by Nick M Lloyd
‘Weird.’
‘Yeah, and when I searched down hedgehogs and accidents, the internet returns were all about road safety. Nothing strange at all. Although, I got one strange bit…it seemed to be a military reference. I’ve got more to check up there.’
‘What about the internet chat boards, anything from the user names?’
‘There were two names dominating the boards: Adamo34 and Xeeta55. But I didn’t manage to find anything more out. Will you see if you can find anything?’
‘Sure, I’ll try later to see what I can find out about them. Did you look into any testimonies from Jack Bullage?’
Louise grimaced. ‘There have been a few pieces, nothing comprehensive. I just managed to stomach the internet report saying he felt blessed but personally remembered nothing of the crash.’ Louise paused to refill her glass then continued. ‘It also said a few eye witnesses had basically seen Bullage thrown out of the car, then, after he had landed in a heap, he had stood up straight away and seemed physically fine, just a little shaken.’
‘He’s out of hospital now, though?’
Louise nodded.
Jack Bullage did not feel lucky, he felt ashamed. Sitting on his sofa in the dark with the curtains drawn he sipped from his small whisky bottle. He’d been home for only 48hrs but had already had three visits from stress counsellors, one from the NHS and the other two sent by the Glowview Corporation. Probably just trying to limit their liability. It was a business dinner.
The doctors had kept him in hospital for a few days while trying to determine if he had any meaningful injuries. He’d complained of headaches and a fuzzy sense of detachment, but the medical tests had been a farce. The MRI scanner broke down while he was inside and the ECG packed up mid test.
As the tests wore on, and no internal damage was found, Jack had decided he’d be better off at home. He’d discharged himself.
Now he was at home. And he didn’t feel better off at all. He felt just as distraught, only now he was alone as well. At least the press reporters had been reasonably considerate, they’d spent a few days trying to make a story out of the ‘Miracle Survivor’ but got nowhere. Partly because Jack refused to say more than the barest minimum, and partly because there was nothing much to report. The media circus was already ramping down.
He chuckled ruefully to himself. Although it wasn’t nice to be the subject of the press’s attention, it was much nicer now than before—during the reign of Louise Harding. Then, he’d been afraid to leave the house.
Chapter 9
Back in his cabin, Aytch reflected on Justio’s comments while browsing his own family correspondence. The few real-time QET messages were augmented by a vast array of video logs he’d brought on the mission—storage was cheap, bandwidth was very expensive. I’ll check my QET First.
His most recent QET message had come from his eminent grandmother, Commander Sharnia, a few weeks previously. The message had been short and devoid of sentimentality.
Work hard. Stay sharp. Practise exams. Earn promotion. Serve Gadium.
Aytch turned back to his revision. Much of what Justio had said was not completely new. Neither was it particularly unusual in Gadium life. The prevalence of time stasis made family matters complicated. Stasis and time dilation! There was always a trick question in the exams on the effects of relativistic time dilation; basically at normal operational speeds of 0.8c the effect was minimal compared to the use of stasis tubes.
The exams also put significant importance on the internalisation and acceptance of lessons from Gadium case studies. The mantra ran: Measure and Learn, Measure and Learn, Measure and Learn. With this in mind, Aytch looked up the most pertinent case study related to Family Unit Controls.
Chapter 6.3.B—Voight-Reiss Case Study
Summary Timeline
1. Jackson Voight returned from a series of very deep space missions almost 50,000 elapsed years after he had left Gadium
2. His biological age (through use of stasis) was only around 7,000 years old
3. He rejoined his extended family and was initially welcomed
4. He assumed he would be the family patriarch due to the fact that the family lived off the fortune he’d left behind
5. The family members were, on average, five generations separated from Voight and felt entitled to the money they had inherited in his absence
6. There were insufficient emotional links to bridge the gaps and within five years there had been multiple assaults; Finally Voight was murdered by his descendants
7. Their claim of self-defence was not upheld in court
Chapter 6.3.D—Voight-Reiss Case Study
Professor Harkin Commentary
‘Poor deluded bastard.’
