by Nick M Lloyd
Ajay pulled at the door again, but it didn’t budge. He looked into the car. There was still one thrashing shape. Ajay swung his legs up and gave a kick at the window. The window seemed to give a little. Desperate for breath, Ajay pushed upwards and his head broke the surface. A crowd had gathered. Ajay shouted for help. ‘There’s a guy in there!’ And he dived back and kicked the window again. It seemed to give a little more. A few more kicks and he was forced upwards again.
Ajay could feel a numbness creeping into his hands, and his limbs felt heavy. He dived down once more. There’s still movement inside!
Ajay was hit by something cutting into his face. Ajay felt a hand clawing at his clothes, reached out, grabbed an arm and pulled.
Soon hands from the canal side were pulling them both on to dry land. Ajay looked at the man lying beside him in disbelief; he must have been under for more than 6 or 7 minutes.
He reached down to do something. Anything.
Jack was being shaken. He vomited. He couldn’t stay; it had been no accident. He got to his feet and looked around. There was a man shaking him, clearly wet with blood dripping from a gash on his face. ‘You okay?’
The man nodded with a look of incredulity. ‘How did you hold your breath for so long?’
Jack wretched and vomited up a load more water, it was excruciatingly painful. ‘I’m not sure I did.’ He looked up at the roadside and the bridge. The tanker was still there, looking menacing. He turned back to the man on the ground next to him. ‘Thanks.’
‘You’re welcome. Nice car.’
‘You can have it, the keys are in the ignition.’ Jack turned and made his way, slowly at first, but with increasing rigour, up the slope.
Back to Louise Harding? Or wait for the aliens to try and kill me again?
Justio watched via CCTV as Jack ran up the side of the grassy bank. Then, turning away from the tanker, Jack ran fluidly up the road, picking up speed easily.
Justio knew that, deep within each and every one of Jack’s individual cells, overseen by his subconscious, his metabolism was responding to an ongoing perceived threat with 100% efficiency.
He smiled ruefully to himself. The short-term benefit of overclocking…he might overheat?
But Justio knew that wouldn’t happen. He needed a new plan.
Chapter 54
Louise paced around the laboratory, her gaze flicking between the coin boxes and the whiteboard that Bob was scribbling on. She almost had what she wanted. It was so close. The results were astounding—Jack could control luck—but he’d gone. And, without Jack, all she had was a list of numbers.
And who’d believe anything I said about Jack Bullage anyway.
They’d drag her off to a padded cell if she tried to publish anything without clear, irrefutable proof. She paced on.
‘Nothing from Willis.’ Mike had returned from the laser test. ‘We tried but we got nothing.’ A few moments later Willis came back around the partition wall and sat down at one of the benches.
Louise hadn’t expected it to work, not least because of Willis’ unshakable faith.
Mike walked over to the whiteboard. ‘So, Master Robert,’ he said, ‘what the bleeding hell is happening?’
Bob put down the pen. ‘Assuming the test was true, and we didn’t set up the experiment incorrectly, Jack clearly interacted with the laser, and caused one hundred fifty-fifty events to go his way.’
‘We know that. But what happened…deep down? What really happened…in the ether?
Bob flicked a gaze towards Louise and the others. ‘Quantum mechanical state reduction.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
‘So, we should discount the idea that the alien machine up Jack’s nose was doing it?’
‘We don’t know it was a machine. We don’t know how long it’s been there. You could be right. But I suggest we start with Jack.’
Then Bob wrote up on the board. Copenhagen or Many-Worlds.
Mike shrugged. ‘Yeah, I see the problem. Untestable.’
Louise stepped forward. ‘What do you mean, untestable? What do you mean, Copenhagen or Many-Worlds?’
Mike answered. ‘They’re just two interpretations within quantum mechanics. You see Schrodinger’s Kitty here.’ Mike picked up a coin box. ‘When we open the box, something happens. Sure, there’s a 50:50 outcome. But Copenhagen has an observer causing the universe to choose a result. While Many-Worlds has the universe split and both results happen in two different new universes.’
