, but at some point, they … we … have to go back in time, or we would not be here now … I think."

1935

Standing behind a stack of boxes in a corner of the alley into which they first jumped in 1935, B'nai and Chaim again watched for themselves to appear. Realizing their original arrival time had passed several minutes prior, both shook their heads.

"Again, no us," B'nai said.

"I didn't figure there would be."

"But you said at some point they have to come back in time, and it seems like they would have had to come back to 1908, for us to ever have been there, then."

"You would think so. Wouldn't you?"

"So how did they get there, then, if they never came here, now?"

"Any number of ways. Maybe they came here earlier, or later, or chose a different arrival point. Maybe they jumped straight back to 1908 and we're them. More than likely, though, that you knows their version of history every bit as well as you know our version of it, in which case they would have chosen a time and a place wherein they could have a clear shot at Addie."

"Now what? What do we do until 1940?"

"I've been thinking a lot about that. We know that, at least in our timeline, the other Fuhrer had his people developing the bomb by 1940. We can't fix the things we messed up by traveling back in time, but we might still be able to do some good."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, I think I need to do some traveling. I know things about atomic and nuclear energy that won't be discovered for decades. At least it wasn't in our original timeline. With the right nudge, the Allies might still stop Addie in his tracks."

"I don't know if anything can do that."

"Maybe not, but it sure beats the heck out of sitting around, waiting for 1940."

"I guess I can see that."

"I already booked my travel."

"You knew they weren't going to be here."

"I knew it was less likely that they would, and more likely that they wouldn't."

"When do you leave?"

"In about an hour."

1940

Standing in a corner of the terminal into which he and Chaim first stepped in 1940, B'nai again watched for their younger selves to appear. Seeing the last of the passengers disembark, he hung his head.

Approaching him, the stewardess who had taken his passport so many years earlier, touched his arm. "Can I help you, Herr?

"No, nobody can help me."

1941

Sitting at a table, in a delicatessen, B'nai drank wine with a group of friends.

"I don't like it," Herschel said.

"What about it don't you like?"

"You'd make it easier, if you asked us to list what we do like about it," Yitzawk said.

"Things are getting worse by the day. Our people are being rounded up, and then they just disappear."

"It's the Germans," Herschel said. "They're relocating us. It's how they're going to stop all of this civil unrest."

"I don't think so. I think they're up to something more … something … sinister."

"Like what?" Yitzawk asked.

"I've seen things that make me think where they're relocating us to isn't good. They're not giving us somewhere new to set up our businesses. They're using us as free labor until we aren't useful anymore."

Leaning back in his chair, Herschel sighed. "Hasn't that been the plight of our people since –"

"Before the time of Mosheh? Yes, and I don't plan to stand by and watch us be slaves for another 430 years."

Holding his hands up, palm out, Yitzawk shook them. "I can't believe anything that bad is happening. We would've heard about it by now."

"Not if the only witnesses are either held against their will, or dead."

"You know, you may have a point," Herschel said.

Staring out the window, Chaim took in the beauty of a Moscow sunset. Realizing a new voice had spoken, he turned his attention back to the meeting.

"Esteemed Gentlemen," the new speaker said in broken English which betrayed his Soviet allegiance. "For those who do not know me, my name is Peter Kapitza. I have come here today, on behalf of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and with the full support of the Soviet General, to propose as our primary topic of discussion, the promising prospects of a uranium based weapon, indeed a sort of 'atomic bomb,' which might serve to bring an end to the current conflict with Germany."

A weapon to end all wars. How ironic. Too bad for him, I already know how the rest of the century plays out. Observing a movement among the official American delegation, he followed with his eyes as a man rose from his seat, then made his way toward the exit. Mr. Booth, I do believe you are about to become famous. Rising, he followed the man out of the assembly, then into the restroom. "Gene! Mate!" he said, in his best rendering of an Australian accent.

Stopping, the man turned to face him. "I'm sorry, Sir. Do I know you?"

"You old kidder, you. You remember me. Don't you, Mate?"

"No, I can't say I do."

