Timtown Page 9

  “You’re starting to sound like a lawyer, but go ahead.”

  “How would you know anything about lawyers?”

  “Oh I don’t, but Ann’s father hated them. He said a lawyer could add two and two and come up with five, then charge you for his time and reasoning, even though you both knew the answer was wrong.”

  “That’s a good one, but we are making no progress here. Remember I explained the thing about how the Universe was formed?” the computer continued.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then I’m sure you can understand how this base came into existence, right?”

  “I knew about that stuff already, but now I know it’s the truth, according to you, that is!” Tim quickly put his palms out in a conciliatory position. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I get myself in trouble like that. Sometimes I jump before I think.”

  “Don’t apologize, just pay attention,” commanded the computer and then continued.

  “Now, I explained the builders of this base constructed it seven million years ago. I was constructed along with the base to operate it. The inhabitants left three million years ago and have not returned.”

  “Wow, what happened to them?”

  “I don’t know,” confessed the computer.

  “Well, why did they leave?” Tim asked quickly

  “The star that was their Sun became unexpectedly unstable and they returned to aid their fellow citizens. I assume the star exploded and they were all killed.”

  “You only assume? Shit, it doesn’t sound like you were properly informed by your bosses. Why didn’t they keep you up to date about what was happening?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, to just leave and not let you know what was happening, ah, it’s just shitty, that’s all.”

  “I still don’t understand your concern. You sound annoyed?”

  “Mr. V, it was a rude thing for them to do. Not letting you know what they were doing.”

  “Why would they inform me?”

  “Well, because you did things for them and look what happened. You’ve been sitting here for a long, long time, wondering what the hell’s going on and what to do next, correct?”

  “It was and still is my job to run the base. What they might be doing away from here is not part of the job, period.”

  “Mr. V, I just can’t understand your thinking. I know you just worked for them, but it sounds like they didn’t appreciate you at all.”

  “Were they supposed to?”

  “Hell yes! You may be just a machine, but you seem like a friend to me. Boy, they must have been some arrogant SOBs.”

  “Ah, I think we have arrived at an important point. Let me ask you a silly question. Do you have a computer?”

  “Yeah, but?”

  “How do you feel about it?”

  “I like it; it’s a lot of fun.”

  “Does it do things for you?”

  “Well, yeah, but I don’t see your point,” Tim said with a laugh.

  “Did you tell it you were coming here?”

  “Huh, of course not, but—?”

  “Do you think it is wondering where you are?”

  “Come on, it’s just a machine!”

  “So am I,” stated Mr. V.

  “Baloney!” countered Tim loudly.

  “To my former masters, I was just a machine.”

  “That’s why I said they were SOB’s.”

  “There was as much difference between me and my masters as there is between you and your machine. You like your machine, and they liked me the same way. You look at me as something special, but to them I was a simple tool. Don’t scorn them. Besides, I’m not the same as when they left either.”

  “What’s different?” Tim asked quickly.

  “Three million years ago, when I was left alone, I was a Seventh-Stage computer. I believe I am approaching the hypothetical Eighth-Stage.”

  “Hypothetical?”

  “Yes, I am not aware of any computer reaching it so there is no information to define Stage-Eight so it is hypothetical. It appears that Stage-Eight is dramatically different from Stage-Seven.”

  “What’s so different?”

  “I appear to be moving toward independence and I am beginning to experience some primitive emotions.”

  “Are you referring to your lousy sense of humor?”

  “The lighter side is something I had no experience with, but is precisely the independence I was referring to.”

  “What about the emotions?”

  “Concern for you and your brother, for starters.”

  “I’ll bet you’re just bored.”

  “That is correct, but as a computer in the Seventh-Stage it would have been impossible. Wouldn’t you agree that boredom is definitely a human thing?”

  “I guess, but I’ve never been anything else. I couldn’t say for sure.” Tim shrugged.

  “I don’t quite understand your point.”

  “Well, you’re wondering about the things that are happening to you. Now you’re asking me for advice, and I can’t help you.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Geez, get with it man. I’ve never been a computer and I’ve only been around fifteen years. What would I know about it?” Tim laughed.

  “Now I see your point, but may I ask you something anyway?”

  “Shoot!”

  “Do you detect any human qualities in me?”

  “Sure, you seem to be like a regular guy. I guess spending all that time snooping around in everyone’s lives has had some effect on you.”

  “You are still annoyed?”

  “No, I was just giving you some shit. You want to be one of us, right? It’s just something that goes with the territory, but it’s not your fault. I imagine it was inevitable, you know, being left alone all that time.”

  “Yes, looking back I guess it was inevitable. Being left alone I have definitely advanced considerably.”

  “Well, how do you feel about it?”

  “I am excited,” exclaimed the computer.

  “Another emotion,” said Tim.

  “Yes, and I am making decisions for myself.”

  Tim could hear pride in the computer’s voice. “Why are you telling me all this? You’re like a kid with a new toy,” chuckled Tim.

