Chronopunk: A novel (Episode 4)
If you went back in time, what knowledge would you gift the past to save the future?
Chapter 10
Sydney was nothing like Chicago, and Lisa appreciated that from the start. The city had an unmistakable LA vibe—with its stunning beaches, effortlessly attractive people, and a surf culture reminiscent of Southern California. It felt like a piece of home on the other side of the world.
Bondi Beach quickly became her favorite escape. Despite living far from the shore, she spent every spare moment there—swimming in the ocean or at the Icebreakers pool, playing beach volleyball, and, of course, surfing. Mongarthy was demanding, but he understood that a woman in her late twenties needed an outlet. He granted her weekends off, a gesture she deeply valued.
One weekend, she signed up for a beach volleyball tournament near Bondi. Mid-game, as she dove for the ball and missed, she turned to retrieve it—only to find an unlawfully handsome man already holding it out to her.
"I believe you missed this one," he said, his tone laced with polite mockery.
Lisa almost lost her balance in the sand again, but as any seasoned beach volleyballer worth her salt, she would nonchalantly refuse to show any reaction to a man admiring her near naked body.
"Thanks," she replied, as coolly as her rattled nervous system allowed, before turning back to the game.
Later that week, while sitting in the cafeteria at UNSW, she heard a familiar voice behind her.
"Still got sand on your face? Or did you manage to catch some of those balls?"
As Lisa turned around, a blizzard shot through her brain. Even before her eyes landed on his face, she knew—it was him. The man from the beach.
"Hi, I’m Mody," he said, his voice just as effortlessly confident as she remembered. "Sorry to approach you like this, but I thought I recognized you. Just wanted to introduce myself since I’m new to Professor Mongarthy’s group. And it looks like you’re part of it, too. So we might as well get to know each other."
"L… Lisa. Hi."
All traces of composure evaporated. She felt like a teenage girl meeting her favorite boyband singer, her nervous system firing off signals at a frequency she hadn’t experienced in years. Sex, man, sex, man. She needed to pull herself together. She was Lisa Chu, the smartest person in the room. And yet—this.
Mody chuckled. "Oh, no need to blush. I’m sure you’re a fine beach volleyball player. I was just messing with you."
Mody’s voice carried a California accent with an unmistakable Australian twist.
"Are you Australian? I can’t quite place your accent," Lisa asked.
"Born in California, raised in Sydney. Moved here when I was nine. So what does that make me?"
"I guess that makes you a local, mate," she joked, finally starting to relax.
‘So what?’ she thought. ‘I’m horny, and this is a man I want to have sex with. What’s wrong with that?’ The decision was hers, not his.
Her mental yoga kicked in, a practice she’d honed during the retreats she frequented after breaking up with Pat. ‘Control your mind. Don’t let your mind control you.’
"I have to ask," she said, tilting her head. "What are your parents? I can’t place either your accent or your looks."
Mody laughed. "Ha! Don’t worry. I’m basically a cosmological anomaly. My father is of Moroccan descent, and my mother was born in Kenya. They met at Berkeley and—well, here I am."
"What brought you here?" Lisa asked.
"Same as you, I guess—academic work. My father works in cosmology and spends most summers in Antarctica. They figured it’d be easier to move closer to the South Pole so he could hop over for long weekends. Plus, my stepmom lectures in computer science at UNSW."
"Is that why you ended up here?"
"No, not at all. Mongarthy brought me in for a special project. I was working at UC Santa Barbara, where I got my master’s. Thought about doing a PhD, but then this opportunity came up. So, here I am."
Lisa nodded, taking in his words—though, truthfully, she was also taking in something else. She let her eyes drift over his upper body, his toned arms. Then, with casual confidence, she reached out and pressed her fingers against his bicep.
"And what’s up with this? You don’t exactly look like your typical physics grad."
Mody smirked as she traced the firm muscle.
"Wait, let me guess," Lisa said, narrowing her eyes in playful concentration. "Definitely not football. And not basketball—you're a little short for that. Soccer? Nah, too sculpted for that. Hmm…" She tilted her head, studying him like a complex equation. "Not a swimmer—your body’s too evenly built. Same with tennis—no dominant arm imbalance."