Bob coughed gently. ‘Or it could just be Newtonian derived rotational and gravitational dynamics.’
Mike turned back to Bob. ‘If a tree falls…’
‘Back in this room, Mike.’ Louise picked up her own coin box and banged it on the desk to get his attention.
Mike focused on Louise again. ‘So, ignoring Bob, when I open the box, there is an apparent choice made. With the laser, it appears that Jack was making the choice on behalf of the universe.’ He turned back to Bob. ‘The laser randomiser was as QM as we could make it.’
‘So we need to find out how it works, this Copenhagen thing, or the other one?’
Mike shook his head. ‘No, it’s untestable. We cannot step outside our own universe to watch from the side-lines. We have no way of knowing if other universes are created. Incompleteness.’
Louise couldn’t really tell where this was going but she needed facts to back up her story. Maybe she could distil the information down into a story. ‘Does it only work with 50:50 chances?’
Mike smiled. ‘There are a few good thought experiments: The dragon behind the door and the paint mixing are my favourite.’
‘Not the dragon story.’ Bob turned to the others. ‘Every time we do a fundraising he wheels out this anecdote. It’s got nothing to do with physics, it’s just semantics…do the paint.’
‘As an illustration to Copenhagen versus Many Worlds.’ Mike paused and smiled at Louise. ‘Keeping it very brief. I could pour red paint and yellow paint into a tin and mix them together. I’ve now got a tin of orange paint. There are zillions and zillions of tiny individual, red or yellow, paint particles all mixed up—to us, the whole thing looks orange.’ He paused. ‘If I cover the pot and shake it vigorously for a few minutes, when I uncover it, there’s a statistically tiny chance they could have separated out again half red and half yellow right down the middle of the tin. The chances are astronomically low—but it’s mathematically possible.’
Louise nodded. That’s clear enough.
‘So in the Copenhagen view, the paint (with the lid on) is held in a superposition of all states and just resolves when I look at it—a state reduction. In the Many-Worlds, we assume all possible futures play out in the totality of reality, say the multiverse, because every time something happens the universe splits into almost identical copies of itself, with each copy carrying a different outcome of the event that caused the split.’ Mike paused. ‘So, somewhere there are zillions of universes, and in one of them—a very rare universe—the paint had randomly separated out and split down the middle, yellow and red.’ Mike paused again. ‘I don’t do anything to the paint. I just happen to live in the universe in which the random outcome I wanted had occurred…and there are other Mikes living in universes with orange paint in their tins.’
Shit. It resonated with some junk Jeff had been spouting earlier in the week. The punchline had been; it was untestable.
Yet again, dread settled into Louise’s stomach. She looked at Mike, who appeared to be very happy. He didn’t have a story to write to save his career.
Willis stepped forward. ‘There is only one universe. God’s universe. And each of you only has one soul.’
Mike shrugged amiably.
Reflexively, Louse felt a tiny subconscious urge to share her pain. ‘But, Mike, weren’t you saying just the other day that your atheism allowed you unparalleled promiscuity, as you didn’t have to worry about a soul?’
Willis
looked shocked. Mike went red.
Bob chuckled. ‘From what I remember of Mike’s frottage around the common room, his soul is quite safe.’
Mike was about to reply when there was a knock at the door.
Jeff was first to it, and found it was Jim from reception. ‘Jim, what’s up?’
‘There’s a Mr Jack Bullage at the reception, asking for you.’
Before she could think, Louise had barrelled passed Jim and Jeff.
Jack flinched as he saw Louise Harding running towards him. But she slowed within a few metres, and the others appeared behind her.
She approached. ‘I’m sorry.’
He nodded and, without any discussion, they filed back to the Pryson Room.
Bob closed the door, and engaged the EM shielding. Jack recounted his journey: crash, canal, drowning. ‘A coincidence?’
‘I’m not sure anyone believes that now.’ Louise looked at Jack more closely. ‘Would you like one of us to run you up to A&E for a check-up?’
