Achieving Serenity

The Dusky Lot

"Okay well, I can't force them to believe me. Are you going to help me out? My grandson is in peril," Larry said with a more calming tone. Gilbert put a hand over his shoulder.

"We need to migrate. I always have your back, and I've been strategizing ways to take down The Dusky Lot ever since their first murders. This village is not safe, and we must find a new civilization. If we head west, we can get to my airbase that I know The Dusky Lot has not invaded."

The two men packed their essentials into a large black car and jetted off into the horizon. During the ride, Gilbert discussed his plans for infiltrating The Dusky Lot and rescuing Jack. They traveled for sixteen hours before they touched base at Gilbert's mall-sized airbase.

Four years pass and Jack is still missing, however, the two men are hopeful in their conquest. They haven't given up hope because they understand that in order for their plan to execute flawlessly, they needed to run thousands of experiments so they could fully understand how The Dusky Lot weaponry functions, specifically their base defense weaponry. The manufactured various sorts of avatars to blitz the headquarters, and study each and every one of their defenses.

Larry began journaling quite some time ago and was now writing about how it appears as if all signs are pointing to the fact that he needs to accept this loss. People were convincing him that his grandson was safe and that at most he was just recruited to their society. Larry refused to accept this and continued to study new tactics for getting into their base. He wrote in his journal about how he felt like God himself was telling him he needs to give up and move on. He writes that it is taking every bit of strength in his will to go against what feels natural. Larry does not care if his grandson is safe; he wants him home.

They were training an army. So far they had recruited over 3,000 men and women, all dedicated to taking down The Dusky Lot. Gilbert had a plan he has been working on for the past decade, and it appears it is finally ready to be activated.

The entire base of The Dusky Lot is filled with Avatars and a very small amount of actual humans. The building is the size of a football stadium and is protected by computerized guns. Gilbert created a virus that will trick the guns and all the avatars into thinking they are seeing and experiencing whatever happened ten minutes ago, instead of what is happening right now. Once the defenses are down, their army will rush the headquarters, destroying their defense weaponry, and murdering any members on site, with the obvious exception of Larry's grandson.

The entire army does not know about Larry's chest wound, and fully accept that The Dusky Lot do in fact have twenty-three-year-old Jack at their headquarters. It is today that they all banded together, preparing to charge through at The Dusky Lot base.

They stopped at a designated location one hundred feet from the base. Gilbert pressed a button on a hologram monitor, and after a moment, he gave Larry a nod.

Larry, the leader of this army, gave the word.

"GO!"

The army charged at the base, and Gilbert's virus proved successful as none of the base-defense weaponry responded to the army's arrival. They shot through the front doors and entered the lobby as bullets teemed the atmosphere. A group of SWAT members arrived at the scene but were quickly disintegrated by the army's firepower.

Larry charged through room after room, murdering unsuspecting avatars after another. He finally kicked open a thick door, and four men in lab coats, and another familiar-looking, scruffy man who was dressed normally inside what looked like an avatar box. They all put their hands in the air as one of them in lab coats slid over a large, black rifle, clearly surrendering.

"Grandpa!!" the familiar looking man said. Larry pointed his rifle at him, not believing it was actually Jack. He wasn't familiar because they were related. He was familiar because of something else.

The rifle... the man. This was the man that shot him so many years ago.

"Grandpa, it's me!!" the man said and came running at him to hug him. Larry let his arms relax as he accepted the hug. It was definitely Jack's voice and eyes.

"What is going on in here?" Larry asked?

"They're using me to do their bidding!" Jack exclaimed, "They are building a time machine but every time they send me through it, nothing happens. They want me to murder some little boy from the past because he grows up to blow up the planet."

One of the men in lab coats spoke up. "We are working to find out what happens when someone is sent back in time and murders his grandfather before he has children. We've had successful time-travel sessions, but we want to find out everything we can about the Grandfather paradox."

Larry looked around the room, taking in every detail of the laboratory. He removed his armor and ripped his shirt open to see that his chest wound had completely vanished. For the first time since he was twelve years old, he saw his chest fully intact.

"But... how..." Larry was speechless. "Time travel...? But If I never got shot, then why do I have a memory of being shot?"

"Grandpa, what is wrong with you?" Jack asked. Larry never showed his grandson the scar, fearing he would attribute the story as elderly nonsense.

"I think I know what's going on," Gilbert pipedup. "Larry, the only reason I truly believed you ever since you told me thescar story because I'm also a time traveler. I committed a crime about 5,000years in the future and my punishment was to be sent back here: to a periodwhere time-travel hasn't been invented yet. When I saw your scar, I knew whatit was. Jeez, The Dusky Lot must be the first in history to invent time-traveltechnology. In the future, lots of people have tried the old Grandfatherparadox to see what really happens," Gilbert said as he let out a chuckle."That's funny; the whole time you were trying to save your grandson, you wereactually saving yourself."