Aytch wondered how Justio felt about the Voight-Reiss legislation, but resolved not to ask Justio about it until a few days had passed. Instead, he quickly wrote up his notes and, closing his revision, reviewed the Earth network.
Most surveillance activity was statistical analysis to understand the political stability, population attitude towards aliens and, most critically, the proportion of Alpha individuals and the transition rates of Betas to Alphas. This was 99 per cent of his job, and he was glad to do it. Which was doubly good for the mission as Justio tended to avoid it, saying that transition data was so hard to estimate accurately it was not worth doing. Aytch shrugged and reviewed the network, which included technical infiltration of most intelligence and military agencies around the globe. Aytch smiled, remembering his original mission briefing. Purely for observational purposes. Political and social intervention was forbidden—except for purposes of controlling an Emergence.
The activity that Justio did seem more enthusiastic about was the identification and processing of randomly occurring Triple Alphas in the run up to Full Emergence. It was critical to identify individuals who showed signs of being a Triple Alpha: increased physical resilience, unreasonable levels of luck, and chaotic interactions with technology. But there’d been very few of those in the previous 50 years—nothing since Bill Jones.
Aytch performed a quick sweep of surveillance assets in place with the UK’s Ministry of Defence. In particular, he checked the sub-department known as G60. There were no recent alerts of any consequence.
He returned to the crew room.
Aytch arrived in the crew room to see Justio sitting on the central bench. Not wanting to disturb him, Aytch went to his own seat and continued reviewing the Earth data sources.
As he reviewed his materials, Aytch saw a few new screens open up on the main crew room wall. Justio was browsing Gadium Manual entries on Triple Alphas. This was unusual. Aytch turned. ‘Are you considering taking exams?’
Justio chuckled. ‘No. I just wanted to check on a few case studies related to Triples, and the easiest way is to root through the manual.’
‘You don’t think there are any Triple Alphas on Earth? It would explain the lack of obvious Alpha increases.’
Justio frowned. ‘You can never be sure, but we’d notice a Triple.’
Aytch watched as Justio used the Triple Alpha summary to find a few case studies of places he’d never even heard of. ‘Please don’t close the summary yet, I’ll take a look once I’ve finished with Voight-Reiss.’
Aytch saw Justio’s jaw tense. Shouldn’t have mentioned it again. ‘I…’
Justio cut him off. ‘Everyone needs connectivity. Voight had lost his children and grandchildren, he was just trying to hold on. Just trying to keep whole.’
Aytch remained quiet.
Justio stood up, activated the narration, and hobbled towards the door. ‘I’ll leave you with the summary. I’ll review my case studies later.’
The text was displayed on the wall. The narration started as Justio reached the door, and he stopped, took a deep breath and simply stood in the doorway.
Chapter 9.4.A—Triple Alphas
Overview
&nb
sp; 1. Individuals who are Triple Alphas will show significant ability to alter probability functions around themselves, consciously and subconsciously
2. Alphas (Single Alphas) require life-threatening situations to alter probability functions; only their subconscious has the ability to do this
3. Triple Alphas will have significant natural longevity; enhanced physical attributes (e.g. strength, speed of recovery)
4. Conversion of Alphas to Triple Alphas is a mechanical conditioning process
5. Spontaneous conversion Alpha to Triple Alphas is possible but very rare
6. Any single Triple Alpha individual of the host species on a planet suppresses all other Beta to Alpha transitions
Aytch frowned. It was all so simple when written in this way, but the practicalities were many and complex. ‘Should we have expected a Full Emergence when we removed Bill Jones?’
Standing at the doorway Justio was impassive. ‘Yes. No. Maybe…Look, Aytch, in this business, you get what you get. We’d just arrived, we acted on a hunch. Alpha rates seemed to have been moving in the run up to Bill’s transition.’
