Standing Wave
Page 43
Stringfield stopped again, this time halted by a question from Seiji.
“What would this ‘grand concrescence’ look like?” he asked.
Stringfield scratched his chin unconsciously, considering it.
“That’s rather like asking, What did the universe look like before the Big Bang?” he replied. “All we could know would be the shadow it might cast ahead of itself, if it did. Rather like the way the boom of a distant cannon is always heard before the order to ‘Fire!’—because the sound of the cannon firing moves as a soliton and thus travels faster than the command to fire—”
“Or the way you never hear the shot that gets you,” someone with a darker frame of mind remarked.
“That would actually be more appropriate to the bubble instanton, I should think,” Stringfield said with a quiet smile. “All we can know of the wave of concrescence is what we can detect reverberating through time from the horizon of that future event. In our spacetime, the acausal eschaton particle is always in the future, rather like the singularity inside a black hole. As opposed to ‘white hole’ singularities, which are always in the past.”
This time Mei-Ling had her hand up.
“What kinds of signs for this sort of wave should we be looking for?” she asked.
“I can’t really say what form it might take, Mei-Ling,” he said after a pause. “If the universe is evolving beyond causality, becoming self-generating and mode-locking, that’s essentially saying that the universe is becoming conscious.”
Stringfield paused and cleared his throat at that, as if realizing what a large speculative chunk he was asking them to swallow.
“If that’s true,” he continued after a moment, “then the relationship between psyche and universe is obviously a form of microcosm/macrocosm interaction—self-similarity across scales. Dynamical systems tend to mode-lock on each other, so if psyche and consciousness are developing toward increasing dynamicality, then the universe and individual consciousness are evolving toward a fundamental unity. That sort of evolution could occur with the rapidity of a phase transition, rather than on the slow scale of ordinary cosmological evolution.”
“Professor Stringfield,” Nils Barakian asked, “this acausal eschaton particle, though it might look like a black singularity, a ‘Tetragrammaton’ endword to us—might it not also be a white singularity, a beginning ‘Logos’ word to the renovated universe its waveform creates?”
The pause was once again longer than the transmission-lag would have explained.
“That’s certainly possible,” Stringfield replied. “However, which soliton we see—the destructive instanton or the wave of concrescence—might depend on which one we’re helping to bring into being. But that’s interloping into consciousness theory. I’m treading on the turf of others more qualified than I am. They should probably be speaking on this, instead of me. I hope these speculations have been of help to you.”
Roger moved forward.
“Thank you very much, Professor Stringfield,” he said. Light applause for Stringfield’s presentation sounded from the crowd, to Roger’s surprise. “Please stay on the line, if you would. Next we’ll turn things over to Marissa Correa and Jacinta Larkin, representing the biology and consciousness theory groups respectively. Before that, though, I’ve just been informed that my mother, Atsuko Cortland, as HOME liaison to some powerful groups on Earth, has an important announcement.”
Atsuko spoke then, in a tone of concern but also of control.
“I’ve just received information from our communications people which concerns all of us,” she began. “From our friends at the psiXtian arcology in California, we’ve learned that the fly-out of the immortalizing vector from their facility has met with some difficulties. The starjet we sent for the vector, piloted by Diana Gartner and co-piloted by Brandi Easter, was attacked while on the ground. Diana and Brandi were apparently not hurt. They managed to lift off and fly out, but we have received no further word from them. The psiXtians, however, report that the immortalizing vector has been released into the atmosphere.”
A worried murmur spread through the small crowd and began to grow louder.
* * * *
Uncle Aleister and Lev Korchnoi had left the messages that were flashing on Aleck’s t-com when he and the rest had gotten back from their Cordyceps experiment. When Aleck returned their messages, the two men seemed to have some sort of theory regarding Hugh Manatee. They wondered if Aleck might let them join him during his shift tonight. He shrugged them a “yes”, too tired from his wild night to argue.
Sam, Janika, Hari, and Marco had kept reliving their previous night’s experience until about one that afternoon. By that time Aleck had retired to his room for a much needed nap, thinking, as he drifted off to sleep, that old Hugh was developing quite a social life for a cocooned coma case in what was supposed to be a sen-dep tank.
Then again, even Aleck himself was developing a social life too, of late. If that could happen, anything could happen.
Early in the evening he awakened from an academic anxiety dream. In it, he woke up late to a final for which he had also forgotten to study. Breathless, in the dream he tried to outrun the chimes of the carillon, sounding from behind the horribly looming and leering great clock face in the campanile—only to find the entire campus deserted, and the lecture hall too.
As he sound-showered, he realized the dream had probably been spawned by guilt arising from the fact that he had blown off yet another entire day of study.
While he dressed, Aleck tried to reassure himself that he could afford to take the time off from school, now that Onoma Verité seemed destined for stardom. Sam was strongly insinuating that the band wanted him to come on tour with them as their lighting and sound designer.
Coming into the apartment’s living area now—and finding the members of Onoma Verité looking bedraggled and unkempt as they sprawled in drooling sleep—he was not very reassured about his job prospects. Maybe he should stay in school a while longer. Just in case.
