Consequences

Devan wakes up to the sound of his very annoying alarm, which he keeps in the other room to avoid going back to sleep.  He gets up slowly, robotically, moving methodically to the other room to turn off the alarm.  Relishing this accomplishment, he stares at the wall talking to himself out loud.

“Damn that was a long sleep.  I can’t tell whether I feel refreshed or beat up.  Well, coffee.  Coffee, coffee, coffee, that’ll help.”

Devan looks out the window of his apartment overlooking the street that divides downtown from the industrial area of the city.  Everything is a dull shade of grey-tan.  It almost looks sandy, like a desert landscape.

“Oh, well.  Baby steps, right.  At least the air is clean indoors.”

As Devan contemplates the feeling of his own breathing, he notices the time.

“Shit!  I’m going to be late for class.”

Devan rushes to get dressed and out the door.  Riding his racing bike at top speed, frantically maneuvering through completely empty streets dodging a combination of fast-moving trash and large debris from broke down and abandoned industrial machinery and vehicles.  He arrives at the trade school anxious about teaching his first course in space-time quantum entanglement.  It’s an easy enough topic but Devan has a little stage fright.  He enters his classroom and hears the class murmuring with a variety of responses.   Mostly positive but unenthusiastic.

“Alright.  Hey.  Um, how is everyone this morning?  I’m Devan Anderson and I’ll be teaching this course for the next few weeks.  The topic covers entanglement of space-time histories as it relates to safe arcade operation.  Don’t worry, everything we cover will be applied.  This isn’t going to be a boring class on theoretical nonsense.  So, ah… why don’t we just get right to it.  When dealing with multiple copies of a space-time region, bound and compactified but evolving in parallel with our world lines there is a chance of quantum interference of histories.  Now this you already know, and know how to deal with using extra dimensions to bleed off any tunneling effects.  Once a game is finished the changes that occurred in the copy need to be erased, reset.  This is accomplished by resetting the initial conditions in the copy and letting it continue to evolve.  This is critical and needs to be done correctly.  If this part of the process is not done correctly the evolving copy will change and, through an entanglement effect, cause unexpected changes in our reality.  So the reset is very important.”

Devan notices a student with their hand up.  “Yes, question?”

“Yeah, thanks.  Why is it that important?  I mean weird things don’t happen during the game while things are changing?”

“True, excellent question.  You see, as you know, the game happens in near zero time in our reality.  Really there is a Plank scale delta in time here.  During that time some “spooky” things can happen and that’s why we regulate things with extra dimensions.  This is done under our control, with reactors.  We have the technology to prevent entanglement effects from occurring during the game.  But when it’s done, if we didn’t reset the game, we would have to keep making extra dimensions essentially forever!  This would be huge drain on resources and as you all know the Ache sucks pretty bad right now.  Just imagine the entropy increase and the effect on your body if you just kept doing that.  We don’t have the technology to regulate things that way.  So, we do this for the small delta time when we need it and then clean up by hand afterwards.  Perhaps someday we will have the technology to just let it all run without resets but that’s not the case now.  Does that answer your question?”

“Yes.”

“Great.  Well, if there are no other questions, I have a lot of gamers waiting so this is the end of this lecture.  See you tomorrow.”

The class gets up and disperses.  As Devan walks outside the inquisitive student in his lecture catches up to him.

“Dr. Anderson!  Can I follow you and ask another question?”

“Sure.  Have you ever seen the arcade from the control area?”

“No.  I’ve been to arcades a lot but no, I’ve never seen the controls.  Can I?”

“Yeah sure.  You’re gonna be in control of one a few more months.”

“Cool, thanks!”

“What’s your question?”

“Yeah, I forgot.  Uh, well it has to do with entanglement.  What actually happens if initial conditions are not reset properly?”

“Well that’s hard to say.  It’s a coin toss, right?  Basically, anything can be changed relative to the reality you know.  It can be a small change, almost unnoticeable.  You might be a few ounces lighter or heavier.  Or it could be something big, something major like…, like, I don’t know the sun is missing.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.  And the really cool thing is that while there is entanglement, active entanglement between alternate parallel realties you can retain memories of both.  Your previous history isn’t erased or interfered with in any way.  That’s why people remember who they are in the game.  They can enjoy playing in the alternate dimensions without forgetting this reality.  It wouldn’t really be any fun to meet King John, or Prince Siddhartha, or Jesus, and not remember that you were from the future.”

“So, if you forget to reset or reset wrong and that causes mixing of realities…”

“Yes?”

“I can’t really think of the right way to ask the question.  Ah!  First question, can we fix it by resetting extra dimensions.”

“Yes.”

“Ok.  I guess the second question would be… once it’s fixed do we remember all the “spooky” stuff that happened?  Would we remember the sun being gone?”

“No.  That is a deep question.  But no, you would not remember a thing.  It’s a common mistake to think that you would but what you’re doing with the reset is essentially collapsing the wave function.  So, you’ve “observed” a reality and everything else is erased.”

“Wait.  That contradicts something that we already know about memory.  How do gamers remember the game after the reset?”

“Wow.  Great question.  Well you see, spoiler this is actually next week’s lesson, they don’t retain their own memories.  We could never retain actual memory of what happened in the game but while it’s playing we can record it.  I mean a real physical recording not a space-time copy or anything.  We can send and receive signals from the copy.  So once a gamer comes back and while we’re resetting the game, we implant a recording of the game in their brain.”

“Wow!  I never knew that.  I’ve played thousands of games.  Does that mess with your brain function?  Is it safe?”

“Yeah, yeah.  Everything’s safe.  It’s actually in the waiver everyone signs before they play, but I guess nobody reads that.  We’ve had the technology to implant memories for a long time.”

“Again, wow.  That means our game memories aren’t real.”

“Well I think that’s a matter of semantics.  We don’t implant false information, we implant actual data from the game.”

“But that means there’s no way, no way at all that you can remember what happened during entanglement once the wave function is collapsed.”

“Nope, not at all.  It’s a common misunderstanding.  But no.  It is as if nothing ever happened.  That is unless someone you interact with observed the other state or states of the same wave function.  But that is highly unlikely.”

Devan and the student arrive at the arcade and enter the game control room.

“Wow… Holy shit this is cool.”

“Yeah it is.  You get used to it though.  It wears off.  Hey, you want coffee?”

“Sure thanks.”

“Can you make some?  Right over there.”

“Ha ha.  Ok, I guess everyone starts at the bottom.”

“Don’t worry.  I’ll teach you how to set up and run a game.  That’s easy.  I’ll do the reset this time so nothing goes wrong.  After a few games you’ll be ready to try a reset.”

“Awesome!  Coffee’s on the way.”

After a long day Devan returns home and sits down to read the mail and his evening paper.  The front-page news reads,

Devan throws the paper in the trash.  The WGO kills everyone, eventually.  Devan was surprised at the news of Jacob’s indictment but this is crushing, his whole family dead.  Genocide by forced suicide.  Devan prepares dinner for himself, eats, sleeps and continues to live his life running an arcade, teaching physics and mourning the loss of his best friend Jacob.

Decisions

“Why Jacob?  And when?  How are you aware of the alternate reality if I reset it wrong?  Only I should be affected by this.”

“It wasn’t the game reset.  Remember, when you set up the last game you had time to kill.  You called me and we went to see Einstein’s lecture at University of Chicago.  I reset things when we got back.  Well, you were resetting them and I changed things to gets us… away from there.”

“Ok, so why?  Why would you do that?  And more importantly, why both of us?”

“It’s my sister.  You know she was having problems.  Nothing serious but we couldn’t get proper medical assistance.  The global health administration (GHA) declared her condition nonexistent centuries ago so according to them she doesn’t have a problem.  But she did, she does, she was really sick.  Her condition is completely manageable and, in many cases, curable but without proper authorization we can’t do anything.  I treated her.  Off the books.  But… but, they found out.  It’s a serious offense.”

“Shit.  But can’t you just pay the fines for the treatments?  That’s all they want right?  Money, pay for the treatment, drugs, whatever.”

“You’re right, that is all they want.  But you know my family is wealthy.  So, they can get more if they…  if they kill me.  They declared my actions a crime against humanity and issued a death warrant.”

“How is that a crime against… ?!”

“You’re right.  But you know their logic as well as anyone.  Since I am a doctor I am bound by my oath and the laws of the WGO.  By using unauthorized resources for a nonexistent health problem, I deprived other patents resources.  Right now, or then as the case seems to be, they are attributing any patient death that could have been prevented by said resources to my actions.  I am a mass murderer.”

“Fuck them, fuck!  But why this?  I mean, do you have a sister in this reality?”

“I don’t know it’s all I could think of at the time.”

“And me?  Why am I here with you?”

“I don’t know how this stuff works.  I need you.  Look, I can fake out the genetics and other things so we fit in here.  They’ll never prove we don’t belong.  But I don’t understand hyperspace.  I need you to survive here.  Or maybe figure out a way to get back and set things right so they’re not after me.”

“It doesn’t work that way.  We can’t change the past.  There is no time travel.”

“I know.  But there has to be a way to get back and maybe change a state of… something.  Anything that will keep them from killing me.  It’s not just me.  My family will be slaves for eternity.”

“Jacob, I can’t believe you did all this.  For one, I think our cover is blown.  I was just chased out of the genetics lab, or the birth lab or whatever using your ID.  And by the way these people are baby killers!  I mean they breed people and let them live until age 2 and exterminate them.  How is this a better place than where we come from?”

“I didn’t plan it that way.  I know it’s fucked up but I didn’t plan it that way.  I can take care of the ID thing.  They won’t bother you or me.”

“But what about the way things are here?”

“I know.  I don’t know how to deal with that.  And to answer your other question, yes.  My sister is here.  And she’s fine.  Maybe we could all move to another planet, where things are more like our old reality.”

“But it’s wrong.  You know, to play with… time, causality, reality, this way.  I don’t know if I can handle that.”

“Well… you can reset it now that you know what needs to be done.  You’ll handle it however you need to handle it.  Look, I gotta get to the facility and explain away your unexpected presence.  Just hang out here and I’ll come by after.  We’ll continue this conversation and figure out our next move.”

“Fine, yeah.  I’ll stay here.”

Jacob leaves to settle things at the birth lab.  Devan just sits.  He sits for what seems to be the longest time.  He can’t figure out what to do.  It seemed like an easy decision.  It’s wrong to change time, everyone is affected.  Everything about this place is wrong.  Everything is wrong so reset it and make it “right”, for lack of a better term.  But Jacob is Devan’s only friend, the only person who he really trusts until now.  This closest thing to family.  What would he do if he were in Jacob’s situation?  Then there is what the Oloraf said.  This makes Devan wonder if his old reality really is reality or if he’s just been deluded this entire time.  He doesn’t know what to do and needs to clear his head.  Thinking he has some time he decides to go on a trip.  To Einstein’s lecture, his favorite place.  At least for some time he’ll be happy.  Devan prepares the game, and himself, for the trip.

It’s 1915 in Chicago, University of Chicago campus.  Devan loves this place, this time.  The weather, the air, this city in 1915.  He feels at home.  It’s the only place he really feels at home.  He walks up to the door, ticket in hand.  As he goes to enter a man at the front door turns to him and with an acknowledging look says “Ah, welcome back, alone tonight?”  This strikes Devan as very strange.  The people in the copy shouldn’t be aware of him.  They shouldn’t remember the multiple pasts that have occurred.  They’re not real, they’re copies.  For Devan this isn’t the strangest thing that’s happened today so he blows it off.  He goes in, finds the same seat he always takes and waits quietly.  Albert Einstein comes out, the audience applauds.  Devan smiles as he listens to Professor Einstein begin to speak.  After a short time, Einstein’s voice fades into the distance, overpowered by Devan’s thoughts.

He is confronted with a dilemma.  If he resets the initial conditions of the game to correct this imbalance and return reality to what it should be, he places Jacob’s life at risk.  If he stays, he knows he’s done something immoral.  He questions what morality really is.  Is it upholding absolute truth regardless of the consequences or is it ignoring truth and fact for the purpose of protecting one person you care about?  As he wrestles with this in his mind, back and forth, a third option emerges.  Devan convinces himself that after untangling the different realities and returning everything to its original state he will have some memory of what things were like here.  Using what he’s learned about this place, the good parts, he can change his old reality and make it better.  He can have the best of both worlds, maintaining his principles and still save Jacob, and perhaps in time stop corruption in the WGO.  Devan feels filled with hope and confidence.  This is a path that can give him everything he wants.  He starts to hear Einstein again, his voice coming through the volume of his thoughts.  He sits and enjoys the last few minutes of the lecture comforted by his revelation. 

After the lecture Devan returns to the alternate reality that has been his home for two weeks.  He begins the process of resetting the initial conditions that have been incorrectly set, to restore his reality to what it was before this little adventure began.  Carefully Devan goes through all the histories and resets those events that went off course.  He begins to wonder if he should wait for Jacob to return.  He’s not sure if Jacob will appreciate his plan or understand that it will work.  Jacob might try to stop him.  As Devan goes through the options in his head he decides not to wait, to initiate this reset without meeting Jacob.  This is what he has been planning to do for two weeks now, but still feels like he’s betraying Jacob in some way.  Even though he wants to go back now he feels nostalgic for this new place, for Allyson and his students, even for Frank.  That bastard.  He will never forget seeing a man pee into a black hole.  But this is the right thing to do.  In silence, with no one there to witness it, he initiates the reset.

After a short time Devan looks around.  Everything is where it should be, but then again it always was.  He looks down at his coffee mug, picks it up and takes a sip.  Coffee.  But wait, couldn’t he have brought coffee in from Stubb’s?  He walks to the door and opens it.  As he walks outside into the cold autumn breeze, the smell of burning oil and Sulphur in the air, he looks out to see garbage strolling down the street.  Ah, this feels good, feels like home.  Devan closes the door behind him and locks up.  He walks home and sleeps.  The longest, deepest sleep he’s had in weeks.

Revelations

 

Upon returning to Earth Devan decides to walk to Stubb’s from the intergalactic travel hub, rather than using hyper-space, giving him a chance to consider his options.  After discussing evolution with the Olaraf, Kekarklarah, Devan isn’t sure about resetting the game.  His confidence in the meaning of reality is shaky.  The Olaraf could have been an illusion, or could have been misleading him.  Then again, Devan thinks to himself, does it really matter?

What Frank said about engineered humans strikes a chord with Devan.  We have no control over how we got here, we were not involved in that decision.  But once here, we can determine our own future.  The thing about Devan’s reality is that people can’t determine their future.  At least that is the way things seem.  People have given up, they don’t care.  If Devan stays in this new reality he thinks he’ll be happier but knows he’ll never be able to live up to the standards of this new world.  On the other hand Devan thinks that maybe he can return to his old reality, with all the knowledge he’s gained, and make things better.  Change the way people think.

Now Devan’s mind is obsessed with the breeding of humans on Earth and their intelligence.  Thinking quietly to himself he decides to satisfy his curiosity by accessing hyper-memory.

“Search, earthling, breeding… verbal.”

“Natural breeding, mating, of earthlings ceased approximately 200 years after the Great War.  The main reason for this was the proliferation of disease and disease related birth defects which resulted from mass intercontinental migrations.  Earth humans are created in government laboratories distributed throughout the world.  Genetic material from living humans is paired based on compatibility, and new humans created from that material.  The original donors of genetic material are notified of the impending birth.  Parents are primarily responsible for the welfare of the child but all expenses are covered by the commonwealth.”

“Search, breeding laboratory locations…  Nearest my current location in space-time.”

“There is a government breeding facility less than one mile from your current location.”

“Access and directions.”

“Access to the breeding archives is public but access to laboratory facilities requires clearance.  This facility is located in the main medical facility.”

Devan realizes that this is the same building as Dr. Nalbandian’s office.

“Convenient.  I know how to get there from here…”

“Convenient: Adjective…”

“Stop!  End search.”

 

*****

 

Devan walks to the medical facility where Jacob administered the neuro scan and resolves himself to getting access to the archives.  He figures since the archives are public he’ll just walk in and imitate Jacob’s statement modified to suite his purpose.  Devan arrives and enters the building.

“Devan Anderson, citizen of the commonwealth, request access to… birth archives.”

A door opens.  Devan was hoping to see the swarm of flying bio sensors but as he ponders this he realizes that the sensors might be able to sense that his DNA is different and set off an alarm.  There is no security for public archives.  Devan enters the birth archive.  The room is impressive, massive, with glass ceilings that give the appearance that the room enters the clouds.  Inside it looks like an old fashioned library with rows of shelves stacked with papers.  Everything is neat and orderly, almost sterile.  The papers are not directly accessible but monitored by a robotic librarian system.  The entire room is encased in glass and the atmosphere controlled to preserve paper documents. Despite the vast utility of hyper-space and the fact that it seems like an unlimited resource there are consequences to overusing it.  The Ache is one and in this reality they limit the use of hyper-memory.  Another reason that hard copy archives still exist is that the government wants to control the proliferation of certain forms of information.  These records are public but not globally or universally available.  People have easy access to the archives in their local neighborhood but must travel to gains access to non-local information.  A voice greets Devan.

“Welcome to the birth archives of the Commonwealth, sector eleven.  Please state your name.”

“Devan.  Devan Anderson.”

“Devan Anderson.  Our records show you are a resident.  What information would you like to review?”

“My birth record.”  I figure that’s a safe bet.

A robotic arm moves effortlessly to the location of Devan’s paper records and brings them to the table on the opposite side of the glass wall where Devan stands.  The robotic arm opens the file to the first page and Devan starts to read.  Devan isn’t too interested in the birth record.  It looks like a cross between a lab notebook and a DMV form.  What he’s really interested in is the subject he can’t get any information on.

