The First And The Last

NOW

It was feeling stuffy inside his suit. He could feel the sweat trickling across every inch of his body. He opened the visor to ask the other two hoppers, Afreen and Derek, whether they were being cooked too. Before he opened his mouth, John McFeely, the Director of the Time Bureau, cut him off. “Alright lads and lady, we are a go in 60 seconds. Before I thank you, I would like to take 40 seconds to reiterate the criticality of your mission. Your entire life has been a build up to this very moment. Every breath you took for each exercise, this was the reason why. Humanity’s status as the prime species depends on you. Needless to say,” he smirked before adding, “this is not a drill. Thank you and good luck.” He saluted the three hoppers and they returned the gesture.

Somebody over the comms said, “Ten seconds to time jump. Visors down, plutonium radiators on.”

Vidyut did as instructed. As he closed his visor, he thought he saw McFeely wink at him.

In that fraction of a second, a jiffy before he felt the pull into the quantum void and an attosecond after he saw Afreen disappear, his mind replayed the entire conversation he had with McFeely twenty years ago. When he was a lad.

THEN

“So just based on some cave paintings you want to send me back to the stone age?”, he asked McFeely.

“Yes, paintings and ancient documents that we were able to procure. And we are not sending you to the stone age. Afreen gets to go there and introduce our ancestors to the wheel. Her training is underway. You get to make various pit stops across the timeline, remember?”

“Ah yes, sorry. But why am I tasked with this grand enactment? What about the discovery of fire? Why don’t I get to do that part? I’m not a good actor, but Derek is. He easily fooled me into believing that He’s a descendant of Lord Bezos. He can do the act and I can take the fire.”

McFeely sighed. He had a compassionate look on his face. “Vidyut we are the Time Bureau” he said, keeping his hand on the child’s head. “Our slogan says, ‘Forever the time we keep.’ That’s our job. To maintain the continuum of time. Keep it intact. We have existed ---”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you sir, what if I fail and cause a temporal fracture?”, Vidyut interjected.

We have picked the right one, McFeely thought. “Vidyut, we have existed for nearly a millennium. Surely that gives some credence to our expertise. When we selected you, Derek and Afreen to be time hoppers, it was after the three of you were subjected to multiple psychological and physical exams. We studied your brain patterns, your responses to different stimuli, your emotional feedback. I can go on and on. What I mean to say is, we found you to be the most compassionate when we constructed your personality map. While it’s true that the three of you are fit for time travel, your results determine your individual role. That’s why Afreen gets the wheel, Derek gets the fire and you get the act.”

Vidyut still wasn’t convinced. “I’m an atheist. Derek’s Christian. He’s better suited for this role, this… act.”

“My boy, where we are sending you, when we are sending you, religion doesn’t exist. Your actions will lead to the creation of religion”

“Why create religion? Why not just ‘not send me’? Everyone at the bureau knows that the very idea of a supreme being was a lie, that it was someone who traveled back from the future, enacted a few miracles in front of a handful of men. Miracles, which were basically modern gadget tricks, that seemed like magic to these men who were probably intoxicated. And then this ‘God’ disappeared. We have the choice in our hands to make sure this fallacy never comes into play in the first place.”

McFeely nodded. “You’re right lad. We have this chance to end it. Rather, we can ensure it never began. But religion has its need. Without it, humans would never settle into societies. Different societies bred different ideas, even art. These led to the growth of our species. Exchange of ideas led to dissent yes, but also discussion. It led to science. The presence of the wheel and the ‘discovery’ of fire will ensure that science marches on. From there we’ll get to the suspension of disbelief. But all of this will come to be only if you play your part. Only if there is religion, will there be atheism. There’s no truth without a false. And this is one truth worth fighting for.”

Vidyut finally understood. “Alright sir”, he said.

NOW

Just as Vidyut was pulled into the void, he began to rehearse in the ancient language “I am the Alpha and Omega…”