"I suppose that's my translation. He just talks about 'contacting my inner feelings' and 'releasing suppressed grief'. He doesn't see the spots on my neck either." Alec slumped on the sofa. Just thinking about the Guide angered him and he wanted to wanted to change the subject. "Where's Danial?"
"He's playing at the Fredrics'. It's so good that we have a neighbor with a boy a similar age. I don't know how we'd cope without them."
"We help them too. Jimmy comes around here a lot."
"I know. I was just thinking though, wouldn't it be nice if we had someone else for Dan to play with. Maybe a little sister? Don't you think?"
Alec stiffened as Elisha brushed her fingertips across his cheek, snuggling close in to him.
"I don't think..."
"Then don't then." Elisha’s lips were warm on his.
Alec wrenched himself away. "You're unbelievable. You think you can make up for everything by doing that?"
Elisha reddened. "No Alec, I just w-"
"How could you even think about having another child? We're not exactly a couple anymore."
"Don't say that. I still love you."
"And that's why you turned me in to the Director..." Alec stalked away to his office
***
"Alec?" Elisha whispered through the part-opened door. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to be how you thought."
His temper had died, leaving Alec feeling exhausted and ashamed as it always did. "The timing isn't good, that's all."
Elisha slipped through the door carrying a small tray of coffee and some of his favorite cookies. "I thought you might like these."
"Peace offering?" Alec grunted, but took a bite from a cookie.
"Just saying sorry."
"What makes you so sure that things have happened before?" Elisha sat in the upholstered chair a few feet way. "Surely it’s impossible to tell."
Alec sipped his coffee, he didn't want to talk about it but maybe it would distract her from more uncomfortable subjects. "There's an imperfection in the background data."
"What imperfection?"
"It's a little complicated." He struggled to sit up. "Are you sure you want to know?"
"I want to understand." Elisha's jaw set. "I'm not empty-headed."
Alec sighed. "Okay... according to standard theory, Dark Energy is pushing everything apart. I looked at the data, but the evidence didn’t show enough of it existed to cause that, so I started looking for other explanations."
"Without enough Dark Energy there's nothing pushing things apart and eventually gravity will become the dominant force in the Universe. Everything will fly towards the gravitational center and squish together into a space smaller than a subatomic particle. You still with me?"
Elisha glared at him. "I understand English. Even yours."
Alec raised his coffee cup to her. "When I analyzed cosmic background radiation, I found very subtle traces of previous organizations of matter."
"You lost me there."
"Imagine it's like a piece of paper and you write a note on it. Later you erase it, but there will still be traces, no matter how hard you try. Tiny fragments and remnants survive and, with sufficiently powerful analysis, they can be recovered."
"You found that?" Elisha sounded pleased, "It must have been very difficult."
"The data is absolutely clear to anyone who looks with an unbiased mind. The fact is that there have been several previous Universes, each one rebuilt on top of the old one."
"That's incredible." Elisha leaned forward and smiled, but this time it seemed genuine. "You'll soon be famous. I better start looking for a frock for the Nobel ceremony."
"Don't get carried away. The Lab has put a hold on publication of my results."
"It's probably only temporary. Is it a problem if they don't support you?"
It was a question Alec had thought about for several weeks. This wasn't the old days when you could publish without the backing of an institute. Although he could publish independently to a wide audience, that would risk his position and reputation. Even if things weren't the best between him and Elisha, he still had family responsibilities.
"I'm not sure. It would definitely be awkward. I could lose my place at the lab. Maybe it doesn't matter to anyone, even if I’m right. We're talking about an event that won't happen for billions of years."
"But if it's true, then people should know." Elisha moved across and squeezed Alec's hand with surprising firmness. "You should do what's right."
"Mom! Dad!" Danial bawled from the lower floor.
"I'll go." Elisha gave him a quick kiss and left.
The kiss felt nice. Alec felt a little guilty that he'd enjoyed it and tried to focus on publishing instead. He could set up a site, present his findings. It wouldn't cost much. Or maybe use a free service. No, that would make him look more like a crackpot. If he did, then just m...
"Alec, please come down."
Elisha's voice sounded strange. It drifted into his office as though whispered, even though he knew there was anxiety behind it.
A few minutes later he bolted upright. He'd still been thinking about publishing and the repercussions. Elisha had called and he'd heard nothing since. Alec ran downstairs, tumbling down the last few stairs and catching his elbow painfully on the floor.
A faint golden glow drifted through the air, as if it were fog rather than a light effect—like the flow from the morning sun carried on a mist of ether. The glow thickened towards the kitchen and Alec scrabbled to the doorway, bare feet squeaking on the tiled floor.
Elisha stood on one side of the room with her arm protectively around Danial. Her head was lowered so Alec couldn’t see her face, but he sensed that neither of them was breathing. They were motionless as if frozen. His stomach churned. He tried to move towards them, but his legs seemed paralysed.
The glow brightened to his right, coalescing into a shapeless turbulence of light that burned his eyes and pulsed as if alive. Alec heard a loud deafening heartbeat, but knew it was inside his head not external.
Alec stared at Elisha and Danial. "Why?"