Aleck grabbed a lukewarm cup of synth kava and tried to face the setting sun of this sleep-blown day. Sam woke up and, half asleep, approached him.
“Leaving for work already?” he asked.
“Yep,” Aleck said quickly, unfolding his bike and heading for the door. “I’m doing a double shift, to make up for my delinquency. Uncle Aleister and Lev Korchnoi want to meet me down below the Partons tonight anyway. Something about Hugh, God only knows what.”
“Coolage,” Sam said. The word initially made Aleck think of a long-dead president, until he remembered the idiom. Sam had slipped into old-school wirehead slang again—something he did when he was tired. At times it made Aleck wonder a bit uneasily about Sam’s past. “Mind if we join you and do a little rehearsage, since your Uncle and Lev are going to be there already anyway?”
“The more the merrier,” Aleck said with his all-purpose and purposely non-committal shrug.
His bike ride toward downtown in the deepening twilight was largely uneventful, except for the crowds of conservatively dressed and clean scrubbed people making their way along routes paralleling his own. They were carrying signs and banners and cheap holos. It took Aleck a while to recognize them. They were the people who had been protesting at the zoo ark for the last week.
He wondered vaguely why they were heading off the hills and toward downtown, but he really didn’t have time to think about it or mess with them. He took side and back streets that got him around the worst of the crowds. The side roads dumped him out near the loading dock elevator behind the Partons, even earlier than he’d expected.
Denene Jackman was surprised to see him.
“Early? For an early shift?” she said, feigning genuine shock as she slipped off her circlet interface gear. “Will wonders never cease! If you think being early will make up for your past delinquencies, Smart Aleck, you’re wrong.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, smiling good-naturedly as he folded his bike. “How’s the
Great Tanked One behaving?”
Denene shook her head.
“Not well,” she said. “Something’s going on—I just can’t put my finger on it.”
“He’s still minding the store?” Aleck asked, concerned.
“Sure,” Denene assured him, “but he’s only been giving that a very small piece of his head. The last several hours it’s been especially bad. He’s been all over the infosphere. Lots of data shifting around, but it’s all infinity-routed and heavily encrypted. Whatever he’s up to, it’s way outside my job description.”
“His vitals are okay?” Aleck asked, slipping the connection gear onto his own head.
“Some of the levels are up,” Denene said, as she got her bag and other gear ready to go. “Like he’s excited about something. Adrenalized, though what he could be anxious about, floating in that tank, I’ll never know.”
Aleck gave her a sly smile.
“Maybe you turn him on,” he said, “and he’s having a long, slow—”
Denene stopped his mouth with her hand.
“Go any further and you’ll be in trouble,” she said, laughing as he slowly removed her hand. “Have a good shift, if you can. ‘Night.”
“Enjoy yourself,” he said, waving good bye. As he turned around to check Hugh’s vitals and his work, he realized that he’d forgotten to mention to Denene all the Lord’s Own types descending toward downtown. She hadn’t mentioned it. If she knew something about it, he was sure Denene would have mentioned it.
He almost jumped out of his seat when, sometime later, his pager went off. He brought it up suspiciously toward his face. On its small screen he saw all the members of Onoma Verité—and his uncle and Lev Korchnoi with them. They all waved, but somehow they looked a little nervous.
Served them right, Aleck thought, surprising him like this. He waved back, set the security cameras, microphones, and motion detectors to their feedback-looped and mirror-phased false reality, and went upstairs to let his friends and relations inside.
“Hey, Aleck, what gives?” Sam asked him as the elevator doors opened. Seeing Onoma Verité and their instruments, and his uncle and Korchnoi, Aleck wondered if they would all fit in the elevator.
“What do you mean?”
“All those True Believers out on the plaza,” Hari said, jerking his thumb back over his shoulder as he and the others squeezed in. “All praying and singing and holding hands. Looking up at the sky like Jesus and his press agent are coming. Weird.”
Aleck gave his accustomed shrug as the last of them squeezed in. The doors shut and they began their descent.
“Maybe they’re upset because R & L has reinstituted the Moon and Stars on the corporate logo,” he said. “The hard-core Bible folks have always hated it. Supposed to be a Satanic symbol or something.”
That explanation seemed to satisfy everyone. By the time the doors opened and they were walking through the corridors, Sam was describing to Lev and Aleister how Aleck sometimes let the band use his workspace as a rehearsal studio.
Once back in the “studio,” the members of Onoma Verité immediately went to work setting up. Lev and Aleister listened politely to their banter, especially about how Hugh Manatee had given the band the idea for its first big concept effort. It seemed to Aleck, however, that the two out of town visitors were much more interested in Hugh Manatee himself—and his set up—than in the band’s.
De gustibus, he thought, dropping the building’s security systems out of their funhouse reality and back into the workaday world. For just a flash he caught something odd on one of the external cameras: an image of a matte-black starjet descending vertically out of the night sky onto a square surrounded by cheering crowds. In te next instant the image was gone. He wondered if one of the security guards from the previous shift had tuned one of the monitors upstairs to a broadband net. They did that sometimes, especially when they were bored. This channel they had found was apparently showing an old 2-D science fiction movie, at the moment.
