A Glitch in the World

by Alex Drozd

  Stuart dropped his hands back to his sides and looked around. There were too many people. He didn’t feel comfortable out here. He hadn’t decided if he would talk to the thin man yet or not, but he knew he wanted to go somewhere secluded—somewhere they couldn’t see him talking to the thin man or covering his ears and singing to himself, rocking back and forth like a crazy person.

  They left the sidewalk and approached an array of three story buildings that Stuart wasn’t familiar with. The colony of Janus had grown fairly sizable, and was only growing more so. For all he knew, these buildings might have been brand new. He stepped into an empty alleyway between them, out of sight from the people. The thin man followed behind him without missing a step.

  Stuart collapsed onto the ground. He leaned his back against the wall of one of the buildings, groaning, nearly in tears.

  “What do you want?” Stuart said.

  “We need to talk.”

  “You always do. You always appear out of nowhere to tell me something. Why? Why do I see you?”

  “I’m not a glitch, Stuart. Listen, I came to warn you about them.”

  “Warn me? What about. Them?”

  “The people you see, yes, like Alissa and Dwayne. You need to stay away from them.”

  “And they’re telling me to stay away from you.”

  “I know, but listen,” the thin man said. His face took on a pleading expression, a sad look growing in his eyes. “Really, Alissa is going to appear to you soon.”

  “Are there any others?”

  “Other people?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know, but I do know that she might appear to you even as early as tonight. She’s got something planned, Stuart. And that little run away and cover your ears thing you did? You need to do that when you see her. You absolutely can’t acknowledge her.”

  “Why not? I acknowledged you.”

  The thin man grabbed Stuart by the arm. The corporeal grip shocked Stuart.

  “You can’t,” he said.

  Stuart took a step back. There was a frown on his face, the crease at the edge of his lips becoming deeper. He shook his head.

  “Listen,” he began. “I know I’m crazy all right?”

  “You’re not crazy.”

  “But just how crazy do you think I am? Do you think I don’t wonder to myself what this is all about when you’re not around? Do you think I just take for granted that all of you keep popping up to scare me and warn me about each other? I wonder where you come from. I wonder what Alissa and Dwayne are. Now, if you want me to listen to you, then answer me. What is going on?”

  The thin man sighed. He looked at Stuart, the sad expression in his eyes growing even sadder. He then began to speak. “I’m sorry you’re involved in this. I’ll tell you right now, I have no idea why you are, but you are. Something’s wrong with your brain. That’s all I know. The same inconsistencies in the laws of nature that allow things like Alissa to exist must also be in the matter that makes up your mind—some molecule didn’t bond according to the rules or something like that. I’m not going to pretend to understand it, because none of us really do.”

  “Who’s us?”

  “The people I work for aren’t like you, Stuart. We don’t see things like Alissa, but we know they’re there, and we’re trying to stop them.”

  “How do you know they’re there? What are they trying to do that you need to stop?”

  “We were able to derive their existence from data we collected. Look, I can’t tell you about that. The research isn’t public, but that’s okay because it doesn’t have to do with you. But I’ll tell you what Alissa and Dwayne are and how you come into this. You’re more concerned about them than you are about me, right?”

  Stuart frowned at the thin man. “Go on.”

  “How much cosmology do you know, Stuart?”

  “Oh no, not this again.”

  “What?”

  “Alissa explained to me how glitches in nature can occur already.”

  “Did she really?”

  “Yep.”

  “Hmm. Well, then you understand the fact we exist isn’t in accordance with the known facts about the universe?”

  “Yes, the symmetry laws tell us that after the Big Bang, the universe should have been filled with an equal amount of matter and antimatter, but for some reason there was more matter than there should have been.”

  “You understand that matter and antimatter are identical in every way except for their electric charge is flipped?”

  “Yes, and they annihilate one another upon contact, so the fact that there was that little bit of extra matter is why we exist today. I understand the problem. After Alissa told me about it, I read up on it. It’s interesting, but I don’t see how that explains me seeing a girl who can disappear and walk through people.”

  “Well, I can’t help you there. Inconsistencies in the laws of nature itself, which by definition can’t follow a pattern, aren’t the easiest thing to understand. Not when all of science acts according to a consistent and structured universe. Well, though we don’t know how it came to be, we, the institute I work for, know what happened to cause the matter excess.

  “Somehow, when our universe began it split into two different universes. This in itself is a serious glitch, and should not happen, should never happen, yet it did. I guess an analogy is the birth defect of conjoined twins, but it’s a bad one because the errors that gave rise to the mutation are permitted by the laws of physics, but in this case, there are fundamental errors in the laws of physics themselves. Understand me, it’s not that our understanding has errors in it; it’s that nature itself isn’t being consistent.”

  “I get that.”

  “All right, well, after the Big Bang, what should have been a single universe became two conjoined parallel universes, and for a brief period of time, there was a matter and antimatter exchange between the two. Somehow, a little bit of the antimatter from this universe bled into that one, and a little bit of matter from that universe bled into this one. That’s what gave rise to the excess, and that’s not how it should be. Every universe should be devoid of matter, completely empty, all of its mass annihilated right away when the equal parts of opposing matter collided. Yet, in our dual-verse, we have the anomaly of matter.