"Eugene Booth. Correct?"

"Yes, but who are you?"

"Gene, it's me, Mate. We met last year at that convention. You said the next time we met I should show you my notes about the theory I've been working on."

"Oh? I'm sorry, I don't recall."

"It's okay, Mate, I understand. You meet you a bunch of folks in a year. Anyway, here's the notes." Taking a notebook from his pocket, he offered it to the other man. "It ain't rightly much, but I reckon its worth a look see."

"Sure," Gene said, taking the notebook from him. "It never hurts to consider others' ideas."

"Yeah, Mate, I agree, and since your country's all fired ready to experiment in the field and mine's put it all on a lock-down, I figure it might be good for me to pass it along."

Opening the notebook to the first page, Gene read the first line aloud. "'The Manhattan Project?'"

"Right, oh."

"My partner and I, we're based in Manhattan."

"Well, ain't that just a coinkidink?"

"Yeah."

"My contact information's in the back of the notebook, if you need me to decipher any of the chicken scratch."

"Thank you, I'll have a look at this."

1943

Hearing the door of the hidden room in which he was living being kicked open, B'nai prayed silently. Raising his hands, he surrendered to the German Worker's Party troops who had stormed the building.

Arriving by train in a place called Auschwitz, B'nai realized he already knew more about the compound from reading the long since buried history book, than most of its prisoners would know by the time of the the camp's liberation. This is it. Here, I will fight back … quietly.

Finishing his whispered lecture, B'nai smiled at the children who had gathered at his feet. "Go now, Little Ones, and tell no one what you've learned. One day, the world will see the beauty of our culture, but first we must survive this trial."

Coming close to him, a woman bent low, motioning for the last two stragglers, twin girls, to come with her. "Thank you, Rabbi … ?"

"Oh, I'm no Rabbi. I'm just trying to make sure our history, our heritage doesn't die out. But my name's B'nai. B'nai Yacobian."

"I'm Sarai Goldstein," she said, offering him her hand.

"Sarai … ?" he said, taking her hand, but holding it, rather than shaking it.

"Goldstein," she said, again.

"And … who are these … two little ones?"

"These are my daughters, Rawkale and Rivkah."

"Rivkah?" he said, bowing close to her.

"Yes, Rabbi?"

"How old are you?"

"We're 6 years old! How old are you?"

"Rivkah!" her mother said.

"No, no, it's fine. I am 65. Now I'm going to tell you something very important, and you must remember this. Be brave and be strong. The road ahead of us will be very difficult, but if you hold on to hope, you can survive this. Will you do that for me? Please?"

"Yes … Rabbi."

Gathering his belongings, B'nai left the place where he had met with the children. Rivkah Goldstein! Who would have imagined? In the original timeline, she was one of Mengele's Twins. In this timeline, his laboratory is here, so it makes sense she would be here. If only Chaim were here to meet her. How strange that I would wish he were here, in this place. Turning a corner, he stopped walking, struck by the scene he beheld. Watching in horror, he saw Rivkah and Rawkale being torn from the arms of Sarai by guards of the German Worker's Party. This is it. This is when they're taken to Dr. Mengele. But in this timeline, he does much worse things in his twins studies. Dropping his books, he ran toward the guards, attempting to throw himself between them and the children. Looking into the eyes of the man who was attempting to carry Rivkah away, he recognized the same guard whom Chaim had twice disabled. "Oh, you've got to be joking!" Kicking the man's knee, he broke it, causing the guard to fall, screaming, to the ground. Stripping Rivkah from the guard's arms, he turned, preparing to run with her, then saw another guard draw his weapon. Realizing he had no means by which to escape without endangering Rivkah's life, and knowing the possible ramifications of such a choice, he stopped, putting her on the ground.

Cocking his pistol, the guard took careful aim at B'nai's head.

"No!" the commanding officer said. "He's obviously a strong one. Take him to the platform! He'll be a good one for Dachau."

Sighing, B'nai allowed the remaining guards to drag him away.

