“The human mind is not capable of grasping the universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books–a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.”
– Albert Einstein
Chapter 23
West opened his eyes. The room was dark and it took a couple seconds of panic before he figured out where he was. He looked over and Sam was sleeping next to him.
He quietly got up, put his clothes on and left the bedroom. He walked down the dimly lit hall toward the kitchen, where he spotted Harry standing completely still facing the far kitchen wall.
What the hell was he doing? West wondered.
He stepped into the kitchen while Harry remained motionless, facing a poster hanging on the wall. West cleared his throat but got no response. He walked closer toward Harry and looked up at the poster then over to Harry who appeared to be in some sort of trance.
West stared back at the ragged poster. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was staring at but it appeared to be an old photograph of the cosmos.
“This is the most beautiful picture that has ever been taken in the history of mankind,” Harry suddenly replied.
“What are you doing?” West asked wondering if he had taken those Multiverse surfing pills because he seemed completely out of it.
“Man, you don’t know what you’re missing.”
“Yeah, like what?”
“I’ve traveled to super giant red stars. I’ve flown through supernova explosions. I’ve seen suns collapse then burst out through the universe as supernovas. I’ve crossed the event horizon and fallen through Black Holes.”
Damn this guy was cooked up on something, that was for sure. “So what exactly is that a photo of?”
“You remember the old Hubble telescope?” Harry asked
“The one that crashed into the Pacific Ocean a decade or so ago?”
“Yep, that’s the one. Probably the last worthwhile thing our government ever did. The satellite’s function was to photograph the universe. This photo is called the Ultra-Deep Field.”
West took a step closer toward the poster to try and get a better view.
“What exactly am I looking at?”
“First, you’ve got to let you mind go. Escape the boundaries you’ve placed on yourself. Take a deep breath and look, and I mean really look. Not at the picture but what the picture represents.”
West took a deep breath and looked harder at the poster.
“What do you see?” Harry asked.
“A bunch of swirls and blobs. Mostly blackness. What do you see?”
“I see God or Yahweh or Brahman or whatever you want to call The One. When this photo was taken it represented only a tiny patch of sky, just a keyhole glimpse into the universe, only one ten-millionth of the total sky. You might think that all those specks, every swirl, dot or smudge you see are stars but they’re not.”
“So what are they?” West asked.
“Every little point of light in this photo is an entire galaxy and if you were so inclined and started counting, you would find there are over 16,000 galaxies visible in this single image. And each one of these galaxies contains hundreds of billions of stars and trillions of planets.”
West thought for a second while Harry continued staring motionless at the poster. After a few moments of silence West replied, “Those numbers are so large and so incomprehensible that it’s almost impossible to put into any kind of meaningful context. I guess it makes all of our trials and tribulations seem a lot less important here on Earth.”
“You’re right about the incomprehensibility of the numbers but what we can grasp is that the Hubble telescope is a time machine and what this photo represents is that we are traveling back in time to almost the creation of universe. It is a baby picture of our universe because most of the galaxies in this photo are only 500 million years old or at least their images are only 500 million years old because it then took over 13 billion years for their light to travel across the vast expanses of the universe to reach Earth. Meaning that if one of these galaxies ceased to exist today we wouldn’t even know about it for another 13 billion years.”
“That’s pretty wild.”
“You know what I find fascinating?” Harry asked.
“What?”
“The greatest minds the world has ever known repeatedly refer to mathematics in regards to our place among the stars. Galileo said, “mathematics was the language of god and Einstein was quoted as saying, “god doesn’t play dice with the world.” You ever hear of the Anthropic Principle?”
“No,” West answered.
“It is a scientific theory, really more of a philosophical belief coupled with statistics that states the universe was actually set up or at least fine-tuned for the existence of life. Meaning an intelligent design was involved and we aren’t the result of some statistical anomaly in an infinite universe. So perhaps, just maybe, the universe was actually created for intelligent life to exist in it and not the other way around. And that intelligent life across the cosmos was not the end result of the universe but rather the universe was created to be inhabited by us.”
“So are you saying you or these anthropic scientists are religious?” West asked.
“You act like you don’t get it, West, but I know you do. It is all based on the laws of mathematics or as Galileo said, ‘the language of god’.
“Okay, fine but how does math proves that there was an intelligent designer who was responsible for creating everything?”
“How about this. If the gravitational force of the universe was altered by 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 then no planets or stars would have ever been able to form, which of course means we would never have existed. Here’s an even crazier example, for physical life to be able to exist the mass density of the universe must be fine-tuned to ten to the power of sixty.”