“Turn to intelligence.”

The arm selects several pages and removes them from the stack revealing the information Devan requested.  Devan reads on.

 

SUBJECT:            Evaluation of mental aptitude.

CITIZEN:             Devan Anderson

EVALUATION:   Normal

CRITERION:       Details of evaluation are provided below.

LANGUAGE:

1. Devan has demonstrated the ability to speak the language of his parents upon birth.

2. Within four months Devan has demonstrated the ability to learn a new language.

MATHEMATICS:

1. Within six months Devan has demonstrated the ability to understand and express mathematical concepts from several subject areas: Manifolds, Topology, Category Theory, and Group Theory.

2. Before Devan’s second year he demonstrated the ability to organize complex technical data and develop logical proofs of mathematical theorems.

PHYSICAL:

1. Crawling by six months.

2. Walking by thirteen months.

3. Self-sufficient by third year.

STANDARDIZED TESTS:

647: 2018: 32: 18,741:

All tests fall within the 1% margin of error of the accepted intelligence level.

FINAL ASSESSMENT:

Development of Devan Anderson should continue as normal.

End report.

 

Devan can’t make heads or tails of the numbers but this doesn’t look very strange.  He asks about Jacob.

“May I view the birth record of Jacob Nalbandian?”

The arm reassembles Devan’s birth record, files it and returns with Jacob’s birth record.  Devan isn’t really interested in all the details and looks right to the standardized tests.  Jacob’s final evaluation comment is the same.

 

All tests fall within the 1% margin of error of the accepted intelligence level.

Development of Jacob Nalbandian should continue as normal.

 

Devan is curious.  He tries to get Allyson’s record but realizes that he doesn’t know her last name.  He asks anyway.

“May I view the birth record of Allyson?”

“There are 4376 records for, first name Allyson.  Which would you like?”

Devan thinks for a moment.  “Recite full names.”

“Allyson Abrams, Allyson Adams, Ally…”

“Allyson Abrams.”

Devan doesn’t care whose record it is.  The robot brings the record and Devan scans the data he’s interested in.  It’s the same, exactly the same.  He looks through a dozen more and all are identical.

 

All tests fall within the 1% margin of error of the accepted intelligence level.

Development of Allyson Abrams should continue as normal.

 

Devan is more curious but can’t figure out a way to query the system regarding deviations in intelligence.  He finally thinks of looking at death records.

“May I view death records?”

There is a pause.  “No such records exist.”

Devan is a little confused.  He knows no one lives forever but figures he’s not asking the question correctly.  He is not aware of anyone who has died.  He thinks of George Washington or Albert Einstein, but these individuals would not have records here, in sector nine of the Commonwealth since they were probably not born here.  Then he has an idea.

“Richard Anderson.  Birth record for Richard Anderson.”  This is Devan’s father.  In his reality Devan’s father is deceased.

The arm returns the current record and returns with the birth record for Devan’s father.  Devan reads through the same information and again the basics are all the same.  Identical intelligence and final evaluation.  Devan than asks the system about death records.  Again no such luck.  Then he asks another way.

“Life span for Richard Anderson.”

The robotic arm moves a large number of pages form the stack.  Devan reads on.  There is only one statement.

 

120 years.

 

No context, no reference, nothing.  Devan figures this is great, his father had a long life, but then he starts to think about how old his father would have been when Devan was born and starts to get confused.  Maybe it’s the strange way they document time, in epochs, or maybe the government simply decided not to make Devan until his father was old.  He looks up his mother.  Again, 120 years.  Devan begins to get suspicious.  He looks at his mother’s birth year, but without context cannot really determine when she died.  He then asks for his record.  The arm returns and Devan asks to see what is printed in his record for life span.  Again, like the others, it reads 120 years.  Devan thinks about it and isn’t really concerned at first, based on everything he’s experienced this isn’t a surprise.  The body ages and this world is completely disease free so there’s nothing to kill people or take years off their life.  It seems that the commonwealth has set a limit on the number of years a person can live.  Then a cold wave surges through Devan’s body.  He thinks about whether or not people really live to 120 and if so how is life terminated.  For a few seconds Devan didn’t see anything wrong with it but now he feels sick.  This means that somehow people are rounded up or required to go somewhere to be killed.  This is public record so it’s not a secret.  In this place people are made and then killed at a preset time.  As the thought sinks in Devan becomes more disturbed by it.  Devan looks at the records, paying more attention to detail.  He sees that the birthing laboratory is in the same building in sector three.  Devan, determined to see the birthing laboratory, leaves the archives and returns to the lobby of the building.

“Devan Anderson, request access to sector three.”

There is a pause.  A series of dim laser fields scans Devan.  This is different form the mosquito drone swarm that came for Jacob.  Devan really wants to see that swarm again.

“Access denied.  Sector three access is only granted to perspective parents, medical personnel and government officials.”

Devan thinks.  Maybe he can get Jacob to bring him here to enter the lab, but he’d need an excuse.  Jacob knows about Devan’s predicament but Devan feels that Jacob is suspicious.  Then Devan has an idea.

“Devan Anderson.  Patient of Doctor Jacob Nalbandian.  Request access to sector 9.”

A door opens and Devan enters Jacob’s office.

“Hey, at least this is a start.”  Devan thinks to himself.  “But where to start looking and what to look for?”

Devan sits in Jacobs chair and thinks.  He tries to access hyper-memory for information.  He asks about access permission.  Nothing.  He asks about neuro conductivity scans.  Nothing.  This is weird.  Devan asks a question out loud.

“Where is the nearest Stubb’s coffee?”

Nothing, silence.  This is strange.  Devan cannot access hyper-memory here.  It is almost as if he is in a shielded chamber.  Devan remembers something the Olaraf said he also realizes that his thoughts are probably safe here as well.  Devan doesn’t understand how to secure his personal thoughts but this society has developed the technology to shield certain information from hyper-space access.  He begins to search the office for clues, talking out loud to himself.

“There has to be some documentation about access privileges.  A set of passcodes or sectors that Jacob has access to.  Man, what do they use here to keep records if there’s no hyper-space access?  No file cabinets, no drawers in the desk.  No paper.  What?  Aaah.”

Devan sees what looks like and antique hand held computer device.  He picks it up and the screen illuminates.

“Wow.  There doesn’t seem to be a security lock on this device.  That’s not good.  I guess Jacob didn’t expect someone to come in.”

Devan scrolls through the information on the hand held device.  He eventually comes across an access list.  This indicates that Jacob has access to all areas of the facility.  It also has information on the security scans.  The drone scan was performed on Jacob because of his clearance level.  It also states that once a cleared person is in their office they may move freely without additional scans.  Devan isn’t sure what a cleared person really means.  He reads further and discovers that cleared personnel require scanning upon entering but that carrying their hand held device will trigger access to all facilities without the need for a scan.  It also indicates that devices are not allowed out of the facility.  The handheld is essentially an interface to the security system.  Devan enters sector three, the birthing sector.  The door to Jacob’s office opens to a corridor.  It is not the same type as the stainless steel corridor he and Jacob were in for the neural scan.  This looks more like a hallway in an office building.  Devan enters, begins to walk, and in less than a minute he comes to an open door and enters.

 

*****

 

This is sector three.  Devan is awestruck.  It looks like a farm or like a hydroponics lab for growing plants.  There are rows of clear fluid filled containers each with a human embryo or fetus in various stages of development.  Devan walks through looking at every detail.  He is more interested in the science behind it all more than anything else.  All of these test tube babies seem to be in perfect health and well taken care of.  He isn’t turned off at all by this method of reproduction.  Back home people have used all sorts of medical assistance with fertility including this method but he’s never seen a mass production of humans before.  As he walks and observes Devan starts to think, to put things together in his head.  He isn’t sure about the numbers but there seem to be more unborn humans in this lab than people on the street any given day.  Devan is curious as to whether or not there is a planned baby boom on its way.

He moves to another sector of the lab where more developed fetuses have undergone neutering.  He can see the effects on the fetus but they look healthy.  Devan starts to wonder, if the evolution of human intelligence was due to the sharing of data with the mother through hyper-memory then how are these fetuses learning?  What makes them smarter?  Recalling the information he gathered from the archives and the discussions he’s had over the past several days he recalls that this is encrypted in the DNA now.  But still there is a connection to the mother for language that must be simulated.  Devan, now curious begins looking more closely at the chambers containing the growing humans, looking for clues.  His left brain analyzing every detail of the devices attached to them.  He sees a tube for drawing out waste where the placenta would be and one for delivering nutrients.  The amniotic fluid is very clear, from some angles it almost appears that they’re suspended in air.  Devan is looking for neuro transmitters, some connection to the brain.  He wishes he could ask Jacob how this works.  But then again, he realizes, Jacob will probably get in trouble for my being here if anyone finds out.

Devan then thinks to himself, “The fetus doesn’t need a hard wire connection to access hyper-memory, how would that even work, it’s not part of a human system.  No, there needs to be a conscious person in close proximity, connected to the fetus.  How would the fetus know this?  A heartbeat, vibration, acoustics.”

He looks closer at the jar trying to peak up and around the fetus floating inside.  Then, he finally sees it.  There are membranes at the top of the jar, pulsating, simulating the effect of a heartbeat.

“The mother’s memory will have to access the child’s.”  Devan thinks to himself.  “So, wherever the source of the pulse is, the control, there is probably a person, people or even some type of computer producing memories, speech patterns etc. that is being transmitted through the acoustic vibrations and into hyper-memory for the fetus to access.”

He continues to walk through the facility keeping an eye on the connections to the embryonic chambers, following them like a trail, or a map.  He comes up to the back wall and a door opens.  This is the control room Devan expected to find.  Here he can see the various pieces of the system controlling heartbeat, monitoring vitals, and in the center if it all the brain.  A massive cluster of quantum super computers generating everything from speech to a review of all knowledge known to man and transmitting this data to the entire network of unborn humans.  Devan is impressed, he knows that there has to be an algorithm that helps the system manipulate hyper-space and that requires some sort of reactor.  While humans have learned to use their mind to bend space this amount of curvature held in place for this long requires more.  He looks around a sees what he knows to be the controls and other interfaces for monitoring the status of a small but powerful particle accelerator.  Devan isn’t curious where it is, under them next to them, he only cares that he knows it’s there.  Devan walks out into the hall, strolling causally down the corridor not concerned with getting caught, absorbed in thought about the human farm, super computers and accelerator, and proud of himself for figuring it out.  His thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a conversation in the distance.  Devan slowly walks to where the voices are coming from.  In a small room is a toddler, no more than 18 months old, and a grown woman having a conversation.  Devan eavesdrops by the door trying not to be noticed.  He is amused at the conversation, the subject being advanced mathematics.  It’s hard to comprehend, seeing a 2 year old talk like an adult.  People’s bodies still develop slowly and emotional development still takes time.  But intellectually people are born knowing everything.  Devan listens intently.  The child seems pretty smart.  The woman is documenting something, writing on a pad.  The woman gets up to leave and Devan backs up, down the hall hiding around a corner.  The woman leaves, placing a folder in a vertical holder on the wall outside the door of the room as she walks away.  Out of curiosity Devan sneaks back to the room.  He see the child playing with blocks.  Devan opens the folder and rifles through the pages.  He sees the same type if intelligence assessment as in the other birth records.  He looks for the final assessment.

 

STANDARDIZED TESTS:

1232: 2701: 88: 21,650:

All tests are more than 8% above the accepted intelligence level.

FINAL ASSESSMENT:

Development of Child 1732E-4K7 should be terminated.

End report.

 

An instant wave of nausea hits Devan.  He looks into the room at the small child playing innocently.  Wondering if he is aware of his fate.  “Baby killers!” “Genocide!”  Devan thinks to himself.  He cannot believe his eyes.  Somehow he managed to get past the neutering and controlled breeding of humans and even the predetermined death at 120 years.  But this he cannot fathom.  It’s not true that society is intellectually homogeneous by evolution.  The government pick and chooses only those individuals that meet the required intelligence criterion by age 2 to continue development.  All others are put to sleep.  How can anyone accept this?  Is everyone complacent?  Devan feels as though he’s going to drop to the floor and begin sobbing when he hears voices in the distance.

A man’s voice asks, “Have you seen Dr. Nalbandian?  Our system indicates that he entered this sector over an hour ago and hasn’t left.”

A woman answers.  “No I haven’t seen him.”

Now Devan’s feelings turn to fear and anxiety over getting caught here.  He can’t focus on anything, he’s suffering information overload.  Thinking what to do next he resorts to the only thing an animal could do, especially one who doesn’t fully understand hyper-space travel, run!  His choice to run alerts security to his presence.

“Sir, please stop.  We need to talk to you.”  A security guard says politely.

Devan’s heart is racing, adrenaline pumping.  He can only think of getting away.  Security pursues him.  Devan recalls his first impressions of people here, that they looked like Greek Gods.  Well security resembles Thor on massive doses of steroids.  Three men pursue Devan, each over seven feet tall with shoulders over three feet wide.  The men don’t run after Devan, they simply continue to walk calmly restating their request.

“Sir, please stop.  We need to talk to you.”

Just as Devan feels that he’s out run them one appears in front of him appearing out of thin air.  Devan stops in his tracks and reverses direction.  He thinks to himself, they must be using hyper-space travel.  Anywhere he turns he is surrounded.  The guards do not approach him or attempt to apprehend him, but restate their request.  Devan, panting, panicking can’t stop thinking “right, right, left.  Right, right, left.  Right, right, left.”  Over and over since it’s the only thing he knows.  He executes the sequence of moves and instantly finds himself at the university, at the door to his classroom.  Feeling a moment of relief he enters.  As he opens the door he sees the guards at the back of the class walking towards him.

“Sir, please stop.  We need to talk to you.  No harm will come to you.  Please comply.”  One of the guards says.

Devan now in a panic again musters enough composure to reverse his steps and finds himself in the hallway of the medical facility again, with guards approaching him from all directions.  Realizing that he’s still holding on to Jacob’s handheld computer he throws it down and executes the rotation sequence left, left, right.  Devan now finds himself at Stubb’s.  He rushes in, running past Jacob and Allyson, to his arcade office in the back.  Slamming the door behind him and locking the door, Devan starts to obsess over the babies and what he’s learned of their fate.  The Commonwealth is running a eugenics program.  Not even a war against the weak but a concerted effort to keep intelligence completely homogeneous.  He wonders if these little children understand what’s going to happen to them or how they’re going to do it.  He feels sick again.  There’s a knock on the door and Jacob calls out.

 

*****

 

“Hey, Devan, what’s going on man?  Let me in.”

Devan isn’t sure what to think or do.  He realizes that Jacob is a part of this but this is not the Jacob he knows back in his reality.  Devan opens the door.  Jacob enters and Devan locks the door behind him.

“What’s going on Devan?”

“You’re not going to like this… What am I thinking, I don’t like this!  Well, I went to your office and used your handheld to go to the birthing lab in the medical building.”

“Oh man, you shouldn’t have done that.  So the guards were following you.”

“Yeah.  You know what they do there right?  I mean, they don’t just grow humans there.  They kill children there.  At age two?!  How do you fucking kill a two year old who’s smart enough to solve any math problem in the world, or speak fluently?!  I mean, do they know what’s happening?”

“Devan, you’re overreacting.  This is how we… breed here.  This is what we do.  I don’t know how to say it any more plainly.  You know all about this, it’s not a surprise for you.  But you’d better keep you voice down and your thoughts to yourself.”

“Why?  What are you talking about?  Anyway like I told you I’m not from here.  There’s that space-time arcade game reset problem…”

“Right, right.”

“How do they do it?  And… how come in the archives everyone lives to be 120 years?”

“You started that.  That was the nature of your proof on the moral imperative of ignorance.  I don’t know exactly how… they… you know.  But after, all records are destroyed.  The only records kept are of those whose development is approved.  Your thesis was used by the government to justify the destruction of records.  You consulted on that.”

“Oh God.”  Devan can’t believe his ears.  He can’t believe how easy it is for Jacob to discuss.  He can’t believe that he had something to do with this.  It seems very easy now for him to make the decision.  There is nothing about this world worth staying for.  As soon as he figures out the correct initial condition to reset he’s out of here.  Just as he has the thought the program he set returns.  The results are in and Devan looks in disbelief.  “Jacob?”

“I know.  Look I had no other choice.”

“You’re the one who screwed with the game!  You changed the initial conditions?  But… Then you’re the Jacob from the other reality.  Why did you do this?”

 

Travels

 

Devan goes straight back to Stubb’s to visit Allyson after his class.  He is really attracted to Allyson, to her sarcasm and sense of humor.  As he enters the café he sees Allyson and Jacob talking.

“Hey Jacob, I’m glad you’re here.”

“Yeah, Allyson and I were just talking about… you.  You know, your love for basket weaving.”  Jacob and Allyson laugh.

“Ok, ok.  I said I was sorry.  But whatever.  Hey, Allyson mentioned something about visiting other inhabitable planets, even in other solar systems.  Are you guys up for it?  Like, now?”

“Sure man.  I just have to finish up a few things.  Allyson, are you good to go?  Can you get someone here to cover for you?”

“Oh, yeah.  I can’t believe Devan’s never been.”

“Great!  What is the left-right sequence to get to… aaah, the Kepler system?  Where Allyson did her field work?

Jacob answers.  “First of all that system is pretty boring, no real action.  Great for field research but not a lot happening.  We’ll go to another solar system.  And, that sequence is for local travel.  You’d be dancing all day like a fool if you tried intergalactic travel that way.  For that we need to go to a special node.  A travel hub for intergalactic hyper-space travel.”

