Chapter One

Excerpt from 'The Quantum Riders' a book about how two men took a devastated history on Earth and replaced it with the only slightly devastated history we all know ...

 

The Quantum Riders

 

            The sun hung lazily above the western horizon, delaying its departure as though it wasn’t sure setting was worth all the trouble.  Its lingering rays flashed golden on vast fields of wheat, which flowed and rippled in the gentle evening breeze.  In the distance, snow-capped mountains resplendent in purple and blue gave the impression of a living postcard.

            The imagery was ruined by a sudden flash of light in the field; and a glittering sphere of metal, as foreign and unfamiliar as a Baptist in the Vatican appeared in the air, hovered majestically for a moment, and then dropped clumsily into the wheat like a slinky reaching its last step, which happens to be at the edge of the Grand Canyon. 

            After the dust and falling wheat and small mushroom cloud cleared, the sphere rocked back and fourth for a moment, shuddered, and then began to gently extrude smoke. A moment later a small hatch opened, and two men clambered through it and staggered into the wheat, coughing, sputtering, and closely followed by another cloud of black smoke.

            The two men were dressed in identical jumpsuits, which had once been snow-white and impressive, but were now merely … dirty.  There was no other word for the flowing disaster of black, gray, brown, and unidentifiable smears and smudges that gave the overall impression of a camouflage suit appropriate for hiding inside a vacuum. 

            Almost immediately one of the men began to walk hesitantly back towards the sphere, no longer glittering but blank and gray, and although it is technically impossible for a sphere to list, it nevertheless gave the impression of listing.  The other man merely lay down in the middle of the flowing wheat, and stared at the sky.  After a few minutes of silence, the man lying down spoke in a voice rich with highly-strained patience. 

            “So, boy genius, where and when are we this time?”    

           

            Behold, the infinity of the cosmos … swirling universes, black holes, supernovas, little color-flecked galaxies spread out through the dark abysmal pit of space … it looks very complicated, although ‘complicated’ is a human word and wouldn’t survive for more than a few minutes out there.  According to some people the universe is infinite, although most of them do not comprehend the true meaning of the statement.  We may discover it … right now.

 

            “Give me a second will you?”  The man who had walked back to the sphere snapped back.  “I have to make sure we’re even in the right reality.”

            “I thought you said the machine wouldn’t let us enter into any other of the times or places we aren’t supposed to mess with.”  The man lying in the grass growls back.

            “I did, and it won’t.  At least, it wouldn’t, if you hadn’t lost your temper and thumped the main hard-drive.  I don’t even know if we’re in the right galaxy!”

            “If it hadn’t sent us somewhere other than the place we told it to, I wouldn’t have thumped it!”

 

            Assuming that those who believe the universe to be infinite are right, then there are an infinite number of universes, and an infinite number of realities, and therefore the two men and the gray sphere probably aren’t in the same universe or reality as we are, and therefore, we shouldn’t have to worry about them.

 

            “Just keep your eyes open!  I think I know what went wrong, and I think I know how to fix it.  If anyone important sees us and writes it down …” The man standing beside the sphere rips open a hidden control panel and begins frantically punching keys.

            “I know, I know, we unravel history and the entire planet, and maybe the whole galaxy might go up in smoke.”  The man in the grass groans, and then he sits up and begins to scan their surroundings.  A thought appears to come to him, “What do you mean you think you know?  You don’t know?!”

            “No!  Of course I don’t know!  This technology wasn’t even designed for humans!   I had to alter everything, it’s held together with spit and hope, and then you THUMPED THE HARD-DRIVE!” 

            “Right!  Sure!  Just blame it on me!  When the universe gets flushed down the drain and the two of us are left holding the plug, you can just point at me and say ‘it was his fault!’” 

            “You’re the one who did it!”

            “This was your idea!  You said, ‘hey, lets start screwing around with time and space and history and logic and the President’s daughter and see if we can make things better!’”

            “That’s right!”  The man standing beside the sphere turns around, and we see that he is in his late twenties or early thirties, wears glasses that were probably never in style, and has the general red-eyed emaciated look of a text-book computer analyst who’s been sitting in front of the screen too long.  His hair is blonde and wispy, and he wears it long, in the hope that this might perhaps make him look a bit more dashing, but in fact, it only puts the wax seal on the outfit of a complete and utter twerp.  He walked over to the second man, who is taller, darker, a bit older, vaguely handsome, and in much better shape.  None of this stops the slighter of the two from jabbing him in the chest with his index finger.