“I don’t know what the hell that even means?”
“It means if the mass density ratio of the universe was off by more than one part in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion there is nothing but a giant empty black void. Absolute nothingness my friend. Want more examples, how about if the space energy density–which is the self-stretching property of the universe–varied by more than one part in ten to the power of one hundred and twenty nothing in the universe could have ever formed. So if the space energy density or cosmological constant was off by this number: 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001
I hate to keep repeating myself but there is just a giant black void of nothingness.”
“Harry, I’m just trying to get to this afternoon.”
“I hear you. Enough with the large numbers so I’ll stop right there but the point is I just gave three statistically impossible probabilities that mathematically prove there is no way we should exist, but yet we’re here. And even more incredibly scientists have identified a total of 38 constants, and if any one of these constants were off by a trillionth of a degree we could not exist. And by the way the 38 constants are scientific facts that are not disputed even by scientists who do not adhere to the Anthropic Principle. Which means the underlying science is not in dispute, only what it means. So think about it, West, what is the probability, what is the likelihood that not just one but every single one of these 38 constants exist as they do? The mathematical probability if calculated would be as close to infinity as you possibly can get.”
West stared back up at the poster. “Maybe you’re not as crazy as I thought.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Harry chuckled. “But I do know one thing–when I look at this picture, I look at it with childlike curiosity and wonderment because it i
s almost as if there is some type of divine magic involved and maybe, just maybe there are creators out there in the universe. Maybe there are reasons to believe. After all scientists disagree on many things but I’ve never read one scientist who will dispute that our bodies at the most fundamental levels are comprised of energy and the first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be destroyed, it can only change form.”
“True,” West added.
“So I think Einstein perfectly summed up our place in the universe when he said the human mind is not capable of grasping the universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books–a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects.”
“Do you believe a designer, a creator has influence over us or watches us?”
“I think there is a chance that a God, a They, or an It, however you want to refer it, doesn’t even know we exist if we are talking about trillions of possibilities.”
“That would be kind of disappointing.”
“There are others that have been searching far longer than you can imagine.”
“You mean other Multiverse Surfers like you?”
“No. Our creators, the Ulysses.”
“Oh no, is Harry trying to tell you about the searchers, the galactic nomads who live amongst us?”
West turned and saw Sam standing in the kitchen entrance.
“Don’t mind her,” Harry said. “You’ve got something she doesn’t.”
“And what is that?” Sam asked.
“Sam and her kind, the group you’ve somehow got tangled up with, only can see things as they are in this world. They are designed to function and they can’t ever get beyond that. But you West, you have something inside of you. You’re part of something bigger than them.”
“Yeah, well I don’t know about that.”
“Harry, I really wish I lived in your world,” Sam replied.
Harry finally took his eyes off the poster and looked back at Sam with a smile. “It’s okay Sam, eventually you will.”
“Great, at least I’ve got that going for me. C’mon West, we’ve got to go. Or do you want to stay here and convert to a Multiverse Surfer?”
“No, I’m coming. What about Tom?”
“My brother left last night,” Harry said.
West didn’t even bother to ask where he disappeared to. “Thanks for letting us stay here. I guess this is goodbye.”
Harry turned back toward the Ultra Deep field poster and said, “Don’t worry, we’ll meet again my friend.”
“There can only be one.”
– The Highlander
Chapter 24
“So my friend, I bet you never thought we’d finally be in this position, huh?” Graham replied to Tank.
Tank raised his glass of whiskey. “I had my doubts but when I heard you received Code Black clearance, I figured I’d be hearing back from you. I must say I am impressed.”
“I’m impressed you knew that. So how did you find that out?” Graham asked.
Tank smiled and took another sip of his whiskey. “We all have our secrets, don’t we?”
Graham knew their alliance was one of mutual self-interest combined with absolute distrust so he decided not to pursue how Tank had received that information since he was going to lie to him anyway.
“Can you believe that Napolitano bitch actually thought you’d believe I was inspecting your facility as just a random visit?”
“The stupidity of DC never ceases to amaze me,” Tank answered.
“With the stupidity of DC coupled with the blind fanatical extremism of the LT’s, we could go far together.”
Tank stood up and walked over to the bar. “This is the finest bourbon you’ve ever tasted. You want one?”
“Absolutely.”
Tank poured three fingers of the bourbon, added a few ice cubes and handed the glass to Graham.
“It has also come to my attention that your partner McCain was killed.”Graham took a deep drink of the glorious brown liquid. “Man that is good. Yeah, old insane McCain, he would have had to go anyway. In the end they did us a favor.”
