The Future, Without Restraint

The first test of the device hadn’t been enough for the implications to sink in. But the experiment had been enough to throw Dr. Julius into a frenzy. Now, night and day, he slaved away over the device behind the deadbolt doors of his private laboratory deep in the mountains, running experiment after experiment, trial after trial. 

He kept it secret, silent. He knew that what he’d made was the sort of thing people died over. As the work progressed Julius took to keeping a pistol beneath his lab coat. If someone was going to die over his discovery, it sure wouldn’t be him.

In all of the commotion of discovery and design, his daughter’s birthday had slipped his mind during one of his long trips to the laboratory bunker.

He hadn’t meant to miss his daughter’s birthday; it had just sort of happened. But she would understand in time. His work was too important. He couldn’t stop, not now, not when he was this close to a breakthrough. He had to keep going, and he would make it up to her as soon as he was done with the next few days of tests.

Thus it was that Julius carried a bright pink and blue birthday card with him as he entered the laboratory on the morning of October thirteenth, his lab coat flaring out behind him, goggles gleaming in the LED overhead lights. He shut the iron doors behind him, locked them tight, and walked down a flight of stairs into the bunker.

The Rewind Machine sat waiting for him in the middle of the room. His magnum opus. The pride of his scientific career. He took a deep breath as he saw it.

It was as tall as he was, shaped like an hourglass made of polished metal with glass tubes running like translucent veins along the contours of the bulbs. A circular hatch was set into the front of each bulb. Nearby on a desk sat the control interface, connected to the Rewind Machine by a coil of wires.

Julius whistled as he sat down at the desk. He placed his daughter’s unwritten birthday card in between the laptop and a few framed portraits of his scientific role models. Heisenberg. Bohr. Einstein. They were some of the few scientists whose stories he knew. He had always loved history, though he had never had much time to study it in depth.

So much he didn’t know. But now, after so many years, Julius stood with them on the shoulders of giants, 

He pulled on a pair of black rubber gloves and began running the day’s tests.

First was an experiment he had devised last night in his hotel. He pulled a sheet of paper out of his lab notebook and wrote “Bad Wolf” on it with a pen. Then he folded the paper in half, creasing it tightly. He opened the hatch on the bottom of the Rewind Machine, set the paper on the flat pedestal inside, shut the door, and then activated the device from the laptop, targeting a time ten minutes in the past.

A low, resonant hum echoed in the dim laboratory. Bright blue light flowed up through the veins of the hourglass, traveling in pulses through the glass. The glow reflected on the steel walls. After a few minutes, the humming went silent, and the light faded away.

Julius stood and opened the hatch on the upper bulb to reveal an unmarked, unfolded sheet of notebook paper sitting on the pedestal inside.

Entropy reversal. Every time he saw it working, Julius wondered anew.

Next came a petri dish full of the remains of an E. Coli colony that he’d disinfected the night before. He set his target time to twenty-four hours earlier. The Rewind Machine hummed again, and when he retrieved the dish from the top hatch, he could see that it was covered in little colonies.

The next test he was most uncomfortable with. But the science didn’t care about his feelings. If he wanted to learn how far he could push the Rewind Machine, he would need to get his hands dirty. There were other reasons to have a pistol on hand.

He walked to a corner of the lab where a family of large, fat rabbits was sitting in a cage. He’d picked them up from a pet store yesterday just for this. 

Julius looked down at them, wincing. His daughter loved rabbits. But what was the worst that could happen? It wouldn’t be dead for long. At least, he didn’t think it would be.

“If this works, I should go public,” he murmured under his breath. “Entropy reversal. This will be the greatest gift the world has ever known.” He fingered the pistol on his belt, trying to convince himself to draw it.

“Will it now?” said a voice with a thick German accent from behind him. 

Julius whirled around.

The man standing behind him wore a black suit over his white button-down, with short-cropped brown hair that poked out at the sides. His eyes sparkled in the dim light, and his lips were drawn in a thin smile. He looked familiar.

In fact, he was the spitting image of one of the pictures on Julius’s desk.

“Who are you?” snapped Julius. “The doors are locked tight behind three different layers of protection! How in the world did you get in here?”

The man chuckled. “Oh, I have my ways,” he said. “My name is Dr. Werner Heisenberg. A pleasure to finally meet you, Dr. Julius!” He stretched out his hand to Julius. Julius just glared at it.