Sitting at his desk in an office inside an underground bunker, Chaim worked feverishly to calculate the best next step in the furtherance of the Manhattan Project. Startled by the sound of his desk phone ringing, he wiped exhaustion from his eyes before answering. "Brauman," he said into the receiver.

"Karl, this is Gene," the voice on the other end of the line said. "It's time."

"For implosion tests? The Governing Board approved it?"

"Approved it? They're only too excited to move forward."

"Too good, Mate. When do we begin?"

"How soon can you get me those new numbers?"

"I'm half done with them now."

"You are amazing. Work on nothing else until they're ready."

"Gotcha, Mate."

1945

Knocking on the door of Eugene's office, Chaim heard the other man beckon him to enter. Sitting behind his mahogany desk, the scientist appeared distraught.

"Gene, Mate, what's wrong? You look like somebody died and you might be about to tell me it was me."

"Nobody's died. Not yet."

"What do you mean, 'Yet?'"

"They're gonna do it. They're gonna drop the bomb."

"What are you talking about? Germany surrendered. The Party isn't in control anymore."

"It doesn't matter. They want to send a message to the world."

"What? Why? We stopped Schicklgruber and his goons in their tracks, and we did it without using Big Boy. Who on earth do they want to send a message to?"

"Like I said, the whole world, starting with Stalin and his bunch. In part, it's because they don't want to waste anymore American or other Allied lives fighting this war. It has to end. The President's advisors are estimating it would cost another 250,000 to 500,000 American lives to take Japan. He's not willing to risk it. He wants this war over now. As for our allies, there's going to be a new balance of power soon. There always is, following a war. The President wants Stalin to know his place."

"But that's the definition of insanity."

"You're talking about the same government which allowed William Stuart-Houston to join our Navy, fully knowing he was born William Schicklgruber . Would you really put it past them to drop their super-weapon on our allies?"

"That was Roosevelt. This is Truman we're dealing with."

"You're forgetting, they're both politicians."

"We've got to stop them."

"That would be impossible. Big Boy's already being prepped for deployment."

"No offense, Mate, but I ain't rightly new to doing the impossible."

Wearing the uniform of a recently indisposed American Navy ensign, Chaim approached the gangplank of the officer's carrier. Acknowledging the salutes of two sailors with a return of the same, he addressed them as he passed. "Look sharp, Men! You never know when some saboteur might be lurking about. It's a special payload we're taking on tonight."

"Aye, Sir!" they said in unison.

Advancing up the gangplank, he attempted to appear as though he belonged in the environment. Making his way around the ship, he stopped from time to time to perform 'officer work' and narrowly avoided several unneeded interactions with higher ranking officers, before finally locating a cabin which appeared to be unused. Hiding inside, he waited until the ship was 20 minutes en route to its destination, then made his way back out onto the upper level of the carrier. Finding his way to the launch deck, he studied the various planes. That one! Moving nonchalantly, he reached the aircraft in question, checked the craft's payload, and confirmed it to be none other than the bomb his team had code named 'Big Boy.' Climbing into the cockpit, he started the plane and began accelerating toward the end of the deck.

"Hey," he heard a sailor yell. "Stop him, he's stealing that plane."

I hope this is as easy as they make it look in the movies. Accelerating to the full speed of the aircraft, he pulled back on the stick and soon found himself sailing off into the night sky. Which way? There's the lights of the coast. If I want to survive, I'll – Hearing the sound of rapid gunfire, he realized he was under attack. Yanking the stick to the left, he turned the plane hard toward the mainland, then hard up, then hard to the side again. "I guess you boys aren't exactly Top Gun material –"

Ripping through his left wing, a barrage of bullets left a line of holes in its wake.

"Never mind, Boys, you're doing fine." Seeing the coastline coming up under him, he turned the plane directly toward the night sky, rolled it sideways to prevent his pursuers from seeing his next movements, then retrieved the plane's parachute.

Knocking on the door of Eugene's office, Chaim heard the expected summons. Entering, he found the other scientist engaged in a telephone call. Seeing him motion with his hand, Chaim took a seat.

