The Mad Scientist

It was night and I was right outside the fort when I hit the button. I time-traveled into the room in early morning, armed with a hand-pistol and a grenade. But when I came into the room, they were gone. I just barely saw Oleck's face as I materialized, then he disappeared.

"That was lucky of you." it was Bob.

"What was that?" I asked.

"You jumped to precisely where they were sitting. They are now wherever you were when you jumped...your molecules switched places."

"Well that's fortunate." I smiled in conentment, "Now for the dying part?" I gripped the grenade.

He laughed, "I'm afraid so. No reason to use the grenade though." he held up his time machine, "I'm going to skip out of here the moment it detonates. And the soldiers are all out of range anyway."

I pointed my gun at him.
"I wouldn't do that either. The longer the soldiers don't know you're here, the longer Oleck and his father have to escape." he reasoned with me, "in fact, if you hand those over, I'll make sure the soldiers never know they escaped."

I accepted.

"And now," he aimed my gun at me "to ensure the end of the terrible United States of America." Just as he pulled the trigger, the mad scientist, yes, Ludwig Einstein, materialized on top of him, knocking him unballanced. I stepped back, excpecting to have been shot.

"Are you OK?" Einstein asked.

"Must have just grazed me." I replied.

Einstein picked up the gun Bob had dropped and pointed it at him.

"This is interesting." Bob mused.

"I have ONE question for you." Ludwig demanded, "Have you seen the future?"

"Yes,"

"Do you survive this?"

"That's another quesiton, but yes. I leave this building and time warp back to the future."

"Then we're about to test Novikov's theory, once and for all." and he pulled the trigger.

'click'. The gun didn't fire. He pulled the trigger again and again.

"The future can't be changed." Bob smiled, "I already tested it by trying to kill George Washington with a nuclear bomb." he shrugged, "it misfired."

"But you said I die." I prodded.

"I lied, you don't die. At least not by my hand. But Commander Cobalt will be here any moment. And since I detonated an EMP reprogramming device I found in the future when you came in, Vanderdecken12, your time machine will suck you back to this location in 96 hours, and then it won't work for a whole day. You'll be trapped." and then Bob Simmons walked out, yelled to the guards, and disappeared.

"What are you going to do?" the mad scientist asked worriedly.
"I at least need time to think. And I gotta ask you a couple questions."

"Alright then." Ludwig entered coordinates into his machine, and then into mine as well, and hit enter. I hastily pressed enter on mine, and am now trying really hard to think of a solution before my four days are up.