“You’re an imposter and a trespasser,” he said at last. There was venom in his voice. “And you’re a charlatan for trying to use Dr. Heisenberg’s name and face to get away with it. He died decades ago— it would be impossible for him to be here now.”

“Impossible? From the man who invented time travel?” The intruder chuckled, still holding out his hand, but at last he withdrew it when Julius refused to shake it. “Well, suit yourself then. It doesn’t hurt me if you choose to be impolite. And besides—” he strode suddenly towards Dr. Julius’s lab bench, and stared at the Rewind Machine— “this is a much more important part of our conversation tonight. Impressive work, doctor!”

“Touch it and I’ll shoot you,” said Julian.

“Try it.” The man looked him dead in the eyes, smiled, and poked the Rewind Machine with his finger.

Julius hesitated. Then, steeling himself, he snatched the pistol from beneath his lab coat and fired.

It was a clean shot, aimed at the shoulder. A sharp crack that punctured the quiet stillness of the underground bunker. Orange sparks flashed in the dark. The rabbits in the cage cried out, huddling together as far away from the gun as they could.

The bullet passed harmlessly through the man’s suit coat. There was no blood, not so much as a tear in the fabric. Julius’s shot clanged as it hit the back wall of the lab.

The man just stood there, smiling at him, completely unharmed.

“W-what—” Dr. Julius stuttered, dumbfounded. He raised the gun again and fired two more shots. Both were aimed perfectly, but the man didn’t even flinch. It was as if he was shooting empty air.

“A ghost,” whispered Julius. “Or some sort of dark science. Maybe I really am crazy. How- how—”

“Are you done shooting yet? Wonderful.” The man— Dr. Heisenberg, apparently— stepped forward again, plucked the gun right out of Julius’s trembling fingers, and set it down on the desk. “You won’t be needing that, of course. You’ve got a lot to learn tonight, doctor, and not a lot of time to learn it in. You have created a truly marvelous machine— but you yourself do not know what greatness looks like yet— and you must learn if you are to be trusted with an invention like this. Though I am little more than a ghost of myself for now, I have been told that you will listen to me, and so I have been sent to show you.”

“Sent by whom?”

“You would call him the Lawgiver, I suppose. The one who laid down the rules you’ve been studying all your life. Did you not think that he would have any opinions on how something like this should be used?”

“I suppose I didn’t think to ask,” said Julius, too stunned to process that the person he was conversing with had just claimed to be a messenger from God. “But I don’t see why it would matter. How could such a marvelous leap in scientific progress be anything but good?”

Heisenberg shook his head. “It is remarkable how much of the future is built by those who don’t think to look forward. Have you even thought about how the way you use this will affect the world?”

“Of course I have!” said Julius. “Imagine it! The ability to rewind entropy would be the greatest gift the world has ever known. Think of the lives it could save! It could reverse illnesses! Provide eternal youth! Why, it could reverse even death itself! The world would never be the same. The power of unrestrained progress— infinite, extraordinary, truly great!”

Heisenberg didn’t seem to be listening, though. He stared at the wall, eyes distant. “Uncertainty, uncertainty,” he said at last. “You never can quite tell quite where you are and quite where you’re going. Well, you will learn.” With that, he raised one hand and snapped his fingers.

And suddenly Julian found himself somewhere else.

He stood in a room full of light, with a wide window open to the countryside. The walls were gray, with a dark wooden bookshelf off to one side of the window and cluttered lab bench directly beneath it.

“What?” said Julius. “What is this?”

In the center of the room was a portly man in a dark brown suit. He was bald, with a round face and circular spectacles resting atop a rather large nose. A little mustache puffed out from his upper lip. He was standing at a table with a mess of tubes and pressure gauges on top, muttering to himself and writing down notes on a piece of paper.

“Who are you?” said Julian. The man didn’t so much as glance at him. “Hello?” Still nothing.

“He can’t hear you.” said the voice of Heisenberg from behind him.

Julian jumped again. “If you’re going to appear out of nowhere, must you do it behind me every time?” he snapped. “And what new witchcraft is this? Where have you taken me?”

“I’ve taken you to my home country. Germany, 1909. A vision of it, at least.” Heisenberg smiled, peering out of the window. “This is the day the world changed. I was only eight at the time.”

Julius blinked. “What happened?”

“Watch and see.” Heisenberg gestured towards the portly man. Julian watched as the man placed a sheet of metal into one of the tubes, then sealed it shut. The man adjusted a few dials, flipped a switch, and suddenly a pump began whirring loudly.