"I see," Eugene said. "No, I had no idea. Yes, come ahead over." Placing the receiver of the phone back on it's hook, he looked hard at Chaim. "What in sam –?"

"Now, calm down, Mate."

"Don't you 'Calm down, Mate,' me. Where have you been for the last two weeks?"

"That's a long story."

"It was you. Wasn't it? You stole the plane! You sank Big Boy!"

"Dropped him in the pond."

"What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking we're scientists, not murderers. I want the war over as much as anyone, but not like that. Not in an atomic holocaust. Isn't what they've discovered in Germany bad enough? Do we want to be a part of something just as bad?"

Hearing a knock on the door, Chaim looked up.

"Come in," Eugene said.

Opening, the door revealed Albert Einstein, his face obviously streaked from tears.

"Al, Mate!" Chaim said, rising and moving to comfort his friend and mentor. "What's wrong?"

"He does not know?" Albert asked, looking to Eugene. "How could he not know?"

"Know what? What's happened?"

"Sit down, my boy," Eugene said. "You'll need to, when you hear this."

Complying, Chaim waited.

"They did it," Eugene said, following a long silence. "They dropped the bombs."

"What? What do you mean, 'Bombs?' You mean Big Boy? They couldn't have. There was only one of him, and I –"

"They kept us in the dark."

"What do you mean?"

"We were one of three teams. Big Boy had a couple of siblings. You dropped one atomic bomb to the bottom of the ocean. You saved Moscow from being decimated. But last night the Army Air Corps put the other two smack in the middle of a couple of Japanese cities, called Hiroshima and Nagasaki."

1960

Standing just inside the turn of an alley, B'nai stared down at his newspaper. May 11. Glancing periodically over the top of the paper, he scanned the length of San Fernando's Garibaldi Street, eyes on the bus stop at the next corner and opposite. Checking his watch, he used the newspaper as a fan against the heat of the Argentine evening.

Roaring and thumping, the sound of a bus in disrepair began to echo against the walls of the buildings. Turning onto Garibaldi Street, it ground to a hard halt. Opening, its door allowed for the exit of several individuals.

Dispersing, the group went their separate directions. Turning, a single, thin figure, with a narrow nose and rimmed spectacles walked in B'nai's direction.

Watching the man approach, B'nai timed his steps, emerging in front of the figure just as he came to the mouth of the alley. "Buenas noches, Señor Klement."

"Buenas noches," the man said, offering him a smile.

A person could almost like the monster. "O tal vez debería decir: Guten Abend, mein Herr ... Eichmann?"

Freezing in place, Adolf Eichmann gasped, then stepped backward, reaching beneath his coat.

"I wouldn't do that," B'nai said, continuing in German. "There are four other Mossad agents closing in on you, as we speak."

"You cannot extradite me. I have diplomatic immunity."

"We'll see about that."

Stepping up behind the Party man, another agent stuck him in the neck with a needle, injecting him with a sedative.

"Get him changed and onto the plane," B'nai said when Eichmann had collapsed into the other agent's arms. "Don't look back until you have him on Israeli soil."

"מה איתך, אדוני?" one of the agents, ben Yosef, asked in Hebrew, as per the team's standard operating procedure. "When he goes missing, they're bound to know we have people on the ground. It won't be safe for you, then."

"I'll be fine." B'nai said, also in Hebrew. "I'll blend in and keep looking for the others."

1962

Strolling down a street in La Falda, Argentina, B'nai spotted his destination, the Eden Hotel. Entering the building, he approached the counter.

"Beunas Tardes, Señor," the man behind the counter said, offering B'nai a smile.

"Beunas Tardes. Estoy tratando de encontrar a mi amigo, el Señor Leipzig."

"Sí, sí, conozco al hombre."

"But you do know him?" B'nai asked, continuing in Spanish. "Wonderful! Can you tell me where I might find him?"

Lying prone within a line of trees, B'nai watched the Patagonian house he had been told belonged to 'Señor Leipzig,' through a pair of binoculars. Watching two servants entering and leaving the structure repeatedly had made him tired. Looking to his left and right, he confirmed the members of the unit were in place, but saw they too were growing fatigued. We've got to do this. We've come too far to let exhaustion stop us. Looking through the binoculars again, he watched the servants a while longer.

