Here & There
Page 27
The cheese is deposited in the bottom right corner of the maze (mirroring the arrangement in the target room).
John flares his nostrils a few more times and is off.
The maze pulses with red light, then a white light as the Entanglement Channel opens.
SOUNDS of the rapid ACCELERATION and DECELERATION of GEARS as the Boson Cannons and Pion Beams constantly reorient into optimized focal positions.
As he approaches the center of the maze, the countdown begins . . .
DR. REIDIER (OS)
In three, two, one, go.
LEFT SIDE, John scampers through the center of the maze.
The Quark Resonator emits a SOFT, HIGH-PITCHED DRONE.
At 2008-5-5 13:33:32.1331224 a quiet THRUM coincides with John, midstride, turning into a pile of heterogeneous dust [predominately iron diantimonide] that drops to the floor of the maze, devoid of any forward inertia.
NOTE: at 800 picoseconds prior to transmission, on the left side prior to transfer, the maze and John tessellate.
RIGHT SIDE, at 13:33:32.1331224, John appears midstride, just past the center of the target maze.
He slips on the now frost-covered surface of the maze, but continues on. Without a single misturn, John Glenn navigates his way through the maze to the bottom right corner where he began, and finds the cheese. He devours the cheese.
IS1 O’BRIEN (OS)
(official tone)
Trained Biologic completed second half of maze just under his average time.
(beat. More relaxed tone)
Wow. He did it. You did it.
DR. REIDIER (OS)
Wait . . .
John finishes the cheese.
The handler’s gloved hand comes into view. It slowly reaches down into the maze to retrieve John Glenn.
The lab rat goes berserk and attacks. It’s a flurry of teeth, claws, foamy saliva, and HIGH-PITCHED savage SCREECHES.
The handler yanks his hand back, retreating, leaving John in the maze.
The lab rat immediately calms down and sniffs around.
Beat.
IS1 O’BRIEN (OS)
Jesus.
The HIGH PITCH of the Quark Resonator fades out.
XI
Curiosity is defiance distilled to its essence.
~Vladimir Onegin
All things are subject to interpretation; whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Contrary to what television crime dramas might lead one to believe, most murders are pretty straightforward. More than 70 percent of all cases are solved and done so within the first seventy-two hours. This is because most murders are not premeditated: a domestic dispute escalates, someone snaps at the loss of a job. Circumstances, more than character, influence crime. Murderers rarely take precautions or cover their tracks. If it looks like the husband did it, he probably did.
But with psychology, especially Psynaring, the results are rarely tangible and almost never cut-and-dried. And this is why it might be premature to present this next section so soon, before adequate investigation and analysis have been concluded. However, it seems that the nature of the information begs the question of validation. It’s from a single, unofficial (i.e. non-Departmental) source. As such, only impressions and supposition will ever be derived from it now and later.
Regardless of the “truth” of this, its existence is still telling. If it were manufactured, then the fiction of it reveals a certain awareness of the Department’s motive and methods. If it actually happened, then this provides critical insight into an additional, and heretofore unknown, stress on Reidier as well as providing credence to the sabotage hypothesis. In either case, the way in which it was created and hidden is most revealing.
The Newport Naval Station, following the failed Reidier test, released the collection of Reidier’s binders.97 They are an intricate and enigmatic collection of riddles written in alternating trajectories: left to right, right to left, down, up, spiraled, backward, inverted, transver-sally through pages. If they had been found in an abandoned apartment, they would have been classified as the pathological writings of a lunatic. However, knowing their source and seeing them firsthand, one cannot help but marvel at the elaborately calculated beauty of it all. Its level of detail is hypnotic. It feels designed, following a complex logic with a hidden understanding like that of a master watchmaker.
These binders are not the doodles of an absent mind or raving madman. They are considered, plotted, and mapped out with an intent to hide and to keep. These binders are an answer. They are, without a doubt, Leo’s Notebooks.98
And Reidier is still right; we can’t read them.
At least the Navy can’t.
For the next few weeks, I spent several hours a day poring through the notebooks, mesmerized. Like the countless pilgrims who meditate by walking the labyrinth on the floor of the Chartres Cathedral in France, I would trace Reidier’s textual mazes with my fingertips, hoping to find some crack that let me in. Yet while my aesthetic sense draws me to these enigmas, my affinities lie elsewhere.
It is both unorthodox and unauthorized for me to approach anyone outside the Department without clearance. Likewise, I am fully aware of the classified status of any and all documents from or pertaining to the Reidier file.99 That being said, in an effort to enrich and accelerate the report, I sought out help from an external source.