“A rather primitive device,” said Julian as he watched intently. “But I suppose that’s how they all begin.”

After several uneventful minutes, a few drops of clear liquid dripped through a little tube into a container resting on the table. The portly man froze, stared at the liquid, and his eyes went wide. “Ammoniak,” he whispered. Then he bolted up from the table, threw his notepad onto the floor, and began crying out in German: “Ich habe es geschafft! Kommen Sie und sehen Sie!” He rushed out into the hallway, and moments later, a crowd of scientists began filing into the laboratory, speaking in hushed whispers as they pointed at the machine. The portly man gestured proudly towards it, rambling about something that Julius couldn’t understand and beaming like he’d just harnessed the sun.

“That is Fritz Haber,” said Heisenberg, pointing towards the first scientist. “He was a national hero during the first part of my lifetime. You just watched him invent a way to synthesize ammonia”

“Why should I care about the invention of a cleaning chemical? What will he do- wash my windows?”

“That ‘cleaning chemical’ is the basis of all chemical fertilizer, and it is what keeps over half of the world alive, Dr. Julius. Four billion people today depend on this invention to put food on the table, and they don’t even know it. You yourself have just shown this aptly.”

Julius’s eyes went wide. “Why, that’s incredible! It’s a marvel I’ve never heard of him. No wonder he was viewed as a hero! He must be the greatest pride of Germany! He did so much good!”

“And why do you think he did it?”

The doctor paused. “I suppose I don’t know. But I would hope that he had the best of motives. Provide for his family, bless the world, do good. And I’m sure this made him fabulously wealthy, so good on him. He worked very hard for it. But I don’t see why his motivations matter if the results were good. His own self-interest would have motivated him to do something beneficial for the world. Like I said— how could such wonderful progress be anything but good?”

Heisenberg chuckled. “Very good, Dr. Julius! For Haber, there was perhaps a streak of selflessness amongst his ego, pride, ambition, and self-interest. But he did so much good with it!” The ghostly doctor leaned in closer. “Would you like to see what else he did?”

Julius grinned. “Certainly. I would love to learn more about such a great man.”

Heisenberg’s smile dropped, and he shook his head sadly. “Then you will learn.” He snapped his fingers once again.

This time Julius found himself crouched in a dugout trench behind a mound of dirt. He glanced down and found that his clothing had changed, too. Instead of his lab coat, he was wearing an olive green jacket and trousers with glossy black boots underneath. He had a metal cap on his head and a rifle in one hand. All around him, soldiers were shooting in what sounded like French over the low boom of artillery fire echoing in the twilight.

This was not what he had been expecting.

“Heisenberg? Where have you taken me now?” cried Julius. He leapt up over the top of the trenches, then ducked back down screaming as an explosion rocked the ground in front of him. “Heisenberg!” 

There was no response.

Julius peeked up over the rim of the mound in front of him and found himself staring into a wasteland: blasted dirt charred brown and lifeless, pockmarked with craters, smoking and smoldering. In the distance, he saw the glint of metal beneath great columns of smoke. Every few seconds a burst of bright orange flame erupted within the smoke, and then he would see a blast of dirt somewhere to his left or right, and the whole earth shook. The wind was in his face, carrying with it the scent of smoke, sweat, and offal.

Then, all at once, the bursts of flame from across the battered landscape stopped.

A few French soldiers leapt up and began firing their rifles. One looked at him, irritated, and gestured forwards. “Tirer! Tirer!” he yelled. Julius ignored him. Something strange had begun creeping across the battlefield.

A cloud of pale mist, yellow-green, was rolling towards them with the wind. It approached with frightening speed, and as it crept closer, Julius heard the sound of gunfire around him begin to fall silent.

Julius felt a chill. What was that? Some sort of gas cloud? Haber hadn’t been able to hear him in the vision earlier, so he doubted that the gas would affect him at all. But if the soldier next to him had been able to see him…

The cloud flowed over him, and he felt his doubts about its effects dissolve as his eyes, nose, and throat all began to burn like fire. Screams rose in a chorus around him.

He cried out and fell over, clutching at his throat, and saw the soldiers around him doing the same. The mist had pooled in the trench behind the dirt mound, and he clawed at the dirt, trying to escape. Air! He needed air! He felt his stomach heaving, and he began coughing violently. His lungs were burning now too.

