by Al Macy
Gordon Guccio bustled in wearing a tailored suit that no longer fit and a wide tie that was no longer in fashion. With him was a physicist I’d seen on the news.
After apologizing for being late, Guccio introduced the scientist. “Dr. Gray is our top expert on quantum physics. He’s the youngest person ever to win the Albert Einstein World Award of Science. He’s also won the Kavli prize and many other awards. Today, he’s going to bring us up to speed. Are we ready to get started?” Guccio dropped onto the couch by the president’s side.
Dr. Gray looked more like a twenty-something comedian than a scientist. An uneven Afro extended from his head in all directions, and a scruffy beard camped out on the tip of his chin. There was nothing humorous in his demeanor, though. With his wrinkled brow and faraway gaze, he looked more like someone dealing with a cancer diagnosis.
Gray put his briefcase on the coffee table and opened it. “Please call me Elon.”
He had trouble standing still. “Let me start by saying that parallel universes are real, as real as this floor”—he stamped his foot—“and ours is about to collide with another one. This is a real-world end-of-the-world scenario.”
Gray took a breath and crossed his arms. “Quantum physics is weird, it’s goofy, and it doesn’t seem to make sense. But the alternative is even goofier, so we’re forced to believe the crazy concepts I’m about to present. There are different ways of describing parallel universes, but I’ll give you an analogy that’s pretty easy to understand.
“Imagine we lived in a two-dimensional world, like a sheet of paper, and we didn’t even know a third dimension existed.” He pulled a sheet of paper out of his briefcase and held it in the air. “Now, imagine there’s a parallel world that’s right next to us.” He took out another sheet and dangled it near the first.
He looked at each of us. “These 2-D people have no clue about the third dimension; it’s hard for them to even imagine it. In the same way, we live in a 3-D world, and it’s tough for us to imagine more dimensions. But it turns out that we live in a four-dimensional space-time. In fact, the total number of dimensions is at least, at least, ten and—”
“Uh, Elon,” Guccio said.
Elon looked at him. “Right, sorry. Just understand that in the same way that multiple 2-D universes could exist like these two sheets of paper, parallel 3-D universes can, and do, exist side-by-side. It’s harder to conceptualize a separate 3-D space, but it’s there.”
Charli shook her head. “What you say sounds almost reasonable, and I’m willing to go along with it, but what about this idea of the parallel universes being the same as ours? And the business about them splitting?”
“Right,” he said. “We’re getting into goofier territory now. It looks like every time one of several possible things could happen, the universe splits into multiple parallel universes.”
I crossed my arms. “I’ve heard that. But if that’s true, then every second we’d have a gazillion new universes.”
He slid his glasses down his nose and looked at me over the tops. “Niels Bohr said, ‘If quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.’ It’s beyond goofy, isn’t it? We’ve been trying to disprove this stuff for eighty years but have failed miserably.”
“Okay, what about this thing of them sending me back in time?” I asked.
Elon laughed. “Well, now I’m going to have to blow your minds in a whole new way.” He took a breath and paced around a bit. “Most people have the idea that there is a single ‘now’ in the universe. That simply isn’t the case. I could prove this to you after class, but if an alien a billion light-years away were moving away from you, his now would be the same as your now in the past. And if he were moving toward you, his now would be a now from your future.”
“A now that doesn’t exist yet.” I said.
“Yes, that’s the mindblower. Space-time theory clearly says that events in the future all exist in a very real sense. Our perception of past, present, and future is simply an illusion.”
Charli pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. “And that’s how they sent Jake back?”
“In part.” Elon sighed. “They essentially aligned our two universes in space-time and then paratransitted Jake. Also, from what they say in their documents, our two worlds are now locked together.”
“And the collision?” Guccio asked.
“Well, we’re lucky there. We know it’s not going to happen for a year—”
“Hold on.” Guccio held his hand out in a stop gesture. “How do we know that?”
Elon nodded. “Because the dinobirds sent Jake back one year in time. It was June 1, 2021, when they sent him, so we know it won’t happen before that date. It’s June 15, 2020, now, so Congress and the other governments should have plenty of time to release funds for the project. Right?” He laughed briefly then his frown returned.
“But soon after that date, if we don’t do what the dinobirds have told us to do …” Elon took his two sheets of paper, crumpled them together, and tossed them into the fireplace. They burst into flames.
* * *
Three months after my triumphant return to normal Earth, Charli and I sat in Dr. Elon Gray’s lab. It resembled the interior of a starship, and all the surfaces were different shades of gray. Everything was modular, from the workstations and experiment benches to the glass-fronted equipment cases.
There wasn’t a scrap of paper to be seen. The scientists took notes on tablets or terminals, and video cameras recorded everything. According to Elon, if a researcher failed to reproduce a result, all he or she needed to do was go back over the video record and pinpoint possible reasons for the discrepancy.
I sat at the conference table with my chair right up against Charli’s. Ever since returning, I’d wanted to keep her near. She wore her high-powered advisor uniform: a dark pencil skirt and a white blouse. I held her hand under the table.