She paused, still analyzing. "Alright, I give up. What is it?"
ChatGPT said:
"You want some hints?" Mody asked, clearly enjoying the turn in their conversation.
"Actually, no. You ask yes or no questions. How about that?"
"Alright," he agreed, leaning in slightly. "First question: is it a team sport?"
"No."
"Boxing?"
"Close."
"Ah, got it. Martial arts. Of course." Lisa’s eyes flicked over his face again, noticing the subtle signs she had overlooked before. "Now I see the nose and the ears. I’m guessing… MMA?"
"Bingo." Mody touched his nose with a smirk.
"Come on, it’s not that bad. Just slightly… stressed out. Not bad for an MMA fighter, though."
"I didn’t say anything," Lisa teased, holding back a grin. "Just noticed that your nose looks a little… let’s call it stressed out. MMA where? UFC?”
“Noo, not that good. I started training here in Australia as a teenager, fought my way through the local ranks. Then I moved to the U.S. for my master’s and couldn’t really get a foothold in the sport over there. So that was it for me."
"I see," Lisa said, crossing her arms with a smirk. "So now you just flaunt your perfect MMA body on Bondi? Is that what they call early retirement in MMA?"
A rush of heat surged through Mody’s body. Up until now, he hadn’t been sure if Lisa was even interested in him. For all he knew, she could be gay—or just completely indifferent. But that last comment? That was an opening he wasn’t about to miss.
"No flaunting bodies," he said, smirking. "Breaks the MMA honor code. Our bodies are for fighting, not for impressing the ladies."
"Oh no, what a sexist regime you have," Lisa shot back, raising an eyebrow. "And what about all the hot female fighters? Does that rule apply to them too?"
"Of course. The code doesn’t discriminate," Mody said, his confidence unwavering. "You know, MMA is actually one of the most successful sports when it comes to gender equality. It’s one of the only sports where female fighters regularly headline major events."
"Other than beach volleyball, of course."
The words had left her mouth before her brain could stop them. ‘Damn it.’ Lisa instantly realized her limbic system had outpaced her frontal cortex. Had she really just uttered ‘that kind of vanity’? To a near stranger?
Mody, ever quick on his feet, wasn’t about to let it slide. He leaned in slightly, his smirk widening as he seized the moment.
"I see," Mody said, his grin widening. "You’re in a sport where flaunting your body is the sport, and hitting balls is just the excuse."
"Shut up," Lisa shot back, shifting to offense.
Chapter 11
Coming back to Sydney was definitely not on Mody’s radar. He worked so hard to get accepted to a graduate program in the US. After landing in Santa Barbara, Mody swore not to leave until he either received a Nobel Prize or made it as an entrepreneur.
“Sydney is a wonderful place to grow up, but it lacks a certain kind of energy—an energy you guys have here,” he would tell his friends on campus at UC Santa Barbara.
Mody loved Sydney. His athletic disposition served him well there—whether it was the girls on the beaches or the coaches in school, everybody in Australia loves a good athlete. At twelve, he saw a documentary about Bruce Lee and became hooked on martial arts. After trying out a few gyms, he came across a weird-looking building with "Gracie Jiu-Jitsu" written in large letters on the front window. To his surprise, the coaches weren’t Chinese but Brazilian. Matheus introduced him to Felipe, the owner of the gym, and gave him his first introduction to a new form of martial arts. Mody immediately signed up and broke a rib during the first training session. Felipe laughed and shook his hand.
“Good start, my friend. Now you have four weeks to think about joining the gym. It’s a long journey from rookie to black belt in JiuJitsu—hard work, lots of sweat, and a few broken bones. The good news is that after the journey, you’ll be a better person, both physically and mentally.”
Mody had no idea what Felipe was talking about. It took his rib more than four weeks to heal. As soon as it stopped hurting, Mody jumped back on the mat, and he never looked back. Three years later, Felipe swung a purple belt around his waist. After winning a few JiuJitsu tournaments, Mody transitioned to MMA.