The streams of light imploded in waves like a golden whirlpool, the center brightening until the whole kitchen faded from sight. Then in a snap the light disappeared, leaving behind a man in a dark-blue casual suit.
"Hello, Alec."
"Who are you?" Alec trembled, realizing the figure was identical to his high-school math teacher; impossible unless the teacher had been frozen in time for over twenty years.
"I'm from Outside." The figure hesitated. "Would you accept it if I said I'm God?"
"No." Alec tried to move towards Elisha again but couldn't. It was a strange paralysis. He could move his head and speak, but he was pinned in place. "If that's the best you can do, you better try again."
"Would it be more acceptable if I said I was an alien visitor?"
Alec shook his head. "I'm a scientist. Give me proof."
The figure shivered, his outline blurring momentarily with a burning light brighter than anything Alec had ever seen. "I'm a mathematician." The figure smiled. "Much like you."
"What have you done to them?" Tears rolled down Alec's cheeks. "Whatever you want, please don't hurt them."
"Don't be upset. They are unharmed. They can't be in fact." Again the figure hesitated as though finding it difficult communicating. "We're not evil."
"Who is 'we'?"
"Those of us... Outside."
"Outside where?"
"None of this is real, Alec. I'm the creator." The figure stumbled. "That is I... We, made all of this."
"That's impossible." Alec shook his head. "I'm real. They're real. This is real. Why are you lying? What do you really want?"
"We run tests—like you do in your research. Everything you know is a complex simulation. We wanted to test how life and intelligence developed on its own. Some of us think that intelligence is inevitable, others think it a rarity. We could never find the answer before."
Alec snorted. Eve
n if they could recreate the level of complexity and detail in the world, it would take far too long. Who'd start a project knowing it would take billions of years to get the results?
The figure seemed to share Alec's thoughts. "Our timescale is different from yours. It's one of the things that makes communication so difficult."
"So why this visit?"
The figure flickered again, briefly changing shape between his schoolteacher, Dr. Himmons, and the Guide.
"This is very hard. In fact we've never tried it before."
Alec felt his temper flare. "I'm sorry we've caused you so much inconvenience..."
The figure moved closer to Alec, seeming to study him intently. "We made an error and now it's threatening to destroy our work. You are threatening it."
"Like you, when we run our simulations, we don't just run it once but hundreds or thousands of times to get accurate results."
"That's what we've done; you exist in cycle 11,394 of the current series of simulations. Each time we wipe out all traces of the previous simulations entirely, or that's what we thought. Somehow some minute traces were left, which you noticed. We hadn't allowed for that."
"Even if that's true, why me? Why would I notice rather than someone else?"
"That's a good question. And we don't really have the answer. In this cycle we recast some relatively minor intellectual sequences in order to match what we thought we knew about how intelligence developed. There shouldn't have been any significant difference in the outcome at your epoch, but then you started to see patterns that you shouldn't. Like the marks on your neck."
"We make things as detailed as possible, but the marks represent the limits of our Holix engines. Programming them out would be expensive and our budgets aren’t unlimited. We hid them as best we could, but it was another flaw in our processes I'm afraid."
Alec wanted to punch the figure to the ground. He could squeeze his hands into tight fists, but was still helplessly frozen. A simulation? What nonsense. He might as well believe in fairies or pixies if that were true.
"You won't get away with this. Whatever you're planning, I'll..."
"We don't have time for this, Alec. Your releasing information about the nature of your universe is already polluting the simulation; we have to clean it up before it spreads too far. Your wife and child, along with your colleagues have had all knowledge of this purged from their minds. Imagine it's like a disease, spreading through healthy tissue from the site of infection. If we act now we might be able to stop it before it becomes too costly, but the longer it goes on the harder it is to contain and the greater the chance that this entire sequence will have to be abandoned."
Alec twisted and fell, squirming like a worm on the floor. "Even if it's true, why not just wipe my mind too? If I'm just a piece in a simulation, what do you care? Just wipe my mind too and get on with it."
"Well..."
"Ah! Your ideas fall apart at the first rational inspection. You've drugged me and my family for some reason and..."
"Alec." The figure reached down and lifted him back up, placing him on a kitchen stool as if he were made of nothing. "Look at your wife's neck."
"No!" Alec tried to struggle further. "I won't believe... whatever you've done..." Despite himself, his eyes were drawn towards Elisha. "It’s not true. It can’t be."
"We have a special interest in you Alec; you're one of the central strands we are examining closely. If we modify you, this cycle would become worthless and undermine all our other work. We want to avoid that, but we can’t do it without your help."
"What do you mean?"
"We need you to agree not to pursue your current research. Discuss your theories of the cyclical Universe with no one."
"The people I've told won't remember?"
"You're the only person who knows about your work now."
"What about my family?" Alec's glanced at his wife then looked back. "Will I still be with them?"
"That won't change. You will live out your life as normal."
Alec dragged in raw lungfuls of air, his eyes screwed into clenched slits. "What happens if I don't? What's the 'or else'?"
"Alec, we don’t want this... that's why I came to you like this. We're not evil..."
"What will happen?" Alec screamed.