“Heisenberg!” he croaked. His voice was hoarse and cracked. Was the man trying to kill him? He felt himself weakening. The soldier that had yelled at him collapsed, eyes wide, gasping for air.

Julius’s vision began to go dark.

And then he heard the sound of snapping fingers behind him, and he appeared on a hilltop looking down on the green cloud from the other direction. The wind was at his back now, with the poison gas flowing forwards, away from him. Julius fell to the ground coughing, trying to catch his breath. It was getting darker. Screams echoed from across the blasted ground below him.

Standing over him was Fritz Haber. But the man was nearly unrecognizable. Dressed in a stiff military coat with a pointed helm covering his bald head, his glasses glinted like steel in the moonlight as he stared down at the battlefield, All traces of mirth in his round face had been replaced by a grim smile.

A shout echoed from what must have been the German side of the battlefield. Armed troops with spiked helmets began marching towards the advancing cloud. All the while, Haber watched stoic and silent.

Heisenberg appeared beside him, staring at Julius with searching eyes. “The darker side of Haber’s legacy,” he said. “Chlorine gas on the fields of Ypres. The same man, the same motivations. How should he be remembered, do you think?”

“I… I don’t know,” said Julius. Moments ago he would have praised Haber’s ingenuity, his willingness to push bounds for the benefit of humanity. But the taste of chlorine gas still lingered in his mouth, the smell of it in his nose, muddling his thoughts and feelings. “It is hard to praise it, now that I have felt it myself. But I suppose that if it had worked well it could have ended the war sooner.”

“It didn’t,” said Heisenberg. “It was an ineffective weapon of war in the long run. Much better as a weapon of hate and terror. It provoked both from his enemies, and they came upon Germany with a vengeance.” The ghostly scientist looked down at where Julius lay sprawled on the floor. “He was a pioneer. His legacy is in the lifeblood of civilization, a stream of ammonia coursing through the veins of half the world. And his legacy poisons those veins with weapons of terror and tragedy that still claim lives today. But not as war weapons— as weapons used on civilians. The gasses he developed were eventually used on his own family, you know. Hitler saw to that. His ammonia, too, was used for dragging out the war. Perhaps the next chapter of his life would not have been so depressingly miserable if his ‘unquestionably great’ invention had not given Germany arms and endurance beyond its natural capacity. ” Heisenberg paused, and took a deep breath. Tears glistened in his eyes. Then raised his hand again. “Speaking of his family—” he said. “Let’s take a look, shall we? He worked so hard. Surely his family must have been proud of such a great man.”

“Wait! Not yet!” said Julius. He was still trying to catch his breath.

Heisenberg just grinned and snapped his fingers, and Julius felt himself falling. 

He saw. He saw images from Haber’s life flashing in front of him, fast as lightning and yet still comprehensible.

 He saw a young man in glasses, screaming at his father. Then he saw the same young man, balding, hunched over a paper with his hands on his forehead. Haber as a youth, struggling with unfulfilled dreams of greatness.

Again and again scenes from Haber’s life flashed before him. He saw Haber claw out a career in academia. He saw him walking out of a chemistry lab with a woman, and then saw them marry. He saw her give up her studies at his insistence. He saw Haber collapse under the weight of his own studies and travel to the mountains to recover. His wife was left behind. He saw him return, and shouting erupted in the home. Long hours in the lab followed, always working, always away from home. His family was left behind.

He saw ammonia. He saw wealth, prestige, power, position. He saw scores of guests making merry at parties in the Haber house. His wife wasn’t there with them. She knelt on her knees in a side room, all alone, weeping.

He saw war begin in Germany, and Haber left for the front. His ammonia was used to make gunpowder, and gunpowder was used to make more war that needed more gunpowder. He saw his wife agonizing alone with her young son, struggling to take care of him. He saw Haber’s tests with chlorine gas. His wife watched as animal test subjects twitched and died in gas chambers, looking away with terror in her eyes.

He saw Ypres again. Soldiers wretched in the dirt while Haber watched from far away.

A few days later, Haber traveled home to celebrate his success. More guests. Another party.

All alone in the world, his wife Clara crept out into the backyard in the moonlight, and shot herself in the chest with Haber’s pistol. 

His little son found the body. 

Haber left home for the war front again in the morning.

he saw him marry again— an aging, weary man battling with his health. There was more shouting. That marriage ended better than the first— in divorce. 