“It’s much more dynamic and definitely more fun to watch,” he told his then-girlfriend Una. Australia has always been a breeding ground for MMA talent. Gyms popped up everywhere, and most importantly, there seemed to be an insatiable supply of talent and coaches. Where this country, with a population slightly higher than Florida, found that much talent remains a mystery. Some places just draw talent to certain sports, like sprinting in Jamaica or tennis in Spain.
“It’s the fight without the fight, that’s what attracts me to MMA.” Mody told his parents, who couldn’t hide their shock when their son confronted them with his plan to postpone college for a career in professional fighting.
“‘Fight without a fight’ sounds like ‘work without work’ to me. What do you mean?” his father replied with not so subtle irritation in his voice.
“Dad, Bruce Lee introduced this concept almost a hundred years ago. It’s a wholesome approach to conflict, where you use a combination of technique, physical strength, and prowess in mental strategy to overcome the opponent. The ultimate goal is to avoid the conflict by putting the opponent in a position where he can’t even fight—kind of like checkmate.”
“Son, you are a physics major. College is where your skills are best applied. Punching people in the face is not what you should be doing.”
“Dad, that’s exactly my point. I am not training to punch people in the face; I am acquiring a skill for avoiding conflict by becoming better than the opponent.”
Of course, punching people in the face is part of the MMA repertoire. In fact, it’s one of the most important avenues to victory in a cage fight. But Mody didn’t want any of that. He spent hours every day honing specific techniques to control opponents. Originally, MMA was exactly what the name says: a mix of martial arts. There were the JiuJitsu practitioners, the wrestlers, the boxers, and the kickers. By the time Mody got into the sport in the late 2040s, this distinction had disappeared. MMA morphed from just being another combat sport to something like an attitude, a lifestyle, and of course, a form of conflict resolution. Fighting was still center stage, but the mindset changed. Training encompassed all aspects of conflict, from physical contact to neutralization techniques. A punch is not just a punch but a way to distract the opponent on one side to make a move on the other. Every action is subordinated to one single purpose: to neutralize the opponent. Whether that happens through knockout or submission doesn’t matter. Mody was particularly fascinated by the sequential aspect of movements. For example, you’d start a move with a left hook, provoke a response, then react to that with a kick, provoke another response, then shoot for a takedown, and so on. Mody approached fighting like a quarterback in football. He memorized playbooks, studied opponents carefully for habits, and always kept neutralizing the opponent as his north star. He spent even more time honing technical skills. JiuJitsu was still the number one martial art in his opinion, but he became especially good at kicking.
“It makes sense. You either touch the opponent with the intent to submit him or to knock him out. Submit with hands, put to sleep with feet. Why waste energy on other goals?”
Mody’s father, Mounir, clenched his fists out of anger. Born in Casablanca, Morocco, he had fought all his life to provide a better life for his son. He left his family to pursue an academic career in the USA and later Australia. And now his only son wants to become a prize fighter. He could have done this in Morocco.
‘Actually, it would have been a much better training ground,’ Mounir sighed to himself.
Chapter 12
He knows what he’s talking about. Growing up in one of Casablanca’s rougher neighborhoods, Mounir was no stranger to fights. By the age of fifteen, he had joined a gang to protect himself and his family. Gangs in Casablanca aren’t as intense as those in places like LA, but violence is still part of the equation. Mounir excelled at it. Though height wasn’t his advantage, his speed and skill more than made up for it. In fact, his fighting prowess earned him a reputation, even catching the attention of Casablanca’s law enforcement circles. After a brutal clash with three other guys, he landed in jail—though, ironically, for the wrong reasons.
"Violence doesn’t exactly care about intent or guilt," he likes to muse when reflecting on this pivotal moment from his childhood.
"A man lying on the floor with a broken nose and another unconscious tends to provoke predictable reactions from the police and the justice system."
Mounir was detained and held for over two weeks until his lawyer convinced the judge that he had acted in self-defense. While in jail, he faced another assault, which landed him in solitary confinement. Yet, amid the chaos, there was a silver lining: the experience sharpened Mounir’s determination to escape Morocco and leave behind a life marked by violence and arbitrary justice.
