Our Future is in the Air

by Corballis, Tim

  ‘The political and economic damage was done, however, not by this photograph, but by the series that followed in 1969. This, according to the Soviets, was sourced from the same facility as the one producing ATOMISED HUMAN, and showed the same rough location: the planned towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan, burning and collapsing after being struck by aircraft. These were, according to some experts, just a few of a large stock of images that had already been built up by the Soviet TCL programme. It was clear that they had a facility on American soil, probably on the third floor of the Soviet Embassy in Washington DC. The photos required no caption or slogan. Was it the first time an image of the future had shown so recognisable a place? Sections of the current Manhattan skyline were visible in some. Did the agents responsible for this “propaganda attack” regret their actions? The result won no feeling for the Soviet cause; no one revelled in the destruction. Was even this future alterable?

  ‘But the images themselves had a life and a power. They became detached from their future. They circulated simply as pictures of buildings not yet built, planes not yet designed, and human death—the deaths, it seemed certain, of people who were now young, or children, or not yet born.’

  ‘I’m worried about Pen.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘He hasn’t been here.’

  ‘Oh, hi Janet.’

  ‘He hasn’t been here.’

  ‘You mean Pen?’

  ‘Yes! He hasn’t been home.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘God, listen! He hasn’t come home for three nights.’

  ‘That’s a long time… have you… ’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know. Have you called anyone?’

  ‘Of course. No. Yes. No, I’m calling you.’

  ‘Okay. Have you called the police?’

  ‘I don’t need to do that, do I? I don’t want to call them.’

  ‘No. But maybe… ’

  ‘I’m thinking about doing something. What can we do?’

  ‘I don’t know. God, okay. That’s a long time. You waited a long time.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No! Don’t say sorry. I didn’t mean… but I’ve got a patient waiting right now.’

  ‘Marcus?’

  ‘Just, let me—’

  (Whispered.) ‘I’m really angry.’

  (A silence.)

  ‘He just didn’t come home? After work?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘You must be… I don’t know. Do you want me to come over later?’

  ‘I don’t know what I want. Yes, come over later. Can you?’

  ‘I think so. You’re not scared?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘You said… you’re angry.’

  ‘Yes, I guess I’m scared.’

  ‘For him. In case something’s happened to him.’

  ‘Yes. I don’t know what I’m feeling, really.’

  ‘I hope he’s okay.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The release of the image was one factor in the ruin of the buildings’ architect, Minoru Yamasaki. He wrote that the images came to him as a kind of premature double vision—the buildings both finished and destroyed, at the same time. At that point, construction had only just begun. They existed only as a lattice of the first, prefabricated perimeter-framing units within the great “bathtub wall” built to keep water out of the foundations. He reported that he himself vacillated over whether construction should stop.

  ‘As we understand it, Yamasaki consulted with engineers in an attempt to figure out if there was a problem with the designs. The buildings had been designed to withstand the impact force of a Boeing 707 in case of low visibility and a radical failure of air traffic control and navigation systems. It was difficult to tell the size of the planes from the images, but one possibility was that they were significantly larger than a 707. There was the question of whether they were military planes, which would suggest a deliberate attack aimed at the buildings’ weak points—but the evidence suggested that they were civilian aircraft, and it was not clear that any specific weaknesses were targeted. There was also an apparent delay between the impact of the planes and the collapse of the buildings, and evidence of a fire. Again, however, the designs should have been able to cope with fire.

  ‘The basic difficulty of the matter was that the images provided such poor data. What was clear was that there were two planes, and that there was no fog.’

  ‘We think that the images came as a kind of last straw for Yamasaki. He has not said as much himself, but they might have represented a sort of personal attack on him. He was a nisei, almost sixty years old, and had lived with prejudice all his life. The images might have seemed to represent America’s attack on him. He had avoided internment during the war, working in the offices of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, and had had a number of his architectural visions built. However, there were already some calls for his St Louis housing projects to be demolished—as they would be, a few years later.

  ‘Like many architects of his generation, he worked in visions of the future. Those buildings were the culmination of what the future stood for. But now there was a different vision. It was contradictory, both complete and obliterated, proven and disproven. It would have seemed to him as if all future was annihilated in that image, along with the buildings and the lives within them. All hope, all straight lines, all load-bearing structures, all people housed, everything that seemed possible with the end of the war, and the end of the time when he had had to work hard to keep a portion of freedom for himself and his parents. I don’t think these speculations about his state of mind are unjustified. When he pored over the Soviets’ photos with the engineers, analysing their details, it was like subjecting visionary thought itself, hope itself, to scrutiny. Of course, in terms of engineering, in terms of the physical nature of things and the solving of practical problems—well, in those terms, images have no power or value. They were of little use. Nonetheless their effects were profound, as if they retrospectively destroyed the buildings, not in the future, but in the present time.’

  ‘The building work was stopped. There were rallies held against the continued construction. Rockefeller, nervous about the public perception of the project and the implications for his family’s reputation, pulled funds from the project. The foundation wall and initial framing froze as a kind of grotesque monument to the future catastrophe. It became a kind of ruin, before the fact. There were protracted discussions about how the site should be used.

