The next day came fast, the whole city waking up under a soft, golden sunrise. At school, Einstein, Hawking, Vinci, and Eliza were the first to arrive. They slipped into their usual spot at the back, the quietest corner where they could scheme without anyone bothering them.
Einstein opened a small food bag and handed out steaming noodle bowls. "My mom made them for us," he said, smiling shyly as Vinci practically snatched his up in excitement.
"Bro! Your mom is a legend," Vinci said, already slurping noisily.
Just then, Hawking walked in, balancing his heavy backpack on one shoulder. He set it down with a loud thud and dropped into his seat.
"Alright," Hawking started, pushing up his glasses. "Vinci, yesterday you said you were almost done with the prototype. How's that going?"
Vinci leaned back, wiping his mouth. "I was up past midnight working on it. The frame is stable now, but I still need to fix the energy coil. By this weekend, it'll be ready to test."
Hawking nodded, looking serious. "Good. We'll all meet this weekend to get it prepped. I've been working on theories around paradoxes, especially how to avoid collapse if we actually jump timelines."
He turned to Einstein, who was quietly chewing noodles. "Einstein, your calculations. You have the exact coordinate points ready, right? We can't mess that up."
Einstein swallowed hard and nodded. "Yeah. I checked it a hundred times. I even accounted for possible temporal drift."
Hawking raised an eyebrow, clearly impressed. "Nice. We'll need that."
Then he looked at Eliza, who had been scribbling in her notebook. "Eliza, we need your insights too. Psychological effects, possible alternate realities. Be ready."
Eliza looked up, her eyes shining with curiosity and a hint of worry. "I'll have everything ready. But… do you really think we're ready for this? Real time travel?"
A tense silence filled the table, the weight of their plan settling over them.
Then, as if to break it, Hawking pulled a thick stack of notes from his bag and dropped it on the table with a loud thump. Papers slid everywhere, covered in tiny scribbles and wild diagrams.
"Check this out," Hawking said, flipping pages with quick, excited fingers. "I listed all the major paradoxes we need to think about before we even dream of stepping into that machine."
He tapped the first page, where big letters read:
Fixed Timeline Predestination Paradox
"No matter what we do, the timeline fixes itself. We might think we're changing something, but it just loops back to what was always meant to happen," he explained.
He flipped to the next sheet.
The Hitler Paradox
"If you go back and try to stop something terrible, like a war or a disaster, you might actually cause it instead," Vinci added with a knowing smirk.
Hawking nodded and turned another page.
Ontological Paradox (Bootstrap Paradox)
"Objects or information with no clear beginning. You bring something back that has no true source. A loop with no start," Eliza whispered, her finger tracing the messy diagram.
Then Hawking paused, his face turning more serious as he tapped the next page.
Grandfather Paradox
"This one's huge," he said. "If you go back and stop your grandfather from meeting your grandmother, you'd never be born. But if you're not born, you can't go back to stop them. It's a loop that can't logically exist."
Einstein leaned forward, his eyes wide. "So basically… if we mess up even one small event, we might erase ourselves from existence. Like we were never here at all."
They all went quiet, the idea sinking deep into their bones. Outside, a bird chirped in the courtyard, the sound sharp and lonely against the silence.
Finally, Hawking flipped to the last page.
Multiverse Theory
"We might not change our own timeline at all," he said in a lower voice. "Instead, we could create or jump into a different reality. Another universe where things play out differently. Infinite possibilities, infinite versions of us."
Eliza's hand trembled a bit as she closed her notebook. "We need to be careful," she said softly. "Promise me we stick together. No one does this alone."
Vinci let out a shaky laugh, clapping his hands together. "Together," he agreed, though his grin looked a bit forced.
Einstein and Hawking nodded, their faces serious.
"Together," they echoed.
Just then, the classroom door swung open and the teacher walked in, calling for order. Their heads snapped forward, their secret plans hidden under desks and behind quiet stares.
But even as they tried to look normal, their minds were far away ; deep in the loops of paradoxes, shimmering across infinite timelines, already racing toward the future they were about to create.