A one-year stint at Hunter College in Manhattan was enough to persuade the admissions team at UC Berkeley that Mounir was serious about physics. For Mounir, California meant everything, and Berkeley was the NFL of science. He quickly adapted, impressing several professors, so an offer to pursue a master’s and PhD felt like a mere formality.
In the meantime, Mounir began spending time with the Bay Area’s fighting community—initially just to stay fit, but later because there was money to be made. A prominent gym in San Jose offered to train him, and he accepted. Though commuting from Berkeley to the South Bay wasn’t ideal, Mounir didn’t mind. Fighting brought in enough cash to support himself and supplement his modest Berkeley scholarship. The gym boasted some big names; back in the 2010s, Khabib Nurmagomedov had trained there, and it had since become a magnet for top talent. Mounir was skilled, but not enough to catch the eye of elite coaches. In a gym full of standout fighters, he flew under the radar.
His unique strength lay in scraping out wins from seemingly impossible positions. During a bout in Sparks, Nevada, a Brazilian coach from San Francisco took notice and offered to train him. Mounir accepted on the spot.
“Brazilians have a totally different approach to fighting,” he told his girlfriend, Simbi.
“They fight like we did on the streets of Casablanca—scrappy yet technical. They blend skill with street smarts, and I respect that.”
Simbi nodded. “Brazilians fight to win. Most others fight to impress. That’s the real difference.”
“Martial arts isn’t about fighting,” Mounir interjected. “It’s about solving problems—much like physics.”
Simbi wasn’t convinced, but Mounir was a man on a mission. His first two victories were local wins, paving the way for a preliminary bout in Las Vegas. Eventually, he racked up a 6-1 record—impressive for a foreign rookie.
“The problem isn’t the cage,” Simbi remarked. “It’s the crooks around it who ruin people and the sport.”
Chapter 13
Born in Nigeria and raised on a Bristol council estate in England, Simbi was no stranger to shady situations. She could spot one a mile away, and MMA fighting ticked all the boxes. The UFC had done a solid job of legitimizing the sport at the top tier, but cleaning up the lower ranks of MMA was another story—far more challenging.
"This sport attracts cockroaches at every level—whether it's con artists in the cage, in the corners, or in the gambling world. It’s like breadcrumbs in a kitchen; they just crawl out of the dark. Instead of pretending it's clean, you're better off preparing for the worst."
Simbi has seen plenty of fighters crushed by thugs after getting tangled up in betting schemes.
"Why do you think people are so excited about MMA? Because of Bruce Lee and his 'art of fighting' bullshit? No, my friend—it’s all about gambling!"
Simbi was an intriguing mix of quirky and sharp. Her long neck and soft facial features lent her an aura of warmth, a kind of maternal beauty. Yet this African grace was fractured by her raspy voice, roughened by years of smoking and barking at fighters. Simbi wielded words the way fighters threw elbows.
“MMA is the real shark tank—eat or be eaten.”
Her brother Ashley rose to local fame as an MMA fighter in the UK until a betting scandal derailed him at a national championship bout in Birmingham. After a lackluster performance, two thugs cornered him in the locker room and threatened his life. Ashley’s entourage intervened, and the confrontation spiraled out of control. Simbi was there, working the bout as a bookmaker, scribbling betting slips. Her business had grown out of Ashley’s fighting career, and she was good at it. She climbed the ranks of the chaotic UK fighting scene, quickly establishing herself as a top-tier bookmaker. Her then-boyfriend Aston and his crew provided the security and financial muscle to lend her legitimacy. But make no mistake—it was Simbi’s fiery, no-nonsense attitude and fearless spirit that propelled her forward.
Growing up on a council estate in the Bristol suburbs had primed her for a life in the underworld. Her family’s roots traced back to Jamaica, part of the post-WWII wave of West Indian immigrants who came to the UK to fill labor shortages left by the war. Simbi’s mother was living in Nigeria with distant relatives when she gave birth to her. Though Simbi never met her father, his influence loomed large. A local legend in Bristol’s open music system—a fusion of reggae and rave culture—he’d left his mark. Bristol’s music scene had hit global heights in the late 20th century with acts like Portishead, Tricky, and Massive Attack. Things quieted down after that, but the culture never faded from the council estates. Simbi grew up with bass beats pulsing through walls and ceilings. Take the UK’s fertile music scene, mix in Jamaican swagger, layer it with African rhythms, and you’d get a feel for Bristol’s sound system. Whether she identified as Jamaican, Nigerian, or just a Bristol kid, Simbi had that sound in her blood.