‘I am concerned that Earth is stuck in a Partial Emergence.’ He paused. ‘But I’m also worried that a Full Emergence occurs and we fail to manage it correctly.’
Justio took a step back into the room and pointed at the screens. ‘That’s the benefit of all this experience. We’ll react when things start to happen. We won’t worry about what could happen.’ He paused. ‘Well, I won’t worry. I suspect you’ll worry irrespective of what I say.’
Aytch turned his attention back to the screens. ‘At least Bill Jones was compliant once he understood his position.’
‘We’ve plenty of ways of dealing with Despots as well. Bring them on.’
This time Justio did leave the room and Aytch was alone. The summary screen was still up and it offered him little reassurance. The minimum bar for acceptance in his family was a full and successful Emergence on Earth. Everything else was a sliding scale of failure, with an alien aware Despot breach at the bottom. Will I preside over a new Dark Age for Earth?
Chapter 10
‘Come on!’ Louise called up the stairs on Sunday morning. ‘We’re meeting Mike in an hour and I’m meeting my sister later.’
There were no signs of activity from the bedroom. ‘Jeff! Shift yourself!’
A plaintive cry came down the stairs. ‘I’m tired!’
Louise turned back to the kitchen, biting back the expletives naturally forming in her head. He worked late on Friday, but…‘I’m not rising to it, Jeff. You had all of yesterday to recover. We agreed 10am.’
A few moments later Jeff plodded down the stairs. ‘It’s only 9.50.’
‘10am means nine-fifty.’
Louise, with Jeff still grumbling, climbed into her beaten-up old car and they headed out of London in search of some fresh air and a good old-fashioned country pub.
Jeff settled down in the passenger seat. ‘It’ll be nice to waste an afternoon with the supplements and a beer.’
Louise sighed. Waste was not in her vocabulary, she’d been working hard all Saturday and thoroughly wanted to get analysing her findings with Mike and Jeff.
Jeff started to doze off.
No way. ‘Jeff, give me directions to the Dog and Pheasant. We’re supposed to be there at noon. Stop sleeping!’
Jeff opened an eye. ‘Stay on this road for the next hour and then ask me again. By the way, I love your company…I’m only dozing off to give myself a better chance of surviving a crash!’
Louise didn’t deign to answer.
On arrival at the pub, Louise nodded approvingly—it looked very acceptable: brick walls, thatched roof, and ivy climbing around a smoking chimney. She pulled into the large gravel car park and manoeuvred between a couple of much nicer cars before leaving Jeff for a smoke and going inside.
The internal décor matched the exterior; smart but comfortable. With a polite nod to the barman, Louise walked past the bar, scanning for Mike. She found him sitting near to the open fire, wearing his Sunday best: sports jacket, clean shirt and pressed chinos. ‘Hey there, you expecting polite company?’
Mike looked up from his newspaper. ‘Felicitations, Mrs Harding. Where’s Jeff? Did you finally crack?’
Louise looked around as she sat down—the pub was a significant improvement on their local. She smiled. ‘Nice choice.’
Mike smiled broadly. ‘My sort of place, when I can afford it, every starter costs 10 pounds and comes with a dollop of Foie Gras.’
Louise arched an eyebrow.
‘I’m joking, I’ll have the quinoa and tofu.’
‘He’s puffing in the car park. He’ll be in shortly.’ Louise took out her notepad.
A few minutes later Jeff joined them.
Mike started to stand. ‘Drinks?’
‘You’ve already got one. I’ll get them.’ Jeff did an about turn and walked over to the bar.
As Jeff walked over to the bar, Louise followed his movements and took in some of the clientele. And the requisite smart crowd. Her eyes locked with a glamorous lady across the room.
There was a cough. ‘I said…what did you find out?’
Louise became aware that Mike had been speaking. She turned to Mike. ‘Sorry, Mike, what was that you said?’
Mike paused, his eyes searching out the focus of her recent interest. He nodded approvingly. ‘Probably more my type than yours.’