"We would have to eliminate the source of the infection to ensure there was full containment. Your wife and child would believe you had a regrettable accident."
Tears streamed down Alec's face and neck. "You can't ask me to do that. It would be..."
The figure flickered again, the light streaming from his profile in streams of impossible fire.
"We're out of time, Alec. Decide now."
***
"There's Daddy!" Danial's shout was clear all the way across the park and Alec smiled. Seconds later his arms were full of little boy and he swung the youngster into the sky, eliciting squeals of pleasure.
Elisha sauntered over and slid her arms around both of them, the three of them holding tight on to one another. The air was suffused with the smell of fresh grass and not even an insect disturbed the warm spring evening.
Alec gripped her tightly. "I love you."
Elisha squeezed him back. "How are things at the Lab?"
Alec hesitated imperceptibly. "You know, the usual routine. It's good to get home to you two." His eyes slipped away, deliberately avoiding the small discoloration on his wife's neck.
It was such a slight imperfection.
The End
This one had very strange beginnings. I was getting ready for work one morning and doing my ritual shave when I noticed a little white patch of skin just on the side of my neck where I could barely see it. When I started on the other side of my face I noticed an almost identical patch. I mentioned it to my wife and she said she couldn't see anything, but the seed was planted. Of course, the marks weren't really identical like Alec's, at least I don't think... Hang on, I just want to check something...
First Contact
"This is a screw-up of the highest order. The goddammed 'Evil Alien Syndrome' made real."
Al Ortiz paced around the burl wood veneered desk, plowing his fingers through his thick hair. The tension throbbed in his temples. No one could possibly have guessed this would happen and not only that, but live on 3V with thousands of "in-person" witnesses.
Dan Guzik whirled his finger in space and let out a low whistle. "The Agency is nuts if they think we can sit on this."
Ortiz slumped into a padded chair, the scent of leather and polish enveloping him. Guzik was right. The feeds on his phone already showed multiple copies of the original feed being uploaded, downloaded, and watched. Less than one hour after the incident, it had gone viral. Shutting it down would be like battling a legendary hydra—every time they killed one feed a dozen more would spring up.
Ortiz checked the time, his square jaw clenching and un-clenching. "Are you sure she's coming?"
"I just told ya. Everything's jammed up—it'll take a while."
It should have been a triumph of interstellar relations: decades of painstaking negotiations between humans and Kalgzar finally brought to a successful conclusion. The physical limits of space-time had dictated a glacial pace of progress as the two different species fumbled to understand each other.
But the much anticipated first contact had exploded into one giant, fetid mess, and someone would catch the blame for it. Ortiz drummed his fingers on the table. As lead security operative for the Kalgzar party, he had a good idea who would be the sacrificial lamb. He was impatient for her to arrive, if only to have someone else to share the burden with.
The door swung open and a small woman strode in, her feet almost soundless against the gleaming parquet flooring. She examined Ortiz and Guzik, settling on Ortiz as the leader.
"You're the fool who called for help over this trivial piece of stupidity?"
Ortiz choked on his coffee; she obviously had no idea of the seriousness of what had happened.
&
nbsp; "You are Casteneda?"
"How many people did you invite?" Casteneda's black eyes locked with his.
"Shouldn't have even invited you," Guzik grunted, his ever-present sunglasses reflecting Casteneda's gaunt face.
"No need for that, Dan. Ms. Casteneda is well known for solving tricky problems." He turned back to her and shivered; there was something imperious and threatening in her haggard features. "You know what's happened?"
"My dear man, the entire conscious world is aware of what happened. The 3V recording even made it through to me, despite the filters I have in place to block anything related to popular culture."
"But, if you know..." Ortiz was even more confused. How could she dismiss it so casually?
"Let me convince you." Casteneda perched on the edge of a chair, looking as though she was almost part of the collection of dusty legal tomes that filled the shelves behind her. Her shock of black hair gave her the appearance of an ancient Raven—ready to pounce at any sign of weakness.
"One—we were receiving the first in-person Kalgzar delegation. Two—the delegation was received at its starship by a party led by an air-headed idiot with the improbable name of Fawnda, whose only 'qualification' seems to be a generously endowed chest. Three—the Kalgzar ambassador, Dh'Aht, upon meeting this Fawnda, promptly attacked her, tearing off what little clothing she was wearing and sexually assaulting her in public."
The small scar on Ortiz's left cheek visibly whitened as he grimaced at her bluntness. Casteneda simply ticked off the next finger.
"Four—the public with its usual sense of misplaced gung-ho optimism, has called for the immediate destruction of the Kalgzar. Five—the Kalgzar delegation has returned to its ship and has ignored all communication attempts. Six—the security services are so incompetent that they call out a Systems Engineer to help with a diplomatic issue."
"You were highly recommended, someone who could be trusted. We were told-"
"Forget what you were told. In all my years the only thing I have ever done is think. It's something I would strongly encourage you to try, at least once in your life."
"You think we should just let those tentacled freaks get away with this?" Guzik thumped the table with a meaty hand. "They shouldn't have been allowed to come here."
Dead Reckoning and Other Stories Page 13
