[Thrones of Time: Generation 1: The Paradox Master. Chapter 1: The Mad Scientist]
A large Celestial Being of great power mumbled, “Time… someone has been calling himself the Paradox Master without permission.” The Celestial Being’s body glowed with streams of stars and the vast emptiness of a glowing green-blue space, constantly shifting with hints of purple. His blank and featureless face contained behind its translucent surface a twirling galaxy, spinning in his head. He sat on a throne of glowing purple fire and crystals, speaking towards another being next to him, Time, on a throne of ever-shifting gold. “I am aware,” Time responded. Her translucent, starry-blue body shifted on the throne. “I have been keeping watch on him, through the eyes of a human with whom he travels alongside. Would you like to see the man?” Time turned her featureless head towards the green Celestial Being. A galactic spiral shifted slightly inside her head. The other being asked, “Do you think he could be a valid replacement for—?” “Celestae…” Time interrupted the being and spoke with an uncertain, yet motherly tone, “He is the only replacement.” Celestae nodded. “Death,” Celestae turned his attention to a large, black, brooding bird. “Bring him in.” ❖ ❖ ❖ January 22nd – 2015 New York City, New York A nurse wandered down an empty hallway, approaching a restroom. A peculiar sound interrupted the nurse’s steady pace. At first, it sounded like the quick burst of an old mechanical flash powder camera. The nurse hesitated for a moment long enough to be startled by the appearance of a man in a dark red leather jacket running past her yelling, “Out of my way!” The nurse dropped her papers as two more people ran through the rarely used hall, following the man. The nurse paused, looking down the hall. “What the hell?” she mumbled, shaking her head. There was that sound again – a brief flash. The nurse left her papers on the floor and listened more carefully. The faint crying of a baby echoed down the hall in the distance, from the direction of the flashing noise. The only room in that direction was a decommissioned neonatal ward. She stared down the hall. The trio of running people was nowhere to be seen. A strange dark red jacket hung on the wall. The panel of the ventilation on the wall was flat on the ground, and the ghostly echo of the crying continued blaring from the empty ward. Nothing about the past ten seconds was standard procedure. The nurse looked behind her, waiting for someone else to come in and explain what was going on, or to take care of the situation for her. But no one did. The nurse stood up, deciding that she had to figure out what was going on and take care of the situation, whatever it was. The door of the ward opened with a creak. The nurse reached for a light switch. A single old light flickered on, long enough to illuminate a lone occupied cradle, and then it went out with a small thud in the ceiling. The nurse pulled out her phone, turned on the flashlight, and cautiously approached the baby. “Where’d you come from?” She shone her light on an old name tag hanging on the baby’s crib. “Adam Jaminski…” She held the phone in her mouth so the light could still shine as she picked up the baby. “That can’t be your name…” She cradled the baby to calm him, and the baby’s crying subsided. As she carried him out of the room, and awkwardly closed the doors with her elbows, she reached for her phone, and put it away, looking for the nearest doctor. “Hey! Jameson!” the nurse yelled to a passing doctor. “Julie, how’s it going?” the doctor responded before turning around to see the baby. “What’s with the little one?” “That’s what I want to know. I found him in the old neonatal ward. I thought maybe he’d been misplaced or something…” The confidence in Julie’s voice was lacking. “Could you check if there were any births recently to a Jaminski?” The ran his finger down the clipboard as if he were reading a list, then came to a stop. “That’s weird,” he said. “What?” “No births to that name in the recent record. Babies aren’t delivered anywhere near that ward anymore.” “That’s not possible, are you telling me this baby came from nowhere?” “Where’d you get the name?” “It was on the crib.” Julie bit her lip with thought. Her feet tapped. “I’ll go through all the procedures and try to find his parents.” Jameson stared at the baby, lowering his clipboard to get a better view. “Adam Jaminski… just a baby…” he muttered to himself. Julie caught a glimpse of the clipboard. There was no list. There was no paper at all. “Shouldn’t be too much paperwork.” Julie stuttered. The doctor quickly angled the clipboard away. “I mean, I could take it, you don’t have to do the paperwork, I’ve got it covered.” Jameson was acting strange. “No, it’s fine, really. Clearly you’ve got more work to do than I do,” she persisted, stepping away with the baby. Jameson turned his head quickly to see down the hall. “Alright…” He walked away. Julie stared at the baby. “What is happening today?” she asked. ❖ ❖ ❖ Almost a year had passed since Julie discovered the child at the hospital. Moments after she attempted to identify the baby’s parents, the hospital was attacked by what the news claimed to be gang activity, but what witnesses, including Julie herself, identified as an attack by shapeshifting aliens. In the confusion, she fled with the baby. She kept the baby hidden, trusting no one. The mysterious hospital attackers targeted the child for as long as Julie kept him, and she couldn’t keep him safe anymore. Most days Julie couldn’t leave the house. Her life became unrecognizable from what it was. Though, she couldn’t bear to put the baby up for adoption, nor would she be able to without the proper paperwork. Though, one day Julie awoke to find a yellow sticky note on her bedroom door. She could barely make out the handwriting, but knew it was an address. The note was signed, with a large signature, not of a name, but of a title: The Paradox Master. She rushed out of her house with the baby and arrived at the address of an old decrepit orphanage. The ringing bell of the door opening alerted the old matron, Evelyn, to Julie’s arrival. Julie looked nervous, and beyond tired. She approached the lobby desk. Evelyn coughed, “You must be Julie.” “How do you know my—” “You want to drop