She carried herself like a fierce Rihanna—a no-nonsense beauty queen you didn’t dare cross. Simbi started with small-time drug deals but soon moved into what she called “more civilized ways of making a living.” Bookmaking became her domain, and she ruled it with grit and grace.
“Drugs are for losers—whether you’re buying or selling.”
At secondary school, Simbi tapped into the exploding football betting craze among kids in England. She started writing slips for Premier League games and soon realized that teenage betting fever went far beyond picking winners. Taking inspiration from Las Vegas NFL betting lines—where wagers on every imaginable outcome, from wins and losses to points per quarter, sacks, and more were standard—she adapted the model. Simbi introduced her own creative lines: how many fouls a specific player might commit in the first half, the number of saves a goalkeeper would make, and so on. The kids ate it up, and her operation gained momentum fast. Her betting lines were sharp, and she always paid out on time. Ashley’s friends handled the ‘money side of things,’ managing collections and safeguarding cash after big weekends when thousands of pounds piled up under Simbi’s bed.
After finishing secondary school, Simbi expanded her hustle across Bristol. As sports betting ballooned into a billion-pound industry, she carved out her own niche. She targeted minors in schools and council estates—a market the big players wouldn’t touch. When the kids grew tired of football bets, MMA stepped in to fill the void. Nothing fired up adolescent boys like bloodied faces in a cage. Spotting the potential early, Simbi built betting markets for all kinds of fights, from local scraps to UFC championships.
“I think it just got too big,” she’d say later.
Like any business, growth brings problems and demands more organization—neither of which Simbi had the stomach for. Sports betting had turned into a tedious, high-volume game, skimming just a few percent off each ticket. Drugs, on the other hand, offered bigger profits with fewer headaches. The wholesale side, in particular, was a goldmine. Ashley and Aston had already built an army of enforcers to manage the betting operation, and Simbi pushed them to leverage those networks for a new venture. She decided to dive back into the drug trade—but this time, it wouldn’t be weed. Instead, she zeroed in on pills, which promised hefty returns with minimal risk. Even the police barely cared about these recreational drugs; their focus stayed on heroin, a line Simbi refused to cross. Pills turned into a massive money-maker.
“You wouldn’t believe how much modern yuppies will pay for this stuff,” Simbi told Ashley after a particularly big score. “It looks like prescription meds, feels like it, and pulls in ten times the profit. How could you go wrong?”
As with any drug operation, things eventually went wrong. One night, Ashley and his crew were waiting at the port of Barcelona to pick up a shipment of pills from Antwerp. The plan was to truck the load through Europe, then smuggle it across the Channel to designated drop-off points for Simbi’s domestic crew. Why the pills were routed from Belgium to Barcelona only to be sent back north to the UK was a mystery to Aston—but it didn’t matter. Simbi was the boss.
Smuggling wasn’t typically part of Simbi’s business model, but this deal was, as she put it, ‘too lucrative to leave anything on the table.’ Pills were easy to transport and, with the right treatment, could be kept undetectable by drug-sniffing dogs.
But just as Ashley’s men picked up the shipment, flashing lights flooded the area. The Barcelona police had been tipped off and caught them red-handed. Ashley received a long prison sentence, while Aston and his crew vanished for a while. Simbi, left without backup, had no way to keep her operation running. To make matters worse, she owed a seven-figure sum to the Belgian cartel that had supplied the pills.
“In this business, there’s no force majeure. The only force is the one that comes after you if you don’t pay,” Simbi told her best friend, Sally.
“I have to leave. There’s no future for me here. I can’t make money when my entire crew is either in jail or has vanished off the face of the earth.”
“Where will you go?” Sally asked, her voice shaking with sobs.
“It’s best if you don’t know. I don’t want you caught up in this mess. The less you know, the better.”
Simbi stood up, kissed Sally on the cheek, and slipped out through the back door.
That same night, she left England. Her time on the island was over.
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