Breaking the relative silence, the sound of a car approaching drew his attention. Motioning for ben Yosef to investigate the situation, he returned to watching the house.

"אדוני" ben Yosef said. "אתה לא מתכוון להאמין בזה"

"What? What won't I believe?" Chaim asked, continuing the conversation in Hebrew.

"Sir, it's a hearse. I think we're too late."

"Wouldn't that be our luck!" Ruvin Halowitz said.

"I don't believe in luck," B'nai said. "Especially not when it comes to this guy." Turning back to the house, he watched through the binoculars as the long car pulled up in front of the structure. Continuing to scan the scene, he observed two men in dress clothes exit the car, take a stretcher from the back of the vehicle, then enter the home.

Looking to ben Yosef, he shrugged. "We spend all these years tracking down every lead, every rumor about his having survived, and we show up on the very day he dies of natural causes? I don't think so!"

"What, then? A body double?"

"That's my thinking. More than likely, the same fellow who told me where to find him gets paid a hefty sum to warn him when people come asking for him."

Seeing renewed movement near the front of the house, he looked again through the binoculars. Watching the two men carry the body of a man from the building to the car, he considered the possibilities. "At night fall, we move in. He may be dead of natural causes, but we're not leaving until I know for sure."

"Yes, Sir."

Creeping through the darkness, B'nai approached the house. Watching and listening, he sought any sign he might have been detected. Reaching the rear entrance of the structure, he opened the door, careful to make no sound. Motioning for ben Yosef to send the others in behind him, he held the door out for the next man to take, then entered. Finding himself in a small kitchen, he stepped carefully, making his way into a hallway, peeking into each room as he passed it. Finding no one on the ground floor, he made his way up the stairs.

Emanating from a room at the end of the upstairs hallway, the sound of someone snoring startled him.

Pushing gently upon the door, he peered in, seeing the face of a man illuminated by moonlight. Feeling his heart stop, he nearly gasped, but managed to control the reaction. Taking several careful steps, he came to stand directly above the sleeping figure. Removing a syringe from his pocket, he knelt beside the man. "Guten Abend, Addie," he whispered, inserting the needle into the neck of the former Fuhrer and pushing the plunger.

"שלום!" Colonel Mordachai Rosen said, as B'nai entered his office. "I've just read your report, Yacobian," he continued in Hebrew. "That was some great work you and your team did."

"Thank you, Sir. It brought us great pleasure to bring Schicklgruber to justice. We look forward to being present for his trial."

"Um, yeah, about that. It appears there won't be a trial. At least not a public one."

"Sir?"

"I know, it seems wrong, but Ben-Gurion and his people feel revealing Schicklgruber's having survived the Fuhrerbunker and lived free for all these years, might have the effect of breathing new life into the German Worker's Party movement."

"I didn't realize it ever really died, Sir."

"No, it didn't, and that's exactly why they've decided any trial has to be secret and by military tribunal."

"But Sir, there are so many survivors who need to know this has been put to rest."

"For most of them it already was, on April 30, 1945. You forget, most people don't even believe in Odessa. Even fewer share our Odessa obsession."

1965

Standing outside the door of the tiny farmhouse, B'nai soaked in the image, knowing it would the last time. Still the same as I remember it … but … still so different. Knocking on the door several times, he waited but received no answer. Turning to leave, he stopped when he heard the latch lift. "Hello, Rivkah," he said, when he saw her standing in the doorway.

Staring, she presented for several seconds as perplexed, then her face lit with joy. "Rabbi?"

Sitting at Rivkah's kitchen table, B'nai struggled to not stare at her. She can't know. Not yet. I can't risk further polluting the timeline.

"I can't believe you're really here! After all these years. But … how? They took you!"

"It's a long, long story. It's all in here." Pulling a leather-bound journal from an inside pocket of his coat, he handed it to her.

Taking it, she began to open it.

"No, not yet," he said.

