Why Should I Die? Chapter 5

“It all started back in May of 2018.” Jo begins his story. “I was twenty years old at the time with no prospects of a future. No job and no money. I couldn't even afford the tuition to go to a Technical School to learn a trade.”

“I was walking from store to store, in what was once called a strip mall, filling out applications and leaving resumes at each one. Out of the blue I received a cell phone call from my soon to be wife, Natalie. My High School sweetheart.”

Jo looks around and ponders how most of the Trustees are younger than he, but still says, “Most of you remember cell phones I'm sure.”

Continuing his narrative, Van Hause articulates, “She wanted to tell me something that was very important to her, and yet, she was tentative about saying it.”

“She relented to my pressure though and told me; I have wonderful news for you. I'm calling to let you know that I'm pregnant.”

“That was my only child, my son Allenby she was talking about.”

“I was so happy hearing the news, that I remember thinking to myself, things were going to turn around for me now.”

Jo pauses in his story so he can smile as he reminiscences about his wife and child.

“With the elation of having a kid overwhelming my thoughts, right then and there I asked Natalie to marry me. Of course, as all of you know, she said yes!”

“What has this to do with your proof!” Demanded an outraged Mr. Chang. “Is your proof to bore us to death?”

Before the Chairman can answer, his friend stands up, takes a few steps towards Chang in anger and shouts, “You damn conniving puppet of Trustee Paley. One more interruption by you and I'll come over to your chair and show you how effective a punch in the mouth can still be in this day and age!”

“Thank you Peter.” Says a smiling Van Hause. “I don't believe that will be necessary, but lets keep our options open just in case.”

The Chairman continues with his narrative by saying, “At first I was so, so happy about becoming a father and husband, that I thought of nothing else. But the more I did think about things, the more I began to panic! How was I supposed to take care of a wife and child with no future before me?” Mr. Van Hause didn't expect or wait for someone to answer. “Then something happened that sent me on the road to riches!”

“I was crossing a street in the busiest part of a city once called San Bernardino, when a drunk driver came swerving over to run me down. A man in his early twenties jumps out of thin air and rescues me from getting plowed over by a black SUV.”

Charles Paley thought about interrupting at this juncture, but saw Peter Blakely from the corner of his eyes watching him. He stays silent.

“To say the least, I was shaken by the experience. I saw the SUV speed up down the street, never stopping to see if I was OK. I never did get the license plate number either. I did want to thank my savior though, but he was already half a block away running in the same direction as the vehicle. After that I thought that was the end of it.”

“I was wrong. Three years later almost in the exact spot where that car tried to run me over. The same man who had saved me, is now confronting me, saying how he has to make things right. He says he has changed time and has to change it back!”

“Lucky for me, I was in pretty good shape back then. Probably from all the walking I was doing from being unemployed for three years while taking odd jobs to pay the bills.”

“He lunged at me with a knife! Thankfully I was able to subdue him, without getting hurt, while another person passing by called the Police.”

Jo takes a sip of water before he says, “It wasn't long afterwards, when he was in custody, that he starts spouting outlandish statements of how he is from the future, that I wasn't supposed to be alive, and that the only way to set things straight was to kill me. Of course at his bail hearing the Judge refused to set a bond amount so he could be held and evaluated by a county psychologist! He never left that facility. In fact he is alive today and still housed at the old San Bernardino Psychiatric Hospital for the Criminally Insane."

Whispers can be overheard from the far reaches of the Board Room and teleconference messages are being relayed by implants from brain to brain, as the Chairman's opponents try to block him from listening in.

“Yes, the same Hospital I donated a million gold units to over the years. That money has bought me his continued captivity even when he was evaluated as sane!”

Now all the Trustees are on the attack with their private nano-armies, except for Peter. The old man has admitted to a criminal act of keeping a person hostage for his own benefit. They all start searching their law data base on kidnapping and hostage taking, hoping to find how these facts can take down Van Hause in a Court of Law!

“It wasn't until I was asked by his attending Psychologist, who I found out later wanted to write a paper on his subject, that I had my first conversation with Nestor Bayani.”

“I recall the initial title to the Psychologist's paper; The implication of the confused mind when that person saves someone, then is obsessed on killing the person he saved.”

“It was never published though, as I became quick friends with the Political forces controlling the hospital, once I started donating large amounts of money.”

“Before all that happened, the Psychologist wanted to see how Mr. Bayani would react if I came in, talked to him, and showed him that I wasn't the monster he imagined, but a real human being!”

“I don't know what it was, but after talking to him, I knew Nestor was telling me the truth!"

Outside the Board Room, the attacks intensify. Inside, only moans, groans, and whispers, are heard from his opponents. Which is everyone now except for Jo's two friends.

“I got the opportunity to ask him, when the Psychologist suggested I speak to Nestor alone; Why should I die? I have a wonderful wife, a beautiful child, and I deserve the right to watch him grow up!”

“Then with a lot of anger, the questions I had for him came pouring out!”

“What kind of person would believe some nut off the street saying my death would make the World a better place? A better place for whom? Surely not my son's, nor my wife's! Surely not for me! Then, why should I die?”

“What person in their right mind would want to commit suicide, not having lived a life of his own, before believing things would change for the better? Think of all the life experiences I would miss out on not being here. Think of all the joy of seeing my boy become a father of his own. Think how devastating my death would be to my wife! Why should I die then?”

“I remember grabbing him by the neck collar, then I started asking; What would be so damn different if I wasn't here? Would there be universal peace the next day across the globe? Would violence, torture, and killings from one human being towards another human being cease to exist? Would prejudice stop? Would hatred? Would greed? Would crime?”

