Knowing that he was facing another extraordinary man, Gale wanted to find out whether this was truly the man who had created the time machine. Although he did not doubt it, since he was in a world he had once considered fictional, it was precisely for that reason that he also sought answers to his concerns.
After a long silence, Gale cautiously asked, "Doctor, how do you feel now that you know you're dead? Are you upset or regretful?"
"Regretful? No, no, no!" Emmett raised an eyebrow and said, "I'm confused, amazed… and slightly terrified! That usually happens when I appear inside a room with a mirror that connects to another one without blueprints or temporal coordinates."
"If you'll allow me… I want to ask you a question since we're here," Gale said, taking advantage of the fact that Emmett Brown was bewildered and believing he could make use of that. "Do you think it's possible to foresee the future and manipulate the past from that same future?"
Emmett blinked, as if his brain had just been switched on.
"Foresee the future and touch the past?!" Emmett exclaimed, then said with concentration, "Boy, that's no longer a simple question—that's a dangerous hypothesis."
After saying that, Emmett crossed his arms, pacing back and forth within the reflection.
"Look, in theory one could calculate probabilities, observe trends… even anticipate events. But altering the past from the future breaks the causal structure of time."
"Why?" Gale asked, deeply interested in what this scientist had to say.
"Because that's when the paradox appears," Emmett said, pointing a finger. "If you travel back and change something essential, you destroy the reason why you traveled in the first place. It's like sawing off the branch you're sitting on."
Gale fell silent, thinking. "And what if you don't want to change everything? What if you only want things to repeat within a specific framework?"
"Think about this… What if someone only manipulates the flow? Not changing it, but forcing it to pass through the same point over and over again."
Emmett stopped short. "That's different."
His eyes lit up.
"A time loop."
"Exactly."
"Yes!" Emmett smiled, fascinated. "You're not asking like a dreamer, kid. You're thinking like a time engineer."
After saying that, Emmett stepped closer to the glass of the mirror. "In a loop, you don't really go back to the past. You initiate a new line that resembles the previous one. It's like replaying the same movie: it looks the same, but it's a different showing."
"Then…" Gale murmured, resolving more and more of his worries, "it's not true reincarnation?"
"No." Emmett shook his head and said, "It's false reincarnation. Time remains linear. You only reset the scenario, not the universe."
"That sounds complicated…"
"Because it is!" Emmett said with a strange laugh. "The present is the only thing that exists. Even when you 'go back,' you're still living in a different now."
Gale clenched his fists and asked, "Then… if someone can see the future and finds a person who wasn't supposed to exist in that future they already knew… would they try to eliminate them?"
Emmett did not respond immediately.
The playful expression vanished from his face.
"If someone controls predictions…" Emmett paused and said seriously, "any new variable will seem dangerous to them."
The reflection began to tremble.
"But listen carefully, Gale… No one can control the past. They can only influence the present… and bet on the future."
Emmett's image began to dissolve like smoke in the glass.
"Time does not allow itself to be dominated… only negotiated with."
"I see…" Gale whispered, resolving a small crisis he had been carrying, and said with a smile, "Thank you, Emmett."
The room fell silent, and Gale was pulled out of that space.
…
"Gale! Wake up! It's already noon!" Gale heard a knock on the door, opened his eyes groggily, rubbed his temples, opened the door, and saw that the head cook had brought lunch.
"Thanks for waking me up, old Aldous." Gale took the plate of food Aldous had prepared for him.
"It's nothing, boy…" Aldous ruffled Gale's black hair and left.
Gale sat down on a chair with his tray of food. His lunch consisted of a ham sandwich and a small bunch of purple grapes. After eating, he washed his face and went to look for the steward. Together, they went to Historia's room for his lesson.
During the class, he could not stop thinking about what Emmett had told him.
According to his words, the Eren who could see the future had not yet been born, so naturally it was not possible for someone from the future to change the past.
The one who sees what will happen cannot influence the past; he can only change the future.
So Gale should be safe from Eren's hands, at least until he made physical contact with Historia. As long as he lived until the day when all the titans disappeared, he would see the sun rise the next morning without a hidden dagger behind his neck.
As for Eren, even when the time came and he wanted to eliminate him, Gale could be prepared to stop him.
The problem was complicated, almost circular.
Thinking about it over and over only made him dizzy.
In essence, he had only two paths: minimize contact with Eren… or find a way for Eren himself to accept helping Paradis in a smarter way.
Although Eren defended Paradis Island, he did so in an extremely radical, morally ambiguous way with tragic consequences, becoming the enemy of the outside world. His actions sought to protect his home and friends, but they caused an endless conflict.
However, did a method that achieved a better ending really exist?
Gale narrowed his eyes.
Maybe it wasn't impossible.
The reason Eren had activated the Rumbling was simple: the outside world was advancing too fast. Its weapons grew more powerful every decade, and a day would come when even the titans would not be enough.
When that happened, the island and all its inhabitants would be wiped out by their enemies from the outside world.
That was why Eren chose to warn the world before it was too late.
But Gale thought differently.
What if Paradis Island did not fall behind?
What if, instead of fearing outside progress, it surpassed it?
If the island achieved military and technological power far beyond the rest of the world, the balance would change. It would not be fear that maintained peace, but the impossibility of attacking without consequences.
A peace sustained by power.
It was an almost absurd idea.
Impossible for the original Paradis Island.
Impossible for someone like Eren, who lacked that kind of power.
But Gale was not the same.
He had seen things that did not belong to that world. He had learned concepts that did not exist there.
If he could meet extraordinary people in his dreams, if he could better understand that strange knowledge, perhaps the island could slowly transform into something the rest of the world would not dare to challenge.
However, even with that advantage, the path was brutal.
Because no matter how extraordinary his dreams were, Gale was still a slave on a remote farm.
He had no power…
No influence…
No resources…
Changing the fate of a nation was not something a nameless boy could achieve alone.
It required people, industry, organization, leadership. It required the entire island to move in the same direction.
Unless one day he could touch the center of power of Paradis, all of that would remain nothing more than a thought.
And besides, time was not on his side.
Between the fall of Wall Maria and the future total war, not many years would pass.
Gale calculated that he would barely have a decade—ten years to change the course of history.
It was madness.
But it was also his only option.
Because if his path aligned with Eren's, then he would not be seen as an obstacle… but as a useful piece within the new timeline.
Perhaps even as an ally.
After all, compared to destroying the world, making Paradis Island truly strong was a much cleaner solution.
Much more humane.