Considering the resistance/restraint exhibited by Bertram due to the Department’s heavy-handedness, as well as the fragile sensitivity of the source, adhering to protocol seemed counterproductive. Moreover, disclosure of this source would be a violation of doctor-patient privilege. As the source is institutionalized and not what would commonly be considered in a right state of mind, I consider (and hope that the Department concurs) that the source is not a security risk.100
My source succeeded where the Navy’s (and presumably the NSA’s) codebreakers failed. My source has only successfully deciphered sporadic sections of a little over a page to date (but will continue to play with and puzzle out). Apparently, part of the challenge is that Reidier processed his thoughts through multiple layers of ciphers at a time. He would have encoded his ideas in his head, then further encoded the encryption within another cipher. Literally a mystery wrapped within an enigma, wheels within wheels.
I wonder if Reidier was indeed at least telling a half truth when he told Diderot he did this to help himself think. This method of maze making is a form of meditation in and of itself. This is supported by the piecemeal content that swings from the profound to the vitriolic. Meditation makes sense as a response to the challenges of inventing: trying to simultaneously create new worldviews while obliterating old paradigms. Perhaps this was a way of taming the wild, frenetic nature of his thoughts. The draining discipline of it provided a way to focus. The mental rigor of this process is staggering, even more so, bearing in mind that Reidier would switch ciphers from paragraph to paragraph, sentence to sentence, or even from clause to clause. This is why my source has only so far been able to disentangle these fragments. Still, the content that has been excavated is provocative.
Decoded:
That’s where my colleagues stumble. They “send” things. Slaves to hero worship.
TVAMT UMZWH ECWBI MPTAP XPUIJ CQZBX FGYFM AXAEE IXVWQ LEPBY OJVZM Anarchist Al was fine kicking the legs out from Newton’s GGIIT DAHEN EOTUU SNTAI NVDET RUSRE NIINN S just so he was the one to do it. 73 69 36 60 65 16 59 54 49 56 24 29 19 96 17 67 40 49 82 03 30 00 11 97 80 44 69 13 68 76 95 78 41 46 49 73 27 55 54 61 85 73 91 60 92 52 96 56 14 79 32 79 66 43 41 07 58 86 70 79 64 80 00 80 89 78 40 95 55 79 50 88 86 07 60 59 62 90 58 62 46 95 85 36 69 23 33 75 23 44 06 40 98 60 40 99 72 17 76
AA adhered to locality. Refused to believe in cause and effect at a distance.
yKPFZ9WGr9+3ptvJzqO6wdvN2OassGedtMO5jIqsqGagksWCt25ST7t/m6THwLfUt7XCp76mxuLOmtnloImruryJi42HiphhtMyuq6xsQnLQgKt2y5qis7rO2Ma9uY+x3sC/oqyxfd+snbV7hImtibW1p3q
uWHB3w5XJq9iXu73DtuCrzaWLtdCZ1d+sxXXhvp2XjoWdrGKpqZeHo0ROVbump6LVq7+4tqeyqLikqN3bl6+xq619vLPDl3WFxLGFtZKuo6szRnbQusCoy7+v3MSouci/lL3jzpqz4KjFhbenv7mKi5+hq5+Rr6ajV2xYxMinpseF2dTEzdysvrikvtu9x6Gri2jiqIa0dYTDmae2toqCqlZoR7l/uafCqOWzxs/ChMSWo93NmJ7irMd5xL2ssY6Gq6VhtM6Kmrd6WkXPucWi16nCmbemnYfOpazB3MG+5qygaLiunbmbf66xeKCRxYK3bk5Pw5SXpsKq3dC3tb3IwbikzM6av+W305eysKqfnorEi2Gmp8CouVV4cNHIwZrIqqXgtqiyx726mLTGvqbhrMeBnK+brZt/r8ejqbWbea9HMDLRpKun2KrDrcK5rsPMgI/F0JnR3K7Hjc29rZuOhK6Qkqqon6isV1ZU
AA was a stubborn asshole. A narrow-minded prig determined to hang on to his own narcissistic legacy.
