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The Great Escape by Robert Williams


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Saving the Archduke's life might create another timeline where that long history of war never took place, but the logic circuits had listed another possibility.
If a causal paradox was in fact possible, then it could create a snag in the spacetime continuum and negate all existence, effectively destroying the Universe.

It was a gamble, a game of probabilities, a roll of God's dice. What would it bet?
The motorcade drew nearer and slowed down. The Archduke's driver, Franz Urban, held his hand to his forehead, as if he sensed things were about to go wrong. Had he taken a wrong turn somewhere? Princip tensed in anticipation.

Unit 51823 had many delicate sensors to detect the opening of any quantum-foam wormholes, which its pursuers from the future would use to come back and prevent it from tampering with the timeline. Nevertheless, it could not resist looking around for any Temporal Enforcers with its eyes, an old habit from its human days.

51823 tried to remember if it had ever gambled back in its human life. It decided it must have, because it had chosen to take this risky trip through time. So the question returned: What would it bet?

It decided on everything.

Before Princip could draw his gun and fire on the Archduke, Unit 51823 reached out its gloved hydraulic hand, clamped it over Princip's face and pulled him back through the crowd of onlookers to the darkness of a stone-lined alley.

It had done it! It could not feel the nervous thrill of an adrenaline rush (those glands had been removed), nevertheless a thin sheen of sweat appeared on what little human skin remained on its body.

"I still exist," the cyborg reassured itself. "It worked. I escaped the timeline. I still exist." It needed that last assertion most of all right now.

Understanding none of this, Princip fired his pistol at the cyborg as it dragged him squealing and struggling into the concealment of the alley. He did not understand what had happened, how the Black Hand's plans could have gone awry.

A metallic shriek tore the air as the bullet ricocheted off 51823's steel chest. That first bullet would have struck Sofia in the abdomen, instantly killing her and her unborn child. Princip tried to fire again, this time at the vulnerable human face, but 51823 wrenched the gun from his grasp. The second bullet would have struck the Archduke close to the heart. His last word would have been his wife's name.

Princip's eyes grew wide with horror as Unit 51823 removed its hat, revealing its human face stretched over a metal skull. To Princip this was madness, witchcraft, some kind of demonic intervention.

"No, no, no, my friend," said Unit 51823, waving its robotic finger back and forth. "You do not know it, but you are the father of my future. However this is a conception I must prevent."

Probability alarms rang inside its neural implants. 51823's pursuers had found it. Turning, it saw a tunnel of fiery light, a wormhole expanding out of the quantum foam. Out of it came three hovering, ellipsoidal beings made of hybridized organic matter and conductive silica.



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