“Ok, cool.  Let’s just go.”

“Hold on we’re almost ready.”

Allyson speaks, “I just got Hector to cover for me.  I’m ready.”

Jacob leads the group to the nearest intergalactic travel hub.  From there they wait for the next opportunity to travel to the Gliese system.  While they wait Devan looks around, taking in as much information as he can about his environment.  He notices something familiar and mentions it to Jacob and Allyson.

“Hey guys, there’s a Stubb’s here.”

“Of course, there’s a Stubb’s everywhere.”  Answers Allyson.  “There has been almost one Stubb’s per every 14 or 15 people for the last 4 epochs.”

“Right, I forgot.”  Silly me, I’m giving myself away.  Gotta fit in.  Right?

Jacob interrupts.  “Hey look there’s an opening to the Gliese system, let’s jump in.”

The method for intergalactic hyper-space travel is more involved than just walking down the street.  With greater distances there is greater uncertainty where you may end up.  Jacob leads the group to the Gliese portal and they enter.  The experience is quite disorienting for Devan and he loses track of Jacob and Allyson.  He emerges in another travel hub overcrowded with people, transport vehicles and swarming scanners, like the ones in Jacob’s medical facility.  Devan can’t keep his footing.  The crowds are so dense it is as if there is an opaque cloud of people, a fog.  They rush past him, pushing and shoving, cursing Devan’s presence.  He’s knocked to the ground before he can move.  Nearly trampled he gets up and makes his way to a wall, pressing his body up against it as hard as he can.  Standing, panting, watching the chaos in front of him.  A man speaks to him.

“You seem lost.  Never been to Gliese?”

At least Devan knows he’s in the right place.  “Uh, no.  Right… First time.”  Devan looks over at the man.  He looks human but nothing like the people on Earth.  He’s short, and fat, and covered in hair in all the wrong places.  He seems to be wearing clothes that have not been washed in weeks.  Based on his clothing and the insignia on his shirt Devan guesses him for a Travel Hub worker.  Perhaps a janitor.  “Uh, so what are you doing here?

“Ah, I work here.  I’m an intergalactic network administrator.”  The man pokes Devan in the stomach.  “I’m responsible for all the holes.  Heh, heh, heh.”

The man’s voice is low, hoarse, and he laughs like he’s clearing his throat.

“Wow.  That must be a lot of work.”

“Na, not really.  Just when some dumb ass doesn’t know what he’s doing and jams everyone up.  You know.  Like you.  Heh, heh, heh.  Just kidding.”

“Well, yeah.  Uh, sorry I guess,”

“Na, everyone’s a first timer once.  So, what’s your name?”

“Devan.”

“Devan.  Cool.  Nice to meet you, I’m Frank.”

“Frank.  Nice to meet you too.”

“Bullshit.  You don’t know me.  Heh, heh, heh.  Just kidding.  So what are doing here?”

“Well, actually, I came with two friends and we were supposed to visit an intergalactic planet.  Sight see I guess.”

“Where d’ya come from?”

“Uh, Earth.”  Devan is still in shock over the massive traffic in front of him and only partially listening to Frank.

“Oh!  Earthlings!  Fucking hoity-toity, MASTER RACE.  Nice to meet you.  Heh, heh.”

“Yeah, right, nice to…  Hey what do you mean?  You’re an earthling, aren’t you?”

“No, I’m human.  Which is more than I can say for you.  But I’m not an earthling.  My family migrated to this system two epochs ago.  Hey, look at me.  What d’ya see?”

“Uh, I don’t know.  A man?”

“A fat slob of a man.  You ever look at yourself in the mirror?  Adonis?”  Frank says in a sarcastic demeaning tone of voice.

“Well.  No.  I have better things to do.”

“Oh, look at the princess.  Real important.  Well, where are your friends?”

“I don’t know.  I guess we got separated.  Do you know how I can find them?”

“Yeah.  Go look for ‘em.  Heh, heh.  File a fucking missing persons report.  Oh, oh, oh, go over to security and have them paged!  Tell ‘em their mommy is looking for ‘em.  That always gets ‘em.  Heh, heh.”

“Hey.  Fuck you.”

“Hey, don’t get all sensitive.  I was just having fun.  I’m guessing your friends wanted to take you to visit the Olarafs.”

“Yes, that sounds familiar.  Probably.”

“Well, sorry to tell you.  When you entered the “hole”, as I like to call them, you probably got separated and they went off to Gliese 581g while you wound up here, Gliese 667Cc.  Sorry but it’ll be a while before you can get back to earth.  You’re gonna’ have to hang out here.  Place is a shit hole.  Just one big travel hub, no real excitement, nothing to see.”

“Ah, that’s ok.  It is what it is.  I’ll just find a place to sit, have coffee, and surf hyper-memory for a while.”

“Jeez, you must have an extra special boring gene.  Did they plant that in you back on earth?”

“Well do you have any suggestions?”

“I was afraid you’d ask.  Well, if you can wait a while I know something that will amaze you.”

“What?”

“Better if it’s a surprise.  If you’ve never traveled intergalactically, and I’m assuming that’s the case, then you are going to want to see it first.”

“Ok.  It isn’t anything… weird?”

“Heh, heh.  I don’t know how to answer that.  Look, it’s cool and you’ll like it.  Nothing dangerous.  Nothing… sexual.  Ooooh.”

“Fine.  I’m in.”

“Ok.  Look just hang out here for a bit and I’ll come by and get you.  You won’t regret it.”

Devan goes to the nearest Stubb’s, it’s the only thing he knows.  Watching the cloud of people swirl by is dizzying and mind numbing.  He is having a hard time adjusting to each new experience but after a while starts to feel like he belongs.  He reminisces in his mind about what he’s learned regarding the alternate history here and starts to think he could stay.  It raises a moral dilemma in his mind.  On the one hand he never really cared about anything in his world, no one does.  So there’s nothing to miss.  But for some unexplainable reason it just feels wrong not to correct the error.  The only reason to correct an error is to avoid punishment or other consequences of the action that caused the error and that isn’t an issue here.  It’s the perfect out.  On the other hand he will never really be like the people here, not even like his friend Jacob.  He will never have the genetic advantage they have.   What would happen to him if that was discovered?  The students in his class thought he was strange.  He’ll always be strange.  Could he learn what he needs to in order to get by?  Frank approaches Devan as he sits in deep thought.  He’s excited about their outing.  Devan can see that Frank is carrying a suitcase.

“Hey, Frank.  How long are we going for?”

“No, this is not luggage.  We need to go to somewhere and put these on.”

“You said it wasn’t weird, nothing sexual.”

“It’s not.  These are space suits.”

Devan is excited.  Where the hell could they be going where they need space suits?  Space.  Devan follows Frank to a private office that looks more like a janitor’s closet and Frank gives him a suit.

“Here this should fit you.  You’re big though.”

The suit is very thin and sleek.  Almost like a spandex workout suit.  There is a face mask with a visor and sensors near the ears and mouth.  Frank points this out to Devan.

“Hey, we’ll be able to communicate through these and there’s an oxygen supply.”

Devan puts the suit on over his clothes.  “Ok, I’m suited up.”

“Follow me.”

Devan and Frank approach the “hole”, a portal to another point in space-time.  They enter, and exit at the event horizon of a black hole.  Devan instantly feels as if he’s having an out of body experience.  He feels exhilarated and terrified at the same time.  There are no words in any language to accurately describe what a black hole looks like up close.  If you could imaging something pitch black moving at the speed of light against a pitch black background that would be the closest thing to the experience.  You can’t see it but you sense it, and you sense that there is movement.  Devan can’t believe this is really happening.  This is the closest thing to a religious experience for him.  Just as he is at the height of intellectual ecstasy Frank nudges him in the side with his elbow.

“Hey, you wanna see something neat?”  And with that Frack opens the front of his suit, pulls out his penis and begins to urinate in the black hole.

Devan’s feeling of ecstasy suddenly turns to disgust and horror.  His body tightens everywhere.

“No!!!  No!  No!  God damn it what the fuck are you doing?!”

“I’m pissing in a black hole!  It’s awesome.”

“Why?!!!  Why would you do that?!!  This is the most amazing thing in the universe!!!  It’s… It’s like looking into God’s eye and you’re pissing in it?”

“God’s eye?  Boy you are a special case.  Look, it’s a hole.  A hole, like the hole in the armpit of my shirt or the one in the front of your head.  There’s nothing special about it.  It’s just a big hole.”  Frank is still urinating as he talks to Devan.  “Hey, don’t look at it.  Heh, heh.  Watch this.  The piss adds mass, which makes the hole pull you in, but the momentum recoil pushes you back and you can find a balance.  Watch!  You can lean into it.  Wheeeeeee.  Aaaah!”

“I can’t fucking believe this.  You twisted pervo.  You ruined this whole experience!”

“Hey, you can feel it kind of tug on you.  Ooooo, yeah.”

“Ok, stop.  I’m going back!”

“Fine, fine.  Just let me shake it off.  Laundry night is another week away.  I can’t walk around with a piss stain on my uniform.”

Frank and Devan return to the hub.  Devan doesn’t know how to react to Frank after the experience at the black hole.  He’s worked out the math a thousand times.  On paper they are common objects but he’s never experienced one.

“Frank, what the hell was that?”

“Hey, you take shit too seriously.  God’s eye, really?  Tell me something earthling.  You’ve been to the Grand Canyon?”

“Yes.  So.”

“So.  They got campers there, right?  Gotta take a piss.  People been pissing in the Grand Canyon for epochs of time.  So this is just another canyon.”

“I guess.”  I guess he is right in a sense.  It is just a hole.  It’s an amazing hole, but to this guy it’s common place.  “So how is it we can stand at the event horizon and not get sucked in?”

“Well that’s a space-time trick.  We were really in a bubble that was being held in a suspended state between one region of space far away and another right up next to the horizon.  Just enough to see over it but not get sucked in.  It sort of like a… an overlook platform.”

“So if we were in a bubble and protected why the suits?”

“Well it’s not that stable.  Kind of risky.  The suits aren’t to keep you alive in space.  No.  You see getting sucked into a black hole is about the worst way to die.  Imaging being fully conscious for a few seconds while every atom of your body is systematically disassembled.  They call it molecular dismemberment.  It goes deeper than that, down to the quarks and gluons but you can’t really feel that.  Well the suit is designed so that if it detects the slightest indication that you’re falling into the hole, it self-destructs and kills you instantly.”

“Wow.  Thanks for the heads up.”

“What?!  You’re fine.  You liked it.  What do you care?”

“You’re saying I could’ve died and you think I’m overreacting?”

“It’s a possibility but it never happens… often.  Look, the suit is just a precaution but no one ever gets hurt.  Besides it’s the most excitement you’ll even have.  Heh, heh, heh.”

“What do mean by that?”

“You know, earthlings.”

“Well, I’m not originally from earth, I just live there now.”  Devan senses there’s something to learn from Frank and wants to pull it out of him.

“Bullshit.  Now I know you’re bullshitting.  Outsiders don’t move to Earth.  Where are you really from?”

“I’m from a colonized moon in the same solar system.  Just here with a couple earth friends.  Jacob and Allyson.”

“Sure.  Whatever.  You ever notice how everyone looks like a statue?  Earthlings are made that way.  They’re all grown in test tubes.  A big science experiment.”

“No shit.  How’d that happen?”

“It’s been that way for a while.  I don’t really know the history but it had to do with the evolution caused by hyper-space memory access.  That and certain communicable diseases that threatened to wipe out the population.  In the end the Commonwealth decided that breeding should be done in a controlled environment.”

“How do they do that?  I mean you can’t stop people from… breeding.”

“Oh yeah you can.  You see earthlings still develop gonads but they are surgically removed and kept in a lab.  The Commonwealth keeps track of everyone’s family tree.  You know.  They don’t just mix peoples genetic samples willy nilly.  They pair off people based on genetic compatibility and make offspring.  Earthlings are factory made.  Naturally of course but it’s one big farm.”

“Shit.  How do people develop without… you know?”

“Ah, they don’t really.  At age 5 people choose a gender and undergo gender assignment.  They then live their life as that gender but earthlings are essentially neuter.  They do it to maintain some sort of normality.  I don’t’ know, history.  To look authentically human but it doesn’t matter.”

“Wow.  I had no idea.”

“Yeah, pretty fucked up!”

“What do you mean by genetic compatibility?”

“You fucking with me?  You act like you don’t know anything.  Look at your friends sometime.  How many earthlings do you know?”

“A lot, I’ve seen a lot of… earthlings.”

“Then you must’ve had your eyes closed.  Race.  They are all monoethnic.”

“Well, yeah I did notice that.  But I didn’t really think anything of it.”

“Yeah well, race mixing is… against the rules, forbidden, outlawed.  But it’s not really an issue since people don’t have a choice.  They don’t do their own genetic mixing if you know what I mean, the government does.  Ha!  Leave it to the government to do all the fucking.”

“But things are… Perfect there.  Or, they seem to be.  Do people know this?”

“Of course.  They know everything.  You can learn about it in the hyper-space archives but I don’t care.”

“Don’t people… I don’t know how to say it.  Don’t they care that this is how they were made.  That their fate is controlled in a sense.”

“It isn’t.  You’re confusing two things.  It doesn’t matter if you come from a test tube or from your mother and father, you have no control over the fact that you exist.  But you do have control over your destiny.  These people know who they are and they’re fine with it.  They have total control over what they do with their life.  Within the confines of the “policies and procedures of the Commonwealth”, but they do like their life.  Look, like I said this was the result of a serious epidemic that almost wiped them out.”

“I guess.  I mean it sounds pretty messed up, like a Eugenics program.  But if that was the only way to save the human race…”

“Earthlings.  Save the earthlings…  Heh, heh.  Shoot the Martians!   Ha!  That just came to me.”

“Right.  I’ve heard that before so keep trying.  Anyway, yeah, if they had to do it to save themselves I guess it’s all good.  But people don’t get together and decide to have children, even test tube children, the government does the pairing?”

“That’s right.  The Commonwealth produces humans according to a specific demographic profile designed to ensure that there are equal number of all races present in society.  That’s why everyone looks so exotic.”

“You said monethnic before.”

“Yeah.  Monoethnic.  I don’t mean that there is only one race on Earth but that there is no race mixing.  No polyethnic earthlings.  This is a result of globalization after the Great War.  The Earth was pretty stable before the war and each major continent was economically developed.  After the war when all countries adopted the Commonwealth political system and began migrating all over the earth is when the epidemic occurred.  People determined that genetic incompatibility created weakened immune system.  So a global committee of scientists determined that if breeding was kept under control and made a scientific process everything would be fine.”

That’s weird, back home the opposite turned out to be true.  It is generally considered a well-known fact that children of mixed race couples have stronger immune systems.  In our world we have all sorts of diseases but no one gets sick from them as a result of our racial homogeneity.  Everyone is very promiscuous and everyone has all sorts of viruses and bacterial infections living in them but they just lay dormant in the body having no effect on our health.

“Hey!  You in there?  You zoned out for a minute.”

“Is that how they control intelligence?  Or did that happen naturally?”

“Hey!  Now you’re asking dangerous questions.  You’d better leave that one alone.”

“So, how much longer until I can get back to Earth?”

“It’ll be a while still.  But there is a portal opening to Gliese 581g soon.  From there you can hop to Earth and still see the Olarafs.”

“Great.  Well, it was nice hanging out with you, I guess.  Thanks for taking me to see the black hole.”

“Yeah sure, and you got to see my penis.  You’ll never forget it.  Heh, heh…. (Coughing noises) heh….”

“Ok then, good bye.”

Devan walks off to the 581g portal.  He can hear Frank laughing, coughing, snorting and making all sorts of disgusting noises as he walks away.  Without looking back he steps through the 581g portal.  Upon entering the other side, Gliese 581g, he is overcome with emotion, then with feelings of peacefulness.  G581g is dark, at least where Devan is right now, it looks like a dark starry night.  He sees a landscape similar to earth, with trees and other plants but all unique.  New species like nothing he’s ever seen.  Everything moves in slow motion as if suspended in a viscous fluid.  Even though it looks like night there is a glow in the atmosphere, almost as if the air is made of the same fluid as in a glow stick.  Devan sees a massive structure slowly move towards him.  This structure appears to him to be the size of a whale, and it’s very intimidating but its movement is graceful, having the appearance of a gelatinous caterpillar standing upright.  It appears to be floating, swimming in the air.  This is an Olaraf.  As the Olaraf gets closer it appears to shrink.  Up close it is only slightly larger than Devan.  Its body has a definite boundary but looks soft and fluid like a jelly fish.  Devan cannot tell if he’s looking at its belly, head, face or what.  But it does seem to have a front, and back, and sides.  Its body is outlined with small appendages that resemble suction cups.  It undulates, floating in space in front of Devan.  The Olaraf speaks to Devan.

“Hello, I am Kekarklarah.”

“Kekarklarah.”

“You mispronounced it, but that’s ok.”

“How do you know how to communicate with me?  Do you have a lot of earthlings here?”

“Hmm, you are not an earthling, not like others I’ve seen, I can tell.  But, to answer your question directly.  As I approached you I learned the language you were using in your internal dialog, your mind.  Your thoughts are in hyper-memory for all to read.  Unless you protect them.”

“So, you read my mind in a sense but you learned the language that fast?”

“Human languages are not too difficult to figure out.  And to be clear.  I didn’t read your mind, I never entered your mind or brain.  This is a common mistake among conscious beings when they first learn to use hyper-memory.  You put your thoughts into hyperspace.  I just picked them up.  Until you learn to use it properly your internal dialog is not… a private conversation.”

“Oh!  I didn’t really know that.  That’s good to know.”