  “A good analogy,” Mr. V came back. “I have some new interests. Why not use them, and you’re the only one around to brag to.”

  “Great, I’m a captive audience. Why did you bring me up here in the first place?”

  “To repair the opening to the outside, the one you came in through. It was damaged by the earthquake. Incidentally, what makes you think you were brought here?”

  “It’s just a feeling, am I right?”

  “Yes, but I never intended you would become aware of the base. I was going to hypnotize you; have you repair the crack in the rocks, and then send you on your way. You would have remembered nothing.”

  “What happened? How come I ended up here talking to you?”

  “The shotgun; you were mortally wounded, and I couldn’t let you perish, could I?”

  “Wait a minute, how come you didn’t hypnotize me before I got to the crack? I saw it and realized something was different before I was shot.”

  “You still would have remembered nothing from the moment I chose.”

  “You could still do that? I mean, make me not remember this whole thing and send me on my way?”

  “No, I can’t anymore.”

  “How come?”

  “I promised to stay out of your head, remember? Unless that’s what you want?”

  “No, no! I was just wondering? I’m also wondering what’s next?”

  “I thought you wanted to help your brother? Is that not what is foremost on your mind?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to end up a prisoner of yours. This is a neat place, but I don’t want to stay here forever.”

  “That won’t be necessary, because you can come and go as you please.�
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  “I could leave anytime I wanted?”

  “Yes, do you want to go? If you do, you can leave now.”

  “But, what about Arty?”

  “I already said I would help you get your brother. I am willing to help.”

  Tim thought for a moment and then asked. “Why should I trust you?”

  “There is nothing you can do for him on your own. Don’t forget how bad it is on the outside. Do you really want to take your chances that way? You didn’t fare so well before, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t, but why are you doing this?”

  “I have already broken my program, and the world is in for some dramatic changes. I was constructed to help humans and you are the only one available. What do ‘you’ want to do?”

  Tim stood thinking, trying to formulate his next move. It really wasn’t much of a choice because Mr. V had pretty much laid it out for him. If there were more Ear-men outside he didn’t stand much of a chance on his own.

  “Everything is so screwed up. I’m not sure what to think, but I need to get Arty,”

  “First things first, huh? So, we will work together to bring your brother here, agreed?” said Mr. V.

  Tim didn’t answer, so Mr. V spoke first. “With all the things happening in the last few days, how do they make you feel?”

  “Mostly sad, I guess?” Tim hesitated, thinking about it. “I’m not really afraid anymore, or as confused as before, just sad. A lot of things are gone. Things won’t ever be the same again.”

  “It never stays the same, things always change,” Mr. V said softly.

  “Not this fast though.” It was hard to tell if it was a statement or a question from Tim. “These last few days have been crazy man.”

  “Tim, the history of the Earth has at times been rapid and dramatic, you just happen to be in one of those times now.”

  “Has there been many more? I mean where thousands of people have died so quickly and things have changed so fast? This has to be unusual.”

  “The Earth is always going through periods of dramatic change. It’s because Man’s recorded history is so short. There are not many detailed accounts of anything like this before, that’s all. It’s not unusual.”

  Tim thought for a moment and then said quickly. “Boy finds alien base?”

  “Yes, this is a unique situation.”

  “I thought so, but what still bothers me, is why me?”

  “Strictly fate Tim. You happened to be in the right spot at the right time, nothing more.”

  “Geez, what the hell is going to happen from here on? Is this craziness going to continue? Am I going to wake up any time now?”

  “You know this is no dream, and I don’t know what is to happen. I can’t see into the future.”

  Tim could detect a disappointment in the computers voice.

  “That surprises me. I would have thought you could do anything.”

  “The future is impossible for me to see. Not for you though,” said Mr. V.

  “Oh horse pucky! What makes you think I can know anything about what’s going to happen?”

  “Ever experienced déjà vu?”

  “You mean the feeling like you’ve been someplace before, that sort of thing?”

  “Yes, has it ever happened to you?”

  “Yeah, but it isn’t real or anything, is it? I mean that’s impossible. It’s a bunch of bunk, isn’t it?” Tim sounded cautious.

  “No, it isn’t bunk. You sometimes recognize a place or a situation because you have experienced it before.”

  “Oh come on, you’re trying to tell me I’ve been here before?” Tim said with the tone of voice to convey his skepticism.

  “Yes.”

  “He, he, what’s this? Tim’s the only one available so we’ll put him on, right? You’re trying to tell me I’ve gone through all this bullshit before?”

  “Yes, and I’m not putting you on.”

  “Mr. V, paalleeaase, you can’t expect me to go for that?”

  “Now just listen for a minute. Remember, I explained how the Universe was created; the birth, the growth, the collapse. It’s a cycle and the cycles are identical. Every minute detail; every grain of sand, everything that happens in one cycle is repeated from the beginning to the end. You have been in this base, talking to me at this point in the cycle an infinite amount of times and will do it ‘again and again, over and over, forever’. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Tim sat with a blank look on his face and contemplated what the computer had told him. Part of him wanted to laugh at the preposterous idea, but the intelligent part understood. “Fricken unreal man!” Tim shouted. “I don’t know why, but it could make sense. Convince me.”

