The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold Page B

free will.
    I had all of my memories of the past the way I had lived it, yet I had excised part of it out of existence. I hadn’t eliminated myself and I hadn’t had any of my memory magically erased. I remembered the act of excising.
    There might have been differences—perhaps even should have been differences—in my world when I flashed forward again. Perhaps the mansion should have disappeared, or perhaps my fortune should have been larger or smaller; but both were unchanged. If there were any differences, they would have to be minor. I didn’t go looking for them.
    The reason?
    The mansion had been built in 1998, a good seven years before Danny had been given the timebelt. (I had done that on purpose.) Because it had already existed in 2005, it was beyond his (our? my?) reach to undo unless he went back to 1997. The same applied to my financial empire. It should be beyond the reach of any of my casual changes.
    Of course, from a subjective point of view, neither the mansion nor the money existed until after I’d gotten the timebelt—but time
travel is only subjective to the traveler, not the timestream. Each time I’d made a change in the timestream, it was like a new layer to the painting. The whole thing was affected. Any change made before May 21, 2005, would be part of Danny’s world when he got the timebelt. Unless he—later on—went back and excised it in a later version of the timestream. And if he did, it still wouldn’t affect me at all. It would be his version of the timestream and he would be a different person from me, with different memories and different desires. Just as there were alternate universes, there were also alternate Dannys.
    My house already existed. My investments in the past were also firmly in existence. He could not erase them by refusing to initiate them, he would only be creating a new timestream of his own, one that would be separate from mine.
    In effect, by altering my personal past, I am excising a piece of it, but I’m not destroying the continuity of this timestream. I’m only destroying my own continuity—except that I’m not, because I still have my memories.
    Confusing? Yes, I have to keep reminding myself not to think in terms of only one timestream. I am not traveling in time. I am creating new universes. Alternate universes—each one identical to the one I just left up to the moment of my insertion into it. From that instant on, my existence in it causes it to take a new shape. A shape I can choose—in fact, I must choose; because the timestream will be changed merely by my sudden presence in it, I must make every effort to exercise control in order to prevent known sequences of events from becoming unknown sequences.
    This applies to my own life too. I am not one person. I am many people, all stemming from the same root. Some of the other Dans and Dons I meet are greatly variant from me, others are identical. Some will repeat actions that I have done, and I will repeat the actions of others. We perceive this as a doubling back of our subjective timelines. It doesn’t matter, I am me, I react to it all. I act on it all.
    From this, I’ve learned two things.
    The first is that I do have free will.
    With all that implies. If I am a homosexual, then I am that way
by choice. Should that please me to know that? Or should it disturb me? I don’t know—I’m the me who likes it too much to excise. So I guess that’s the answer, isn’t it?
    And that’s the second thing I’ve learned—that every time I travel into the past, I am excising. I am erasing the past that was and creating a new one instead. I didn’t need to excise my first trip to the races to prove that I had free will—I’d already proved it the first time I was Don, when I’d worn a windbreaker instead of a sweater.
    Every time I excise, I’m not erasing a world. I’m only creating a new one