Chronopunk: A novel (Episode 2)
If you went back in time, what knowledge would you gift the past to save the future?
Chapter 4
Now (2006)
"What a journey!”
Mody’s thoughts drift back and forth from the moment he met Lisa to this particular moment in time as he crawls up the beach. Despite his joint muscles loosening, walking still feels out of reach. He works himself painfully toward a tree and lies down in the shade. Another problem is that he couldn’t bring any physical objects, leaving him naked—a rather inconvenient side effect of multigenerational time travel. That’s why they chose a Mediterranean nude beach in the summer as their landing spot. It wouldn’t raise suspicion.
"Better than downtown Manhattan," he muses.
Nude beaches are common in the Mediterranean, so a man lying there isn’t unusual. Mody’s AI generator is shut down, available only in emergencies, leaving him on his own without help from AI or any superior intelligence. Lisa personally briefed him on this:
‘You need to blend in. You can’t use technology more advanced than theirs, and under no circumstances can you use our AI generator to predict events. We suspect that if people realize you’re from the future, or even only get suspicious about it, your time symmetry parameters might collapse. You might not be able to return,” she warned.
The first test doesn’t take long. As two gorgeous, fully naked girls walk by him under the pine tree, he gets an erection.
“Shit, this wouldn’t have happened if I’d had an AI generator to warn me,” he thinks, awkwardly covering his crotch with both arms.
The girls giggle.
“First time at a nude beach?” one of them shouts at him.
“Uh, yeah. I’m sorry. This is all new to me.”
“No worries,” she says with a smile.
“Men still don’t get it. Nude beaches aren’t strip clubs. But hey, nice to see your penis thinks we’re worth the effort.” They laugh and walk on, leaving Mody feeling a mix of frustration and amusement.
He feels a mild irritation toward Lisa. She must have anticipated this outcome and deliberately challenged him from the start.
"Why is she putting me through this kind of test? I’ve endured months of intense physical training. My IQ was tested and boosted with Cormesin, the intelligence-enhancing drug. And now she’s assessing my ability to manage my erections? Seriously, Lisa?" He smirks. Despite how exasperating she can be at times, Lisa remains the most captivating woman he’s ever met. Her sharp, salty sense of humor doesn’t change that.
“She’s alright.”
With the control center unable to tap into his brainwaves, Mody enjoys the freedom to think as he pleases. The mission’s communication system links to his implant through Neuralink, but the designated frequencies can only transmit at predetermined times and places. Those signals will ultimately trigger his repatriation once the mission concludes. Until that moment, he’s left to fend for himself—for better or worse.
Mody’s task is daunting. Unable to bring any supplies with him, he must secure clothes, money, and all other necessities from nothing. Where does one even locate clothing on a nude beach?
“Easier said than done,” he thinks.
After awkwardly stealing a pair of shorts from a man who’s out swimming, Mody hurries away from the beach toward a nearby small town. It’s one of those picture-perfect villages dotting the Mediterranean coast. Charming houses climb the hillside, crowned by a grand church at the peak. The town square, typically alive with activity during summer nights, lies deserted under the oppressive midday heat. Mody strolls along the quaint harbor, where fishing boats, tourist vessels, and even a few yachts bob in the water. With clothing now secured, his next priority is money—he needs funds to complete his mission. Lisa has repeatedly warned him against relying on sports gambling. Naturally, for a man from the future, betting on sports might seem like an easy fix to his financial woes. Who will claim the NBA title this year? Which team will win the Super Bowl? Who will triumph in the World Cup? These aren’t hard questions for Mody, as he already knows the outcomes. Still, Lisa was firm in her stance.
“You cannot —repeat, cannot—use any knowledge of the future to alter events. Doing so would disrupt your time-lapse parameters and potentially endanger the mission,” she cautioned.
Mody wasn’t exactly thrilled.
“Why would knowing that the Spurs will claim the 2007 NBA Championship or that the Giants will secure the 2008 Super Bowl affect my chances of returning?” he asked, feigning innocence.
Mody fully understood that leveraging such knowledge could upset temporal symmetry, having personally contributed to proofs addressing this exact problem. Lisa had shown patience with him, recognizing how difficult it was to resist acting on foresight. She reflected on her own time-travel experience, when she journeyed back to her teenage years and discovered that her then-boyfriend, Lewis, would betray her trust a few months later. Even with that foreknowledge, she opted to act as if unaware, ultimately severing ties with him to avoid getting hurt.
But Mody has much bigger concerns. Barred from earning money through sports betting or gambling, he must discover other means to make money. To his astonishment, Lisa proposed that he become a fighter.
“Prize fighting could be a viable option. Listen, you cannot use specific future knowledge—like the results of sports events or stock market trends—but general expertise is permissible. For example, you could employ modern Jiu-Jitsu techniques. The sport is much more advanced than what MMA fighters knew back in the 2000s. Why not train and test your skills in the cage? This sort of know-how travels well with time and should’t interfere with your time lapse parameters.