‘No I’m fine; physically anyway—but thanks.’ Jack and Louise locked eyes for a few seconds. A flicker of understanding flitted between them—a truce.
‘Are you sure? Maybe you did it to yourself.’ Bob turned to Jack. ‘Have you had problems with your car before? Do…’
Mike cut it. ‘Bob, it’s aliens. Accept it.’
Jack sat down. ‘Nope, but then again, recently I’ve had trouble with most of the other technology in my house.’ He sagged. ‘Aliens…Trying to kill me…and, if so, why?’
Mike walked over to Jack and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘Hang in there Jack. We’ll find a way out of this.’
Bob was agitated. ‘But if they’re dangerous?’
Jack ignored Bob, he was panicking. Jack knew all about fear. ‘What about my nose?’
Mike disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with the scanner and an enormous magnet. He sent Jeff for some hot water and three minutes later they had Jack inhaling the steam, while they manoeuvred the scanner and magnet around the outside of his nose to try to get it out. After 15 minutes, the source of the signals appeared to be stuck to the magnet. To the naked eye, it was the size of a large grain of sand, but nothing else could be seen on it, it seemed to be just a tiny metal ball. Mike put the magnet into a reinforced glass beaker and then placed a metal sheet on top. ‘We should take a magnified look to see what we’re dealing with.’
Again Mike left the laboratory, and they all waited until he’d returned with a portable microscope. They didn’t want to take the tiny metal ball off the magnet or out of the glass beaker, so it took a lot of fiddling for them to get an image, which in itself was severely distorted by the curvature of the glass beaker.
After examining for a few minutes, Mike looked up from the microscope. ‘It’s hard to say, it’s probably about a millimetre in diameter. There seem to be some tiny protrusions, but basically it’s a metal sphere. I couldn’t say for sure it’s alien…or what it does.’
By now, Bob had calmed down. He took a look. ‘It may not be alien, but I’ve never seen anything like it before. Earth based nanotechnology?’
Mike shook his head. ‘What’s more likely? It’s alien…or an Earth based government has this technology, and we’ve not heard anything about it.’
For a few minutes everyone took a turn looking, but there was nothing really to see, just a tiny distorted metal ball.
Jack felt a little better. ‘So you’re sure there’s nothing up my nose now?’
Jeff did a sweep. ‘All clear.’
There was a quiet cough from over by the whiteboard. Bob utterly calm now, had written the word Evidence. ‘We’ve got some sort of evidence with the metal sphere. Now, I think we do need to rerun the coin box test, see if we can get some repeatable evidence on Jack’s powers.’
Jeff shook his head. ‘Come on Bob. The guy’s just almost been killed. I don’t think the right thing to do is to test him again.’
Jack looked around. There were mixed emotions showing on everyone’s faces.
Mike spoke. ‘I know it seems harsh of Bob but, actually, if Jack has some special power then the best thing he can do for himself is train it…for his own safety.’
Okay. One more test. Jack nodded his acquiescence.
Mike brought the laptop out of the office and set it up next to a coin box. The subliminal lights were turned off. Then he gave a printed list of 500 heads or tails to Jack. Everyone else just stood around.
Mike turned to the crowd. ‘Back a bit and, in the interests of purity, please, no-one try and look over Jack’s shoulder. He has to be the only observer.’
After reading the first item off the list, Jack operated the box willing the drawer to reveal the required side of the coin. He ensured he was the only person to look at the result initially, and then he showed it to Mike, who recorded the value. He turned to Mike. ‘For the first hundred I will simply think hard, willing the result to happen.’
The two of them settled into a rhythm and, after one hundred tosses, Jack had correctly selected 60 results. Mike held up his hand for Jack to stop. ‘Jack, it’s good, in the one to five per cent range, but not off the charts. Can you try a different way of thinking?’
‘I think so. I can try to replicate my mind state when strange things have happened to me in the recent past.’
‘How do you describe the required state of mind?’
‘With difficulty.’ Jack sighed. ‘I don’t really know, but if I try to keep the result I want in my mind for about a second and then just as the box is opening, just a split fraction of a second before I see the coin I try to forget the image, sort of push it away.’