"I don't understand."

"You're pregnant, with a son."

Laughing, she was beside herself. "Excuse me?"

"I know you and your husband, Zeke, have been trying for years to conceive. The doctors have told you that you'll never have children, but you will. I promise you. By this time next year, you'll be the mother of a little boy."

"How can you possibly … ?"

"Know? How did Samuel's mother know?"

"So, you're a prophet now?"

"You might say … I've seen the future. This child you're carrying, he will be your only child. Someday, he will have two sons, twins. After their bris, when they have their names, then I want you to open this journal. Then you'll understand and the birth of this child and of your twin grandsons will be the sign that what I'm telling you and what is in the journal are true. Until then, leave it bound up. Do you understand?"

"This is just too strange."

"You can't tell anyone else about this. When you die, leave it in a trunk in your attic, and leave it in your will to the younger of the two twins. Do you understand?"

"Because of who you are, what you tried to do for me and Rawkale all those years ago, I'll do what you ask."

Rising, he prepared to leave.

"Rabbi?"

"Yes?"

"Rawkale … she …"

"Didn't make it. I know."

"It's so wrong. So many of the Part members escaped. Some were tried, but I've heard large numbers made it to South America. They had some sort of organization set up as a contingency plan."

"They call it 'Odessa,' the Organisation der ehemaligen SS-angehörigen."

"So, it's true?"

"I have always believed so. Someone I loved very much made me promise to help stop them, and I spent several years since my liberation working toward that end."

"Do you think there will ever be justice for our people? For Rawkale? For me?"

"Only if that work is continued."

2020

Sitting at the antique kitchen table in the home of his recently deceased savtah, Rivkah Goldstein Yacobian, B'nai read to his brother from a journal. "'… and so it is, I am leaving this journal for you, as a sort of guide. I'm asking you to make right what my brother and I, in effect, you, in our arrogance, made wrong. In our effort to prevent the nuclear holocaust of 1 million and the irradiation of 5 million more by the dropping of the first atomic bomb on New Amsterdam City by the Party, we caused the racial, ethnic, religious, and political Holocaust of 25 million people in Europe, 2 million of them our people. In our desire to prevent the rise of a dictator, we created a madman and placed him on the seat of power. As I have stated elsewhere in this journal, we have already attempted to contact the younger us, the older you, at each of our own arrival points. Apparently, the choices you make will be different from those which we made, and so they should be. Informed by your knowledge of the new history and this record of our experiences, you will be better prepared should you choose to attempt a correction of this atrocity.' That's it."

"And you really believe this is real?" Chaim asked, raising an eyebrow.

"It was in Savtah's attic, in the trunk she left to me in her will. It's written in my own handwriting, but the pages and the cover are clearly older than us. Maybe older than her."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"Now tell me. That 'special project' you're working on. The one you're not allowed to talk about. Is that what he's … what I'm talking about? Did you really build a time machine?"

"No … not exactly."

"We need to do this."

"Why? According to the journal we've already done it, and we failed … repeatedly. Besides, where would we begin?"

"I don't know."

Folding his hands, Chaim closed his eyes. "At the end," he said, after some time.

"Huh?"

"And at the beginning."

"What do you mean?"

"The beginning of our problem is the end of their journey."

"Dachau? The atomic research facility?"

"No, I mean the last thing they changed. If we were going to do this, we would need to go back to 1908 first. We would need to keep you from running into Schicklgruber in the park."

"Okay."

"Once that was corrected, the last split in the time stream would correct itself, like a slipknot."

"That's really yours. Isn't it?"

"Yeah," he said, grinning. "I'm sort of proud of that one. Anyway, then we'd need to go to 1932 and leave a message for ourselves. Hopefully, we'd … they'd see the need to backtrack. Then we'd go to 1935, then 1940, and do the same thing. Then everything would be right again."

"So, you'll help me do it?"

"I … I … don't know. We might cause some sort of alternate timeline."

"You really don't get it. Do you?"

"What? What don't I get?"

"This is an alternate timeline. Here, now. The one where Schicklgruber came to power and killed 25 million people. We're already in it, and it's all because we created it."