“So you weren’t responsible for McCain’s freelance plan with that hacker.”
Graham hated being placed on the defensive. “I passed the hacker off to McCain. He went behind my back in order to score some points with the Director. Obviously, if I had known about it I would have stopped him since his little operation was putting ours at risk if something happened to West.”
“I guess it is all a moot point now. Good ole Sam managed to take out another. What would you estimate her kill number to be?”
“Over a hundred that I know of,” Graham answered. “And by the way, I prefer to call her Sara.”
“Sam, Sara what the hell is the difference. That damn Hessian cult sure knows how to breed sociopathic killers don’t they? I can’t believe she’s been working for both of us all these years. I wonder if she had to choose one of us to kill, who would you think it would be?”
Graham swirled the ice in his drink. “She would probably kill us both just for the fun of it. She and her ilk believe in only one thing and that is chaos. They are true anarchists. So I guess the big question is can you control her one last time?”
“Are you insane? Control her, who knows what she is capable of? I can only try to maneuver her some to help our interests. That’s it.”
“That’s not exactly the answer I wanted to hear.”
“So what is our Plan B?” Tank asked.
Graham thought for a moment. “We need her to help control West. We’ll have to eliminate her after the Director is dead.”
“I don’t care what you do with her after all this is done. But let me ask you a personal question, how long have you been banging her?”
Graham would have to take Tank more seriously in the future. He obviously had more resources than Graham had given him credit for.
“Long enough to know that she is completely devoid of human emotions as we know them. She is dangerous.”
“So what do you make of this world we live in?”
“It’s all gone to hell,” Graham answered. “And it ain’t ever coming back.”
Tank set his bourbon down. “Whatever happened to my DC idealist I remembered back in college?”
“We’ve been through this before but let’s just say I was born again. I gave up the false religion of an idealist and committed myself to becoming a devout realist. And as we’ve discussed a partnership could be mutually beneficial to both of us.”
“But how long do you think we could actually coexist with one another?” Tank asked.
“I know we’ve been over this a billion times but you know if we can both temper our mistrust and ambitions then we could do big things. The fact is we need each other. Everyone knows the Director of Homeland Security is the true power in the United States. If I could secure that position and if you can tighten the reins on the LT’S and position yourself as their leader; if we can accomplish this, well then we can rule the goddamn country.”
“I always believed the simplest plans are the most likely to succeed so let’s say Napolitano is disposed of. What makes you think the President would appoint you to the position?”
“That’s actually the easiest part of the plan. I have enough information on him to not only wreck his political career but send him to FEMA Camp for good.”
“You intend to blackmail the President of the United States?”
“Why not? He’s just a puppet anyway. Like I’ve explained, I’m not greedy. I can share the western hemisphere with one more person and it looks like you are that person. You just have to keep the LT’s in line.”
“I can only do that for a short period of time
.”
“Well, barring some unforeseen circumstance that’s all we’ll need,” Graham said. “But you do need to go to New York and take care of West. I’ll do the rest on my end.”
Tank raised his glass in a mock salute. “Consider it done.”
Graham drank the rest of his bourbon and set the glass down. He stared at Tank and fought back a smile because they both knew that ultimately, there could only be one. But that would be decided after The Unraveling.
“Sometimes, the person you’d take a bullet for ends up being the one behind the gun.”
– Tupac
Chapter 25
West and Sam left Harry’s apartment and caught a ferry across the East River back to the city. They sat on the top deck of the ship in silence. West didn’t know what to say about what had happened between them the previous night so he stared out at the skyline of New York.
A few days ago he would have never thought he’d return to New York unless it was in handcuffs or a body bag. For now he had his freedom but something wasn’t right and deep down he knew that one way or another, a day of reckoning was quickly approaching.
The ferry dropped them off in lower Manhattan and despite it being a work day there were only a sparse number of New Yorkers out and about.
They caught a half empty bus uptown and took seats by themselves in the back.
“Let’s get out of this place,” Sam finally said.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got a few things to clean up but when I’m done let’s leave for good.”
“Where would we go? And how could we even get out of the country?”
“I’ve planned ahead. I’ve known for years that eventually I would have to disappear for good. I just have a bad feeling things are catching up to me and now is the time to leave for good. Look, I know we just met but…” Sam stopped and took his hand in hers. “Don’t answer me today. You’re safe for now but that will change. I don’t trust Tank anymore. Just think about going with me.”
The Unraveling Page 20