“Why did you come to G581g?”

“Well I was supposed to come with two friends of mine to see the Olarafs.  But along the way we got separated and I ended up on G667Cc.”

“Hmmm.  Have you found your friends yet?”

“No.  Uh, I was going to wait on G667Cc but then a man there told me I could catch a portal to G581g and go to Earth from there.”

“Was it Frank?”

“Yes, you know him?”

“Well he is the network node administrator.  The gate keeper in a sense.  He’s funny, don’t you think?  Did he show you his trick with the black hole?”  The Olaraf laughs but it’s indescribable.

“Yes.  He sure did.  I was not impressed.  It really angered me.”

“But why?”

“Well, I’d never seen a black hole and I thought that is was… well it was an experience like no other.  Almost religious and that ruined it.”

“Hmm.  I’m sorry to hear that.  But it seems like you gave too much importance to this natural phenomenon.  It’s understandable.  When we experience anything for the first time it can seem that way.”

“How do you know I’m not like other earthlings?”

“We can see it in your DNA.  Also, many Olarafs teleport between parallel realities.  We sort of live in a superposition of realities and… Hmm, average them out in our collective consciousness.  We, as a species, are conscious and self-aware but work as a colony, like insects on your planet.  We are a distributed consciousness network sharing data and experience.”

“Wait, so first of all you’re an Olaraf.  Cool, that’s why we came here.  But how do you know about parallel realities, how do you make them or control them?”

“That’s kind of silly.  Nature makes them, like stars, planets, elementary particles.”

“But, we only just started making extra dimensions recently.  Before that they didn’t exist.  Maybe in the early universe but they disappeared in the later stages of evolution.”

“No.  That is a common misconception among the more primitive species.  They always think they created something when they first discovered it.  This is part of the structure of our universe.  It always has been.  You see, your species evolved in the cold phase of the universe, from the ground up.  As single cell organisms, then cell colonies and eventually complex life forms which became self-aware and discovered hyper-space.  Our species started to evolve in the early hot phase of the universe.  We were multi-dimensional organism made of highly correlated particle resonances.  As the universe cooled our primitive counterparts became trapped in hyper-space, getting squeezed tighter and tighter as the universe cooled.  We began to migrate into the openness of space-time and occupy matter, using it to build bodies for ourselves.  So our evolution was from the top down.  We started conscious then created bodies whereas you started as a body and became conscious.”

“So, are you saying that your species are… Gods, or something like that?”

“No, not at all.  But again primitive species make that mistake.  Consciousness and physical life both evolved, and evolved together.  It just happened in a different order in some species.  There are many life forms in the universe that evolved like us, consciousness first, body second.  Similarly there are many forms of life similar to humans in their evolutionary path.”

Devan is enjoying this conversation but it makes him very concerned.  He really believes that his reality was hard coded in a sense and that this reality is the result of an error.  If he starts to listen to the Olaraf the only conclusion he can draw is that his previous reality was one of many and he really has no control over the outcome of resetting the initial conditions of the arcade game.

“So, does your species believe in God?”

“Of course.  God exists.  Isn’t that obvious?”

“No, not at all.  Where I come from not many people believe in God.”

“Hmm, they probably don’t understand the difference between understanding or knowing God versus ignorant blind faith or dogma driven by superstition, fear, and habit.”

“How would you prove God exists?”

“I wouldn’t but I can explain what I know.  Hold up your hand and extend your index finger upwards.  What do you have?”

“I have a hand?  Uh, I don’t know.  I have a finger.”

“You have five on each hand but how many are extended?”

“One.”

“So, you have one.”

“Yes.”

“Now imagine I gave you an apple.  Placed it in the palm of your hand.  How would you describe what you have?”

“I’d say I have an apple, one apple.”

“So remove the finger and the apple.  Does one still exist?”

“Well, I think so.  Yes.”

“One is an abstraction.  We use it all the time to describe material things around us but it exists on its own without an example to clarify it.”

“Ok, that seems reasonable.”

“Think about life.  You live and I live.  All the forms of life you know have this in common.  But imagine that these forms of life ceased to exist.  Life still exists.  Wouldn’t you say?”

“I am having a harder time with that than the number one.  But I do see that it’s reasonable.”

“Think about the conditions required to create life.  If they did not exist in the universe life would not be possible.”

“True.”

“But life exists so the conditions that make it possible exist.”

“Yes but that seems like backwards reasoning.”

“Ok, but I’m not finished with my train of thought.  I am not suggesting that our existence created the condition necessary for our existence.  But that we exist means that the conditions for life were present, that life was a logical possibility in our universe.”

“Ok, true.”

“Take life away.  Imagine that it doesn’t exist now.  The possibility of life does.  There is a thing we call life that does not require a living creature to have meaning.”

“I agree.  Life, the abstract definition exists.”

“Now consider consciousness.  You and I are both self-aware though we’ve achieved different levels of self-awareness.  Imagine for a moment that neither of us were conscious and furthermore that life like yours existed but none of the life forms were evolved enough to be self-aware.  The abstraction of consciousness still exists.”

“I think I agree.  All these things we know have an abstract form and essential meaning or value independently of a particular example of them.  Life and consciousness are things in and of themselves.  You and I are examples of life and consciousness.  The existence of the abstract meaning is required for any example to come into existence but you and I are not required for the abstraction to have meaning.”

“This is God.  I would take it one step further and say God is the collection of all abstractions, the ones we are aware of based on experience and the ones we have no hope of becoming aware of.”

“That’s a very fulfilling thought but where I’m from people usually expect God to do things to help or hurt them based on their actions.  They see themselves as images of God and God-like in a sense.  When things don’t go well or corruption takes over a system people stop believing in God since they don’t see “proof” of God’s existence.  They say, Why would God let this happen?”

“Hmm, I know.  We see it happening.  This is not what God means.  It’s true that your life is a reflection of God’s since all life is an example of God.  But only in the abstract sense.  Look at me, I look nothing like you yet my life is a Godly image as well.”

“I do see.  We share that in common.”

“There is no way that you can know what you will evolve into.  You cannot see all these possibilities.  But they are waiting to be observed by you as alternate states of being.  God’s view of these is all encompassing whereas ours is small and limited.  But it’s not God’s job to hold your hand and make the path clear.  This is governed by your choices.  The ability to choose is divine, a Godly attribute.  It’s the responsibility of conscious life to respect God by respecting itself and to do this one must be able to speak God’s language.”

“What is that?  What is God’s language?”

“The first example of an abstraction we discussed.  Numbers, mathematics.  All mathematical concepts are abstractions of relationships.  God’s creative power is in the language of mathematics.  Even primitive earthlings started to see this when they discovered geometry.  For centuries your kind thought God was a geometer.  But this is a very primitive conclusion.  You then learned to understand topology, category theory, fiber bundle theory, and it seemed that there was no end to the mathematical concepts that could be discovered.  Each one brought you closer to God.  To know math, now that’s to look into the eye of God.”

“Wow, I love that.”

“Yes, so did Einstein.”

“What do you mean?  You know Einstein?”

“We’ve been visiting your species ever since there were signs of consciousness.  All advanced species do this.  We need to for our own survival.  When a bottom-up species begins to become self-aware they can go for many epochs in complete darkness exhibiting self-destructive tendencies.  Unaware of their relationship to other species.  Especially in the hyper-manifold.  You know how it is when humans have children.  It takes years before they can manage for themselves, running all over the place making a mess of everything.  Well, your species is in that phase, has been for a long time.  The rest of us self-aware species have been watching over you like parents but also keeping you in check.  We planted you on Earth and managed to keep you in that garden for as long as possible just to prevent you from destroying the other species out here.  But once you discovered hyper-space technology the genii was out of the bottle.  And here you are.  But yes, to answer your question, I know Albert Einstein.  There have been times when, for everyone’s good, we intervened with human affairs.  I am sure your kind thought it was God or divine intervention.  But we really just didn’t want your kind messing up our space and our clean environment.  So we nudged you, sometimes in the direction of technological evolution and sometime the other way.  You weren’t always ready for evolution.  Einstein wasn’t the only one we interacted with but he was certainly ready.”

“You said that you can tunnel through alternate parallel realities and that you know my DNA.  So are you aware of my current predicament?”

“Sort of.  It’s not only your predicament.  I am sure you think you came from truth and that this is all a mistake, a fantasy that will end and be corrected once you take action.  But that has always been the problem with humans and other bottom up species.  You think you’re the only ones out there, the only ones who know what you know.  How do you know this isn’t reality and the world you come from wasn’t a mistake?”

“Well I can tell you I like this place better, with all the strangeness I’ve seen.  In my original parallel reality things are bad, really bad.  I can see why you would not want us getting out, escaping from our garden.  And it’s not a garden anymore it’s a toilet.”

“Part of the process.  Every life form needs to produce excrement.  Don’t be so self-judgmental.”

“Oh, if you could see it, and if I believe what you say then you’ve seen it, you’d be judgmental too.  How could you not?”

“Things will get better, they will evolve.  There is no other choice in life.  If your extinction is for the benefit of all species then your species will become extinct.  But if they wake up and take action they will evolve again.  Like humans here, they left the nest and so will you under the right conditions.”

“So, if I take the action I set out to take wouldn’t that destroy you and your kind?  Are you trying to dissuade me?”

“Well, it sounds like you’ve dissuaded yourself.  But, no.  Your actions are not that meaningful.  If you do what you originally set out to do you will have basically gone home.  To your garden toilet.  That has no real impact on us, we’ll just have to wait and see what happens next.”

“This has been an amazing conversation.  I’m not sure I will believe it after I leave.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.  Humans are funny that way.  The portal back to Earth is going to open soon.  Travel safe and don’t get lost.”

“Bye Kekarklarah.”

“Good bye.”

Devan enters the portal to Earth and finds himself back at the intergalactic travel node where he, Jacob and Allyson started their trip.  He realizes he never told Kekarklarah his name and feels regret, feels like he was rude.  But then he thinks to himself, Kekarklarah must know this from hyper-space.

Conversations

 

Devan enters Stubb’s to get coffee.  He’s used to being surprised so the different dates do not really worry him.  He tells himself it’s just a vacation and once the reset occurs everything will go back to normal.  A dismal, useless normal, but normal none the less.  He gets coffee and sits for a while.  While the dates don’t worry him they intrigue him.  He thinks to himself.

Yes of course.  Each region of space-time does have a proper history but there is no reason why the history of each region has to match up in any way with the others.  They seem to for us because we interact.  The interaction between different particles, or people, causes one to causally affect the other placing them in a sort of combined history.  When I reset the game incorrectly it affected the local region, my office, differently than the rest of the world, or universe as the case may be.  Everything outside seems self-consistent.  Cool.

Allyson approaches Devan, cleaning up after customers.

“Hey Devan.  How’d it go with the neuro transmitter conductivity scan?”

“Fine, I’m normal.”  Devan rolls his eyes.

“Oh well, don’t be too disappointed.”  Allyson smiles.

Hey you know, Allyson isn’t as uptight as Jacob.  Back home Jacob and I are equally sarcastic.  That’s why we get along.  “How do you know Jacob?”

“We took a course together back in school.”

How many courses can you take in two years, with breaks, while writing four doctorate theses?  “What are your degrees in?  If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Sure.  Well my theory degree is in Stochastic Linguistics, practical in Extraterrestrial Biology.  There’s Pre-Commonwealth World Politics and…  Basket Weaving!”

“Wow, cool.”

“Yeah.  You know Jacob was really worried about you the other day.  He’s never seen you like that, neither have I.  But you and Jacob have known each other for so long and he’s never seen you like that.”

“No?  Even when I did my doctorate in… Improv… Turkey, Stats…?”

“Improvisational Turkish Saz Performance.  Don’t be funny.  I guess if the test says you’re normal then you’re joking around.”

“Right, Saz.”

“I don’t know, I didn’t know you then.  Still don’t really.  You and Jacob talk for hours and hours all the time.  You must be really close.”

“Yep.  Since childhood.”  Devan thinks about the history lesson he just had and begins to think of ways he can learn more from Allyson.  “So, if your work in Extraterrestrial Biology is practical which planets did you visit for field work?”

“Oh, I went to the Kepler system of planets.  That was amazing.  Life there is so different from ours here on Earth.  You know people speculated for a long time that since most planets and moons capable of supporting life will have much of the same properties as Earth, you know gravity, water, solar radiation, that life anywhere has to be similar.  Not identical but with all the same systems as life on earth.  They couldn’t have been more wrong.  You should go there.  Perhaps we could go with Jacob when he gets back.”

“Yeah that does sound like fun.”

“You have to see the Olarafs.  They are so amazing.  Nothing like them in all the galaxies I’ve been to.”

“Definitely.  So, what’s stochastic linguistics like.  I cannot imagine.”

“That developed from what primitive people called Fuzzy Logic.  The injection of quantum uncertainty into mathematical meta language.  Not only does one have fuzzy or uncertain logical states, and more of them than two valued logic, but one also has time dependent changes in the underlying language used to express logic.  That was what I did my dissertation in, the temporal aspects of linguistic uncertainty.”

“Maybe everyone should learn Esperanto.  And…, you know, …”  Devan thinks to himself… No of course you don’t.

“Hm, I don’t understand.”

“Nothing, forget it.”

“Basket weaving?  That seems pretty easy compared to your other doctorates.”

“Oh, I just love it.  There’s nothing like it.  So ethereal.”

This must be a different basket.  Like Jacob’s Sun sculpture.  “Ah, what medium do you use to weave baskets?”

“Not a medium, dimensions!  The basket is a mathematical class of objects made from intertwined or knotted hyper-space fibers.  Oh, it’s fun.  You know how you can create and destroy extra dimensions?  Of course you do, you’re an arcade operator you do it all day.  Well for practical uses, like dumping garbage, the extra dimensions are unknotted.  When they’re destroyed they leave no artifacts behind.  A good thing, trust me.  Well I create knotted up hyper-manifolds, ones with non-trivial links and other defects.  Then!  I delete dimensions.  The knotting causes a topological defect to be left behind in our space-time!”

Holy shit that is cool.  “What do they look like?”

“Here!  Look!”  Allyson points to the table in front of them upon which sits a small basket filled with napkins.

Devan sits, frozen for a moment.  He wants to believe Allyson is being sarcastic, he loves sarcasm.  But they really could make ordinary baskets here by creating topological defects in hyper-space.  Stranger things have happened.  Allyson starts to laugh hysterically, like the little girl in the park.

“That would be a total waste of time.  Hyper-manifolds for basket weaving?  No, I was just a little put out by your statement that basket weaving was easy.”

So, she is sarcastic and a little vengeful.  “Well, sorry.  I didn’t realize.”

“No problem.  The art form requires mastering several tribal styles of weave from here on earth as well as similar artistic styles from other planets.  The original work comes in the development of an avant garde style that merges earth and extraterrestrial styles in a novel way.

“Ok, ok.  That does sound interesting and unique.  By the way I like your sarcasm.  That could be an art form, should be an art form.  Jacob isn’t really into sarcasm.  A little up tight.”

“Well he has a great sense of humor but you’re right, he does not appreciate sarcasm.”

“Are you and Jacob, together?”

“Well, not now, but when he’s here.  Yes.”

“No I mean, are you dating.”

“Dating what?  I don’t understand.”

Devan isn’t shy about asking but doesn’t want to anger Allyson.

“Are you and Jacob romantic partners?  Are you in a relationship?  Do you have sex?”

Allyson, shocked, whispers to Devan.  “That is not something we talk about in public, you know that.”

“Sorry, again.  I feel like an alien from another planet.”

“I think you’re just being rude to me because I was fooling with you earlier.  That wasn’t nice.  You could get into trouble talking about that in public.”

Ok, now that’s interesting.  Allyson isn’t so much offended as she is concerned.  We don’t talk about sex in public.  Well that’s usually true of most cultures.  I guess in this reality people are prudes.  A sarcastic prude.  I like that.  I’ll have to ask Jacob, he won’t get all bent out of shape if I ask him about their situation.

“Hey Allyson.  I am sorry.  Ok?”

“Right, Ok.”

“I’m teaching this philosophy course at the university…”

“Right!  The Ethics of Epistemology.  Wonderful topic.”

Devan can’t believe his ears.  To him the very idea is… Unethical.

“Yeah.  I guess I have to evaluate the dissertations of the students soon.  Do you know how often the courses meet?”

“You can look up the schedule in hyper-space.”

“Right, right.  I… haven’t been myself.”

“Strange, since earlier you said you were normal.  You even have a doctor’s note.”

Love that sarcasm.  “Exactly.  Search, Schedule, Devan Anderson, Ethics of Epistemology.”

Allyson whispers to Devan.  “What are you doing?  People are going to freak out if they hear you talk.  Access it silently.”

“Thanks.  I forgot.”  So, here they don’t talk to the air, they just think it.  It’s all in their heads.  I guess that makes life a little easier, no incessant white noise of trillions of people screaming out where they want to go eat dinner, looking up porn, or copying someone else’s homework.  It’s nice, peaceful, quite.  Refined.  Look up schedule, visual.

The schedule appears in Devan’s field of view.

Ok, class this evening.  Look up, dissertations, Ethics of Epistemology, current.

A table containing the thesis titles and student names appears.

Interesting.  All I have to do is access them, review and discuss tonight.

