Sparring with the Governor didn't last long. Soon, it came to a close.
And once again, humanity watched another robot get dropped into a transparent, reinforced glass chamber.
This time, though, Saitama made a special point of reminding everyone present to treat the Governor well and not subject him to any unfair treatment.
"I really didn't expect," Saitama muttered, "that I'd actually be able to pull the schematics for a time machine out of the Governor's CPU."
With a feeling he couldn't quite put into words, Saitama headed back to the Beverly Hills banquet.
Honestly, he'd come back a bit too fast.
His sudden reappearance at the banquet sent the gathered guests into yet another frenzy of shock and excitement.
Only after everyone had drunk their fill did Saitama find an opportunity to pull Vivian aside for a quiet talk.
"Vivian," Saitama asked, "do you believe in time machines?"
Vivian, wine glass in hand, stared at him with a face full of question marks. "What? A time machine? Saitama, don't mess around. Didn't cutting-edge modern physics already prove time machines don't exist? E = mc²—when an object's speed approaches the speed of light, its mass approaches infinity."
Saitama almost wanted to give her a thumbs up.
After all, Vivian had received a higher education and was a university professor. Even if she taught history instead of physics, she was still a professor.
What Vivian didn't realize was that the world she lived in was just one "plane" among countless parallel worlds. The fact that many phenomena in this world followed physical laws didn't mean everything could be explained by them.
Alright, fine.
The real reason Saitama was overthinking things in his head was simple: he was bad at dealing with drunk women.
"If I tell Vivian about parallel worlds and the myriad universes," he thought, "who knows what she'll think."
On top of that, he was genuinely curious about the time machine schematics his system had copied from the Governor.
So while Vivian was tipsy, he carefully probed, asking whether among her many classmates or acquaintances there was anyone who specialized in time physics.
Neither of them imagined that this little conversation, right here and now, would trigger a bizarre journey through time—
Or that it would kick off a completely different version of the Terminator story.
Three days later.
Inside a cutting-edge physics lab, Saitama stared at a tiny booth that looked suspiciously like a high-end bathroom stall.
"Hey, Faye, this… is the time machine I asked you to build?"
The beautiful physics professor, Faye, pushed up her glasses. "Uh… strictly speaking, you also have to count this entire assembly outside of it."
Saitama let out a quiet breath of relief.
In his head, he'd originally imagined needing something as massive as Central City's particle-accelerator complex from DC—a giant facility spanning half a city.
Faye continued, "Given that this is the device's first-ever activation, we really shouldn't let a person go in for the initial test."
But Saitama knew if they didn't succeed on the first try, they wouldn't get a second.
Once the U.S. government traced the huge power spike and the temporary blackouts caused by the device's activation, they'd definitely clamp down on any further experiments.
Nearby, Vivian—who had come along to the lab with Saitama—wore a worried expression.
But mixed in with that worry was a flicker of excitement.
Because Saitama had promised to take her with him on the maiden voyage.
"Don't worry, Dr. Faye," Saitama said. "This is a verified, fully functional time machine. After you send us through time, you have to be careful. Don't let any… special agencies find you."
Faye froze, stunned.
In her mind, Saitama had always been a cool guy who solved problems with his fists. But over the past few days, she'd discovered that beneath that cool exterior was a kind, sincere heart.
"You don't have to explain," she said softly. "I believe you."
Saitama: "…"
Vivian: "…"
Whoom—
The time machine powered on.
Elsewhere in the lab, a flatscreen TV mounted on the wall was broadcasting the newest arrivals welcomed at the White House: the Governor and the metal woman Roken.
The two of them had already become the hottest online sensations of the new era—viral megastars.
Whoom—
The time machine hummed again.
The voltage suddenly flickered.
A moment later, a blue arc of electricity danced across the machine.
"Oh no," Faye gasped.
A heartbeat later, her eyes went wide. "Oh no…"
In the span of those few seconds, her worries shifted—from whether the machine was overloading, to sheer awe at the impossible scene unfolding before her.
If time could rewind just a bit, she knew she'd shout that "oh no" a lot louder.
Time flowed.
1984, United States.
The moment Saitama and Vivian arrived, they both sensed something was off.
The entire street practically screamed "1984" from every brick and sign.
The two travelers from the future felt like they'd stepped straight into a Hollywood backlot.
Even Saitama—who'd been the one to copy the schematics and find someone to build the time machine—couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath.
Oh man.
He and Vivian really had come back… to 1984.
His surprise had barely formed—less than half a second—when he heard the familiar chime of his system.
"Detected time anomaly. Syncing time data. Correction: current temporal point is the time of Terminator 1."
"Warning: Governor-model robot no longer aligned with the Justice faction."
"Mission: Stop the Governor-model robot from slaughtering innocents to gain attribute boosts."
"Mission rewards will scale based on completion level."
Saitama drew in a slow breath.
"So we didn't come here as tourists," he thought. "On the contrary… our mission is going to be heavy."
Just then, a terrifying possibility about the Terminators flashed through his mind.
"If you look at things from the perspective of the future, then both the 2020 I came from and this 1984 we're standing in now… are the past."
"The Terminator in 2020 was captured by the future human resistance and reprogrammed."
"But here in 1984, the Governor-model robot is still playing the villain."
"In other words, the future robot alliance built a bunch of machines and sent them back through time to change the world."
"Then why, in the world Vivian and I started from, did only Transformers show up at first—and not these robots?"
"Could it be that the Transformers I defeated were actually evolved from these robots?"
The more he thought about it, the creepier it felt.
Still, Saitama wasn't the type to get hung up on finding perfectly rational explanations for everything.
Since he was already here in 1984, there was only one thing to do:
Get ready—
And blow that invading Governor-model robot to pieces.
(End of Chapter)
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