  “Now, while our universe is composed of matter, the other one is of course made of antimatter. If the exchange between the two universes were to happen again, and the connection were to open up, our matter would mix with their antimatter and annihilate everything down to the last proton. For whatever reason, Alissa and the things like her want to bring this about. I don’t understand why. I don’t even understand what they are, but they’re trying to end life, Stuart. Do you see? They think things should be like they are in the other universes. They think there should nothing but a vast emptiness, with no life inhabiting a single volume of space. They consider our two universes an aberration of nature.

  “We think they’re trying to use your mind as a bridge. They’re eerily obsessed with you, Stuart. I have no idea how they’re going to do it, we’re not there yet, but wherever the connection between our universe and the parallel antimatter universe is, they think it’s in your head. And they’re not going to leave you alone until they find it.”

  “Well, what the hell do I do?” Stuart asked. His head was spinning. He wasn’t even bothering with trying to decide whether or not he was insane, or if the thin man was telling the truth. What did it matter? This was his reality, and it was all he was ever going to get. Whether it was real—in the sense that these events existed outside his own awareness—or not had no meaning to him; it was what he was experiencing that matter, and that was what he was stuck with.

  “We’re trying to come up with a way to block them from getting to you,” the thin man continued. “We’re sorry that we can’t find a solution faster, but you must understand what we’re dealing with here. Research is hard enough when you’re studying a system that’s at
least consistent, but we’re trying to make sense of something that’s a product of nature itself breaking down. We don’t understand it, Stuart, and we can’t help you understand it. But we can try to keep them off your back so you can get back to living your life. You’re the only person who can see them for some reason.”

  Stuart sat on the ground still, his face buried in his palms. It was a lot to take in. He probably was insane. There was no denying it at this point.

  “So, what do I do when I see Alissa?” Stuart asked after a few moments of silence.

  “Do whatever you can to ignore her. Even if she makes you see things again, you just ignore them and shut your eyes. Everything she does is all in your head. She can’t actually do anything physical to you until she opens the connection.”

  “Where has she been since I last saw her? Do you know what she did last time?”

  “Yes, I know. That’s why I went to meet you on Earth. That’s when we knew it was serious.”

  “Well, where’s she been?”

  “She’s in the antimatter universe right now. That’s all we know. We have no idea what it’s like over there, whether it’s an antimatter universe identical to our own but with reversed charge, or if it’s an antimatter universe with a different cosmological history. We don’t know. But she’s about to come back, and we know she’s coming for you.”

  “I don’t want to do this,” Stuart moaned. He shook his head left to right. “This is torture, you know that, right?”

  “I understand, Stuart. Please, just hold tight. When you see her again, you just ignore her, okay? We don’t think what happened to Dwayne will happen to you, but if she opens the bridge, it could be worse.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “Haven’t you figured it out?”

  “No?”

  “Dwayne didn’t really commit suicide, Stuart. They must have made him jump off of that building.”

  “I thought you said they couldn’t affect us physically,” Stuart said. He was beginning to sweat.

  “True, but they can put ideas in your head and make you see things. We’ve been over this.”

  “But, why would they do that to Dwayne? Could he see them, too? I thought I was the only one?”

  “We think they did it to get to you somehow.”

  “But that was almost a year ago.”

  “It takes them a while. The fact you’re seeing them means their plans are working. I don’t know if Dwayne could see them or not, but they might have been able to bring about killing him without him being able to. There’s still a lot we don’t know, Stuart. I know you wanted more answers, but I’ve told you everything I can without exposing my group’s secrecy. But even if you knew more about us, you wouldn’t be able to understand what these things are. We’re working on it.”

  “So what now? Go home and wait for her to appear?”

  “Yes. It’s the only thing you can do. Our immediate priority is to find a way to stop them from appearing to you, but you’ll have to hang tight.”

  “You’re repeating yourself now.”

  “I know. I’m trying to reassure you. Again, I’m sorry you have to go through with this, Stuart.” The thin man patted him on the back and got up to leave. “Remember, do whatever it takes to ignore her. She can’t do anything to you unless you acknowledge her.”

  He left Stuart sitting by himself in the alleyway. The young man stared at the dirt around his shoes, trying to collect his thoughts. There was a deep feeling of hate inside of him. What the thin man had told him about Dwayne came as a complete surprise to him—and now those things dared to come back wearing his appearance? It was sickening.

  Who else could they hurt if they wanted to?

  For a brief moment, Stuart felt relief at the state of his life, at the crippling depression which had rendered him alone in the world.

  He didn’t like anybody. At least there was no one they could hurt to get to him.

  18

  After leaving the alleyway, Stuart didn’t go back to school. He didn’t want to bother with thinking of an excuse to tell Jerry for ditching him, or having to explain to his teacher why he was so late getting back to class. He didn’t know where he was exactly; his path hadn’t been thought out, but he found a hover bus stop soon enough and was on his way back home.