IUKKQ MATKY UQBWQ XOATO IRLSW STODQ BLJBR QMMWR LAFPU UJBTG IOEFT EIHZU XQPZP PTSHI GJXIY YUOOS BWEDU WZXNS ZRKVG EMSYW TZPVT EDJYK HIGKQ GAQEV OFVLP XGWZA JMGGP VAUXG TEILY SKQIZ ZAUGF RJNGK PCGYB PWLMD IZMFO SBOXX KGXMU PFLLB RUXEM WLNLO JUXUI RYMOF XXBGT BYWOH JVHBV GQUAI BLKDL FBJJN NWMSX KCKCC DRQUY TLNGI CETKZ NRILD HNIHR PNDOL JRKFH JNEMM FLGKD NYONB KWJFH OFGRR ATHPG BWXXX because the speed of light is inversely proportional to alpha, and both have been considered unchangeable constants. Alpha appears to have decreased by 4.5 parts out of 108. If confirmed, this would imply that the speed of light has increased. upJ6rqiXt7+1zb55zYTW3ZjPqMWiwdF8oJSep7mRjpaSn7OApam1oMCFxdyjpL66uYquvai1sKC/ibWWnbixsp4xZGirkZuk5rGo7u2pZnch8DgrajF4p6d3aKnpbOfuriGfZeh0H6kg56t15zc2ZemqKG6m5q7qM295snDrtOUlJOyn0ZVNbmkqGqZg9XJws7CktSYwOeXk6TGoq2vnJuipnmuy6uEqLDmvJy+l6LAwr7Vn7uH26SIxMaepN/Yv6+93qi6samQRkkxrLmHh6e92b3Dy7aTyIe76KWnxt+iitBqnp6qbg==
He couldn’t believe, couldn’t accept, insisted that particles have definite positions and momentums all the time, whether we’re watching them or not.
OECTS UAUEP TORRE RFRTE AEIHD GFNAS EFGND EALAC TITTF GIOAH DCST
WTHHO AARTT EIHAT ELFIA ZIELI ESDT wasn’t moving faster than the speed of light. It was already there. Travel was unnecessary. GZ RB NE GS SN UC ZG GN RP VO GZ NN GZ RJ concept of speed is fallible it implies travel, movement relative from one point to another.
No one seems to see the secret LmnodLAy9qxvpzszIawoKelm33Hpcx6tKiHlbOoioaWnqa3sJPblYWbo+OqoqTZvsyht4Wrrp2flcmgzqq8u6ip05aXREpPtLeFp8iryN21vLKm25i0taiAfqO8k+qgnZd/z6XbuXepxIW5orXPnIC/p7yqop/i1r+Y7JWesqeYpqjJys+dwLu6l7aRMGRWoKqredqnqpmhg4ij3JywmKijfpnHtbx6noS+16POiqGWr6q2orW5dpWqw6Cqu7DK05e2pYvBwYevo4bn2JzEvqiqoJKfRGRhtriXot3NiKE= E’s abomination PI PR BG DV In a way, Anarchist Al was right with his bullheaded conservatism, he just didn’t take it far enough.1s+5bpqVnrilhnp8j4ayxcKTpOahv5rXgZOIpa231cSCnrnatqWxoJ2Doemfx7mKnjNCRczbtaOpvqVzsYh6loOaxNm7tba2mpud5IrOmd+ntb/Flp/clLjN16Grmp7Zp5PBjo1RPT0=
zqWoprHOv96knZKqkK6horDfvZqvy6V2vM2GzaCIyNzCqYPHx8G2pJ65m3I= Bhagavad Gita. They were tapping into the wrong ancients. The wrong continent. It’s all right 43 65 64 77 46 88 71 20 23 24 Incan 26 54 40 24 just not written down qpWh xcWGyNemnJjx1Yfdx7iRm6/KmqmZsJ2qw5e5n4e6vKLJo8CZw4yd0sqlpKKhv6SnecWu3cOzw3p1y6uxjotFNW2b37rAw4Sh5Z+ru8PYvtnhzLmcj9muqdyzz3+ikaaKjamiqrU= and his antithesis KG ET KG IE PV GE LK GT CG PR SV TC RF HP PR PO YT VC KG MO FC SO TC QR PM UG PI the essence of presence and absence where HUP actually moves from philosophical to actual.
To understand the transmission, you need to see that there is no transmission of information. There is no transmission. It’s like a coin’s head is either up or down. In turning it from up to down, the state is changed, but the information isn’t transmitted to the tail’s side. The tail’s end is already changed.
AHRII LTASE URDSL TQE E’s acceptance and willingness UPFOH BHFUP FNQMP ZUPDP NNJUB MJUUM FYYYY constructive destruction.
From what can be seen, his notes are neither chaotic nor ordered, neither nonsensical nor enlightened. What’s here is a key: a psychological cipher to the inner workings of Reidier. This was where or how he hashed out his ideas. It is his theoretical journal, full of questions and insights so volatile they needed to be buried inside of cryptographs.
What kind of a person does this?
Look closely at the scribbles above and below The Vitruvian Man. While Leonardo da Vinci wrote in Italian, he did so with a unique shorthand of his own invention. Not only that, he almost always employed “mirror writing,” where one starts at the right side of the page and moves to the left. (Most likely Reidier was performing some version of this using an actual mirror.101 Thumbing through his notebooks there are numerous pages where the lettering itself is written backward.) Da Vinci only wrote in the normal direction when he intended for someone else to read his writings.