No sooner had Onoma Verité finished tuning up than they launched into their cover version of a twenty year old song which—Aleck remembered as they played—was called “Golden Era Blues.”
Finally got up the courage to look through my mail.
Seems like the bill collectors will be here without fail.
My car broke down Monday and I am broke too.
Lord only knows what I’m supposed to do.
I’ve got the Golden Era Blues.
I’m outta work and I need new shoes.
Don’t bother tellin’ me what is on the news—
I’ve already got the Golden Era Blues.
My baby walked out and left me on a Sunday night,
Sayin’ “Without money, honey, things just won’t work right.”
I thought we were solid, I thought love would stay,
But at the first sign of trouble, my baby walked straight away.
I’ve got the Golden Era Blues.
I’m outta work and I need new shoes.
Don’t bother tellin’ me what is on the news—
I’ve already got the Golden Era Blues.
So damn frustrated, wanted to burgle a bank.
So damn broke, couldn’t buy a helpin’ hand gun.
Even the weather ‘round here has been darkenin’ and dank
Since the Sons of Edison hooked that meter to the sun.
I’ve got the Golden Era Blues.
I’m outta work and I need new shoes.
Don’t bother tellin’ me what is on the news—
I’ve already got the Golden Era Blues.
The rich on their hilltops may be livin’ like kings,
Yet folks in the street been sayin’ the craziest things.
Scenarios of our case may not yet have reached worst,
But remember: when the storm finally comes,
Lightning strikes the high places first!
We’ve got the Golden Era Blues.
We’re outta work and we need new shoes.
Don’t bother tellin’ us what is on the news—
We’ve already got the Golden Era Blues.
Aleck, Lev, and Aleister applauded enthusiastically. Just as their applause was trailing off, Lev abruptly stopped.
“What’s that noise?” he said. Sam motioned his fellow band members to silence, and they all listened. In a moment they heard it: running footsteps, pounding down the hall toward them. Aleck turned around in time to see half a dozen people flood in through the door, led by a blond and slightly bloodied man of military bearing, with a gun in his hand. Three of the other members of the initial group also seemed to have guns. Half a dozen more came in after them, carrying something that looked like a cross between a stretcher and a tarpaulin.
“What the hell is going on here?” Sam asked indignantly.
The bloodied blond man leveled his gun at Sam.
“Hell is precisely what’s going on here,” the blond man said sharply, from behind remarkably cold, piercing blue eyes, “and we’re here to stop it. Any complaints?”
No one thought it wise to register disagreement, just then. Belatedly the band members and their audience of three lifted their hands in the air.
“You see?” said the blond man to his companions. “It’s as the angel told your Reverend Grindstaff. My brother Mike is held captive here. The witch has flown down a holding tank, for a sea cow, while Mike’s life was at stake!”
The leader of the interlopers turned toward the musicians and their audience.
“Which of you works here?” he asked. “Which of you monitors my brother?”
The captives outside the tank glanced nervously at one another for a moment.
“Speak up!” said the blond man, an edge in his voice.
“I do,” Aleck said quietly, clearing his throat. He repeated it more loudly. “I do.”
The blond man gave a quick nod as his eyes took in the room.
“Open that access door,” he said, gesturing with his free
hand. “Show these people—” the free hand again, toward the group with the tarpaulin stretcher this time “—how to detach him from his umbilicals. Put him on the portable units and load him out onto the tarp. Go!”
Aleck rose quickly from his chair and console and headed toward the big access door. Unlocking and opening it, he led the stretcher bearers onto the open metalwork stairs and catwalk that circled the tank. Aleck hadn’t been back here often—not since training, as a matter of fact.
He began to rack his brains as he walked. If he recalled correctly, the nano-cocoon was supposed to be able to sustain Hugh’s life functions for twenty four hours, even without external hook-ups of any sort. He helped the stretcher bearers shift Hugh off the umbilicals and onto the portable monitoring and life support interface. As he did so, Aleck still hoped that he was remembering everything correctly, safety buffer or no.
The stretcher bearers caught on quickly—so quickly Aleck thought they might have med-tech or paramedic backgrounds. The first group of bearers—joined by other unarmed members of what Aleck now thought of as a raiding party—lifted Hugh out of the tank once they’d detached him from his standard umbilicals and re-attached him to the portables. They then carried Hugh away, straining under the burden.
Aleck could hear them moving away down the hall, leaving behind only the armed men who also, one by one, eased backward out the door and down the hall, until at last only the blond man was left. Then he too was gone.
Sam, Janika, Lev, Marco, Hari, and Aleister were all too shocked even to breathe a sigh of relief. Aleck, though, got his relief over with quickly enough. He began furiously clearing the channels of his security hack and scanning the security monitors in an attempt to find again what he was sure, now, was not an old movie about the future. It was a realtime present-tense feed from cameras looking out on the plaza in front of the Partons.
By the time he located those channels again, the cameras showed the stretcher bearers moving their burden up a belly ramp into the starjet parked on the plaza. Their blond leader had already caught up to them and was urging them on. Crowds cheered around the plaza, but also seemed occupied with something behind them.