Placing his elbows on the table, Chaim buried his face in his palms. "This can't be real!"

"I'm doing this. With or without you. With you, I at least have a chance to get my hands on the time machine."

Staring at his twin, Chaim sighed. "Yeah, and I did promise Savtah I'd keep you safe."

Standing in the laboratory wherein the time machine was housed, Chaim and B'nai stared at the device.

"So, that's it? Not very impressive."

"Sorry, we weren't exactly aiming for aesthetics."

Hearing the door open, Chaim motioned for B'nai to hide. Seeing Sergeant Greulick enter the room, he waited for the lights to come on. "Sorry, Greulick," he said, as he watched B'nai shoot the Marine with a taser.

"Alright, 1908, here we come."

"Not so fast."

"What? You're backing out on me now?"

"No, but we're not jumping from here."

"Um, okay. Why not?"

"Air travel to Europe is much faster in this time. We'll go to Austria first, then jump back to 1908. I have us booked on the Concord."

1908

Checking the readout on the machine, Chaim confirmed the day and time. "According to the journal, you, the other you, is on his way to the park right now, to meet Schicklgruber. If I can keep him from going there, this whole mess can be over."

Carrying a book under one arm, B'nai made his way up the street toward his favorite park. Checking his watch, he determined he had plenty of time to read before his lecture.

"B'nai!"

Turning, he saw Chaim walking toward him. "Hey, I thought you were sick."

"I got to feeling better. Now I'm hungry, so I thought I'd grab a bite. Why not join me?"

"Um … sure. Why not?"

"Great!"

"What are you in the mood for?"

"I don't know, maybe some traditional German food. It's been a long time since I had any."

"Funny!"

Arriving at a restaurant, Chaim and B'nai were seated and placed drink orders.

"I need to be honest with you," Chaim said, looking very serious.

"Okay?"

"I had an ulterior motive for asking you to lunch. I needed to keep you from going to the park."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not Chaim."

Chuckling, B'nai hoped he masked his nervousness at the statement. "Of course, you are."

"No, I mean I'm from the future. My brother and I traveled back to this point from 2020 –"

"No! Really?"

"I'm being serious. I'm not your Chaim. I'm not the Chaim you grew up with."

"What are you talking about?"

"We, me and the other you, the one I grew up with, just jumped backwards for the first time, today."

"What are you talking about? We've been time traveling for months."

"You have. We just started."

"But … how?"

"You left us, or rather you will leave us a –

"A journal. I've already started writing a journal … but I haven't told you … Chaim, about it."

"And I've already read it. It ends with a –"

"A plea, for you to travel back and stop Adolf Eichmann from becoming Fuhrer."

"No. It ends with a plea for us to come back and stop Addie from becoming Fuhrer."

"Addie? The painter? That's preposterous!"

"I know you think that now, but it's what happened in our timeline. If you had gone to the park today, you would have met him. You would have told him everything that's happened. Everything about the time machine. Everything about all the times he died as a result of your, our, attempt to stop Adolf Eichmann's rise to power. Apparently, it would have been that very conversation which would have sparked his interest in politics, his anti-Semitic beliefs, and his drive toward a Holocaust far worse than the one you were trying to prevent."

"I … don't believe it. Addie … the Fuhrer."

"Believe it."

"So, you're saying by my not going to the park, this has been prevented?"

"Yes. Theoretically speaking –"

"Do you ever speak any other way?"

"– your not being there will prevent him from ever taking an interest in politics. Then, you and I … your version of me, should be able to intervene and prevent the interference by your younger selves, in the events of 1932, 1935, and 1940."

"Okay, no reading in the park today."

"Or any other day."

"Huh?"

"You must avoid ever encountering Addie. You, we, are the reason he begins his rise to power."

"Understood, no Addie."

2020

Blinking, B'nai realized he was once again in 2020, standing next to Chaim, who seemed equally confused. Lying on the table in front of them, he saw the time machine, as though it had never moved. Hearing Sergeant Greulick groan in semi consciousness, he withdrew his taser, shooting the Marine again. "What just happened?"