They continued the coin toss double act, with Jack opening and looking. He did the first ten.
Ten right in a row.
Mike was looking surprised. Jack continued.
Twenty right in a row.
Jack’s hands were sweating, he had to concentrate to keep a grip on the drawer.
Thirty.
Again, unbidden, Jack’s heart rate started to rise. Not now. He didn’t want to have a full panic attack. He stopped the test. Looking around he said, ‘I need to take a break, I’m getting panicked.’
‘It’ll be okay. Frankly, thirty in a row is job done.’ Mike put an arm around Jack. ‘Funny how the morning coin tosses were so bad. Maybe the subliminal influencing was off.’
Mike let go of Jack and turned. ‘Or perhaps his conscious mind is just stronger, and the subliminal worked but he ignored it.’ Then he chuckled. ‘Of course, Jack’s subconscious did fine when the lasers were firing.’
As the others all gathered around him, Jack looked at each in turn. ‘So, what now?’
Louise looked at the glass beaker on the table. It held an alien artefact. Then her gaze swung to Jack. He could influence random events.
What now, indeed?
Everyone started to talk at once.
‘Stop!’ It was Bob who took control. ‘Stop. First, Jack, what’s your view?’
‘No police, no government, no public story. Two months of cooling off, to give me a chance to get adjusted.’
Bob turned to Louise. ‘I guess that doesn’t work for you.’
No it doesn’t but…perhaps there is a middle way. ‘I’m a reporter. This will get out. It’s my story. But I can commit to Jack’s anonymity. Assuming I get to use the alien artefact as proof.’
Her eyes locked with Jack, again there was a brief connection.
Jeff came up and put an arm around Louise, whispering in her ear. ‘Nice decision, boss.’
Jack spoke. ‘I’ll need Mike to help me work through these powers. See how they can be used to protect me. I’ll disappear. What about you, Bob?’
‘Once we’ve agreed our position here, I’ll report to G60. Then Mike and I will work on the artefact.’ He nodded towards Jeff. ‘With Jeff, of course.’
Mike chuckled. ‘Until th
e government break down the door and rip it from our still cooling hands.’
Bob walked over to the whiteboard and started cleaning it.
Jack called over to Bob. ‘How long before you speak to the government?’
‘I have to say something this weekend, but I can leave it until Sunday. The best I can do is warn James Chambers tomorrow morning about the article…once it’s too late for them to stop the publication.’
Louise did not agree. ‘Sorry, Bob, but if you want to be part of the discovery team then you have to commit to silence until we say so.’
Bob looked uncomfortable. He started to speak but stopped himself.
Louise looked at Bob warily. Probably just worried we’ll cut him out of the discovery.
Mike turned to the others. ‘Are we ignoring the point about Jack having been targeted a few hours ago? How will we protect ourselves? If the aliens really did try to kill Jack, then we may all be in danger.’
As Mike mentioned the danger of aliens, Bob flinched. Louise faced the group. ‘We’re as safe here as anywhere. Probably more so. I’ll call Harry Jones to warn him a big story is coming.’ She motioned to Mike and Bob. ‘Can you guys get some enhanced photos of the alien bug? And, Bob, can you retrieve my phone from your office, please?’
Jack informed them he wanted to stretch his legs, and left with Bob.
Willis also followed Bob. ‘It’s probably time for me to get home. Assuming you all trust my word. I promise not to speak to anyone.’
Louise came forward and gave Willis a hug. ‘Sure, Willis. Be careful, and thank you.’
Everyone split up to their assigned tasks. But Louise watched Bob carefully as he left the laboratory. It’s not that I don’t trust him, but…
Alone with Mike, Jack and Jeff now, Louise voiced her concerns. ‘Do we totally trust Bob?’
Mike replied. ‘He won’t dare miss out on the find of the millennium.’ He looked back at the jar containing the alien artefact.
Louise wasn’t so sure. She met a lot of chancers in her line of work.