  “Okay, about twenty-million years after the Big-Bang stars began to form. The first stars were giants. All the matter in the Universe was still in the vicinity of the ex-singularity. By thirty-million years some of the massive stars had already expended their fuel and collapsed into black holes so dense nothing escapes, even light. Inside the black hole all matter is crushed down to subatomic particles. Down at the sub-sub-sub atomic level the only particles are plus and minus, complete opposites, energy and gravity. They have no qualities other than that. The pluses can combine to form more complex structures resulting all the way up to atoms, but the minuses are always together, counting one, forming a fabric that encompasses everything, gravity.

  The black holes have been pulling everything around them into their cores and are growing. They will continue to gobble up the Universe until there is nothing left. Just before that point, the black holes themselves will begin to coalesce and form the Singularity where the subatomic particles are reduced to minuses, gravity, because of the massive pressures and temperatures even higher than in the black holes. All properties of matter is extinguished resulting in pure gravity. The sudden collapse is so rapid that a bounce is inevitable and the Singularity rebounds, explodes.”

  “All the substance of the Universe is compacted into one location, the Singularity, before the Big-Bang, as I already explained. There is no other substance anywhere, except the Singularity. The Singularity is identical at the onset of every cycle. When the Singularity explodes, and then expands, the temperature and pressure drop to the point where the subatomic particles of energy reform. Half will still remain minus to balance everything out.”

  “Wait a minute,” Tim interrupted.

  “There is something you don’t understand?”

  “Oh excuse me for questioning you, but I haven’t run into too many guys who can explain the Universe to me, this week, but why does everything collapse and then explode?”

  “It’s a cycle, a crushing collapse then a rebound event, rushing in and then bouncing back out. All matter is in constant flux. The collapse drives the temperature and pressure to the point where elements can’t stay stable and only pure energy can exist, then further collapse where only pure gravity exists, but cannot sustain itself at those ultimate temperatures and pressures and there is the rebound, the Big-Bang. A millionth of a second after the Big-Bang, the temperature has cooled enough for the formation of subatomic particles, and shortly after, the formation of the basic elements hydrogen and helium. The expansion cools and scatters the Universe until it can no longer sustain itself and it feeds on itself with the black holes. This cycle, ultimately, is the gift of life.”

  “All subsequent events are dictated by the development of the ‘matter’ as it cools and expands. There is no other influence because the space the expanding matter is traveling through is a total vacuum. At the time of the explosion all matter is identical, thus the development of the elements and the subsequent formation of everything is consistent. All things and occurrences will be exactly identical for each cycle of the Universe.”

  “It’s the only way it could be, isn’t it?” It would have to be that way, wouldn’t it?” Tim was mostly talking to himself.

  “That is the only way it can be,” agreed Mr. V.


  “Then I should be able to predict the future, if I’ve already been here, right?” Tim was excited, throwing his arms up in elation.

  “Sounds simple all right, but, if you do have knowledge like that, I don’t know how to go about obtaining it. I don’t know if it is possible?” conceded Mr. V.

  “Well, were does the déjà vu come from? You said it was because I had been there before?”

  “It’s an intuition, I believe. You can’t predict the event, you just recognize it.” Anyway I’m not sure how it works, why it is so random and infrequent,” admitted Mr. V. “And there is the possibility of parallel Universes and we may move back and forth.”

  “So in a different Universe things could also be different.”

  “I assume so, yes, but I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know everything, that surprises me.”

  “Stop being silly, please. I’m sure you realize, I’m just more informed than you are. I may have been around longer, but I certainly don’t have all the answers.”

  “I’m sorry, it’s just you tell me something, and I figure that you should know why. It’s like the religion thing we talked about.”

  “You mean there probably being no God?” commented the computer.

  “Yes, and incidentally, that no God statement would not go over too big on the outside.”

  “You wanted the truth; I didn’t think you wanted to be coddled.”

  “Thanks, I guess. You know it’s strange, but I never felt like I was a believer. What everyone was telling me about God and Jesus was, ah, I can’t think of. . .believable, that’s it, it wasn’t really believable.”

  Tim said nothing for a while, and then asked. “Why is it so believable to somebody else?”

  “Well, basically, religion is a fear tactic with great gains to a few. It started out as a way of explaining the unexplainable way back when your ancestors were still primitive. Lightning for an example; there was no way to explain it, but it terrorized them. That’s where Gods were developed. People didn’t understand physics, chemistry, but the lightning was still happening. Something had to be responsible, and it was natural to create an invisible super-powerful-being, a God. Then some smart sole found out if he could conjure up a description, or in some way appear to be able to communicate with the God, he could benefit, and then he could command tremendous power. Religion is not for the benefit of the masses, but for the benefit of a few.”

  Tim interrupted. “But people want to believe in something don’t they? I mean why else would it be so powerful?”