Devan reviews the thesis material.  He still cannot comprehend the meaning of the discipline he teaches but the work of the students is exceptional.  Maybe it’s relative, relative to Devan’s under achievement.  Devan is used to people doing the bare minimum.  People don’t study what interests them, they study what they already have an aptitude for.  Devan demonstrated an aptitude for math and physics at a young age.  He also spent most of his time at arcades.  Arcade operator was an easy choice to make and an easy subject for him to study.  As he reads through the material he begins to comprehend the basic nature of the subject.  In Devan’s mind the only thing that makes sense is that all knowledge and methods of learning are intrinsically moral, or right.  As long as one’s own free will is the driving motive.  He thinks about hitting a child, is that moral?  No.  But that isn’t a method of acquiring knowledge but of transmitting information.  A method of control.  Devan sees no problems with self-denial or self-abuse, though he would never choose to employ them.  Devan begins to think that maybe there is something subtle here that he is missing, something not so ridiculous about this subject.  Reviewing data is quick in hyper-space.  You don’t actually have to read in the traditional sense.  Once hyper-memory is in contact with the brain and the conscious mind is attentive to its presence the information is known, all at once.

He also begins to piece together another useful bit of information about the evolution of humans here.  Back in his world hyper-memory is coupled to the mind and can be accessed by thoughts once it is set.  However they still use some sort of peripherals to interact with the data for visualization and auralization.  The manipulation of hyper-space for industrial purposes still requires machinery, reactors etc., to create enough curvature to excite the extra dimensions.  Some level of human hyper-space interaction exists but it’s not as advanced as here.  People here seem to be able to write to hyper-memory and manipulate dimensions with the power of their will.  At least to a much greater degree than in Devan’s reality.  This has to be the result of the evolution Devan read about in the history archives.  It also explains how one can produce four doctorates so fast.  Access hyper-memory to study data, and writing your original thesis in your mind causes it to be automatically uploaded to hyper-space.

Devan goes to the university.  He feels different.  In addition to liking this new version of reality, he is starting to feel like he belongs.

“Good day class!”

Calls of “Hello Dr. Anderson” come from all directions.

“You’ll be glad to know that I have reviewed the dissertations.  Everything looks to be in order.”  I hope I do a better job bull shitting them today.  I may be smart but I don’t know what I’m doing.  I don’t have a clue what the policies are for thesis defense.  “I wanted to try something different today.  Based on our discussion last time.  Just humor me it’s ah… an experiment.  No pressure.”

“An experiment?  In a humanities course?”  Asks one student a little sarcastically.

“Yes, that’s right.  Now last time I made a statement that caused many to believe that I was suffering from a headache.  Remember that?”

Laughter.

“Well, I have a doctor’s note and I can assure you that by all Commonwealth policies and standards, I am Normal.  So, I ask again.  Actually last time I didn’t ask this but I do now.  What is the nature of truth?”

The class is quiet and a little uncomfortable.

“If you are not comfortable answering then I want you to engage me in this dialog.”

One student speaks up.  “The nature of something could be defined as a list of the attributes of the thing.  So one cannot discuss the nature of a thing without a concrete definition of the thing.  You are treating Truth as a noun so I ask you.  What is truth?  Define it for us then we can discuss its nature.”

“Good, a linguistic trick.  You caught my poor use of words.  Let’s start with the definition of True.  After all when evaluating statements and arguments we must attribute a truth value to them, True or False.”

“Dr. Anderson…” a student interrupts, “… True, conforming to an essential reality or that which is logically necessary.  These are the common uses of the word true.”

“Good, good.  Well then… how does one reconcile that definition within the context of stochastic linguistics?”

“One doesn’t need to.  What is essential reality may change but what is true is still meaningful.  The same with logical necessity.  That changes but whatever it turns out to be, it is true.”

“Ok, so would you say that ignorance is logically necessary?”

“Of course.  You proved it.”

Devan sighs.  He is missing his conversation with Allyson.  The first interaction with the students, while a little embarrassing, was fun.  But this is more serious.  Despite his feelings of mental constipation Devan is determined to grow into this roll and fit in.

“True, I did.  But one has to continually ask why, what purpose was it for.”

“Truth!”  Shouts a student.  “It was done to conform to the essential reality.”

The class laughs.

“Ok, ok, well the reality is that this course is over and you have fine arts dissertations to write.  So, good luck doctors.”

Lessons

 

Devan has been obsessing over the term Royal Commonwealth of America.  It went over his head the first time he heard it and he has ignored it ever since.  It is intriguing but irrelevant compared to other issues.  This new reality seems like a nice place, happy and peaceful.  The people are productive and successful.  In a sense they seem like a super race.  In his current state of mind Devan is not so much in the mood to explore as he is to learn, to study the archives and figure out how the Royal Commonwealth of America came to be, more about these policies that govern education and work.  Upon returning to Stubb’s Devan sneaks into the arcade where he plans to plant himself for the day streaming data from hyper-memory and searching for information.  He’s comfortable here in a familiar environment.  Despite coming from a less than ideal reality Devan is a little homesick, but comforted by the thought that this is a vacation, as he says to himself, and this will be reset in a short time.

“Search, Royal Common of America, History, vocalize, brief.”

“The Royal Commonwealth of America was founded in 1776 as part of a treaty between the colonies and the Great Britain to avoid war.  More?”

“Yes.”

“Delegates from the colonies: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, drafted the treaty in an attempt to reconcile disagreement between the policies of the British monarchy and the development of new practices driven by local trade and business in the colonies.  British rule made local governance difficult and costly.  Tensions grew between the colonies and the monarchy over the course of several years.  Most of the citizens of the colonies were committed to severing ties from Britain forever driving an agenda that included war if necessary.  A declaration of independence was drafted in accordance with popular opinion.  In parallel with this a treaty called the Trans-Atlantic Commonwealth Treaty or TACT for short was drafted.  In secret a small group of leaders debated over which path would most benefit the people and chose to deliver the treaty over the declaration of independence.  Upon receiving the treaty King George opened negotiations with the colonies.  More?”

“Yes.”

“The colonies were able to negotiate reduction in taxes and several other items in exchange for continued loyalty to England.  Shortly after the treaty was signed America partnered with Canada and the two became collectively known as the Royal Commonwealth.  George Washington was appointed the title of Duke by King George.  During the next two decades the Royal Common wealth slowly, and secretly, engaged in treaties with Central and South American colonies.  Once complete, the unified Americas pressured their European rulers to concede rule over their respective colonies.  Together they were able to accomplish this without resorting to war.  After the Americas peacefully severed ties with Europe they adopted the name Royal Commonwealth of the Americas and George Washington presided as ruler until his death.  Major decisions regarding the development of agriculture and other industries, infrastructure and military development were handled by a committee of the most educated people serving in the original continental congress.  Washington appointed Jefferson, Adams and Franklin to head these committees.  Washington had no children of his own and did not believe in inherited positions, in contrast with true monarchies.  Before his death Washington, with the help of Jefferson, drafted a constitution of bylaws meant to serve as a foundation for the governance of this newly formed system of government.  Although Washington led by the title of King he encouraged collective decision making, involving the best and brightest members of society in the process, and basing decisions on facts, analysis and an assessment of what was best for the welfare of the people.  The bylaws stipulated that future leaders should be chosen by these committees after a thorough vetting process designed to eliminate the possibility of corruption entering the leadership.  Washington modeled this loosely after the idea of a Philosopher King in Plato’s Republic.  The second ruler of the Commonwealth was Jose de San Martin.  More?”

“Yes. Increase verbosity.”

“The method of selecting a leader from among the educated class was eventually challenged by members of the working class who organized a revolt against the existing government.  The people became suspicious of the educated despite having a very healthy economy and good lives.  Members of the educated class, realizing that this resentment and paranoia was due to lack of education, sought to implement education standards and make education, up to a minimum level, mandatory for all citizens of the Commonwealth.  A free and open education system was established and has been in place ever since.  The minimum standard has increased as technology increases.  More recently education has become diversified.  In addition to elevating the education standards for all citizens the government decreed that all persons shall learn a trade, a skill associated with the working class.  This move was an attempt to eliminate all class systems within society.  Eventually all professions requiring a high level of education were deemed forms of philanthropy and not considered as paying professions.  The citizens voted unanimously to implement this policy.  This was the first and only collective vote in the history of the Commonwealth.  From that point forward it became the civic duty of all citizens to provide education for the young and professional services such as medical treatments, engineering, and all other such services for free.  Money was earned by establishing proficiency in one’s trade.  Citizens are free to choose their trade.  For example, an architect or civil engineer will perform those services for free to better the Commonwealth but charge for actual construction work.  Many architects take up carpentry or other building related trades to complement their education.  This homogenization through education led to a society with a deeper sense of empathy and a tendency towards sharing and cooperation rather than petty disputes.  Eventually law became unnecessary though the government still maintains a legal system and legal branch.  Law is considered extremely important but is now practiced as a purely theoretical discipline.  Before making major decisions the legal sector simulates the outcome from the point of view of a society with implemented laws via a series of what if scenarios.  Only if they are convinced that the implementation of a policy will evolve without the need for legal intervention will the Commonwealth adopt that policy.  Society eventually evolved to a point where all members of society are worthy candidates for the position of leader yet due to their communal way of thinking have no interest in acquiring the position.  Now the position of leader is chosen by lottery rather than by a vetting process.  No one wants it, no one feels the need for it, but all citizens accept the fact that they may be chosen at random to take the position that George Washington originally held.  All chosen leaders accept their fate with eagerness to be of service for the good of the Commonwealth.”

Devan takes a little break and digests this information.

Are you getting all this?  You’ve been quiet for a while, or I’ve been ignoring you.  Sorry.  So there are a lot of the same players in this reality.  I’d guess all the same players but different outcomes, different life paths.  But it’s amazing that Einstein was still the discoverer of relativity and much of modern physics, modern to those medieval boneheads, Ha!  And George Washington became King of an entire hemisphere of the planet.  Wow!  But it seems that things turned out great.  I mean look, naturally we became some a sort of socialistic utopia.  That is amazing!  And no need for any law?  Man you would not want to get in trouble in my version of reality.  Our legal system is so corrupt it’s sick.  I won’t get into the details, I don’t even know what law is in my world.  But I do know this.  The government tracks people and their families and projects future generation’s earning potential by the same models the stock market used centuries ago.  If someone is caught breaking a law, a big one, they are executed on the spot.  Then to recoup expenses the government keeps the family of the deceased in debt until they are satisfied that the government has recovered financially.  This is a perfectly legal form of debt in the reality I come from.  They say it’s part of your duty as a citizen, they actually call it a birth right.  Fuckin’ great rights we have.  You have the “right” and “privilege” of supporting your country by being in debt for someone else’s crime.  It’s really indentured servitude, slavery.  The banks hold onto, actually own the debt and sell it as a commodity, they never stopped that scam.  Once it took off it never ended.  They just keep changing the type of debt.  They tack on an interest rate percentage, like for a loan.  Then they keep updating the principle based on “inflation”, but everyone knows it’s at the will of the government.  The way the math works out the family is in debt forever.  The execution is for justice!  Actually it’s for covering their ass big time.  No dead person can defend themselves and no one is interested in taking a case to try to reverse a decision.  No such luck as it’s all rigged for money.  For this reason a lot of people never have kids and many young adults fake being orphans.  You can get the paper work through underground channels, a crime that could lead to death depending on your family’s financial status.  You know, the real sick thing is that they don’t execute murderers who are poor but they will execute you for jay walking if your family has money.  Anyway, I am curious about a lot of things.  What do you say we hyper-surf some more?

“Search, Intelligence.”

“…, …, … Unable to find, Intelligence.”

Really, in this place there’s no shortage of geniuses.  “Search, IQ.”

“IQ cannot be found.”

This is frustrating.  “Why is everyone so smart?”

“Please rephrase the question.”

“How do people learn math?”

“Loading… Math is a subject which seeks to understand the metalanguage and linguistic elements of logic as it pertains to relationships among objects.”

I did not understand that at all.  “Search, education.”

“Loading… Education.  Education begins at age 16 for all citizens of the Commonwealth and is comprised of four doctorates.  Students conduct original research and produce a thesis in two technical disciplines one…”

“Stop.”  I’ve heard this but don’t understand it.  I want to know how it is that a 7 year old can do algebraic topology without an education in math.  “Search, Math Education.”

“Loading… The math curriculum begins with a review of Kurt Gödel’s incompleteness theorem as a primer to common sense.  From there students study Meta mathematics and linguistics.  Students are then able to choose an original thesis topic in the area of Formal Structure of Mathematical Languages.”

How the hell do they learn MATH!  Oh well, I’ve got other questions.

“Search, genetics… No! Stop!”  I have to be clever.  I’m curious about race and ethnicity here.  Ok, this should be interesting.  “Search, Slavery in the Royal Commonwealth.  Brief.”

“Loading… In the early days of the commonwealth European colonies brought slave labor from Africa and parts of Asia.  Humans were captured then bought, sold and traded as live stock.  Slaves were used primarily for manual labor and menial tasks.  After the Americas successfully severed ties with their European counterparts George Washington declared slavery in all forms illegal and freed slaves living in the Commonwealth.  Though slaves were given all the same rights and privileges and other citizens and compensation in the form of land most if not all opted to return to their homeland or that of their ancestors.  This mass exodus was aided by the Commonwealth NAVY.”

“Search, Abraham Lincoln.”  What did he ever do if Washington abolished slavery?

“Abraham Lincoln served as chief legal advisor to the Commonwealth from 1842 to 1896.  Generally considered to be the greatest legal mind in history, during his tenure Lincoln proposed the abolishing of practiced law in all forms and the establishment of theoretical law.”

That’s interesting.  That would imply that America was essentially all white after that.  Then why is everything so diverse here.  Well, I guess it’s been a million years and ten epochs since that happened.  Let me try this.  Everyone loves World War II, don’t ask why, some things never change.

“Search, World War II.”

“No data for World War II.”

“Search, War.”

“…, …, Loading… The Great War was fought from 1938 to 1942.  This involved the entire globe.  All people and countries were involved with the exception of people living in the Arctic Circle.  One side consisted of the Royal Commonwealth of America, United Africa and The Pacific Asian Islands.  The other side consisted of Europe and Russia, the Middle East and the rest of Asia.  Before the Great War the world lived in peace.  The events that precipitated the war involved the new technology of space exploration and space travel.  People were comfortable with their respective places on earth and remained segregated.  Space exploration opened a new frontier, and a new concept of property and property boundaries emerged.  As soon as countries began placing objects into space and into orbit around the earth they began to assert their ownership of the space around the earth.  The war was almost cataclysmic leading to the death of approximately half the world population.  After the war a treaty was signed by the global community, and all countries adopted the political and educational model of the Commonwealth.  There has not been a conflict since the Great War.”

Damn, way to go Washington.  He really made something great.  Since the space program was mentioned, and I am supposed to be an expert in Intergalactic Transportation.

“Search, Space Travel.”

“Space travel began in 1928.  United Africa was the world leader in the development of space technology.  Soon after, all countries were in a race to develop superior technology and engage in space exploration.  Africa began colonizing the moon in 1934.  In 1935 China deployed a rocket containing a small robotic vehicle equipped with sensors.  While China maintained that the vehicle was deployed to the Moon for scientific research it was intercepted by a missile and destroyed.  This was the first event in a long chain that lead to the Great War.  By 1950 the earth had developed colonies on Mars, Saturn’s Moons Enceladus and Titan, and Jupiter’s Moons Europa, Ganymede and Callisto as well as several space stations.  While technology advanced in many other areas these remained the only places where colonies existed until the development of hyper-space dimension foliation.  This technological advancement eliminated the need for any type of space vehicle and the earth began exploring and colonizing inhabitable planets and moons in other solar systems and galaxies.  Through this process Earth made contact with other intelligent life and began peaceful relations with these beings.”

This just keeps getting more and more interesting.  All we ever did was create video games made out of space-time copies then commenced to vegging out all day.  But here we have interacted with intelligent, peaceful aliens.  This is really exciting.  Don’t you think?  Eh?  I mean what if…  Forget it, I can’t let myself think about this.  I want to try one last time to get information on why a 7 year old can do math better than me.

“Search, How Children Learn.”

“Loading…  Since the discovery of extra dimensions people have learned how to store and access information in hyper-memory using their mind.  This led to a new phase of evolution in humans.  As pregnant mothers continued to use hyper-memory in their daily lives the developing fetus gained access to the information as well.  At first there were only minor changes in the intelligence of average humans and the information accessed by the fetus didn’t make learning easier.  In some cases it lead to learning disabilities due to the overload of information.  However, after several hundred generations the ability to access hyper-memory became encrypted in the DNA.  At this point children began to learn from their mothers in the womb and eventually all humans developed to a point where they were born with the ability to speak and comprehend all mathematical operations.  These skills are learned before birth.  Muscle coordination still takes time to develop.  The body of humans develops slower than the mind.”

Devan is awestruck by his history lesson.  He just can’t believe his ears and eyes.  This is a perfect world in every way.  Every good decision has been made and every good thing that could happen has happened.  The only thing not perfect is that it was an accident, it’s not his world.  He doesn’t know what to think anymore.  He stands by the door of the arcade ready to go to Stubb’s for coffee when it hits him.  He needs one more bit of information.

“What year is it?”

“The year is 2729 A.D. by the Christian calendar.”

Devan opens the door and quietly enters Stubb’s, careful not to draw any attention to himself.  He closes the door behind him, stands silently for a moment then whispers.

“What year is it?”

“The year is 14,792 twenty first epoch.”

Policies

     Jacob and Devan continue their conversation in a lighter mood as they make their way to the neuro surgery center for Devan’s conductivity scan.

“Devan, there is a bubble, a sort of structure that will take us to what people call the outdoors.  If it makes you feel better we can walk to the clinic.  Talk on the way.”

“Sure that sounds good.”

“So, Jacob.  Remind me, what subject in philosophy did I do my thesis in?”

“The ethics of epistemology.”

“So, they have bull-shitters in your reality.”