While the Florentine never proffered an explanation for this, at least as far as what’s been deciphered, there are some theories. Da Vinci could have simply wanted to make it more difficult for people to read his notes and steal his ideas. Perhaps Reidier similarly was concerned about his intellectual property. His innovations are certainly valuable in every sense of the word.
Some historians hold that da Vinci wrote in this manner to hide his scientific ideas from the powerful Church, as some of them contradicted the tenets of Catholicism (consider what happened later on to Galileo). Reidier’s theories, however, while threatening to shift scientific paradigms, were not undermining the powers that be. In fact, via the Department, he was working for those powers. Still, it’s worth considering who might have been threatened by or opposed to Reidier’s work.
Other governments: Reidier himself proclaimed how his work would unravel every cryptographic security system based on classical physics.102 China, Russia, Iran—any nation deemed a threat, or even an ally, would be vulnerable. Exposure of Reidier’s work to the world would make him at best a pawn and at worst a target.
Various industries and multinational corporations: What would teleportation do to the automotive world, air travel, communications? Considering the cataclysmic effects Reidier’s paradigm shift could have on these well-funded powerful MNCs, it seems understandable that he would play his hand close to the vest.
With regards to Pierce, Reidier needed to take these measures (without even realizing) in order to maintain at least a shred of private space.
For his part, Pierce never seemed concerned with the notebooks. Perhaps he didn’t see them as integral as long as Reidier was producing results. Or he immediately classified them as unbreakable and a waste of resources. As far as the aforementioned dangers, Pierce saw himself as Reidier’s paladin, and was confident (albeit mistakenly so) that he could protect Reidier and the Department’s intellectual property from any threat of espionage.
Clearly, though, Reidier’s instincts and precautions were right as confirmed by Gio Brent, Pierce’s former assistant. “He [Pierce] knew there were sharks in the water. He just never figured any of them would be brash enough to try and nibble from his plate. Obviously the real mistake was that he and Larry were focused on Reidier’s potential enemies and never really considered how dangerous champions could be. Neither did Reidier for that matter.”
Da Vinci and Reidier could have shared another motivation for their secrecy: psychological deficiencies. Many believe that Leonardo suffered from a number of learning disabilities, including dyslexia and attention-deficit disorder. Some have wondered if he didn’t have a form of Asperger’s. The artist took twelve years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips. He could write with one hand while drawing with the other. Perfectionist tendencies, moderate crossover discrimination deficits, savant skills—did Reidier have similar tendencies? Bertram has described on numerous occasions Reidier’s peculiar habits of friendship: drastic absences broken up by sporadic bouts of intensity without even a howdy-do. On the other hand, the mysteries of Reidier’s motivation might easily be explained as the meditative machinations necessary to calm his own particular brand of OCD.103
What’s more important than the Why of it is the What of it.
“That’s where my colleagues stumble,” Reidier writes. “They send things.” Presumably his colleagues are fellow scientists. Their sending is their mistake. They try to transmit something from one point to another. A faulty premise, according to Reidier, that will never get them anywhere. Apparently, Reidier’s work approaches teleportation in a manner unhampered by getting from Point A to Point B.
Travel is unnecessary.
Speed is falli
ble.
Locality, Bhagavad Gita, Incans—all meditations on the nature of the universe or how to kick the legs out from underneath it. But what do they mean?
Excerpt from University of Chicago iTunes episode, Dr. Kerek Reidier lecture from his Physics of Science Fiction course, February 11th, 2005
“In physics, the principle of locality asserts objects can only be influenced directly by their immediate surroundings. I hit the ball, the ball moves. For me to hit it, though, I have to be within arm’s reach. Or at least have an instrument that can reach it. I hold a gun and squeeze the trigger. The hammer hits the firing cap, which instigates an explosion, throwing the bullet out of the barrel, across the field, and into the ball. Through direct physical interactions within a locale, I have hit the ball.”
He smiles at his students.
“But this isn’t necessarily always the case. Experiments have shown that quantum mechanically entangled particles must violate this principle or obliterate the entire idea of philosophical realism and counterfactual definiteness. Can anyone explain those terms for me?”
The class shifts in their seats.
“Ok. I’ll give you this one, it’s a bit tricky. Philosophical realism states that reality is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, and beliefs. The world is what it is, whether we can see it for that or not. In this system, truth is based on how closely a belief corresponds to reality.”*
* * *
* Too true. Just in my case, I can’t wait around to find out how close I am. I had to go on predictions. Rely on answers to questions I couldn’t risk asking. It was time to take action.
Across the iron bridge, just inside the back door of 357, there was an old rolled-up rug tossed into the trash under the stairs. I dragged it back along the gangplank. It was heavier than it looked, but still light enough to schlep. So I took a good stance and heaved.