"I think we just experienced a reversal of the duplex ripple."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, we failed."

"What? How? Didn't you stop him, me, from meeting Addie in the park?"

"I did, but therein lies the problem, I think."

"What do you mean?"

"We went back to stop you from meeting Addie."

"Right."

"We did it because of the contents of the journal."

"I know that. I'm the one who convinced you –"

"But because I stopped you and convinced you to never encounter Addie, he never became Fuhrer, and the journal came to us differently."

"The duplex ripple."

"Exactly. The problem is, since the journal came to us differently, we didn't know to go back to 1908. Therefore –"

"Therefore, we didn't go, and you didn't stop the other me from meeting Addie in the park."

"Exactly."

"So, he went ahead and met him, and set everything in motion for Addie to become the Fuhrer."

"Sadly, yes."

"So, now what?"

"We have to go back to 1908."

"But we've done that, and it didn't fix things."

"This time, we'll do it differently."

1908

Checking the readout on the machine, Chaim confirmed they had arrived the day prior to B'nai's encounter with Addie in the park. "Come on, we don't have much time. We need to get word to them, us."

Standing in the hayloft of the barn in which they had taken shelter their first night in 1908, Chaim and B'nai waited. Hearing footsteps on the lower level, they looked over the edge, seeing themselves.

"Sorry we're late," the other him said. "We had some trouble finding the place. We haven't actually been here before. Have you briefed your B'nai about avoiding a material paradox?"

"Of course."

"Okay, here's the deal."

Checking his watch, the Chaim who had been time traveling for months and was slightly older than the newly arrived version of himself, realized half an hour had passed. I can't believe how long winded the other me is. This must be a result of the altered timeline.

Sitting beside him, his B'nai was attempting to sort out the other Chaim's plan. "So what you're saying is, unless we, my Chaim and I, leave, the duplex ripple will reverse itself and you'll just keep finding yourself back in the worse of the two 2020's, regardless of how many times you come back and stop me?"

"That about sums it up."

"What do you think?" his B'nai asked him. "Does it make sense?"

"Of course. It makes perfect sense. It's like something I would have thought of … had I lived through their timeline."

Turning back to the younger Chaim, the older B'nai addressed him again. "So, what do you propose we do?"

"We want you to take our time machine and go back to 2020, right now. We'll stay here, in this time, but we'll move somewhere else. Come 1932, your having never met Addie should allow us to intervene before you, we, change history. Then, we'll wait until 1935, then 1940, just like you all would have done, but we'll make sure we never have any contact with Addie or Eichmann. When we convince you, us, in 1940, to turn around and jump back home, history will be corrected and we will find ourselves back in 2020, but it will be the 2020 that was supposed to have been."

"So, what do you say?" the younger B'nai asked.

"What is there to say?" the older Chaim responded. "It's the only way I can see to fix this mess."

2020

Blinking, Chaim realized he was standing next to B'nai, in the laboratory wherein the time machine was housed, in 2020. Lying on the table before him was the device itself, as though he had never touched it.

Groaning, Sergeant Greulick began to stir.

"What the –?" B'nai asked, shooting the Marine with the taser. "What happened? How did we get back here?"

"We're stuck!"

"What do you mean?"

"We're stuck with this reality of our own creation."

"But we sent them back to 2020. We should still be living in 1908. They weren't gone more than ten seconds before we were standing here. We didn't fix 1932, 1935, or 1940, yet.

"And we can't."

"What?"

"I see it now."

"What do you see?"

"Why didn't I see it before?"

"What is it? What's happening?"

"It's the reversed duplex ripple again."

"Wait! Do you mean to tell me, because we sent them back in place of us, and were willing to live through all those years to stop ourselves from ever messing things up in the first place, Addie never became Fuhrer, and so there was no reason for us to have ever gone back to 1908, so we didn't, and –"

"And because we didn't go back, you, the other you, met Addie in the park, in 1908, he turned from painting to politics, and –"

"And that is the cost of my Odessa Obsession."