“It’s not bullshit, it’s a very important discipline.  So much so that you have consulted the government on issues related to ethics and education.”

“Unless words have different meaning here I think epistemology is the study of how we know things, specifically technical or scientific facts.  Whereas ethics is the study of the nature of right and wrong.  I could understand the epistemology of ethics, how we know what right and wrong are or how we come to know about such things.  But I cannot understand how ethical principles could be applied to epistemology.  That almost sounds like the morality of knowledge and implies that some types of knowledge are immoral.  More specifically that some types of scientific knowledge are immoral.”

“That’s true.”

“Really?”  I don’t want to go further with this conversation.  It’s just going to get me frustrated and Jacob more suspicious.  “Tell me about your multiple doctorates.  You know, just to pass the time.”

“First it’s four, four doctorates like everyone else.  Second we did all our work together, we were roommates for both years in graduate school.”

“Look, you know I haven’t been myself so humor me.  It would cheer me up.  You too.  Is your patient still in a coma?”

“Yeah, I did forget about that listening to your senseless rantings about an alternate reality.  Well, let’s see there’s neuro science and neuro surgery, which was one combined degree.  Intergalactic exoplanetary chemistry, ancient history circa 10530 to 10770 twentieth epoch, and sculpture in amorphous media.”

“Very cool.”

“I enjoy it.  It’s very fulfilling.”

“You had said that you wanted to go with me to Einstein’s lecture.  Why, if you don’t study physics?”

“Well chemistry does involve physics but the real reason is my thesis in ancient history.  The lecture we go to occurred on 10552 twentieth epoch.  In fact the impact of Einstein’s work on modern culture was the topic of my ancient history thesis.  You are the physics geek, always have been.  We go together, but for different reasons.”

“You know Jacob, this place is beautiful.  I mean really ideal.  I’ve never seen a city with so many trees and flowers.  It’s a beautiful day outside too, no pollution.”

“Yeah, well hyperspace helped with that, serendipitously.  When we got rid of transportation we got rid of most pollution.”

“So is this real?  I mean organic, natural?  Or is it a man-made environment?”

“It’s real in every sense.  These “bubbles” I mentioned that are part of the space-time network are man-made regions…, well let me take that back.  They are man-defined!  Not man-made.  These are regions of the space-time continuum marked off for specific activities, industry or purpose.  Like I said earlier, housing, work, clinics, schools, etc.  But organic elements can and do exist within many of them.  Like us, we’re real.  If you can believe that.”

“Funny, I forgot who you were and where we’re going.  But you said that, for example, people’s homes and jobs were connected via a network node.  So I get the impression that I cannot walk from one to the other.  I get the impression that I cannot find a “space” in between two doors.”

“That’s not true, and my fault for not being able to explain the physics behind… well, behind your invention.  You know how you access hyper-memory?  How spooky it is?”

“Yes, I was just reminiscing about that earlier with someone.”

“Well, all of these doors, these space-time network nodes are also configurable via hyper-space links and hence, like hyper-memory can be morphed mentally.  Traveling through them requires physical procedures, the right-left algorithm.”

“Right!  That keeps us sane.”  Devan laughs.  “You mentioned amorphous sculpture.  Is that like colored sand in jars?  Can I get one at a kiosk on the beach?”

“I regret to say that I’m getting used to your new sense of sarcasm.  No, I work in plasma fields.”

“Sculptures made of plasma?  How?”

“Hey you’re the physics geek, I’m just the artist.  A painter doesn’t need to know about the transition energies of electrons in an atom to understand how to use color.  Look up in the sky.  That sun.  I made that.”

“Whaaaaa.  You make stars?”

“No, just that one.”

“But I thought you said everything here was real.”

“This is the Earth, the one and only.  These trees and everything here is the result of natural processes.  Of course for the purposes of landscaping we do have tree nurseries.  So humans did help there but that doesn’t make the landscape inorganic.  Right?  I was commissioned by the commonwealth to make that, to make the sky more… beautiful, more traditional you might say.  The sun burnt out long ago.  We managed to generate heat and radiation artificially here on earth and the big lump of coal left behind kept us in orbit but things looked very dismal.  So I sculpted a sun.”

“I’m impressed.”

“Thanks, I’m flattered.  You aren’t known for compliments.  Here we are.”

 

*****

Jacob and Devan arrive at the clinic.  They enter the vestibule and approach the security door, Jacob speaks out loud as they walk.

“Jacob Nalbandian.  Neuro surgery.  With guest, patient Devan Anderson.  Request access to sector 7.”

Jacob walks up to a structure that looks similar to a transporter in the old Star Trek television series.  He stands there motionless as a swarm of mosquito sized autonomous drones equipped with micron sized sensors whirls around him then disperses.  The security door opens.  Devan follows Jacob into the secure facility, continuing to discuss the procedure.  They walk down a long stainless steel corridor without doors or windows.  The hall is brightly illuminated though there are no apparent sources of light.

“So, this is an easy procedure.  It’ll probably take a few minutes to complete the scan then we can discuss the results.”

“How long will it take us to get there?”

“Not long.  So, Devan, I didn’t fully understand your description of what caused the problem in the arcade.  Perhaps I don’t completely understand the quantum histories aspect of it.  Can you explain that again?”

“Sure, I guess, but I’m really more concerned about getting out of this never ending hallway.  Well you see, points in space-time along with the causal flow that leads to each point define a state in state space.  Like position and momentum of an electron in an atom, these are conjugate variables.  Mind you, this is not quantum geometry but quantum topology.  You recall from basic physics, or the history of physics, that attempts to quantize geometry failed and we didn’t make any progress until we started applying quantum theory to the topological properties of space-time.  Anyway, the uncertainty principle holds with respect to these variables and when you hold on to a point in space-time, an event, you have an uncertainty in history leading up to that event, a bundle of potential world lines.  On the other hand when you hold on to a history, a specific world line from the bundle of possible world lines all terminating on the event, you lose coherency of the event itself.  That is the basic uncertainty relationship applied to space-time topology.”

“That is interesting.  But something doesn’t sit well with part of your description yesterday.  You said that we… in a sense… move the uncertainty or push off the uncertainty, I’m not sure how to say it, to the extra dimensions thus allowing us to maintain coherency of both the event and the history leading to that event simultaneously.  Doesn’t that violate the uncertainty principle?”

“Oh beautiful.  Great question.  I hope you don’t mind if I say, not bad for a medical doctor.”

“Of course not, I’m used to it by now.”

“Keep in mind two additional pieces of information need to be added to the puzzle.  I just provided a description of the basics as they pertain to space-time.  They apply to the topology of all manifolds and our “space” is more, much more than just the four dimensional space-time that we experience.  So the extra dimensions have the same type of uncertainty in them as well.  Now consider the fact that all matter and force fields are unified with space-time geometry.  All bundled together in a sense.  All these variables mix and the true variables of the theory are not necessarily the quantities we “experience” or measure.  When we evolve along our world lines we are really approaching a point in this larger space while trying to maintain history of events projected into our space-time.  When we do that all the high frequency wiggles occur in the other dimensions.  Clear?”

“Not really, it sounds a little like an avoidance tactic.  Won’t the wiggles eventually become too severe and dominate the event itself?  I mean all dimensions encompass the event so how is the event “safe” from the quantum fluctuations?”

Damn this guy is really paying attention.  “My explanation may leave something to be desired but there is more, more engineering details I have not explained yet.  This is the second piece of information.  Space-time is a medium like any other medium.  It has an elasticity and a viscosity, and a relaxation time if you will.  During the process of maintaining coherency of the four dimensional space-time event and its classical history we continually probe the other fields in a manner required to excite the correct combination of event and history then allow the extra dimensions to relax.  This relaxation decouples the various fields and we manage to freeze out a classical space-time of our choosing while the extra dimensions absorb all the… chaos.  If you like that term.”

“Wow.  What if some poor beings lived in that extra dimension.”

“Well, that is a thought but as you know we created the extra dimensions.  Extra dimensions were probably quite active in the early universe when everything was compact and very hot.  Back then who knows how much mixing and chaos existed.  But as the universe expanded and cooled a classical, or semi-classical, space-time emerged complete with a causal structure.  In other words the universe we know and observe was naturally frozen out by this process.  In the arcade we are doing it under controlled circumstances, much like high energy colliders were used to make primordial soup centuries ago.  Though I did notice time is marked differently here, with epochs and everything.”

“You mean the universe YOU know.  Since presumably things aren’t quite right here.”

“Good point.  Hey, it’s been forever and we still haven’t arrived at the scanner.  We’ve been in this creepy hallway the whole time talking.”

“This is the scan.  We are actually in the scanner right now.  We’re done.”  Jacob speaks in to the air.  “Doctor Nalbandian.  Neuro surgery.  With guest, patient Devan Anderson.  Request access to sector 9.”

Jacob and Devan leave the hallway and enter an office, Jacob’s office.  Devan, curious about how the scan works engages Jacob in an unrelenting game of twenty questions.

“So, how does that work?  Is it an active or passive scan?  What is it actually scanning, what properties of the brain?  Why were you in the scan, won’t your presence cause interference?…”

Jacob, amused at Devan’s enthusiasm interrupts.  “You know as well as anyone that psychology and neurology are intertwined.  The mind and body are one.  Having patients lie motionless in a scanner to map the brain as an organ doesn’t work, it doesn’t provide any valuable information.  Just like any system in nature you need a probe and the probe does in fact interfere with the measurement.  The uncertainty principle at work.  Well, I was the probe.  The hallway was a true scanning device, measuring electromagnetic emissions, vital signs and the acoustical properties of our voices.   It also recorded our movements.  We were like rats in a maze and the scanner detected our behaviors as well as taking certain physical measurements.  What it looks for are changes in vitals, emissions and movement based on input to the brain.  Rather than cut heads open and insert probes, and we used to do that, we use conversation as the probe.  I need to be scanned too because the probe and the sample, me and you, form a combined system.”

“I have to say Jacob, your job is very cool.  I’m starting to get bored of hyper-dimensional space-time.”

“Well this isn’t my job, you know that.  I work at Stubb’s.”

Ok, don’t ask.  I don’t want to get into an argument.  Remember, this is a vacation.

“Devan, the scan results do not show any sort of aberrant behavior.  You are, for lack of a better term, normal.”  Jacob smiles.

Devan and Jacob laugh.  Devan is still very curious about the scan and what it reveals.  Of all the things he’s experienced so far this one hasn’t caused any anxiety or stress.  He is genuinely curious about science perhaps for the first time in his life.

“So Jacob, does that test tell you anything about my IQ?”  Devan smiles.  In his reality he and Jacob used to compete on Mensa tests for fun.  A sort of friendly competition.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do, don’t fuck around.  Just tell me.  I can handle it.”

“What is IQ?”

“Intelligence Quotient?  A measure of how intelligent a person is?”

“That concept doesn’t make sense here.  Everyone is of equal intelligence, in every manner of speaking.”

“Bullshit, so everyone has a 200 IQ?”

“I’m not sure what you mean.  A person’s intelligence is fixed.  Mandated by policy.”

“Do you mean level of education is set by policy?  The fact that everyone must obtain four doctorates?”

“No I mean innate intelligence.  Everyone obtains four doctorate, as I previously stated.  This is accomplished between the ages of 16 and 18 years, five and a half months spent on each thesis with breaks in between.  The discipline and subject matter are up to the student to choose as long as they fall within the guidelines.  All of this is policy.”

“How do they implement or enforce that policy?  I can see enforcing education standards but how do you enforce intelligence?”

“That I can’t say.”

Devan feels a cold chill hearing that statement.  He wants to explore this world, or this version of the world, on his own and see for himself what is actually going on.

“Well, thanks for the check up and clean bill of neuro health.  How can I get out of here back to the “outdoors” and walk around?”

“Sure, if you exit my office and go left, right, left, right you’ll be at the outside of the clinic again.  Then you can go where you want.”

“Great, I’ll see you later at Stubb’s.”

“Fine.  See you later.”

 

*****

 

Devan goes outside where he is again mesmerized at how idyllic the city looks.  It is the perfect day, perfect weather, and perfect surroundings.  He decides to spend some time outside watching others to better understand life in this place.  People watching was something that Devan was never interested in, but here he is curious to learn about the differences in reality a simple reset error could cause.  Also intrigued by the specific details regarding the uncertainty of the event-history pairing he decides to work out the math.

Things are different yet the same. The details are all different as compared to Devan’s world but there is something familiar.  As Devan walks through the streets of the city he seems to know where he’s going.  Places and things he expects to see are there, where they should be, but they look different.  The landscape looks surprisingly old-fashioned to Devan.  For one thing there are plenty of trees and plants of all sorts, beautifully arranged.  The landscape in Devan’s world is a homogeneous mix of grey and brown, without much life.  The air is toxic and there are few inhabited places where plants can grow.  Another difference is the presence of stores and markets in this place.  Where Devan comes from people don’t go out to shop for anything.  Food, clothing, supplies of all sorts are delivered to a person’s residence by a network of autonomous robots and orders are placed automatically by an artificial intelligence program that monitors people’s needs.

Devan finds a store that sells school supplies and arts and crafts supplies.  He picks up a notebook and pen at a local store and heads to a park he and Jacob passed by on their way to the clinic.  Sitting in the park Devan cannot help notice again the racial diversity reflected in the population.  To him it’s like seeing aliens in a science fiction movie.  He watches people come and go for a while.  Everyone is happy, in a state of perpetual bliss, majestic in the way they walk and conduct themselves.  Almost regal.  Devan starts to work out the mathematics of event-history uncertainty with hyper-dimensional superposition, just to reassure himself that he understands the process, and confirm what he said to Jacob earlier.  He is in a very deep, hyper focused, state of mind when his concentration is broken by a kid, a young girl, who seems perplexed at what Devan is writing.

“Hey, what ‘cha doing?”  Asks the girl who appears to be about 6 or 7 years old.

“Ah, I’m just working out some calculations.”

“Why?  What for?”

“Well, you see the answer will tell something really incredible about our universe.”  Devan speaks in a polite but overly enthusiastic tone of voice that adults use with children.

“No it won’t.  You did the math wrong.  See, right here there’s a mistake in the Homotopy group you worked out.”

Devan shrinks in his skin, then reminds himself, it’s only a vacation.

“What do you mean?  Where do you see homotopy groups?”  Still using that overly enthusiastic tone of voice.

“You don’t have to talk down to me, I know what a homotopy group is, and I know that your answer is wrong.  Besides, this is math you do in your head, not the kind you write down.  What’s wrong with you?”

“Right, in my head.  Well, I was just… I don’t know I just like writing things down.  It makes me feel… Happy.”

“Ok.  But if you write it other people will read it.”  The girl laughs hysterically like she’s never witnessed anything this funny before.

“So, tell me.  Why is this math you do in your head?  Where do you learn math, in school?”

“We learn math in school but not easy math.  That, everyone knows how to do.”

“Ah, I see.  How do you just know it?”

“I don’t know how I know it.  Everyone knows it.  Like, how do you know you have two hands?  How do you know how to walk or talk or… count to ten on your fingers?  These are things you just know.”

“Well I understand how to count to ten without much help because I can see my hands and that helps.”

“Really, does that help?  You’re strange.”

“Well then how do you know homotopy?”

“It’s everywhere, it’s in your DNA.  If you can see your hands and count to ten then you can see your DNA and determine winding numbers, linking numbers, chiral states, everything!”

“You can see your DNA?  How?”

“Arrrgh!  You are soooo strange!  Same way you can see your liver and your lungs and your bones!  Just look.  Like you can see me, and the trees, and that fake sun up there that everyone likes so much.”

“You don’t like the sun?”

“It’s OK.  I guess.”

“My friend made that sun.”

“Really, you know Dr. Jacob Nalbandian?”  The girl’s attitude shifts suddenly from sarcastic to excitement.  “I always wanted to meet him.  I want to do one of my doctorates in neuro science.  But I also want to do genetics and I can’t do two applied fields.”

“But you don’t like his sculpture?”

“Well, it’s just that everyone talks about how wonderful it is to have sun and I don’t see the big deal.  There are colonies living on other planets where they never get sun and they don’t mind.  I want to see what it’s like to live in total darkness all the time!  That would be exiting I think.”

“Maybe, but can I ask a dumb question?”

The girl blushes and giggles, shaking her head in judgement and disbelief.  Devan knows, to her all his questions are dumb.  He proceeds anyway.

“Eyes see things that are opaque using light, optics.  What exactly allows you to see inside your body?”

“The same thing!  You know the eyes are connected everywhere else by hyper-space links!  It’s so cool.  But everyone knows that.  Are you playing with me?  Trying to make me look silly?”

“No, no, not at all.  I really wanted to hear how you describe it.  So eyes can look inward.  But where is the light?”

“Good question but I know.  Residual light stored in the eye is directed inward when you close your eyes and squeeze them.  Not hard but just a little tighter than when you blink.  If it happened every time you blinked you’d get dizzy.  Trust me.”

“Ok.  I do.  Thanks.”

“Well I have to go.  I have to tell everyone I met a guy who can’t do math in his head.  They won’t believe me.”

The girl runs off into the park.  Devan is amused at the recollection of his conversation.  But his attention is immediately redirected to his math problem.  The girl was right about his work.  After a little while Devan finds a fix and it all works out and Devan is relieved at the answer.  His ego has been bruised so much lately that it doesn’t phase him that a 7 year old girl solved his math problem.  After all, this is a different reality.  What sinks in more is the idea that this is “easy math”, not the kind you learn in school but the kind you just know.  Devan wonders what kind of math could one study or get a doctorate in.