off the kid. Jaminski, right? No paperwork required.” “Thank you.” Julie nodded, utterly relieved. “Thank you so much.” She left the orphanage as fast as she could, not stopping long enough for any of her thousands of questions to escape her mouth, choosing to be free of this strange burden. Julie’s abandonment would have consequences. Adam Jaminski grew up believing that he was undesirable. He was raised in that orphanage, surrounded by other children. Some were destined for a home with loving parents. Few others, like him, knew they wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. It didn’t help that the matron made sure to remind Adam on a daily basis that he was nothing. That he meant nothing. The old matron seemed to target him, and him alone, and it only got worse as he aged. By age ten Adam believed that the world was an unfair place, and that people at their core were selfish and evil. Adam’s mind deteriorated, now frail and tormented. Insanity brewed. Although broken, Adam was still an ambitious child at heart. During his formative years, science sparked his interest. At age fifteen, he was interested in ‘biology’, in where he would search in the yard for unsuspecting lizards or frogs. When found, he would cut them up for fun. As he grew, he abandoned biology, becoming infatuated with chemistry, physics, astrophysics. His combination of destructive tendencies, hatred for what people had become, and his love for science all accumulated in his mind to create a master plan, and at age eighteen, nothing could stop him from achieving his goal. He was the last one left in the orphanage when, on his eighteenth birthday, he was kicked out, and with nowhere to go, college was his only refuge. The year was 2033. Adam studied nuclear energy, and weaponized chemistry. He was intelligent, and despite his insanity, he was awarded many scholarships. After graduation, using his acquired wealth from several shady side projects he built himself a lab, just outside of New York City, on an isolated beachside cliff. This lab doubled as his home, and his workspace. It was built in secrecy specifically to facilitate his destructive world renewal plan. The first scientific breakthrough constructed within the walls of this new lab were multiple small, portable, and potent atomic bombs. These bombs concentrated enough raw energy to decimate an entire planet’s surface. Adam figured that the planet was beyond saving now, anyway. People had become awful and had ruined their only home. Adam planned to find the few people he deemed fit to restart the human race and do it right this time. He knew he wasn’t the ideal human. All he wanted was a world where someone like him didn’t need to exist. Adam knew that human life had potential to be great. He also knew that it was too late for any of them now to act on that potential. In his broken mind, it seemed right that he should be the one to choose which people lived, and which people died. The kind of people that he felt should survive would be outcasts, and the unwanted. He would make them feel wanted. Despite his hatred, something deep inside Adam told him that humans needed to be saved, to be protected. He could wipe the world clean with a simple press of a button and no one could stop him. No one even knew he had the power to annihilate. No one knew him at all. And yet, something innate kept him from wiping the slate completely clean. He would achieve this twisted salvation one day. At age thirty-seven, on October 15, 2052, Adam made a trip back to the dreaded orphanage. His plan would begin taking shape by adopting someone he could mold in his image. Before he could make his way through the looming doors of the old building, he was stopped by a man wearing a long beige coat, and a bandana. The strange man pushed his blond hair out of his eyes and looked at Adam intently, “You’re adopting?” he asked. “Yes… how did you…” Adam stuttered, but was interrupted by the strange man. “What a hero,” the man said with a twinge of what might have been sarcasm. “There’s a little girl in there. Five years old, her name is Matrona Tempus. If you are going to adopt anyone, it’s going to be her. You got that?” The man reached into his pockets. “Why?” “Because I said so.” The man handed Adam a stack of one hundred-dollar bills. Adam stared at it, unable to respond before the strange man had disappeared. Adam stood in front of the door for a few seconds trying to process what happened. He shoved the cash into his pockets and walked in through the doors and approached the counter. ❖ ❖ ❖ It had been nearly twenty years since Adam Jaminski had adopted Matrona Tempus. Adam was now fifty-seven years old, and Matrona, still living with him in his lab, was now twenty-five. Matrona was a young girl at heart and in appearance. Her long blonde hair complemented her large blue-green eyes. She was short in stature, though always acted as if she were ten feet tall. And although Matrona and Adam didn’t have anywhere near a real father-daughter relationship, she stayed with him anyway. The longer that Matrona stayed, the more it seemed to make Adam human. Something about her slowly changed who he was. Adam was proven wrong, time and time again. A few setbacks in his plan allowed him to take a step back and see the world for what it was; flawed, but not doomed. It wasn’t anything Matrona said or did, but how she acted towards Adam. She wasn’t exceptional, but she wasn’t horrible, as every other person had been to Adam until this point. Matrona tried her best to see the good in him, even when it made little sense to try. Adam couldn’t figure out why she was so nice and understanding. He expected her to be as combative as he was when he was her age. If he didn’t know any better, he would think Matrona knew something that he didn’t. She did. Matrona knew that eventually something good would come out of all this strangeness. Written in her journal was a message left for her the day she was adopted; a reminder of why she had to stay with Adam, because if she was patient, her childhood wish would finally come true. And, on January 22nd, 2072, that day finally arrived. Adam Jaminski was about to become Matrona’s childhood dream, everything Matrona was promised that he would become. Today was finally the day that Adam Jaminski died.