I guess I was like the man who recovers from starvation only to become obsessed with the stores of food in his kitchen. Making things worse, I’d lost my first wife, Mary, to terrorists. She’d been pregnant with our first child at the time. So, although my brain knew I didn’t have to be close to Charli all the time, my heart was skeptical. I gripped her hand harder. She understood.
Gordon Guccio was the last to arrive. Sporting a new stain on his tie and carrying a powdered donut, he leaned down between us and whispered, “Hey, get a room, guys.”
Charli punched him in the shoulder with her free hand.
Guccio slopped coffee into his huge travel mug, and Elon stood by the screen. “Okay, guys, thanks for coming. I want to bring you up to speed on the scientific info we received from the dinobirds.”
Elon wore a lab coat over his black t-shirt and jeans. His Afro was even bigger—maybe he’d found some new scientific principle that helped it keep its shape.
“This”—he touched the wall-filling video display—“is a photo of the paratransit device.”
In the picture, a large bowl, like a satellite dish, occupied the floor of a lab, and four tubes curved out from below it. The ceiling held a matching dish-and-tube assembly. Although they didn’t touch, the floor and ceiling components clearly defined a spherical region of space. A technician wearing special goggles kneeled by one of the tubes, examining it closely.
“That’s a lot bigger than I expected it to be,” I said.
Elon turned to me. “Right. It’s over forty feet from bottom to top. Do you remember it at all, Jake?”
I shook my head.
“There’s not much to it.” Guccio used his sleeve to wipe a crumb from his mouth.
Elon nodded. “Most of the guts are out of sight. And check this out.” Elon pulled something from his pocket and held it up. It was an orange cylinder, like a straw, but only three inches long.
“Huh. I saw that in the video journal,” I said. “There was one like it in the pack of the small dino. The gretzer.”
“Right.” Elon nodd
ed. He’d watched my video diary as well. “That’s the dinobird version of a thumb drive. We built it according to the specs they sent us.”
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Charli said. “Why do we need a paratransit device in each universe? When they grabbed Jake, we didn’t have one at our end.”
“Right, and it didn’t go well. He wasn’t transported to their machine, as they intended. They improved the unilateral paratransit procedure, and were able to send him back okay, but things are much safer with two machines. I’ve got some ideas that might make it work, but having a paratransitter in only one universe is inherently risky.”
Guccio waved his donut at the video display. “Perhaps we can use this as a time machine.” With each “P” in “perhaps,” powdered sugar puffed out from his lips.
“No. The dinobirds explained it in their documents. Jake’s return trip was a one-time thing, no pun intended. They took advantage of that loophole, so it’s no longer available. Our two universes are now locked together in time.” Elon interleaved the fingers of his hands.
“But it is clear”—I looked at my watch—“that right now, September first, in the dinobird world, Boonie and I are hanging out at the cave wondering what the hell is going on.”
Elon nodded. “Strange but true.”
“Could we build this thing tomorrow, send someone—not me, by the way—to say, ‘Hey. Go get poor Jake. He’s in a cave—’”
“Short answer, no. We have to allow them to catch up in time. They told us the earliest we can send someone is …” Elon consulted his tablet. “… July 19, 2021. We have started work on this machine, but to complete it, we’ll need some expensive materials, such as tritium, plutonium, and even antimatter.”
I looked at him. “That’s a real thing, antimatter?”
He nodded. “We’re asking Congress for funding now. The total cost is over four hundred billion.”
Guccio drained the last drops of his coffee and set the mug down. “Good luck with that.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The alarm echoed through the halls of the research building. Marbecka fluttered into the air. Another rift? She, Jobex, and the dumb-tail politician flew to the control room.
When they arrived, the two scientists looked up at the bulletin holo and relaxed. Jobex pushed a button and the alarm ceased, its echoes taking a few seconds to die out.
Honock, the politician, perched beside them. He was smaller than the others, and three decorative bands sparkled on his legs. “What? What happened?”
In her relief, Marbecka ruffled her feathers. “The computer signaled a new confluence rift and set off an alarm—”
“Then why is everyone so calm? Shouldn’t we be doing something?”
She pointed to the bulletin holo. “That info, there, tells us that this rift will not affect our universe. It’s an imminent rift between two other universes. The alarm goes off for any upcoming collisions, even those that will not affect us. Yes, we’re a little too cautious.”
“Okay, so we’re safe for now. But what universes are colliding?”
She glanced at her colleague. “Dr. Jobex is working on that right now. We should know soon.”
“Can you please explain how we detect these problems?”
Marbecka turned to the short celano and sighed. The word had come down from the flock leaders: Make us understand. Yeah, right. No one had ever found a way to explain quantum physics in a way that made it seem reasonable.
It was like every celano’s first experience with kervich, the world’s most popular beverage. When her father had given her a taste, she’d spit it out. What? Who could drink that vile, bitter brew? Yet, as an adult, she and most others drank it several times a day.
They’d asked her to give this layman, a politician no less, a taste of quantum physics and make him like it. But like kervich, quantum physics was an acquired taste.
Honock passed a wing in front of her eyes. “Dr. Marbecka, are you there?”