As he walks back to Stubb’s Devan contemplates just what Jacob meant by policy.   He recaps what he’s learned about the world.  Everyone gets four doctorates by age 18 and everyone’s intelligence is identical, all mandated by government policy.

This thought haunts Devan.  It’s all he can think about.

 

Histories

     I know what caused the problem but finding it will be like finding a single needle in an infinite number of almost identical hay stacks.  People never learned how to use memory properly.  You know, those kind who make copy after copy of the same file for editing, or move a whole bunch of files using copy and paste rather than cut and paste.  Ugh!  But wait, did you ever know someone who insisted on backing up their data on the same drive.  Thinking about that always cheers me up.  Well it’s been a long time since we used computers.  Now we use extra dimensions to store data.  It’s great, you don’t need physical memory cluttering up your space-time.  And, since extra dimensions are everywhere, data you want to access is almost literally in your brain.  We have perfected methods for protecting our brains from the continuous onslaught of data bombarding it from multiple directions in hyperspace.  It’s also amazing how easy the solution is.  All you need to do is take ordinary foil wrap, the kind they used to use for sandwiches, and fashion a thin helmet out of it.  You can wear it under a baseball cap so no one sees it, they aren’t very fashionable.

You were buying that for a minute.  That’s great I’m almost in tears.  Oh, wait, wait.  For a split second I didn’t feel the Ache.  Oh well.  I was serious when I said we can store data in hyperspace and access it with our minds, just fucking with you about the aluminum hat.  It never gets old.  So, we haven’t had computers or any other storage devices for about 20 years.  The thing is, people use hyperspace like they used to use hard drives.  It’s un-fucking believable.  Just dump copy after copy of the same thing all over without a care in the world.  You know that old saying “It makes my head hurt just thinking about it”?  Well, now that isn’t just a saying.  This causes physical pain, an increase in the Ache level.  I never understood the details of hyperspace computation but what I do know is that our ability to access data anywhere out of thin air is pretty spooky.  That has to be the one technological advancement that is unbelievable to me.  It really seems like people are psychic.  And a little schizoid, walking around staring off into space talking to themselves.  The really cool thing is that we are NOT storing physical devices in the extra dimensions. No, no.  We are using space-time, actually the hyper-space portion, as a physical medium.  I can’t get used to this, it really makes my skin tingle when I think about it.

The last great advancement in computers was the use of DNA as a physical medium for data storage and processing.  This was circa, mmm let me think, 2020.  At first scientists were trying to map binary data to the geometric orientation of the bases, but then it was realized that we really had a natural mechanism for doing base 4 math rather than base 2.  The binary came from mapping numbers to high and low voltage and processing 2 valued logic.  Learning how to use DNA to store data was a real achievement.  Actually this is exactly what nature does.  It stores information in you, me, and all life.  So, for a while we would artificially construct DNA strands and encrypt photos, videos, old tax forms, you name it.  We would code this meaningless junk in DNA and let it coil up and poof, it’s microscopic.  You could even store it in your body, and many people did for personal security.  Nothing bad ever happened, there are no side effects since robust safety mechanisms were implemented and they were fail safe.  No, no human ever had their “hard drive” reproduce inside them, but the ability to do this led to a bizarre practice.  Someone eventually figured out a way to inject one of these bio-drives as we called them into an embryo and let it grow into god only knows what.  It was sick but extremely amusing.  Try to imagine what your data would create if it were turned into a life form.  You have to get creative because a picture of you will not grow into a replica of you.  The A-T-G-C sequence does not get interpreted that way.  They started selling kits to make your own “pet” at home using this technology.  Sometimes, actually most of the time, you would get a blob, just a big lump of useless cells about the size of a small dog that would sit there and make a stain on your floor.  But one day someone decided to encrypt about 150 years of digitized porn in DNA and see what kind of creature it created.  Believe it or not this one was useful, a very efficient organic super computer.  You see most people store a random collection of crap with no meaningful correlation between data elements.  All your vacations and family holiday pictures don’t have as much in common as you think, in addition to being infected with tax forms and other text files, etc.  But porn has a consistent, …, rhythm to it.  A lot of the same exact scenes and repetitive action.  So that created a very ordered DNA sequence and from that a rather intelligent pseudo-being.  An industry was spun off from this but didn’t last long.  The problem wasn’t that the computer couldn’t keep it up, ha ha.  No, it became self-aware rather fast.  That was one of the darkest events in human history.  Long story short, it was “turned off” and the process was made illegal.  This event was the first time that an international committee was organized to make a collective decision about what to do and that lead to the WGO.  You’re a good listener but I’m getting too engrossed in this history lesson.  Probably because I’m still a little nervous about our “issue”.

Another problem is that people seem to not want to reuse copies in the arcade.  Everyone wants their own.  There’s no such thing as a hyperspace disease.  You won’t catch anything by using a used copy.  But the customer is always right.  So people have accounts and copies are linked to their account.  We won’t make multiple copies of one thing for one customer but each customer wants their own copy of each experience.  As a result of this there are googles worth of hyperspace copies everywhere.  Is it making your head hurt yet?

Well, because of this memory issue and the multiple copies of everything I’ll never be able to determine exactly what initial condition to reset.   At least not by inspection.  I’ve written a program that will parse through everything and locate the issue.  This will take a few days to a week to run.  We’ve got some time to wait and see what needs to be reset, then I reset it and everything is back to normal.  The program, by the way, also runs in hyperspace.  Again, my skin tingles.  We are not storing computers in hyper-space we are using hyper-space as a medium for storage and processing.  No need for solid state physics anymore!  We killed a lot of technology with this discovery.  Everything is in the ether, pun intended.  I don’t know about you but I feel much better, like a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  We just have time to kill.  Coffee?  I think the first thing I want to do is find some information about the world as it seems to be right now.

I’ve been so engaged in this problem and bringing you up to speed I really haven’t looked around my office or the arcade facility.  It looks like everything is the same.  Things are in different places than I expected but otherwise everything is here.  I’m here, same clothes, more or less same body.  Face?  Wow!  What happened to my hair?  Short hair, hate it.  And a beard, like lumber jack, hate it.  But underneath, it seems to be the same.  I’m guessing that whatever happened, the result is a small perturbation since so much is the same.  The arcade is here and I was able to deploy a process in hyperspace so I guess things work much like they used to.  So, I should be able to access hyper-memory and see what’s out there, or in there.  Like “surfing the web” for ancient peoples.  I can project this into our space so we can view the data.  Now what to search on.  Coffee.

“Search, where to get coffee.”

The following phrase appears floating in space like a hologram.

“Coffee may be purchased at Stubb’s Coffee.  There is an average of approximately 0.0700001 Stubb’s per capita, or one per every 14.2857 persons, in the Royal Commonwealth of America.”

Huh, that’s weird.  What’s Stubb’s?  “Elaborate: Stubb’s Coffee, wait, system vocalize.”  My eyes hurt.

A voice recites.

“Stubb’s Coffee, founded in 2176 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the founding of the Royal Commonwealth of America, is a popular chain of coffee shops.  Stubb’s sells a variety of food and beverages as well as a variety of roasted coffee in bulk.  More?”

“No.  Directions, nearest Stubb’s.”

“Searching… You are currently in a Stubb’s Coffee.”

What?  Fuck me upside-down.  I’m in my office in the arcade.  I see nothing other than that which I expect to see, more or less.  I guess it’s time to leave the nest.  There’s only one door.

Devan opens the door to leave his office.

*****

“Hey, Devan!  How’s it going in there?”  Says a man who seems to know me and is dressed like a barista.

“Uh, good I guess.”

“Did you come out for a pick-me-up?”

“Yes, yes I did.”

“Alright then, your usual?”

“Sure.”

“Well, come over, sit for a while.  Do you have any gamers in there still, or are you done for the day?”

“Uh…, done.  Definitely done.”

“Well alright man.”

I’m looking around and trying to figure out what’s going on and it hits me.  Pure genius.  An arcade in a coffee shop.  Why didn’t we think of that?  Pure genius.  But who’s this guy, he seems familiar.  Is he a friend with a funky hairdo like me, himself but a little different?

Devan stares at him for a few seconds and a name pops up.

“Jacob.”

“Yes?”

“Ah, yeah, Jacob.”

“Ah, yeah, what?”

“Nothing, hard day.  Thanks for the coffee man.”

“You want coffee?  What happened to you in there?  You’re always going on and on about how horrible coffee is, they shouldn’t sell it in such an advanced society.  It serves no purpose, etc., etc.”

“Well, a guy can change right?  I’d like to try a large coffee.”

“Sure man.  One Fat Stubby to fill you up, coming up.”

Does he have to call it that?  So his name is Jacob.  I know a Jacob but he isn’t a coffee house employee.  He’s a neurosurgeon.  Ah, my coffee.

“Here you go.  I know what you mean about a hard day.  This morning I performed three neuro-transmitter bypass procedures and a partial limbic tissue transplant.  One of the transmitter bypass patients fell into a coma.  I’ve been feeling very guilty, inadequate, since then.”

Ok, so Jacob is a neurosurgeon who works in a coffee shop.  He looks pretty upset.  How do I ask him about working in a coffee shop without seeming… well, stupid and insensitive?

“So, Jacob.  Does it ever get easier working two jobs?”

Jacob laughs.  “Whatever, man.  Don’t be an asshole.”

“Sorry, that was stupid.”

“Hey you’d better hurry if you’re going to make your lecture.  But stop by after and we’ll go listen to Einstein’s talk again.  I need to be cheered up.”

“You got it.  So, what am I studying?”

“You’re so sarcastic man.  I don’t have the energy to fight you on it.  Be nice to your class, don’t take it out on them.”

So, now I’m teaching a class in something.  “Hey Jacob!  What’s the quickest way there?”

“Out the door.  Right, right, left.  You better not miss it.”

Yeah, thanks for the vague directions.  Well, out we go.  Oooooh-kaaaaaay.  Why is there nothing outside?  It’s pitch black, so black it looks infinite and zero-dimensional at the same time.  No streets, or trees, or traffic, but also no sky.  I might have expected to walk out among the stars like in the beginning of the old twilight zone episodes.  What am I supposed to do?  Walk?

“Hey! You mind getting on with it, there’s a line behind you.”

“Sorry, sorry.  Just having a bad day and kinda got lost.”

“Where you going?”

“Giving a lecture at the … University (?).”  I hope that makes sense.

“Right, right, left, c’mon.”

I assume he means turn 90 degrees to my right, repeat, then 90 degrees to my left, all while standing in the same place.  Ok, here goes.  Wow, how disorienting.  When I move I suddenly see things flying past my field of view, very nauseating.  How ‘bout you, you get the same thing?  No?  So, ok, now I seem to be at a door.  Open, aaaaand.

*****

There’s intense chatter among small groups dispersed throughout the classroom.  Everyone is so engrossed in their discussion they don’t notice Devan when he enters.  The first thing that Devan notices is that everyone is fit and muscular, and very beautiful.  Each person looks almost like a work of art, sculptured into ideal physical representations of a human.  He also notices a tremendous degree of ethnic or racial diversity among the students.  In Devan’s reality race doesn’t exist as a result of hundreds of years of globalization and interracial marriage.  Everyone is more or less light brown with brown hair and brown or hazel eyes.  There are slight deviations, straight or curly hair, big or small nose, but everyone looks more or less the same.  Devan has never seen a black person before, except in historical archives.  He’s never seen a white person either, truly white as in Teutonic, with blond hair and blue eyes.  Distinct East Asian features don’t exist anymore either.  The world Devan grew up in had achieved racial homogeneity by people doing as they will, finding each other in a global society.  In his world this is heralded as one of the great consequences of freedom and globalization, the elimination of race and by extension racism.  Here, however, people are racially diverse and racially distinct, having all the stereotypical characteristics that distinguish one race from another.  They’re also dressed in ancient ethnic clothing.  At least that is how it appears to Devan relative to his experience.  Devan stands quietly, listening, searching for a clue about the topic of his lecture.  Everything being said is incomprehensible to Devan.  They’re speaking a language he understands but the concepts are meaningless.  This continues for more than a minute when someone finally recognizes him.

“Professor Anderson!  We were just discussing your analysis on the moral imperative of ignorance.”

Just let that sentence sink in.  I… I don’t know what to think.  My brain is going to implode.  I guess this is a philosophy class.  I don’t know anything about philosophy but I know those words together cannot make sense.  Hey, I guess I do know philosophy.  Ok, cut the sarcasm.

“Right!  Yes!  The… moral imperative.”   I’m sounding too William Shatner, pull it back.

“That is ah…, what do you conclude regarding, the moral imperative?”

One student speaks out.

“Professor, we have no conclusion regarding this moral imperative.  You have provided the conclusion.  We were discussing its necessity for maintaining social homogeneity.”

“Well, that is true.  But, isn’t the point of philosophy to learn the intellectual tools necessary for critical thinking?  To analyze and conclude for yourself what is the nature of truth.”  I’m on a role, I think.

Another student shouts from the back of the class.

“The nature of truth?!  What does that even mean?”

The class begins to bubble with quiet murmuring, and giggling.  It’s a relaxed and amused atmosphere.  The student continues.

“The point of philosophy is to express your individual experiences in a clear, concise, self-consistent and unambiguous manner, so that others may experience them as their own in a faithful representation within their own mind.

Ok, wow.  That sounded quite scientific.  Almost like the definition of a mathematical term in a text book.  This guy has a very technical view of the world.  But what about right and wrong, the nature of self-awareness, whether or not the soul exists, the mind-body problem.  I’d better continue engaging them.

“That is an excellent presentation of the meaning of philosophy, faithful one might say.”

The audience laughs.  They seem to be hanging on Devan’s every word and action.  There is real admiration.  Devan continues.

“But what about the analysis of experience.  It’s one thing to give an experience a faithful linguistic representation but quite another to understand the experience and its meaning.  How does one reconcile certain experiences with other experiences or with one’s own world view?  What about murder, rape, forced religious conversion, war and the colonization of underdeveloped countries by world super powers?  In fact how does one give a faithful linguistic representation to death as a personal experience?”  Damn I’m good, that rolled off with no effort.

Members of the class look genuinely perplexed, bewildered, looking at each other for a clue, a hint regarding Devan’s unintelligible statements.  A young woman speaks out.

“Professor, are you having one of your headaches?”

“Yes, perhaps I need a neuro-transmitter bypass.”

Devan’s statement breaks the tension and the class laughs.  Devan, trying to find any excuse to end this, continues.

“Well class, is there anything else I should know before we call it a day?”

“Just don’t forget to review and approve or reject our doctoral theses.  We need to start doing our fine arts thesis work in a couple weeks.”

“Right, thanks for the reminder.  Boy you guys are busy little overachievers.  Got tiger moms?”

Wow, that last comment was pretty offensive.  Look at their faces.

“Sorry, I take that back.  Neuro-transmitter thing.”

*****

Devan leaves the lecture hall, reverses his steps and enters the coffee house.  He tries not to encounter Jacob for a while as he digests everything that has happened.  Reflecting on the experience in the lecture hall he recalls a few things.  First is the fact that everyone is so ethnically diverse.  Devan found this very pleasing, fascinating, and wonders what they thought about his appearance.  Another point that left a deep impression on Devan is that the students in his class are all getting doctoral degrees in some area of philosophy and moving on to acquire doctoral degrees in fine arts immediately afterwards.  As this sinks in Devan is feeling a little inadequate, like a small fish in a big pond.  It is still not clear to him exactly what the subject matter of the class he just left was, the class he was supposed to be teaching.  Jacob approaches Devan.

“Hey, you look like you’re in shock.”

“Really.”

“Do you still want to go listen to Einstein’s lecture?  It always cheers you up.”

“Can I ask you something, where is outside?”

“What do you mean?”  Jacob says with a slight giggle.

“I mean, why, when I open that door is there nothing?”

“There’s everything!  I’m getting worried about you.  You haven’t acted this strange since you were working on your doctoral thesis in Improvisational Turkish Saz Performance.”

“I remember that!  Right?”

“Look come to the clinic tomorrow and I’ll get you a neuro-transmitter conductivity scan.  There’s probably nothing wrong but it couldn’t hurt to run the test.”

Devan, looking at Jacob thinks silently to himself, of course it could hurt, it could kill me you butcher.  Devan then decides to confide in Jacob.

“Jacob, we’ve been friends for a while, right?”

“Are you kidding?  Since childhood man.”

“I want to talk to you about something.  Can you come with me to the arcade?”

“Yeah, wait a sec.”  Jacob then calls out to another barista.  “Hey Allyson, can you cover me for a little while?”

“Sure?  No problem.  Does Einstein ever get boring?”

“You tell me.  Are you ever bored of hearing Crick talk about DNA?”

Jacob turns to Devan, “Come on Devan, talk to me.”

*****

They enter the arcade and Devan closes the door behind them.  As Devan tries to find the words to express what has happened he suddenly feels calm.  Why has all this new information and changes in his world been so stressful, almost personal?  None of this is real.  Devan’s world is waiting to be reset in a little while and he has really nothing to fear.  All of this is just a technicality, like waiting in line at the DMV for a license.  An annoyance but not a problem.  He realizes that it doesn’t really matter if he tells Jacob, or not, since at the end of it all this will never have happened in the world he knows.  But now that he started he figures he may as well finish.

“Jacob, an error occurred today with the arcade game.”

“Alright, well what’s the problem?  Everything seems ok.”

“To you maybe, but…, this version of reality is not consistent with the reality I know.”

“Man, you’re going to have to be more precise.  I don’t really follow you.”

“None of this is what I’m used to.  For example I love coffee!  I was perplexed when you were surprised by that earlier.  Um, I’m not a philosophy professor!  And, aaah, there’s no such thing as Stubb’s and you, you are a neurosurgeon.”