And then the war ended, and Germany collapsed. He saw the scientist's wealth and reputation crumbling. He saw red banners raised over Germany, and saw Haber exiled from home. He saw him trying to scrabble for a living in Britain. The British government was no help. Their soldiers had died in Haber’s gas clouds. He saw regret creeping into Haber’s eyes, into his letters, into his relationships.

And at last, he saw Haber collapse in a hospital, all alone in the world. His eyes were wide and sad as he lay in bed, gasping for air. Then, at last, they closed behind his glittering glasses.

As quickly as the visions had appeared, Julius found himself back in his own laboratory.
He swooned as if he had just been thrown about in a storm. His eyes were damp with tears. His daughter’s birthday card stared back at him from his desk, pink and blue. She’d been with her mother, without him, on her birthday.

Heisenberg appeared next to him a moment later, his expression unreadable.

“I saw it all,” whispered Julius. “His whole life.” He ran his finger along the top of the birthday card. “He paid such a high cost…”

Heisenberg nodded.

“Was it worth it for him, do you think? His drive, his ambition, his efforts? The long hours away from his family? Was he, or his work, unquestionably great?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” The images flashed through Julius’s memory. The poor man, all alone on his deathbed with a heart full of regrets…
There was a long silence. At last, Julius spoke. “He left behind those who could have been most important to him. He lost himself in work that gave him nothing in return, that hurt him in the long run. I don’t want to die like him.” He started pacing the lab feverishly. “But what should he have done? Without his drive the world would have starved. Should he have given up his research? Let his discoveries languish away for the sake of his family? Would that have helped them in the end? It took a great deal of personality and persistence for his work to come to fruition. Even with gas and tragedy to taint his legacy, the world needs ammonia, and he was the man to bring it to us. He could not have done so without that persistence, that willingness to sacrifice!”

“Perhaps not,” said Heisenberg.

“I refuse to believe that giving up on determination is the answer!” said Julius. He whirled on Heisenberg. “It is wrong. There has to be another way, a way to live a better life than Haber did and to still dedicate myself to my work!” 

“As a fellow scientist I agree wholeheartedly. Progress must be pursued; simply refusing to engage with science is not the answer,” said Heisenberg. Then his voice went hard. “But it must be pursued ethically, morally, in proper modes and through correct channels. It must remain a means to an end, not an end unto itself. For Haber it was an end, and his decisions to put that end above all else destroyed his family and his legacy.”

“And how is that to be done, then? If personal drive does not make scientific greatness, then what does?” Julius was pacing around the room now, waving his arms in agitation. “Where are the boundaries on how much should be sacrificed in the pursuit of knowledge? That knowledge is inherently valuable, and it is worth sacrificing for, even if it comes at a steep price to the individual and to society— even if it comes at great cost to me!”

“I’m afraid that I can’t answer those questions for you,” said Heisenberg. “It’s not my place to decide your boundaries. Uncertainty in principles, in questions, and in all things— it’s all a part of life’s grand design. You are learning that such boundaries are a part of greatness, and that is enough for now.” He paused. “But I can show you someone who I feel found better answers to those questions than Haber did. Would you like to see?”

Julius was quiet. “I suspect you would show me whether or not I did,” he said at last. “But yes. Yes, I would like to see. I will learn.”

“Good,” said Heisenberg. His eyes twinkled. “Then let us take a stroll through the life of Dr. Claire Patterson.” He snapped his fingers once again.

The falling sensation returned, as did the rush of images. This time Julius saw a young boy playing with a chemistry set, beaming as he mixed reagents together. Then he saw what looked to be the aftermath of a college graduation. A tall, thin man with glasses was walking hand-in-hand with a curly-haired woman next to him, both dressed in a cap and gown. The two were laughing loudly as they walked. He wondered which one was Claire.

Next he saw them together at a table with some of the greats— Einstein, Oppenheimer, others. The man and the woman looked glum. A television screen with an image of a gigantic mushroom cloud loomed before them in black and white. A man in a military uniform came around, handing out suit pins. The two took them slowly, fingering them, not putting them on. They threw them away as they walked out of the room. 

Next he saw the man— Dr. Patterson, he supposed— on a boat, sailing out over the ocean. He came home to a lab, a meticulously clean lab, with water samples on his desk. He saw the man frown as he wrote down test results.