  ‘Capital was also pulled out of the aviation industry. First, Boeing’s plans for a new, long and wide-bodied jet were shelved—prototypes and sections of the plane’s body were left untouched in hangars. Then the industry as a whole foundered. One by one, investors lost their nerve and shifted their capital to other sectors of the economy. Insurance costs were raised and passenger numbers dropped. As if to prove the image wrong—as if to demonstrate the SOVIET THEORY OF TIME—the buildings, and most of the world’s jet aircraft, ceased to exist, except in a curious memory of a now impossible future.’

  Marcus met Janet at her and Pen’s house. The boy was still awake. He walked, then, caught in some game, crawled on hands and feet up to where Marcus sat on the sofa, then stood and launched himself onto him. Janet told him off but Marcus assured her it was all right. He knew Peter better than he knew Janet, in fact. He sat with Peter, with the boy’s arms around him, before he slid to one side and tucked in with his head on Marcus’s shoulder. But Janet wouldn’t say much with Peter there, and Marcus couldn’t start either. Janet gave him exasperated looks.

  ‘Let’s get you to bed.’

  Janet said, ‘Oh, thank you!’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘But you have to read to me.’

  ‘Of course. What are you reading?’

  It took a long time for Peter to settle. When Marcus returned to the lounge Janet had also fallen asleep. Should he leave? He thought not. But still
, he didn’t want to wake her up. Her face had taken on sleep’s looseness, showing how exhausted she was. The house was full of their breathing—hers and her son’s—though it was inaudible. A single lamp was on, next to the sofa where he had sat earlier. He knew it as a well-lit house, noisy and bright, but now it was all corners and shadows. He was standing as if in awkward possession of the place. Why didn’t they have books in here? It might have given him something to do while he waited. It was a curious waiting, without object: waiting for Janet to wake up, though she was sleeping deeply; waiting for Pen to return, though he had been gone for three nights and there was no reason he wouldn’t be gone for another. A waiting without expectation. In truth, he was waiting for himself to do something, to come to some action. He stood in this empty state for a minute. His body, still, and hers, and the boy’s, held in a state of suspension, here, silent with one another; and out there, Pen, as if orbiting. He walked through to the kitchen, which was tidy enough, and found the telephone.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She fell asleep as soon as I got here.’

  ‘Poor Janet. What about Peter?’

  ‘I put him to bed.’

  ‘You’re a good man.’

  ‘Ha.’

  ‘So… ’

  ‘I have no idea what’s going on.’

  ‘You didn’t talk to her?’

  ‘No, really, I mean she fell asleep. First Peter was there, and, well… ’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘I put him to bed and now they’re both fast asleep. What should I do?’

  (A laugh.) ‘I’ve never heard you ask that.’

  ‘But what should I do? I want to come home.’

  ‘Don’t do that. You don’t need to hurry.’

  ‘No, but I’m not needed here.’

  (A pause.) ‘No. But stay with her. Don’t you think?’

  ‘I guess I have to. I’m not used to being… ’

  ‘Not needed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, then. Try it out.’

  ‘What’s going on with them?’

  ‘He’s on a bender. Don’t you think? He’ll come back.’

  ‘I’m worried.’

  ‘Oh, you know, it happens. People go crazy for a while, go and flip out or something.’

  ‘But this is Pen.’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘Would Pen have done something like… ?’

  ‘Marcus? I know it seems terrible now and Janet’s exhausted and Peter’s probably traumatised and everything, but, well, Pen’ll be back. He’ll be back.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And don’t be upset.’

  ‘Okay.’

  But when he put the receiver down and turned around, Janet was behind him, leaning on the doorframe. She smiled and walked quickly to him and gave him a kiss and a hug. Her bearing showed no sign of the broken person she had seemed to be earlier.

  ‘Hi, Marcus.’

  ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘I’m a light sleeper. Don’t worry.’

  (A silence.)

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Oh, god yes. Never better. A nap like that always does me good.’

  ‘Janet?’

  ‘Yeah I know. Okay.’ (A laugh.)

  ‘What’s with Pen?’

  ‘How should I know? He’s off somewhere. Damn him.’

  ‘Anything could have happened.’

  ‘Yes, I am worried about him, of course.’

  ‘I’m glad you called me. Do you have other people you can talk to?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, I do.’

  ‘Because the more people you talk to, the easier—’

  ‘Don’t worry about that.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I want to do something. I want you to help do something.’

  ‘Find him?’

  ‘You knew what he got up to back then. You know him, you know what’s going on.’

  ‘I know? Sorry, Janet.’

  ‘And you’re, what, his closest friend.’

  ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘It’s got something to do with all that.’

  ‘With… ?’

  ‘The protests and everything.’

  ‘I haven’t been involved in that for years. You know, I was never really… not since Dani was born. Not since the girls.’

  ‘Come and sit down, at least?’

