Chapter Text
He sits alone in his cell.
He has a title, but the rest of the page is blank.
He thought that this was a bit odd.
He had been under the impression that he would be able to spend time with the other prisoners. But he had been in complete solitude for the past few days.
It wasn't bad though. He had intended to write a book and he had no excuse to avoid that now.
His cell was a bit larger than what he had been expecting. He had a desk, a bed and a chair.
He took his pen and thought for a moment.
He focused on the page. He concentrated, trying to think up a good first line. It would have to be something really dynamite. Something that would really grab people, something that would...
He sensed a presence, it made him feel a deep fear.
He looks behind to see a woman sitting on his bed. She looked young and small. With short black hair, tall fancy boots, a short skirt, complicated looking blouse, long white gloves and the most terrifying eyes he has ever seen in his life.
She holds a pole arm with a long, curved blade. She smiles at him.
"Who are you?" He asks anxiously.
"My name is Guardian Saturn and I am here to destroy you."
"Why?"
"That book you just started writing, when you are done writing that. It will be one of the things that launches you to political power. That book helps you become the leader of Germany and because of your actions as leader you will go down in history as the most evil man of the 20th century."
"Really? The most evil?"
"The most evil, yes I know there is a bit of competition for that title. But with the exception of the 27 IQ point bunch that make up your fan club. Most everyone in the human race agrees that you were the most evil person to live in this particular century."
"What did I do?"
"Well, you're a racist, right? A believer in the inherent superiority of the white man?"
"Yes."
"With the organs of the German state at your command you exterminate other races. Slavs, Gypsies and naturally..."
"Jews?"
"Yep, you slaughter six million of those."
"And this makes me the most evil man in this century?"
"That is considered the worst thing. But you do a bunch of other heinous stuff as well. Your thirst for war consumes all of Europe and your methodical incompetence sees to it that the German nation and people are irrevocably damaged by your actions."
"Irrevocably damaged?"
"Beyond any hope of repair, even decades after your death."
"No... No this, I don't know what this is but these are lies. What is this? Some kind of a..."
The long curved blade was now pointed at him.
"Okay, you give up. But if you give up then you aren't my toy anymore and if you aren't willing to indulge me then I suppose I have to destroy you the fast way."
"Indulge... What do you mean?"
"World War One has happened by this point in history. There's no getting around that. Some speculate that if you are killed then that means that the Second World War doesn't happen. Others insist that the circumstances of the end of the World War One would have caused the Second World War no matter who was in charge. That there was just too much blood and resentment and you just happened to be the lucky little sociopath who rose to the top of the German political establishment to lead the nation into its greatest shame."
"Shame!?"
"Shame."
"So you're saying I... Me, personally... I'm going lose the next war?"
"Big time and the German people are considered pariahs for having supported you in your murderous cause. Even generations later, you were just that awful."
He turns around and looks at the paper with the words, my struggle. Written on them.
"If I am really that awful then why don't you just kill me and be done with this?"
"Well, there's no one reason. A big one is that you feature heavily in many, many, many stories about time travel in some context or another. So many that there is often insinuated to be some unspoken rule of time travel that you are off limits. That killing you before you do all that rotten stuff would somehow make everything worse. The main reason why I am here though? I want to see how much of your..."
She walked over and picked up a piece of paper.
"Political philosophies... Are the product of nature or nurture. You see, if a man is in a state of chronic physical pain. That is going to affect his personality. It will make him quick to anger. You... My scrawny little beanpole. Have several persistent physical and mental issues. I would like to offer you treatment for these things and if after treatment you are still a dangerous sociopath. I suppose I can kill you then. Either way, as I said. I am here to destroy you and once I am done with you. The you that you are now will be gone."
She put the blade down, grabbed him by his shoulders. Picked him out of the chair and slammed him against the wall.
"Perhaps my treatment will make you worse somehow? Perhaps I will make you an even more detestable person than you were in the history I come from? Perhaps by killing you, I will merely be opening the opportunity for someone competent to lead Germany into its greatest shame? Perhaps that person will win the war and plunge all of humanity into a thousand years of darkness and horror?"
She tossed him back into his chair.
