"Yes, Mark Tanner, Ironfriend, time travel is a bad idea for Children of Adam. Not so bad for us elementals as we can remember our reliving of things, and time just doesn't matter to us in the same way it does to you lot." Biggie spoke with a deep, grating voice that despite the harshness was kindly.

  "Explain."

  "Well Mark Joseph Young was the first to decipher it. Time travel is not a paradox. Nor is it a case of Something coming from Nothing which we all know doesn't happen."

  "Right." Mark acknowledged this basic point of Science. All things that began had a cause. Life and Matter included in this list. There had been a scientific experiment way back, well, way back sometime. Put a chunk of meat under a glass covered dome and flies would not just spring up on the meat out of nowhere. Before this, people had thought that flies were spontaneously generated from meat sitting on the counter.

  "Francesco Redi, Mark Tanner." Mark wanted to say 'I knew that' but he didn't so he just nodded a bit embarrassed. Iron elementals had phenomenal memories. Steel trap minds.

  "Well what if you go back in time and kill your grandfather? Not that I would want to. Both George Tanner and Hubert Jackman were excellent gentlemen. I can't do that and still be here. Does time stop me? Or is there a paradox?"

  "No, Time is not a god able to know the Future of your actions."

  "You sure? I mean, I'm talking to an animated pile of iron right now."

  "Animated structure. A pile is what I'd be if I were younger and less able to control myself."

  "Sorry." Mark grinned. He knew how to push Biggie's buttons.

  "OK, Mark, to the best of my knowledge, which is considerable, control over time is restricted to certain spiritual entities of which there is no god of time. The Archangel Chronos, and the I AM of course can do it. To be fair, I could be wrong. Far more exists than is dreamt of in my philosophy, O Mark Tanner."

  "Are you going to keep quoting Shakespeare?"

  "It wasn't Shakespeare. And you will have to see, or not to see."

  "What? Not Shakespeare? Are you saying Shakespeare didn't write some of his plays."

  "Yes." Biggie sounded as if he were gloating. Mark paused. He could see how this would go. Biggie had proof, but he would refuse to provide it unless Mark gave him something like perhaps a hundred thousand experience points. Mark groaned. He wanted to know. He did, but a hundred thousand experience points!! Agh.

  "You're a mean one, Mister Biggie."

  "You're not going to make my heart grow three sizes biggie, and spill the dope......unless you pay."

  "No."

  "OK."

  "I mean it."

  "Sure."

  Mark gritted his teeth, and changed the topic.

  "Anyone in Complex 12?"

  "Not now. Not in the last year. But sometime in the last decade yes, you had someone who appeared to be human."

  "Appeared?"

  "Five foot tall. Two legs. One heart. One head. Red hair. Clothes. Sword. Several magic rings. Looked human."

  "Why are you suspicious?"

  "Well, one, that was ALL I could see. Two, you have something like forty million individuals of ranks ranging from one to two hundred who would just deeply love to slaughter you. Gain the benefit of killing the last human."

  "Its not paranoia when they really are out to get you." Mark muttered.

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  "Exactimundo, Ironfriend."

  "Where were we?" Mark knew exactly, but he enjoyed teasing Biggie. And also, he knew that moments like this helped keep him sane. He went weeks without anyone to talk to, so visiting a friend was not only understandable, but needful.

  "You were about to travel back in time to kill Hubert Jackman. Which once you succeeded, then time would flow on forward from that Present. You would not be born. Therefore you could not be born."

  "Grandfather Paradox time."

  "No, impatient Child of Adam. Given that you're an immortal spirit bound to a meat suit, you'd think you'd be more patient." Clearly Biggie was enjoying this as well. Mark said nothing. "Right. Therefore once you got to the point where you would have to jump back, you would not jump back. Thus Gramdfather Hubert would go on his life, and you'd be born, and then jump back in time to....you know, indulge your homicidal vices."

  "But, it can't be both."

  "It can if it is oscillating time loops."

  "Oh."

  "Oh indeed. Worse, you and the rest of Mankind would be stuck in these time loops and never to go on further."

  "Sounds bad."

  "Well it is for you lot. Us Elementals aren't so bound to matter as you lot are."

  "But I could do it say God said I could."

  "Miracles happen. Yes." Biggie allowed with a suspicious note in his voice. "However, no one gets to tell the I Am what He has to do."

  "But if I had something...."

  "Like one of the Clockblades held by the Archangel Chronos, then yes, you could peg your moment into Eternity so that it WOULD HAPPEN. But do you have.....you have Something. I can sense it in your pocked. Its....." The door shivered. "Please tell me you did not make a deal with the Adversary."

  "I'm not dumb, Biggie." Mark chided his friend. "It did deal with the Adversary so I can understand how you thought so."

  "I'm not sure I want to see it." The door shivered again, but at the same time deep craving came from the voice of the iron elemental.

  "Its made of iron."

  "Ohhhhh."

  "One of three."

  "Oh my. Yes, I suppose that did deal with the Adversary, and would cut through Time and into Eternity."

  "It did after all, split Time into before and after."

  "Can, I, can see it?" Biggie's voice trembled. Mark simply pulled the large iron nail with the bit of rust that had been on it when it was last used two thousand and some years ago. Biggie wobbled and slumped into a pile. Mark was calmer as he had some experience with the thing, and also he thought the fact that it and Biggie were both made of iron might have some effect. Of course, for Mark it was an agent of Life Eternal so he held it with joy and pain as well.

  Identify: Unable to be Identified.

  The System could not even say it was an object, let alone a nail, or an old nail, or an old Roman nail. it was so far beyond the System that all the System knew was that something was there.

  Twenty minutes later, after he pulled himself back together, Biggie spoke.

  "OK, Ironfriend, that should do the job. That is if the rest of your time machine works."

  "Oh, it works. Just not sure how well. I'm going to need your help. I have to go down to the Deeps."

  "Lead on, Ironfriend. You know I Ah Door you."