  ‘That I can do.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Look, I don’t know if this is just Pen going off on some spree, or if it’s something else. It is longer than usual. I mean, it’s not the first time. Maybe it’s the longest. It’s getting harder and harder on Peter, now he’s older. If it weren’t for that I’d probably just—’

  ‘It’s not the first time?’

  ‘I kind of thought you’d know.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I mean, you two are close. I’d actually thought you might be off with him sometimes.’

  ‘Not me.’

  ‘It’s just that you two were so tight back then. You were so close. Two boys.’

  Marcus smiled. ‘I’m older than him.’

  ‘The thing is, I want it to stop either way.’

  ‘Either way?’

  ‘I want him to be with me or not.’

  ‘Oh. Then… but he wouldn’t be… I mean.’

  ‘You just know him better than me, Marcus. You were with him all that time, so close to him.’

  ‘We haven’t seen each other as much.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘He wouldn’t be having an affair.’

  ‘An affair? I don’t think so either. No, he wouldn’t be capable of it, silly man. No, I love him for that.’

  ‘What does he say when he comes back?’

  ‘Nothing. He says sorry. He clams up. He gets angry, or upset, when I ask him what’s going on. Then I guess we get busy with the boy and with work and life and just forget.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘This is the fifth time.’

  ‘Oh, so not so often.’

  ‘Often enough.’

  ‘Yes. But I don’t understand why you mentioned his activist days.’

  ‘You two were so involved in it all. You were getting up to—I don’t know what.’

  ‘I haven’t seen him. It wasn’t so much—’

  ‘No, all right. But can you help me? Find out what’s going on. You can talk to him.’

  ‘When he comes back.’

  ‘Yes, I guess.’

  ‘I could try.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘We should state outright that we distance ourselves from the later ideas of TL at Harvard. His early work was, of course, of perhaps greater moment than our own: the development, out of the theory of what became known as temporal contour lensing (TCL), of a further possibility and a stranger one. He single-handedly elaborated the theoretical basis for temporal contour forcing (TCF) by which an object or person can be “pushed” forward, through the lens as it were, into a future time. It should be said, as an aside, that the term “temporal contour” is, strictly speaking, nonsensical. The origin of the names “temporal contour lensing” and “temporal contour forcing” is obscure, but they certainly did not come from the scientific establishment. They have, however, stuck, and are used now even in scientific discourse.

  ‘Because the “forcing” sets up unstable local conditions at the point both of arrival and departure (resulting from the WITHDRAWAL AND INTRUSION OF MASS), an object or person can only be “forced” through for a very circumscribed duration before being pulled back to the present. This safe duration, the “Korngold period” (after TL’s colleague at Harvard, who performed the calculations) is just over twenty minutes long. It was this—the solution to the problem of destabilising present and future conditions, and the equations for “pulling back” a forced object or person—that provided the greatest challenge to TL and his team. The mere forcing of an object forward posed no special theoretical problems
once the basic framework of lensing was established.’

  ‘TL, it has to be said, forewent the usual scientific detachment when it came to testing the work experimentally. Firstly, after the development and initial testing of their rudimentary TCF machine, the first large object to be forced into the future was TL himself. We will repeat here what this involved (and anyone now foolhardy enough to repeat the procedure will have to undergo the same process). TL was first injected with a large dose of a lysergamide compound whose molecules interacted sympathetically with the lens—this was the famous “tracing fluid”. In effect, the molecule resonates with the lensing field, reinforcing the effects and simultaneously anchoring the field to their immediate area. TL’s clothes were also sprayed with the compound, so that his body and everything he took with him acted as a macroscopic lensing field resonator. When the field decayed after the end of the Korngold period the whole mass “surfed” (as TL put it) back to the point of origin on the field’s retreating face. Adverse effects were thus avoided. By this, of course, we mean adverse effects of the intrusion and withdrawal of mass. The adverse effects on the body, due to the tracing fluid itself, are still unknown. Carcinogenic, mutagenic and even psychotropic effects have been claimed for it, but there have been no conclusive studies. It is quite unknown how it might interact with pre-existing pharmaceuticals and variable dietary input and body chemistry. However, the plucking of a human body and hurling it some thirty-three years into the future—placing it unknown and unknowing in the middle of some situation, even one that can be witnessed first from certain angles by developing a lensing image… surely this presents dangers far more profound than anything that the chemical might pose. For us, the discovery of lensing and its related technologies has always, as discussed, been associated with thoughts not of the heroic human but of the human who trembles, weak and irrelevant, in the face of the cosmos—or rather, the facelessness of the cosmos, its great, unrecognisable and entropic collisions and eddies. The blind machinery of relativity—objects whirling space-time out of their own mass, crushing and bending it—this is nothing to throw a human being casually through. It is in the spirit of science to explore the unknown, but cautiously and sensibly, with an eye to the steady collection and careful analysis of data, the formulation of hypotheses, the weighing of thought against the world. Blind leaps into the void are diametrically opposed to that spirit.