Lead in the waters, they read. Lead in the air and in the earth. Lead in blood. Lead, lead, lead. Poison everywhere.

But when he came home, he took the time to talk to his wife. He shared his results with them. There were children now. He took time for them.

Where could it have come from? Julius saw his research turn to the smoke from factories and power plants, from cars and soldering, to the toys and cans of the world around him. He saw his research turn to gasoline. Tetraethyl lead. Poison in the fumes. Poison in the air.

A world unsafe for his children.

Letters followed. One after another. He was laughed at. He was mocked. He wrote and wrote and wrote, sharing his results and continuing his research. He was determined, impeccable.

His funding disappeared— at first. But still he wrote and researched, worked and worked and worked. Other sources of income came, even as his enemies worked to silence him. Allies joined his cause. He kept working, kept fighting. His family fought the fight with him— they did not fight him, nor did he fight them.

The mockery, the criticism, the silencing— it wore on him heavily. He hated it. He could have stopped— gone back to geochemistry, stopped pushing. He would have been forgotten.

He kept fighting.

Change began. The lead that spewed into the air began to stop. Toys made with it disappeared. He had four children now.

The world would be safe for them.

He saw him laughing at his daughter’s birthday party. He laughed a lot, from what Julius could see. He was always smiling.

He was old and thin when he died. He, too, struggled to breathe. But as the last ragged breath passed his lips, there was a smile on his face.

Julius appeared in his lab again. Heisenberg reappeared a moment later.

“Well?” said the ghost. “What did you learn?”

Just like last time, it took Julius a moment to think through what he’d seen. “He worked very hard,” he said. “Just as hard as Haber. But that second man— Dr. Patterson— didn't neglect his family. He supported them.”

“Indeed,” said Heisenberg. “His son remembers Claire and Lorna— Claire’s wife— quite fondly. They lived a good life together. What else was different?”

“His work didn’t seem to do him any good. He had to fight against the chemical industry every day to convince it to do things in a way that was safer for everyone.”

“And he was happy!” said Heisenberg. The scientist suddenly burst with uncharacteristic exuberance. “He laughed and loved! He did so much good. There is no controversy with his legacy. His name was not forgotten out of discomfort. You’re right— he worked just as hard as Haber. But he channeled his determination and drive in their proper context, for the right reasons! It may not have given him the wealth and prestige and power that Haber enjoyed for a season, but he didn’t need it— because he had everything else he needed.” He spun on Julius. “Now tell me, doctor— was it worth it?”

“I think it was,” said Julius. He spoke slowly and carefully. “He lived a good life. He didn’t choose to see a false dichotomy of choosing between his family and career. He chose both, and was able to succeed at both. Is that greatness, then? Channeling determination for the right reasons?” 

“That is a key part of it. You are seeing it now,” said Heisenberg. The ghostly doctor took a few steps away from Julius, and turned his gaze on the Rewind Machine. “I must go soon. I only have so long with you. But before I go, Dr. Julius, I don’t think I need to tell you that this device has the potential to change the world just as much if not more than Haber’s ammonia. It could do more good than Patterson’s anti-lead campaigning. You are every bit the genius that they were. You are an Einstein, a Bohr, a Haber in embryo, ready to rattle the world.”

He turned to Julius. “But Dr. Julius, you must remember— you get to choose how this machine gets used, at least for now. You have the power to decide your course in scientific history because science is a tool, not a master! It is not good or bad or worth it any more than you choose to make it. It is good, worth it, and great when you use it morally, to do good, to bless your family and the world around you! You get to choose how it fits into your life, how it impacts your world and your family! Others will eventually come and do what they will with your ideas. But you are accountable for your own actions, not theirs. You get to set the course! How far will you go to test it? Rabbits? People? What else? How will you use your inventions? That matters so much more than the inventions themselves! And that, Dr. Julius— that is what true scientific greatness is. Science and morality working together as one.”

He frowned, and spoke softly. “I have seen too much of what happens when science is separated from morality— unless you’d forgotten that I worked under Hitler’s payroll for a time. I did not see it as clearly then as I do now, but I still chose, despite my disagreements with his regime. Now I am dead, and that decision will taint my memory forever. You still have so much life ahead of you. You get to choose your legacy. It will be one of the things you can’t rewind.” Suddenly he stopped talking, and laughed. “Ah, look at me rambling on. Li would think it was one of my letters to her. Well, I suppose I’ve bored you long enough with my own story. I must leave you to write your own. You have enough to chew on for one night.”