            “That’s right!”  The slighter man screams again.  “It was my idea!  It was my idea because I have ideas!  I don’t just follow orders like some great knuckle-dragging, womanizing, alcoholic gorilla with all his brains in his jock-strap!  I have an I.Q. of one-sixty-eight, and I am the smartest person in the room, and I am sick and tired of explaining myself to a man whose I.Q. is at least twenty points lower than mine!”

            “My IQ is only nineteen points lower than yours, and you can’t be the smartest person in the room … because we’re standing in a field!  Because you and the machine that you stole put us here!  And if you don’t stop jabbing me I’m going to rip off your finger and kill you with it!  ”
            “No you can’t!  Because then you’ll be stuck here!”

 

            Of course, there is a second theory about the universe, and in particular the little galaxy which houses a back-water planet called Earth, and this theory claims that there is only one of everything.  One Earth, One Galaxy, One Universe, One Reality.  In other words, if we wreck one of them, we wreck all of them, its ‘game over, insert coin’ and it’s very unlikely that anyone will have change for a dollar. If this is the case, then we should be paying very close attention to the two men in the field. 

            They are the absolute cream of the Earthling technological and military crop (respectively) which, given the nature of their conversation, doesn’t exactly inspire a great deal of faith.

            Of course, the events happening in the field aren’t the beginning of the story.  In fact, there isn’t a true beginning of the story, because the story is about History.  It can all be traced back to the supposed ‘Big Bang’, but even that isn’t the beginning of the story, because no-one knows what happened to make the universe explode into being in the first place.  And it would be nice to know why it all happened, because this story is also about Changing History, which is also not a new idea.  The person who first considered this story thought long and hard about changing history, and was in fact a wounded soldier lying on a battlefield and making a serious attempt to travel backwards in time and not show up for the battle because of an upset stomach.

            Later on, some monkey-wrench of a human came up with the ‘grandfather clause’, stating that building a time-machine is impossible, which we will discover makes about as much sense as a cardboard hammer, but slightly more sense than selling cigarettes to recovering alcoholics in a fireworks factory.  Basically, there is no beginning to the story, but the bit we’re going to concentrate on all started when two of the best and brightest of humanity were sent in a sleek silver spaceship to visit the first alien planet ever discovered by the denizens of Earth.  If they knew what they were in store for, one of them would have certainly killed the other one upon ‘first contact’.

 

            “Right,” growled the larger of the two men.  “I’m taking that finger!”

            And it might have gone awfully hard for Bradley Benjamin Herrid III, BS, MS, and PHD, had the gray sphere not suddenly ceased expelling smoke, and spoke in a crisp, disinterested voice.

            “Alternate path through history plotted … system ready.” 

            Andrew James Thomas, Lieutenant Colonel, Army Special Forces, ceased in the middle of removing Bradley’s finger with his teeth, an exercise in which he had some experience, with a somewhat disappointed look on his face.

            “Tell me, boy wonder, does that mean we’re ready to go?”  He asked in a very level voice, and was rather embarrassed to realize that he was secretly hoping the answer would be ‘no’.”

            “Aaahhhh!”

            “Sorry.”  Andrew let the smaller man go, and Bradley flopped into the wheat field, staggered to his feet, and then began the running hop employed by all those who have smashed their finger with a hammer, or in his case, had it bitten by a Special Forces soldier.  His running hop, however, took him in the general direction of the sphere.  He took a moment to turn and glare at Andrew, slight disbelief in his eyes.  That was not the way civilized gentlemen were supposed to behave, he was quite sure of that. 

            “You bit my finger you, you, you ….”

            “Come one!  Say it!”  Andrew urged, hoping that at last, he might finally make the little pencil-neck swear.  Since the very beginning of their journey, the stubborn, stuck-up b*****d had upheld his belief that swearing was only for the unenlightened.  He was disappointed, however.  Bradley just turned and began examining the sphere.

            “Yes!  We’re ready!”  Bradley gasped excitedly, his face only inches from the sphere’s surface.

            “So, where and when are we going?”  Andrew asked, as he began to walk back towards the sphere.  His companion didn’t reply, and the soldier frowned.

            “Come on, boy wonder!  Where are we going to start?” 

            “Um ….” 

            “’Um’, doesn’t help.”  Andrew said scathingly, and then he noticed that Bradley wasn’t looking at the sphere anymore, he was staring at the ground.  A sudden feeling of apprehension ran through him, and then Bradley finally answered.

            “We start right here.”

            “Here?”  Andrew asked, and he looked all around them.  “There’s nothing here!”

            “Almost nothing.”  Bradley replied, and his voice was on the very edge of gibbering.  Andrew looked where his companion was busy staring, and saw what was making the computer junkie twitch.  Sticking out from under the sphere’s colossal weight, a human arm and human hand reached skyward, with a rolled-tight scroll clasped firmly inside it. 

