Nate rubbed her hair and breathed slowly. Unlike what Anita thought, he had a lot of experience with pain. If he waited long enough, it would certainly reduce in intensity. He breathed deeply and kissed his wife's head when he was ready.
'Nate, have you ever considered the fact that XO can be manipulated?'
'Aniket showed me.'
'How about by others?'
'I suppose. Now that I saw him do it.'
'What about, by the body?'
'The body? Niti, can you tell it to me straight?' Nate paused and confessed, 'I don't feel good.'
'I'll tell the nurse to give you a shot of painkillers.'
Anita ran out without letting him stop her. Since they were in a civilian hospital, Nate is very vigilant. Even with time servants keeping guard, he doesn't relax. Had Aniket arrived earlier, they would've called an air ambulance and left straight to a sciencekeeper facility. Even then, it is unlikely Nate would ever relax completely.
Nate's threatening looks scared the nurse. Anita pushed up his sleeve and gestured the woman to proceed. She pointed at the big son that just arrived. That fellow is ten times more vigilant than Nate. Even when he's on drugs, nothing ever gets past him. Nate could relax.
Nate looked at Aniket's sleeping figure. It is still the most reliable.
Perhaps he was in too much pain before, the momentary comfort brought by painkillers made him deeply relax and sink his head into the pillows.
'So tell me? What about the body?'
'Nate, according to Aniket, there is something called a folded space. I don't understand it, so I can't explain this part well–'
'It is something cooked up by the spacekeepers to take our money. Here, give me your scarf.'
Anita frowned in curiosity. She gave Nate her neck scarf. She watched him make it flutter randomly, holding it at two ends.
'This is the spacetime fabric. It appears chaotic, but there are always two coordinates holding a portion of it taut like this. One is the event, the other is the observer.' Nate took a needle from the tray and folded the fabric in half. The scarf was a little bigger than a handkerchief. It fell neatly without creases. 'They have something called a virgin harbour. My fathers knew about it. It is caused by the seminal event. My fathers think they mean apocalypse.'
'What apocalypse?'
Nate shrugged, 'Spacekeepers are assholes that just want your money. Anyway, they think there was an apocalyptic event in the twenty-first century. It resulted in the virgin harbour. The virgin harbour is like a snake's tail and its head is the observer. The spacekeepers think this snake can be stretched like this and fabric can be folded in half. And then…'
Nate took the needle and made a motion to embroider the folded scarf along the print on it.
'Like this. Everywhere this needle goes is the folded space. All the dots that they connect with some conceptual thread are to be linked to timekeeper pods. I think they said, we can be anywhere at any time like gods in heaven, those assholes.'
Anita pressed Nate's hand and looked down. Nate is usually calm and bright, but his tolerance is low when he is in pain. Timekeepers get a lot of inheritance from their pods, but they can't always protect everything. This is because only time credits are considered property of a timekeeper. Everything else is considered 'operational budget'. It maybe subject to be shared with other teams.
The pod Sun is extremely influential and extremely rich, formed with three legacies merged into one. Unfortunately, Nate's dads died in action over the years. Nate was too young to protect everything they gave him.
He pretends it doesn't bother him, but clearly, it bothers him very much.
Anita tapped on Nate's hand like a spring river dashing through the woods. He grabbed that river by the fingers and looked to the other side.
'Continue.'
Anita nodded a few times while thinking. Eventually she composed her thoughts now that she understood the concept of the folded space.
'Aniket said that, to…' Anita paused and input the code Aniket gave her. Her XO was momentarily on hold. Nate did the same after watching her. 'He said, to XO, the body is this spacetime fabric. And that, the body has many folds, like a crumpled fabric. The XO is a nanobot looking to survive in this cramped environment. It has long been overtaken.'
'By who?'
Anita shook her head. 'By One.'
Timekeepers are war orphans who grow up in deplorable conditions. They are not all geniuses and do not all having the makings of intelligence operatives. Like all companies and organisations across the world, most timekeepers are grunts. They do what XO tells them to do. And XO will give them instructions as frequently as it needs to give them. Sometimes, thrice in a single minute.
This is why XO is called the Level Zero timekeeper. High above all, but at 'zero' level, that is also below all.
Meanwhile, there is someone who truly is above all. Level One timekeeper, One.
'Niti, One is long dead.'
One died over seventy years ago. However, his directives are still followed in Progeny. Thus he is their undisputed leader even after all this time.
At the time of his death, One was only twenty-five years old. He was called an enlightened leader and a king of timekeepers of all time.
'One…' Anita said difficulty, 'Is not real.'
'Then who took over XO?'
Anita sighed and leaned over Nate. Nate kicked up the blanket and covered them both. He dimmed the lights and went to sleep.
It was clear to him that whatever Aniket said had scrambled his wife's brain. Might as well go to sleep while the two brainiacs sort it out.
Anita regretted waking her husband up. She kissed his cheek and moved to the edge, giving up the space to him.
It was just that One truly does not exist. The person they all know as One is a brilliant and valiant timekeeper, a hero who got Progeny through a tough time.
But he is not One. The 'King' is someone else.
The king who lives forever. King Adharma.
Originally, One was very special to the Sun pod. One's name was Aniket. All information about One was shrouded in mystery, but Anita's father knew this fact. 'Ah, so you're marrying the king! I must call you Your Majesty,' he would tease her.
Anita teamed with Aniket to find out more about One.
It turned out One had two pod mates. One was named Nate. Another was named Anita.
Over time, Aniket revealed so many strange coincidences about One that are a bit too similar to their own pod and circumstances. Anita thought Aniket was fooling her. Or that XO was fooling him. She stopped bothering with his nonsense.
She had no idea how deeply and obsessively he dug up the information. And continued doing so for years together.
When the complexity of the coincidence became too much, Aniket made it simple.
It was one of two possibilities. Aniket himself had existed in a different time and performed those actions. Or XO had created this false reality based on the direction of his search.
After this realisation, Aniket had searched civilian databases that he had not covered. But the account didn't change at all. Aniket was not an average researcher. He covered the sky with all the angles he researched from. All kinds of world events were deeply scoured for information.
And yet XO was able to fool him.
Aniket had manipulated XO since he was a child. He knew by then XO was not able to manipulate him.
In turn, that means, timekeepers changed history based on his search strings.
They changed history for the entire world. In the very first instance, One's name may not have been Aniket.
Anita's father, a Level 2 timekeeper, told her that.
Aniket did not doubt his intentions. He believed there might be a One somewhere in history whose name was Aniket.
And that's how he found King Adharma. The founder of the creed of timekeepers.
King Adharma was the name Aniket gave him. He does not exist in timekeeper history, but he is everywhere in history.
King Adharma, king of wickedness, evil and unrighteousness. There were several instances of him in history. All of them altered by timekeepers. All accounts fake and all history fabricated. Historians had no idea, but a number of evil characters they studied with breathlessness never even existed.
They were all King Adharma.
Timekeepers believe all language is a type of code. They especially study sanskrit, latin and similar root languages to get abreast of this code. This is how Aniket came upon the string of letters King Adharma lives forever.
At that time, he didn't think there was meaning to these letters. But when he said the words 'truth', Anita's father's expression didn't change a beat. It always struck him wrong.
And then one day, he learned 'Aniket' was another string that will unravel King Adharma's will. The world had changed over a search string.
The past is no longer the same. The present is subject to change. The future is incalculable to all.