Before college, Mody competed as a semi-professional MMA fighter. Raised in Australia, where the combat sports scene flourished, he’d found an ideal environment to hone his skills. He’d even claimed several prestigious trophies and pocketed decent earnings before stepping away from the sport to pursue a career in academics. Now, Lisa was urging him to step back into the cage.
Mody trained under Jack Pollock at Nick Bowles’ MMA gym in Sydney. After Bowles—a multiple UFC champion and local icon—stepped away, Pollock assumed control of the facility. MMA had come a long way since its rough-and-tumble origins in the 1990s, when the sport resembled a chaotic Wild West brawl, featuring brute strength, bloody faces, and scant public appeal. That shifted in the 2010s, as MMA matured into a worldwide sensation, drawing a diverse array of international athletes who refined every aspect of performance. Mody had always been a dedicated student of the sport, religiously maintaining both his physical and mental fitness. By the time he was chosen for the pioneering intergenerational time-travel mission, he was still in prime physical condition, although a bit rusty on the edges.
“How do you get started as a prize fighter in 2006?”
“Just ask,” Lisa replied.
Chapter 5
Now (2006)
Mody wanders from bar to bar, asking about prizefighting opportunities. It isn’t long before a middle-aged bartender takes note of the curious stranger.
“You want to fight for money?” the man asks in heavily accented English.
“Yeah, I’m up for MMA rules,” Mody replies.
“MMA, huh. You’re fighter?”
“Yeah, I am. Do you know someone who could help me arrange a fight?”
“Wait here.”
The bartender disappears, and Mody presumes it’s all just show. Yet, to his astonishment, the man reappears, accompanied by two others who promptly begin probing Mody about his fighting background. Their knowledge of the sport is evident and impressive.
“We cannot permit full MMA rules—elbows are prohibited here, as is striking a downed opponent with kicks,” one of them clarifies.
Mody is reassured in knowing their restrictions aim to keep things less brutal, not more. Two weeks later, he has his first fight scheduled. In the meantime, the bartender offers him a job for tips and a room to stay in.
The prizefighting goes as anticipated—Mody wins bout after bout, swiftly amassing enough earnings to secure an apartment and embrace a more stable existence. Bogdan, one of the men who had initially connected Mody with fights, takes him under contract and promotes him around the region.
But Lisa had cautioned Mody not to let pride swell in his head.
“You’ll keep winning, but don’t go too far. Stay off the radar. We don’t want you to influence the trajectory of MMA. It’s not clear how this might affect your time symmetry parameters. Make some money and then quit! Your mission is to stop the Federal Reserve from absorbing the debt of Wall Street banks - not to become an MMA star. Don’t you ever forget that.”
Mody understands all too well the risks associated with prizefighting and the intoxicating rush of victory. He agrees with Lisa—rising to MMA stardom would jeopardize the mission. After claiming a regional championship, Mody leaves town, crosses the Atlantic, and settles into a humble apartment in Chicago, ready to focus on his true mission.
Chapter 6
Lisa didn’t choose Chicago out of pure nostalgia. Rather, she deliberately chose Hyde Park and the University of Chicago campus, the very place where she had unlocked some of the seminal breakthroughs that rendered intergenerational time travel feasible. During heated debates with her team, Lisa maintained that certain overlapping multiverse parameters could prove advantageous to their mission. Mongarthy, however, remained skeptical, championing the contrary position. Ultimately, the team went with Lisa’s proposal. At this stage, intergenerational time travel resembled an intellectual Fabergé egg—each intricate detail held profound significance, though its precise weight and purpose eluded full comprehension.
Mody’s assignment is to establish communication via Neuralink with the control center from a carefully chosen spot near the university campus.
“It was there,” Lisa explained during one of their briefings, “that I first sat down and penned the inaugural equations.”
“You will become the first individual in history to bridge the past and connect across generations,” she continued. “It’s a momentous occasion. Perhaps you might even deliver the ‘mankind speech.”
Mody frowns, apparently not very excited about the comparison with Neil Armstrong. “And what if it doesn’t work?”
“You already know the answer,” Lisa replied sharply.
“Don’t make me regret choosing you for this mission.”
She alluded to the disquieting truth that should Mody fail to establish contact, there existed a genuine risk he might be stranded, unable to return. His initial attempt at communication isn’t just a mere test of connection—it serves as a critical proof of concept. For Mody, it is a make or break moment.
“Listen, Mody,” Lisa went on, her voice softening ever so slightly,
“Neuralink has conducted exhaustive trials with animals,” Lisa explained. “They’ve sent dolphins and monkeys back across multiple generations, established communication with them, and safely retrieved them. It will succeed. Let us remain focused on the mission and leave the uncertainties to others.”
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