  His mother would wonder why he was home so early, but he didn’t worry about that. Other things were on his mind. The thin man had said Alissa could appear as early as tonight. That unsettled him. What might she try to do? Would he be able to ignore her?

  As he was sitting on the bus, Stuart noticed a man approaching him from down the aisle. He wore the deep red business suit common to Janus, and he held a large electronic device in his hand, an oversized PortScreen. With an overbearing grin, he sat down next to Stuart, holding out the device in front of him for Stuart to see.

  “Hello, young man. How are you today?” The man said.

  “I’m fine,” Stuart said.

  The stranger pushed the PortScreen farther in front of Stuart’s face. He looked down to see a collection of signed names displayed on the screen, arranged from top to bottom. “Would you like to sign a petition to overturn the Equity Measure? We’re collecting signatures to let the Janus administration know that collectivism isn’t going to work for our little world.”

  “No thanks,” Stuart said to the signature collector.

  “Oh, but you must!” the man said. “Don’t you think it’s a little silly that a janitor and a miner by law must have the same pay? Come now, it goes against basic common sense.”

  “People who come here don’t do it to get rich, I thought,” Stuart said. “They come here to help build a new world.”

  “But you can’t build a new world when the people here don’t have the incentive to work harder! In a few years we won’t have any upcoming engineers, doctors, or computer scientists! Those are hard jobs, and no one is going to take them unless they’re rewarded more for that job than an easier one.”

  “I just started my Zero, and I’m doing programming. I don’t care about the Equity Measure.”

  “Well, that’s you. You look like a hardworking and determined individual. You recognize your basic responsibility to society. See, if everyone was like you, the Equity Measure would work, but everyone isn’t like you, young man. You’re one in a million. Don’t you know people who would take the easy jobs if they had the option?”

  “Yeah, I guess so,” Stuart said. He shrugged. “Sorry, but I’m not interested in signing. Have a nice day.”

  Grumbling, the signature collector got up and proceeded to bother someone else. Stuart frowned. Part of him felt that he needed to be more aware of what was going on, that he needed to know the details of life on Janus, and how things were going. But living on Janus was bad enough; did he really have to spend time keeping up with every little thing the colony’s leaders did? It wasn’t like his being informed affected any of their decisions.

  Once the bus ride was over, Stuart got off and headed for his family’s dwelling unit. He stared at the frame of the front door for a few moments before going in, thinking about his PSFA episode that had occurred right there, where he had grabbed onto the entrance, kicking and screaming, afraid to let go lest he fall to the bottom of the planet. But he knew it hadn’t been an episode of PSFA that had caused it; it had been Alissa. She had done it to mess with him, apparently. She was trying to find that bridge to connect this universe with the parallel, antimatter one.

  Was he actually believing all this nonsense?

  Stuart shook his head, thinking, I might see her tonight.

  It wasn’t a comforting thought.

  He walked through the front door and found his mother sitting in the living room, staring at the VidScreen. A partially done painting lay displayed on the screen. It appeared to be a portrait of someone.

  Brenda looked up at him when she realized he was there.

  “What are you doing home so early?”

  “My tea
cher said we could go home since it’s the last day of the first week.”

  She seemed to believe him. “Well, I got my first commission already. I didn’t think it would happen so fast.”

  “Is that it?” Stuart asked, pointing at the incomplete portrait.

  “Yeah,” Brenda sighed. “I’m not enjoying painting this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because, I don’t care about this person. And why do they want me to physically draw a picture of their kid anyway? They have computer programs that can paste the painting look over the image. It seems almost pointless to have me do this.”

  “But you’re getting paid for it, right?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t see why they would bother to spend the money when you can take any photo and make it look like a painting on the OpenNetwork for free. I don’t get it.”

  “Maybe they want to know a human did it. Like how Uncle Cliff only wants to listen to music that humans wrote, not computers.”

  “Maybe,” Brenda frowned. She sighed to herself. “I don’t like my job, Stu.”

  He sat down on the couch, not responding to her for a moment. “I don’t like certification training,” Stuart then said.

  “Well, I guess I better learn to like this job,” Brenda said. “Otherwise, I’ll have to do what you’re doing. You seem to be really busy.”

  “I am.”

  “There’s only six more years total.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel much better.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  Stuart left his mother in the living room to work on the painting she didn’t want to make, heading for his room to start on the homework that he didn’t want to do.

  What’s the point of all this? he wondered. Why do we do this? It’s not like being alive is enjoyable or anything.

  When it was time for dinner, Stuart dragged himself to the dining room to join his parents. There was a strange feeling brewing inside him, one that knew bad things were about to happen, but one that had also given up and knew that nothing could be done to avoid what was to come. It was the feeling of wanting to give up.

  Stuart noticed his mother was unusually taciturn as she put the finishing touches on the meal, which looked to be an uninspired form of soup. Following Brenda’s mood, his father seemed quiet as well. Stuart could tell he was bothered by his wife’s unhappiness, but that he didn’t know what to say.