“Sorry. Okay, here goes. In an ancient experiment, we found that when sending individual electrons toward a pair of narrow slits, their behavior could only be explained by interference from electrons—”
“Okay.”
“—in other universes.”
Honock stared as if frozen.
“Look, sir, you’re either going to have to take this part on faith or spend eight years getting an advanced degree in physics.” Marbecka watched him, stretching one wing.
Honock came back to life. “Okay, okay, let’s say I go along with that. How does the machine work?”
“That part’s easy. The machine does something along the lines of that ancient experiment, billions of times. It then evaluates the interference patterns and uses a stochastic model to make educated guesses about what’s happening in the other universes. The principle is pretty simple, actually.”
“Sounds like lizard shit to me.”
Marbecka bobbed her head. “Well, me too, but we’ve found nothing at odds with the theory. And you’ve seen Jake.”
“So what is it that happened today? What universes will be affected?”
The two waddled back to Jobex. Marbecka tapped him on the wing. “What do we have?”
“It’s a new universe we weren’t aware of. We’ve dubbed it Human-2. It’s one that split off from Jake’s, Human-1, just under nine years ago. Those two universes are about to experience a collision rift.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Marbecka said. “If the collisions are a natural phenomenon, the progression suggests ours would be next.”
“Exactly. It’s giving me the feeling these collision events aren’t organic.”
“What else could cause them? If it’s not natural, our prevention plan might not work.”
Jobex waggled his head in confusion. He pointed. “Look at the grav-wave trace.”
Marbecka’s crest popped up. “How can that be? The grav-wave anomaly happened at the same instant as Jake’s rift. And it came from … where?”
“Between Mars and Jupiter. And somehow X-1 is involved.”
Honock leaned forward. “Hold on. What is X-1?”
“X-1,” Marbecka said, “is yet another universe. A mystery universe. We don’t know anything about it, that’s why we designate it with an ‘X.’ We’d concluded that we could safely ignore it, but now …”
She looked at the date display. Not good! “It’s only forty-four days until the humans are scheduled to use their paratransitter. This could ruin everything.”
Jobex ruffled his feathers. “Maybe or maybe not. But I do know one thing.”
“What’s that?” Marbecka asked.
“The inhabitants of Jake’s world are in for a big surprise.”
* * *
I looked around the congressional hearing chamber. In front of me, senators took their seats behind the semicircular rostrum desk. On the walls, dark wood paneling rose to the high ceiling, with a carved-wood seal of the United States centered behind the congressmen. I sat down in the hot seat between Dr. Elon Gray on my left and Secretary of Defense Guccio on my right.
June 5, 2021, and the funding had still not been released. Having a whole year’s advance notice was too much. The perceived urgency gradually declined, and governments’ attention turned to other matters. ADHD on a global scale.
Now that the collision was imminent, people treated it like old news. Worse, we had only forty-four days until the scheduled paratransit. We needed to finish both the communications unit and the paratransitter. Our scientists had built the machines, but they wouldn’t function until we could install the exotic, and expensive, materials they needed. Like antimatter.
Elon leaned over to me and whispered, “There’s no chance this is going to go well.” He’d trimmed his Afro and shaved off his chin beard.
I looked toward the exit door. “Whadya say we chuck it all and go have a beer?” Shoot! I glanced at the videographers. Would someone be able to read my lips? I’d gotten into trouble with that o
nce before.
The gavel came down. Senator Thad Halgren, pushing eighty, with a bulbous nose and an orangish tan, leaned toward his microphone. “Good morning. We’ll get started as soon as the, uh, members of the media allow us to see the witnesses.”
The photographers retreated, some of them sitting on the floor below the dais.
The senator cleared his throat. “Thank you and welcome. We’re here today to discuss this idea that the United States, along with other governments around the world, spend over five hundred billion dollars, and I’ll repeat that, five hundred billion, on a program and device designed by alien creatures to prevent the possible destruction of Earth caused by a collision of universes. Apparently there’s this invisible … thing … headed our way.” He chuckled.
Things went downhill from there. Elon gave an elongated presentation of the problem, with several slides and videos. He displayed an excerpt from a NOVA program that explained how almost eighty years of experiments had all supported the tenets of quantum physics.
“The dinobirds have given us three tasks.” Elon brought up a slide showing two planet Earths side by side. Cartoon characters were talking back and forth via tin cans connected with a string. Way to dumb it down for Congress. Elon was my kind of guy.
“First,” he said, “set up a system that will let us communicate with them. This is the easiest to accomplish, and we’re almost done with it.”
He advanced to the next slide, an image of the Star Trek transporter. “Next, set up a chamber that will let us move back and forth in a reliable way. They’ll do all the heavy lifting, so this might not be too hard. But, as we heard, it will be expensive. The paratransit device is vital to the third task.”
His final slide showed a structure that resembled the huge gyroscope-like device from the movie Contact. “The third task is to build a device that may help prevent the collision of the different universes. This is our ultimate goal. This device, we’ve dubbed it the MegaFix Machine, will help prevent the destruction of our entire universe. Note that the dinobirds will be able to send large modules of this device to us through the paratransitter. They’ll foot the bill. We will just assemble the parts, so this part is not expensive.”