“I if didn't exist today, would all the warfare going on right now stop? Would all the future confrontations between Nations be settled by peaceful negotiations?”

“No,” was all he said.”

“I almost screamed at him, then why should I die?"

“After calming down, I asked him; What special event happened in the year twenty-twenty-two that was changed since I'm alive?”

“I knew I had tricked him into thinking that the year 2022 had passed by because he thought about it for awhile and then said; All I can think of is, United States won the Men's World Cup!”

“I had a hearty laugh at that! If you remember our old United States, we were not very good at Soccer and it wasn't a very popular sport in our country!”

“When the time came though, I did bet all the money I had, seven hundred fifty dollars, on a fifty to one chance that the U.S. Soccer team would win it all!”

With Jo smiling he says, “I thought, after collecting my winnings, that I had become rich. Not until I realized what a gold mine I had by knowing the future!”

“I knew what I had to do. I convinced the Psychologist to let me talk with Mr. Bayani once a week. He could use my sessions with Nestor and any information we talked about in his paper. He was planning on publishing it in, The Psychiatric Journal of Modern Medicine. He thought he would become famous, but I became rich faster!”

“Nestor on the other hand, at first thought he was convincing me that my death would change things back to what he thought was normal. Not understanding that the cause and effect he set in motion when he saved my life did not change our world universally all at once. But started a sequence of events from a fixed point in time, expanding from there in a cone shape. Until we have the world we live in today!”

Now the interruption comes from his friend. “He didn't understand he was feeding you future events?”

“No my friend.” Jo answers. “He didn't understand that at all. Even though he did alter the way some future events were going to come out, most of the things we talked about in our sessions still happened! Most of the time he talked in grandiose terms of beautiful things to come, which he now believed would not happen because I was alive!"

“Then why couldn't you have prevented the destruction of five of the most populated cities of the World?” Questions Peter.

“All the horrible future events came as an afterthought to him. He would say things like; Maybe it is good that I saved your life. In my time line, on this coming Friday, North Korean terrorists would have simultaneously set off small Nuclear devices in New York, Beijing, Moscow, Paris, and London if I hadn't changed the future. He never warned me about devastating events like that until it was much too late!”

“Did you ever ask him?” Requests Peter.

“Of course I asked him! On more than one occasion too! If something terrible was going to happen soon, he would never mention it until it was much too late!”

“He only wanted to talk about events that were in his mind, important, beautiful, and for the betterment of mankind. I imagine he thought, this was the only way to convince me that my death was important.”

“Did this Mr. Bayani ever realize over time what kind of information he was feeding you?” Asks Peter.

Then with a little more rigidness in his tone he questions. “Didn't he ever try to deceive you?”

“Yes he did. Later on I had to learn how to trade information for information, trade the kind of food he liked for information, anything he wanted but his freedom for information.”

“What do you mean exactly?” Asks Peter. A little confused on why this Bayani fellow would keep on talking all those years. “Anything he wanted except for his freedom. What other leverage did you possess over him?”

“I told him, I knew who his Father and Mother were, where they live, and how easily it would be to have one of them disappear before he was born! After that, how easy it would be to have his other self killed and he would simply disappear!”

That was it. The final straw, thought Chang. He try’s to communicate with Charles Paley but he is blocked from his cohort while Paley talks out loud to Van Hause!

“Why would he go back in time to save your life?” Asks Mr. Paley calmly. “It is painfully obvious that you have treated this poor fellow like dirt since his captivity. Less than dirt I would say. Wouldn't he have known this ahead of time?”

Jo looks to Mr. Paley, surprised by his calmness, but answers, “He wasn't there to save my life per se. He wanted to save his Grandfather from running me over, fleeing the scene of an accident, and eventually going to jail for Vehicle Manslaughter. He told me it started a spiral of violence within the family after his Grandfather lost his job by going to jail. The Grandfather blamed the family for all of his problems.” He pauses here for a moment, surprised how intently Mr. Paley seems to be listening. Continuing Van Hause says, “Did you ever hear of the cycle of violence, from one generation to the next generation in a family? Where one or more Parent is violent and abusive against their offspring. Then, when those offspring grow up and marry, having children of their own, they abuse their own children. And so on.”

“Nestor Bayani believed, if he could stop his Grandfather from running me over while in a drunken stupor, his Grandfather wouldn't be as abusive to his son, Nestor's Father. Which in turn would stop Nestor's Father from being abusive to him and his Mother.”

“Actually, Nestor's Mother was beaten to death by his Father in a horrible drunken rage when Nestor was about ten years old. He actually wanted to save his Mother from this fate.”

“To answer your second question, right now as we speak, a young twenty year old Nestor is preparing himself to go back in time from the Tempus Project's Time Machine this company has already developed, without the knowledge that he has already change the time line!”

“Who sent him back the first time then if you were not alive?” Peter asks.

“My son.” Jo says sadly. “In the time line that Nestor speaks of, my wife and my son don't die in a two car pile up with a drunk driver!” A strange look crosses Jo Van Hause's face. “I'm not sure if you would call that a paradox, but my family would grow old, my son would get married, and he would have children of his own if I die at the hands of Nestor's Grandfather while he was drunk! Because I lived, they died from a different drunk driver!”

“That's all very interesting.” Chimes in Mr. Chang, then angrily adds, “But I doubt anyone here is actually believing these prevaricating statements your trying to hand us. All you're trying to do is stop us from removing you as C.E.O. with a bunch of lies! You're trying to stop us from attacking your Red Nano-Guards! You're trying to stop us by distracting our attack with this outlandish story so you can have the upper hand and destroy us all!”