‘Well, you’re the promiscuous atheist, maybe you should speak to her.’
Mike looked down at his clothes and made a show of tidying his hair. ‘I fear that quarry is too exclusive for my meagre facilities.’
‘Or are you seeking to protect your immortal soul?’
‘If I have one at all…I’d be a fool not to protect it. But it’s in no danger…hopefully I’ll be judged by my actions, not my thoughts.’
‘Or, indeed, your fantasies.’ Louise raised an eyebrow at Mike and was rewarded with a smile.
‘Well…’
Louise wasn’t finished. ‘You wouldn’t know what to do anyway!’
Mike remained silent. He returned his attention to the newspaper.
‘Sorry Mike, did I go too far?’ Louise looked over to the bar. Jeff was chatting with effortless charisma to the barwoman. Not flirting—well, not much—just enough to make the connection. He turned and flashed a smile back at Louise, and a cosy warmth flushed through her. ‘Well, Mike, if you don’t ask you don’t get, I should know. I asked, and I got.’
Mike smiled. ‘As I remember, you decided and you took.’
Returning with the drinks, Jeff sat down. ‘Did I miss anything?’
‘Just Louise dispensing some universal truths.’ Mike smiled at Louise in a friendly way.
‘Okay, so I’ve done a few checks.’ Louise selected a page in her notebook. ‘Bullage didn’t engineer a crash to garner sympathy. He was just lucky.’
Mike clapped his hands together. ‘Excellent, so roast beef lunch and a snooze. We’re done.’
‘No, we’re not done, Michael. I found other things…of interest.’
Jeff shook his head slightly. ‘He wasn’t really lucky. He lost his long-term girlfriend and probably suffered severe mental trauma.’
Louise scowled. ‘Keep up, Jeff.’
‘Please elucidate, then.’ Mike looked expectant.
‘I found conspiracy websites saying there is something genuinely special about certain miraculous survivors.’
Mike nodded taking it in. ‘Nothing specifically linking to Jack?’
‘Nothing specific.’ Louise paused. ‘But I found some references to subconscious luckiness; an implication that some people can control their own destiny in random situations.’
‘But was there a smoking gun?’ Mike looked thoughtful. ‘Semantics aside, what I said last week still holds. There’s a basic premise of science protecting the futur
e from being absolutely deterministic. So no-one can know what will happen in a truly random event…’
‘Chaos Theory?’
Mike shook his head. ‘Close, but no. Chaos Theory states that it’s really difficult to model the future state of a complex system. Small changes in initial conditions create massive changes in the end state.’ Mike paused and took a sip of his beer. ‘What I’m talking about is the Uncertainty Principle, which says fundamentally you can’t know everything, because measuring one bit of a system will alter another bit of the system.’
Louise waited a few moments. ‘Jeff did mention something about it last night.’
Jeff grinned. ‘We have pretty racy pillow talk.’
Louise shook her head. ‘But back to my original question; if someone could have, say, conscious control over their luck, what could it look like?’
For a moment, Mike thought. ‘Let’s say you had a guy who could always choose the winning lottery numbers. Off the top of my head, there are three possibilities.’
Mike held up three fingers to mark them off. ‘One. He can travel into the future, see the result and then travel back in time.’ Mike tucked a finger away. ‘Two. He can see into the future, see the results before they happen in his time.’ Mike pointed directly at Louise with the remaining finger. ‘Three. He can influence which winning numbers are chosen.’
Mike looked around, then returning his attention to Louise, continued. ‘They’re all counter to any science I know, it’s paranormal territory, but we’re in the game of pushing the boundaries of credibility. Do you have any clues as to what your internet theorists are thinking?’
‘Nothing related to those options. But I found a few conspiracy websites talking about miracle survivors and making references to hedgehogs. There were a couple of repeated user names across multiple chat rooms.’
Mike raised his eyebrows. ‘Who are they?’
Louise replied. ‘The user names are Adamo34 and Xeeta55.’