“Yes, I am.  Wow, that’s interesting.”

“No, no I mean that’s all you are, you don’t work in a coffee house.  And why, why is there no outside?!”

“Just relax, man.  You know I am also a trained therapist so let’s just talk this out.”

“No, no you don’t.  Don’t pull that…”  I’m freaking out again after I just decided that none of this mattered.  “Jacob, pretend I’m a visitor, from another place or another time.  Pretend I’m an alien…”

“Not too difficult right now but, go ahead.”

“Now you’re being an asshole.  Just, let me ask you some questions and answer me as if my questions made sense.”

“Ok.”

“Ok.  First, what’s with the doors in the place?  Why, when I open the door to go outside is it just blackness, emptiness?”

“I’ll try to answer that the best I can, but I preface my answer with the fact that you are the expert in Interplanetary Transportation, so please don’t criticize my non-technical explanation.”  Jacob sighs deeply and paces, looking at the floor.  “I’m not sure how to describe all the technical aspects or where to begin but basically when you open a door to a structure… No that’s not right.  Ah!  There is an outside but it’s compressed in a sense.  That’s what I meant when I said everything is there when you open the door.  Some time ago travel became too costly to maintain.  Not just local travel but interplanetary travel and intergalactic travel.  Actually interplanetary travel was the first frontier of this technology.  The space program was in trouble financially.  So general relativists figured out a way to squeeze, compress, contort, I don’t know the proper terminology, but essentially make things work out in such a way that from any point in space one could access any other point in space.  Or at least any one of a number of points in our solar system.  Physics is your field alright, so I’m sorry if I’m butchering this.  A network of combined locations was defined, space-time network nodes we call them.  Attached to each node are a collection of volumetric bubbles each designed to house a particular facility, or location.  Like, your home is one and work is another and everyone’s home is attached to their work!  And…, ah!  There is an algorithm for choosing which connected point you access from one point in the network.  This is the right-left rotation sequence.  Like when you went to the university from here by going right, right, left.”

“You’re right, you don’t really get it, but I know what you mean.  So this was done for the space program to replace rockets, etc.  How did it get applied to local travel, why can’t I just walk a block?”

“That was you.  You scaled the solution from interplanetary travel to local travel as part of your thesis in Intergalactic Transportation.  You proved scalability then came up with an engineering solution to make it work.”

“Why?”

“In part to get rid of the Ache.  Do you have that in your version of reality?”

“Yes.”

“Well that was one reason.  The other was to do away with all transportation vehicles and their energy sources.  The uses of extra dimensions really did away with everything, computers were the first to go but eventually transportation.  There’s almost no industry left but the hyperspace industry.”

“Ok, thanks.  I had another question but now I’m distracted.  How many doctorates do I have?”

“The same as everyone.  Four.”

“Why?”  I sound like a child.

“Because that’s the law.  All citizens of the commonwealth are required to obtain four doctorates.  Two in technical fields, one theoretical the other applied.  One humanities degree and one fine arts degree.  Once education is complete you take up a trade or common job.  Mine, barista.  Yours, arcade operator.”

There’s that word again, commonwealth.  I heard it earlier but it went over my head.  Commonwealth.

“Commonwealth?”

“Yes.  Before you ask, we live in the Royal Commonwealth of America.”

“Right.  As much as I’d like a history lesson I remembered my other question.  The students in my class, they looked… Well, they didn’t look like people that I’m used to seeing.  They were very ethnic, if that makes sense.”

“It does, but what else would they be?  Everyone has an ethnicity.  You’re Scandinavian.  I’m Persian.  What did you expect?”

“Well, I don’t know.  No one knows their race or ethnicity.  Actually such concepts do not exist.  Centuries ago people had some clue.  My family was Scandinavian, as my last name suggests.  But also Native American, Navajo specifically, Ethiopian and Korean.  But after a while it just became too difficult and frankly uninteresting to track one’s ethnic history.  So we stopped.”

“That’s not how things are here Devan.  It’s just the opposite.  Now, can I ask you a question?  How much is different.  Other than what we’ve discussed?”

“At first not much.  I was drinking coffee and suddenly it turned into tea.  That was it.  When I came out things were quite a bit different and kept getting…”  Devan giggles.  “Different-er.  It seems like everything is different.”

“Is this hyper-dimensional interference?  I recall you discussing that often as a concern back in school.”

“No, no that’s not it.  But good idea.  No, I am certain that it is an incorrect initial condition in one of the copies.”

“That sounds pretty minor.  Could that cause so many major changes?  Sounds like the butterfly effect.”

“No, this is just the uncertainty principle in our world.  Uncertainty in the quantum gravity states in a sense.  When an event is singled out and held in a coherent state one becomes uncertain as to which history led to that event.  When we’re resetting games we keep track of our history and make sure that the initial condition reset comes along with a complete history reset.  We can do this by allowing the uncertainty to be expressed in extra dimensions we create.  We take advantage of this to maintain complete coherence in our space-time.  It is not the same effect as hyper-dimensional interference.  That would cause all sorts of disjoint data to be fused or overlapped.  That would be extremely disconcerting, true chaos in every sense of the term.  No, when I accidentally created a different state in the here and now and committed the reset, an alternate history was also pulled out of the space-time states.  This happened because I wasn’t tracking a history for the incorrect initial conditions.  I fucked up.”

“Sounds like it.  I don’t know what to think of all that.  It’s suspicious that you are the only one who knows this.  I feel like this is the correct reality for me and I wouldn’t want it reset.  I still think you should come to the clinic for a neuro scan.”

I think I made a mistake confiding in Jacob.  Now I sound like a nut case and he clearly doesn’t believe me.  Why did I let this get to me?  We already decided that we just need to wait for the program to run, identify the incorrect initial condition, we reset and we’re back where we belong and everything is fine.  This is like a vacation.  Treat it like one.  I’ll pacify Jacob to diminish his suspicion.

“Ok, I’ll do the scan.  Let’s just keep this conversation between us for now.”

“You got it man.  No worries.”

Beginnings

     I was finishing up for the day, resetting everything from a long day of gaming.  Everything seemed fine and the process went without a hitch.  So why does my coffee taste like tea?  Seems like a minor thing to you, I know, but it’s very perplexing and a sign that something went terribly wrong in the process.  Something that could alter reality forever.

It wasn’t stale coffee, or bad coffee, or even flavored coffee, thank god they outlawed that shit back in 2543.  No, you see tea has been extinct for several hundred years.  That’s the problem, a big problem.  The extinction occurred as a result of a failed experiment by a bio-tech agro firm to create a super anti-oxidant form of tea that would be a “natural” cure for all forms of cancer.  The idea originated with a bio-tech company.  The plan had been tested in a laboratory setting several times, data reviewed and vetted by a global committee of scientists and found to be a sound venture with no danger of side effects.  This would have been the greatest discovery/invention of the millennium had it worked.  The bio-tech company was planning to farm the tea in a controlled environment, indoors at a lab facility, then package and market it through medical industry channels.

The agro firm came into the picture after some lobbying to have the product, a product they had no hand in making, be considered food by the global food administration (GFA).  Once the legislation went through, the agro firm stepped in and offered to help manufacture and market the product by having it distributed globally to tea farms all over Asia and elsewhere in the world.  They were even going to subsidize new farms in underprivileged and developing parts of the world.  This was a genius move on their part, they stacked the deck and came out looking like a cross between Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King.  “Let’s help save the world by giving global farmers a chance to cure cancer.”  Wow, the marketing campaign was insidious now that I think back to those days.  It was like watching Hitler sell his final solution.  These guys were slick, slicker than alligator shit, a line from one of my favorite old-time sing-along songs.  But I digress.  What did the agro firm have to benefit?  The standard contract they’ve been pushing for centuries.  We own it, all of it.  We can come take it when we want.  We manage the distribution and sales of the product, giving a salary to the “farmer”, a neuvo term for slave.  Essentially we own tea, all species of tea everywhere, forever.

So, what went wrong?  Well first off the bio-tech research only involved one species of tea that was chosen for its specific biochemistry and genetic properties.  It had been easy to grow indoors and was hearty against all the chemical and gene alterations that were necessary to create the desired medicinal effects.  In the hands of the agro firm the process was modified so that, once planted, nature would take its course and cause the gene mutation to spread through the world like a virus.  In one season all forms of tea everywhere would have these new genetic markers making them intellectual property of this agro firm.  To accomplish this the gene markers were modified, a modification thought to be benign.  A second factor was that the trials were never conducted outdoors.  There are soil impurities and environmental factors that were never taken into account.  These points all contributed to the great catastrophe.  That was a mess.  A mess that has to be witnessed in person several times to fully comprehend.  I’ve been there six times already and I still don’t believe my eyes.

But there is a silver lining.  As the mutation spread, it also infected animals and people resulting in a complete elimination of all forms of cancer in all animal life on earth.  You gotta piss your pants laughing at this little piece of divine justice!  Of course “the A-firm”, as we like to call them, tried to claim ownership of this mutation in people but lost that battle in the global court system (GCS) since they hadn’t filed a patent covering the mutation in anything other than tea.  They were too focused, too narrow-minded and effectively put a noose around their own neck.  Two things resulted from this mishap.  The first, obviously, cancer was cured.  But more importantly the firm went bankrupt and lost all patents since they could not pay the maintenance fees.  Food and many other products that depend on agriculture are now in the hands of the people again.  Hurray, people, the glue that holds the world together.  Lovely people.  People who need people, blah, blah, blah….  Sorry, I get carried away when I get to that part.  It’s in the hands of the people in the sense that the world government organization (WGO) controls it.  Instead of taking bribes and kickbacks from A-firm they can skim directly off the top, by raising our taxes.  The second change was that the word ‘affirm’ was removed from the English language due to the negative association with A-firm.  Ironic how a positive word became forever corrupted by its association with a negative event.  So, that’s the story of how tea became extinct.  Why then is there tea in my coffee mug?  It’s not even a good quality tea.  It’s like the cheap shit you get in bags at the grocery store, back when they had grocery stores.

This is some bad shit and I’m getting worried.  I need to figure out what went wrong with the game reset or this could be really bad.  I don’t understand, I’ve never, never, never fucked this up.  What am I going to do?  Think.  Remember.  No one ever said being an arcade operator would be easy but this part of the job never goes wrong.  God no, this can’t be happening.  It can’t be hyper dimensional quantum interference, that much I can rule out.  Hyperspace foliation!  No, that wouldn’t do this as it’s a quasi-classical effect.  Think, think.  Ah!  Asynchronization of the closed time-like parallel space-time copies!  That would do it!!  Could do it!  But, didn’t do it.  There has to be an incorrect initial condition.  Something was not reset properly.  But how, this is a no brainer.  This never goes wrong. It’s never gone wrong.

So much for the greatest scientific discovery in the history of mankind.  This shit is broke.  Yeah, we cured cancer by accident but this was a true work of genius.  A game changer for the history of mankind.  About 40 years ago theoretical physicists found the Holy Grail, Einstein’s dream.  They managed to discover the unified field theory and along with it a self-consistent theory of gravity and quantum field theory.  They completely solved quantum gravity and can now calculate quantum gravitational effects as easily as they can calculate the emission spectrum of the hydrogen atom.  But a few interesting surprises emerged.  String theorists were right in some sense that our universe has extra dimensions.  I give credit to Kaluza and Klein for that one, they were the true innovators.  But string theory itself didn’t pan out.  One surprise was that we discovered that dimensionality can vary in time!  In fact we now know how to create and destroy extra dimensions at will.  During the process of working out the theory researchers developed toy models, partial solutions that demonstrated how finite chunks of space-time could be copied and brought into the present.  This is colloquially referred to as time travel, but it isn’t.  Finally we learned that we could tunnel from one parallel version of space-time to another and back.  What happens is that when a region of space-time is copied it is copied in the present, the present in the local neighborhood of the copier.  The copy exists in extra dimensions so it does not interfere directly with the present space-time of the copier.  However, tunneling can occur thus creating interference between the copies.  This is where some sophisticated engineering was required to make things work.

By use of control mechanisms we are able to control the tunneling.  We can hold multiple copies steady and prevent leakage from one to the other.  I know you’re worried about the “tail”, that ubiquitous part of any wave function that makes spooky things happen.  It is a concern but didn’t lead to our current predicament.  We are able to monitor leakage in the tail and direct the runoff into extra dimensions, extra dimensions we create as we need them.  It’s really amazing.  Because the copies are finite in extent in their own “time” they need to be closed so that everything in time wraps around in a closed time-like curve.  I’m trying my best to explain it, the math works out.  This doesn’t mean that time in our sense does not move forward.  The entire copy evolves with its time, cycling round and round, but always moving forward with respect to our time.  Kind of like a helix.  So every time, there’s that bad word again, a copy is made more dimensions are created and hence our space-time continuum gets bigger in a sense.  This has created a sort of new environmental problem.  We keep making dimensions to dump things in, copies of other space-time regions, quantum tail runoff, etc.  It’s a kind of pollution and it has greatly increased the entropy of the universe.

This led to the development of “the Ache”, a mild headache like feeling that permeates the entire body down to the bones, for the entire Earth population (and probably for all populations in the universe).  This is a level 2-3 pain that’s present 24/7.  This is due to an increase in pressure from all the extra dimensions and the stuff in them.  Since an extra dimension is everywhere, at every point in our space-time, every point of your body is under pressure.  When people first started reporting symptoms migraine sufferers said they’d rather have a migraine than the Ache because you cannot focus attention on even one part of your body that feels Okay.

What have we used this unified field theory for?  Historically the value of a scientific pursuit has been measured by the technology it produces.  That’s one of the ways science benefits mankind.  For a long time particle physics, high energy theory and general relativity have only produced huge money drains.  Not a popular thing to do, spend countless tax dollars building machines to see if you can get another baryon state to pop into existence for less than an attosecond.  You can’t make anything useful from an unstable particle.  But we finally did make something the people wanted.  The ultimate virtual reality game, paint ball with weapons of mass destruction.  It’s an awesome sight to see.  People also use this technology for exotic travel to other times and even for education.  That’s my favorite thing to do.  That’s what I meant when I said that you have to see it several times to fully comprehend it, referring to the tea catastrophe.

My favorite thing to do is go see Albert Einstein give his lecture on relativity at the University of Chicago in 1921.  I use a ticket I purchased at a collectible shop each time I go.  Funny how no one ever comments on the fact that it’s old looking, brown and stained.  By the way that’s also how I know what tea tastes like.  I’ve had it in other copies of the space-time continuum.  But the “virtual” war games are the most popular experience.  Imagine that you could go to World War Two and fight alongside the allied forces, storming the beaches at Normandy.  Hell, you could go to an event in the copy and be Hitler, or you could push the button.  All this is possible.  We get some groups but individual play is the most popular.  A copy of when you want to go is created then held in a closed loop state.  The player is tunneled into the copy and once there can do whatever they want for a fixed amount of time.  Since time is closed in the copy, when the play is over and the player tunneled back to the here and now, no time has passed.  That is no time in the here and now, in our real universe.  So you get to experience whatever you want, for as long as you want (long but finite) and no time has passed in your life.

I’m not explaining it very well, I know, but I do have a lot on my mind right now.  This is helping me relax so, thanks for listening.  These arcades were the invention of the theorists who worked out the unified theory and all the related particulars.  They are very popular, actually the most popular form of entertainment.  People don’t go to the movies anymore, they come to an arcade to enter another part of space-time to see a movie.  It’s so popular and lucrative because no one has any motivation to do anything but get numb and escape.  The WGO controls everything.  It’s like communism on steroids.  Corporate communism to be precise.  And the Ache is a killer.  Sometimes you can get relief while you’re in a copy due to inhomogenaeties in the hyper-dimensional pressure but that doesn’t last long.  All aspects of life are regulated by the WGO except for this since it’s so new. It’s the newest last frontier in technology, and probably the last.

So that’s it, there is no more physics left to do.  It’s over and done.  We have solved the problem of the UNIVERSE! There is nothing left to learn and no surprises.  Not unless god materializes before us and yells “Wait! I decree that the universe is no longer what you think it is.”  It’s kind of exciting to learn about, but now no one learns physics in school except the basics.  You know, classical general relativity (GR) and quantum chromodynamics (QCD).  That’s all very pedestrian and you gotta understand classical space-time, nuclear physics etc., just to get by in the world.  But you cannot study theoretical physics in university and make a career out of it.  There is only one job for a theoretical physicist and that is arcade operator.  We are the only ones who can do this shit and that kind of keeps the government in check.  They are a little scared of us right now.  You learn quantum gravity (QG), unified field theory (UFT), and all other aspects of theoretical physics at a trade school for the sole purpose of running an arcade.

I know you’re thinking this is a waste.  Arcade games?  You could change the world, go back and stop Hitler, stop the A-Firm and save tea!  Why is this being wasted on games?  Look, and pay attention, this isn’t some bullshit science fiction fantasy story.  This is how reality works.  You are NOT traveling IN time, no Back to the Future movie stuff.  None of what I just explained violates causality, it can’t.  You are not time traveling you are tunneling into a copy of space-time that exists in an extra set of dimensions right up next to you, so close you can touch it.  You cannot go to the future or a copy of any neighborhood of a future event, and nothing you do in a copy of the past has any effect on the present.  You retain memories of your game but that happened in the present not in the past or any type of past.  So you cannot change the present by playing in these copies.

Since the first caveman became self-aware and realized he fucked something up people have been wanting to travel through time to change their past.  You cannot do this but you can re-experience part of your past and see what would happen if you did make a different decision.  But when it’s all over and you return, everything is the same as it was.

Except it isn’t.

Not this time.

God I really fucked up.

I gotta figure out how to fix this.