            “You little twerp,” Andrew breathed softly.  “You had a whole field, and you managed to land on somebody … un-f*****g-believable.”

            “What do I do?  I killed somebody! What do I do?!”  Bradley goggled at Andrew, with panic running through his veins.  It was not his companion that answered him, however.  It was the sphere.

            “Program suggests that variable A or variable B read scroll in the hand of deceased homo-sapiens.”  The voice was still crisp, and yet, somehow bored.

            “I guess the English Program was uploaded OK.”  Andrew said as he leaned down and pried the scroll from the dead man’s hand. 

            “Program notes variable B seems inclined to point out the obvious.”  The sphere spoke again, and Andrew was sure it was taunting him.

            “Why am I variable B?”  Andrew asked, and was immediately sorry he did.

            “Program has been designed to refer to the highest intelligence on-board as variable A.” 

            Andrew shot Bradley a black look.

            “Have you now?” 

            “Program notes that variable B continues to point out …”

            “Variable B notes that unless Program wants another good thumping, it will speak when bloody well spoken to.”  The soldier snapped. 

            “Understood.”  If a computerized voice could sigh, Andrew was sure this one would have. 

            Bradley listened to the exchange, feeling as though he were a little kid in a computer store.  A part of him was amazed that his partner, even with his advanced intelligence … well, advanced when compared to most of humanity, of course, still believed that most problems could be solved by offering to hit something or someone.  The rest of him, however, was wrapped in a warm, fuzzy, glow.  The Brennichs’ had actually invented a computer that could understand threats!  Alone in his basement, while trying like Hell to write a new program, he had dreamed of a computer that could understand threats!   

            “Oh, how nice.”  Andrew rolled his eyes as he lowered the scroll.  “Guess what this is?”

            “I’m sure you know that any guess I could possibly deliver would only have a one in many-thousands chance of actually getting the answer …”  Bradley halted in the middle of his reply, realizing that from the look on his companion’s face, it had been a rhetorical question.

            “Normal humans just say ‘I don’t know’.”  Andrew tossed the scroll back on the ground.  “My knowledge of the language in question is spotty, but I am almost positive that this is the messenger who died trying to bring news of the victory at Marathon.” 

            “Really?  I thought no one knew what happened to him?” 

            “I guess that’s probably because you landed on his head.”     

            “No, I’m sure I explained.  Nothing we do can affect the History we know.  We exist out-side of our history as long as we keep our ear-pieces in.  This connects us to the sphere, which allows us to …”

            “Some humans also know a joke when they hear one.”  Andrew turned to the sphere, and narrowed his eyes.  He’d never trusted technology.  “Right, Program, tell me what we have to do.”

            “Program suggests that variable A and variable B eat regular, balanced diets, and get plenty of water and exercise.  This will ensure a long life in most homo-sapiens.” 

            Andrew didn’t scream.  He felt close to it, but he didn’t do it.  However, Bradley could hear the soldier’s nerves twanging as he spoke again.

            “Program, instruct variable A and variable B on the first step towards our planned alteration of history.” 

            “Program hypothesizes that the message the deceased was carrying must be delivered.” 

            “You hypothesize?  You don’t know either?”

            “Program cannot know anything that has not been directly entered into its memory system.  Program can only hypothesize … but it can do so very effectively.”  The last was said with a trace of smugness. 

            “Can Program be instructed to cease referring to Andrew and Bradley as ‘variables’?” 

            “Yes.”

            “It’s amazing!”  Bradley laid a hand on the sphere reverentially.  “Not only does it understand threats, it also knows how to be deliberately unhelpful … just like our computers!”

            “Oh, yes, I’m all agog.”  Andrew scowled.  “I suppose Program can give us, and by us I mean ‘Andrew’, a detailed map of the surrounding area and the approximate location where I should be delivering the package?”

            “Why can’t I deliver the message?”  Bradley asked, glaring at Andrew.  The man seemed to think that just because he was into computers, he couldn’t do physical labor. 

            “Because you’d be the whitest, palest, most ridiculous excuse for a soldier I’ve ever seen.  They’d only need to take one look at you and know that something was up.” 

            “Program hypothesizes that Variable B will need to deliver the message, and then it will be necessary to make it appear as though Variable B has perished.  This should fit Variable B into the historical role traditionally referred to by Homo sapiens as ‘hero’ and a lasting time-ripple should take place at this juncture.” 

            “I have to die?”

            “No, you must appear to have died … although, a nearly identical success-rate would follow if Variable B were to actually expire … providing, of course, he did so at the correct time.” 

            “How nice,” Andrew growled scathingly. 

 

             

 

Author's Note

review away