"Or perhaps my actions will merely lead things back to a variation to how they turned out anyway? Another Cold War? Decades of rot and decay until the whole system implodes under the weight of its own constipation and stupidity. I don't know, but I figure it might be fun to find out."
"The future you come from sounds bleak and terrifying."
"Humanity is defined by constant conflict and is only destroyed by eternal peace.' That's from that book you were working on when I showed up. Despite your death, dishonor and humiliation. You can rest assured that your ideas still have their adherents. If the future I come from is bleak and terrifying then you personally deserve at least some of the blame for it. No matter how many of your people I kill. How many of your people my ancestors had to kill. You people, you just don't get it. So... I suppose this is an attempt on my part to try a different strategy, to see if you are physically capable of 'getting it' so... That's my offer, take it or leave it." She said curtly
"Gu...."
In an instant a very sharp edge was pressed very closely to his jugular vein.
"Finish saying that word and I'll vivisect you. Then I'll kill the guards. Heck, I might just kill everyone in this prison. I'm in a bad mood and if I can kill you then what's to stop me from killing a bunch of other shmucks? Perhaps I'll kill everyone in this version of Germany? With a few notable exceptions, they are all complicit in future crimes."
"You... Can't possibly have that power." He whispered.
"What kind of powers do you think I have?" The expression on her face said quite clearly, "try me."
He shouted. "I consent! I consent to your treatment!"
A guard walked by.
"Help!"
"Eh?" Asked the guard.
"You can't see her?!"
"See who?"
"The girl with the crazy eyes and the huge blade!"
"No... I think I would notice either of those things."
"They can't hear or see me, see." She said as she waved her left hand in front of the guards face.
"Are you okay?" Asked the guard.
"I'm... I'm fine."
The guard walked away.
"Okay, how are you invisible to him and not to me?"
"Even if I told you the science behind it, you probably wouldn't understand. Anyway, so... Do I still have your consent?"
"Yes... I suppose I don't really have a choice but yes let's get going."
"Oh you always have a choice, but sometimes the other options are just too crappy to contemplate."
She pressed a button on her pole arm and it retracted into itself. Turning into a small pen like object which she clipped to her skirt. Then she took a handkerchief in her right hand and put it over her left. Swirled it around a bit and out of nowhere materialized...
He stared at it for a moment. He smelled what was on the plate. It was the most delicious looking piece of cheesecake he had ever seen.
"This... Is just your first dose." She explained, "the substances in this cheesecake will begin a process. As to where this process will lead... It's always different. I've lead many sociopaths through this process. But you should be prepared for some serious emotional changes."
She held up a shiny silver fork.
He carefully took the plate and the fork. He sat back down in his chair and began to eat.
The cheesecake was delicious. But tasted very strange. There were several distinct flavors that he did not recognize.
"What's in this?"
"Oh... A little of this, a little of that. Your body needs vitamins B, C and D. Along with some magnesium, boron and a pretty sizable dose of tetrahydrocannabinol, aka marijuana."
He had just finished the last bite.
"Marijuana... As in... Um... Jazz music?"
"The Jazz cabbage where I'm from, Daddy-o. Though this is in a very molecularly pure form."
"What will this do to me?"
"I honestly don't know. Perhaps it might mellow you out. Perhaps it will turn you into an even more fanatical anti-drug crusader. I'm going to leave you to process, integrate and write. I will come back later to see how you are doing and if you are still an unrepentant sociopath..."
"I get it, what kind of guiding are you talking about?"
"Well, now that you are dosed. I can show you the consequences of your actions through a controlled hallucination."
She pointed at a wall. Which appeared to be turning into a movie screen of some sort.
"I think a good place to begin would be to show you a movie from my world."
The contents of the cheesecake had affected his biology dramatically. He couldn't stay awake. As he slept he dreamt. Of enormous rusted machinery being restored to function. He also saw nightmares that seemed unmistakably British.
He woke up to find that he had scribbled the word hammer, along with drawings of hammers all over the piece of paper he had intended to write out his book on.
Guardian Saturn was nowhere to be found.
He kept all this to himself.
And waited for Saturn to show herself.