He stepped forwards and moved towards the door.

“Wait!” said Julius. For once, Heisenberg stopped and looked back.

“What is it?”

“When— if— I go public with this… will my family be safe? If there is a— a Lawmaker that sent you— can’t he tell me, through you?”

“Perhaps he can,” said Heisenberg. “But where’s the fun in that? Uncertainty is a fact of life, my dear doctor. I gave you all you need to keep them safe. The rest is up to you now.”

He grinned, looking back at Julius with a twinkle in his eye. “Remember, doctor. You get to choose to do the best you can to keep them safe and happy. You get to choose greatness.” He gestured towards the Rewind Machine. 

“It’s up to you now. Good or bad? What will you make of it? As for me— I believe that you can be truly greater than I ever was. Remember what is important.” He turned back towards the door. 

“Auf Wiedersehen, Dr. Julien. I look forward to seeing what you accomplish, and who you will become.” He raised his hand. 

“Till we meet again!” With that, Heisenberg snapped his fingers one last time. Then he vanished in a flash of light, and the laboratory was still and quiet again. There was no sound but the rustle of frightened rabbits huddling together.

Julius was silent for a long while. Eventually the rabbits calmed down and began to wander around the cage again, munching on the food he had left for them.

He glanced down at the rabbits. He glanced at the gun on the table. He glanced at the pink and blue birthday card, still sitting on the table. He glanced at the Rewind Machine. He’d spent so long on it, and yet there was still so much to do.

His mind went back to Haber’s son, all alone in the house on the night his mother had died.

Perhaps it was time to reevaluate why he was spending so much time on the Machine. He would surely be useless after such a stunning encounter anyways; he needed time to think, to process what he had just seen and heard.

For now, there was other important work to do.

He picked up the card and started writing. Dear Charlotte, he wrote. I am sorry I missed your birthday. Daddy has been very busy lately, but he wants to be better. I brought you home something extra special to make up for it. I hope you love it! Happy birthday. Love, daddy.

He folded the card and put it in his trouser pocket before he stepped over to the rabbit cage, unlocked it, and scooped a particularly fat bunny into his arms. Then he walked out of the door, locking it behind him. He left the gun sitting where Heisenberg had left it on the table.

As he walked up the stairs towards the mountain road that would carry him home, he ran his fingers through the fur on the rabbit’s head. It nuzzled him with his nose.

He smiled.

His daughter had always loved rabbits.

End

Bibliography

Organized by which figure the source provided information on.

1. Charles, Daniel. Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare. Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

2. “World Population with and without Synthetic Nitrogen Fertilizers.” n.d. Our World in Data. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-with-and-without-fertilizer#:~:text=Best%20estimates%20project%20that%20just%20over%20half%20of.

3. Patterson, Clair. “Interview with Clair C. Patterson.” CaltechOralHistories, 1 Jan. 1997, oralhistories.library.caltech.edu/32/.

4. “Saving Our Planet from Lead, the Story of Clair and Laurie Patterson – the Complement.” 2022. March 25, 2022. https://thecomplement.info/2022/03/25/saving-our-planet-from-lead-the-story-of-clair-and-laurie-patterson/.

5. Patterson, Clair, and George Tilton. 1922. “Biography of Clair Cameron Patterson, 1998.” https://history.iowa.gov/sites/default/files/history-education-pss-world-clair-transcription.pdf.

6. Beyler, Richard. 2019. “Werner Heisenberg | Biography, Nobel Prize, & Facts.” In Encyclopædia Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Werner-Heisenberg.

7. Popova, Maria. 2018. “Werner Heisenberg Falls in Love: The Love Letters of the Nobel-Winning Pioneer of Quantum Mechanics and Originator of the Uncertainty Principle.” The Marginalian. February 14, 2018. https://www.themarginalian.org/2018/02/14/dear-li-werner-heisenberg-love-letters/.

8. “Werner Heisenberg - Biography.” n.d. Maths History. https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Heisenberg/.

9. Non, Sic et. 2019. “Werner Heisenberg on Religion.” Sic et Non. November 11, 2019. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2019/11/werner-heisenberg-on-religion.html.

10. “Werner Heisenberg: Science, Mysticism, Christianity - EnlightenedCrowd.” 2019. August 8, 2019. https://enlightenedcrowd.org/werner-heisenberg-science-mysticism-christianity/.