Quantum Times

by Bill Diffenderffer

  “We don’t have enough information,” Scarpetti responded. “I want to hit something but I don’t know what to swing at.”

  “I know I can’t just keep sitting here in the Oval Office doing nothing. I know a lot of Americans died in Paris….including Arthur Glass, a friend of mine dating back to law school. And his wife and son too. Five Americans died in that bombing in Munich. In London more Americans died. And Times Square was just terrible. The people are looking to me to do something! And you just say we don’t know enough.”

  Scarpetti shared the President’s anger and frustration. So he just said what they all knew already, “Each incident seems different – with different players. And who knows what went on in China? That is the most bizarre of all…and perhaps the most dangerous. That’s the one that scares me.”

  The President nodded. “I agree. But let’s come back to that one. And let’s set aside the Munich train station bombing. I think that was a sort of copycat thing. They wanted to get in on the action. But London, Paris and Times Square seem related – and are probably tied some way to the Tel Aviv bombing of our Embassy. And since we think that the missile that destroyed the embassy didn’t come from this world then by implication one of our visitors from other Earths may have had something to do with them too.”

  “OK. But which visitor? Plato and his guys? The Freya? The Lucky Dragon?”

  “That’s the problem isn’t it?” The President tried looking up at the ceiling, but found no answers there either. He knew from his reading of history that great Presidents made the tough decisions that were proven by events to have been correct. Looking backwards over the decades and centuries those decisions had seemed easy enough to him. Now he was thinking that maybe they had not been so obvious back then.

  “Yes Mr. President. But you know, General Greene said something interesting at the last meeting. He reminded us that at least according to Plato, they do not all have the same level of technology. So they are not all equally powerful.”

  “What are you getting at Hank?”

  “Well…we know that shooting missiles at Plato’s ship didn’t work. But maybe The Freya or The Lucky Dragon can’t do what The Bucephalus can do. Maybe we are not as powerless against them as we think.”

  The President thought about it. “You think we should try to find out?”

  “I think we should at least develop plans. And I think we have to find out what each of them is up to. I think the guys at Langley should be told to do whatever it takes to find out whatever we can. Because I’ll bet there is more coming at us. And it will get worse each time. I don’t know that we are even safe here in the White House.”

  The President nodded glumly. “I’ve thought about that. But I have to stay here and be visible. The symbol matters. But I’ve ordered the Vice President to stay away from me until the situation normalizes.”

  Scarpetti gave a grim laugh, “Well, at least some good is coming out of this.”

  The President shook his head, “Don’t get me started.”

  Scarpetti shuddered. “I don’t want to think about him running the country!”

  The President grimaced. “It’s not my favorite thought either.” He looked around the room and then returned his gaze to his Chief of Staff. “OK…now tell me about China. How bad is that situation?”

  Scarpetti took a deep breath before turning to that. “We are picking up some strange intel that maybe the Japanese were behind it as some sort of retaliation for something China did to them. But again, I don’t see how it could have happened. The security there around Tiananmen Square and The Great Hall is incredible. So it makes me think that one of the other Earths could be involved. But again we have the question as to which one?”

  “It seems there has to be some way for us to learn who and what we are dealing with. Have we heard anything back yet as to meeting with The Lucky Dragon?”

  Scarpetti shook his head, “Not yet. But we know that the Chinese have met with them. But we don’t know what was said there. And we suspect but cannot get confirmation that the Japanese Prime Minister has had a meeting with them.”

  “That’s not good enough! Tokyo has to keep me informed. I want to know everything that’s going on. All of a sudden, everything going on over there seems to be in crisis mode and no one is telling us anything.”

  “Imagine if the General Secretary had not been running late. If he had died in the blast who knows what would have resulted!”

  The President sat up straighter on the couch as he sought to lift up both his body and his spirit. “We have to learn more! What could have provoked the bombing there? If someone in Japan’s government is behind that, we could be looking at World War III.”

  As David and Gabriela looked out the window of the charter airplane as it came in to land on Pirate’s Cay, it struck David that the pretty little island was like the quiet center of a turbulent hurricane. The gentle waves of the turquoise waters of the Caribbean lapping against the island’s sandy shore foretold nothing of the political dramas playing out in the world’s capital cities. The sunshine streaming onto the island belied the storm clouds gathering worldwide.

  Once the small plane had landed and come to a stop near the little shed that served as the island’s airport, David and Gabriela grabbed their bags and as they exited the plane were glad to see Planck waiting for them next to his Landrover. Next to him was a very pretty woman holding his hand. Planck introduced her, “This is Megan Baxter. She has been helping me with social media stuff.” They all exchanged handshakes and Gabriela hugged Planck.

  “It’s great to see you, it’s been a while!” Planck said. David and Gabriela both echoed the sentiment. They were now clearly comrades in arms and wanted to share their recent battle stories.

  Gabriela grinned at Megan, “Now I understand how it is that Planck has become such a media sensation – it would have taken a lot to get him out of his island mentality!”

  David gave Planck a friendly punch on the shoulder, “Apparently not so much – just the determination of a beautiful – and I’m sure talented woman.”

  “Planck has told me a lot about the two of you. And of course, David, I follow your articles and your blog posts. I’m looking forward to knowing you both better.” Megan responded.

  “Definitely,” said Gabriela, “You’ll find it is a very small island.”

  “Guess what?” Planck continued, “Dr. Wheeling is here – with a lady friend I might add – and he and I want to bring you up to date on what we’ve been figuring out the last two months. And then I think you are supposed to meet with Plato. He’s here a lot now…but very busy. A lot of people keep coming here to meet with him. It’s a real list of the movers and the shakers. Most of who seem to have their own airplanes – though not all.”

  “I can’t wait, let’s do it!” declared Gabriela, dashing David’s idea of first taking a swim in the ocean.

  They met in one of the conference rooms in the main building. The room seemed to have been converted into a classroom with desks arranged in a half-circle and whiteboards in the front and on the side walls. When David and Gabriela entered the room, the professor was there with Planck and Catherine Ozawa was there as well. David noticed immediately that Catherine somehow looked different and then realized that she looked ten years younger than when he had seen her last which he figured was about two months earlier. He saw that Gabriela had noticed the change too.

  After the greetings were done, Dr. Wheeling stepped to the front and turned to focus particularly on David and Gabriela. It seemed Planck and Ozawa were already in the know.

  “In the last few weeks we have really come to understand more of the basics of Participatory Physics,” he began. “We have pretty much had to figure things out from first principles as Plato’s people seem prohibited from sharing too much. Still, in science it is always much easier to reverse engineer a theory once you know the result. And they have helped us understand the potentialities that are the product of a Partic
ipatory universe.”

  Planck interrupted, “It’s so cool! The Professor has taken the work I had done and saw how to extend it. He even figured out the beginnings of an equation that can be used to show the energy requirements to transform the states and molecular structure of matter to effect the desired changes. It’s remarkable – some changes require relatively little energistic expenditure and others quite a lot. But for the equation to work we had to come up with a new constant.”

  The professor took back control. “Yes we think there is a necessary constant. And Plato’s people seem to confirm its necessity. And despite my young friend’s exuberance for it, we are not going to call it ‘the other Planck constant.’ That would go too far.” David and Gabriela laughed, all sharing a joke that only other physicists would think was funny.

  “So where does the energy come from?” Gabriela asked.

  “It’s all around us!” Planck exclaimed. “And it’s the most abundant and cheapest energy in the universe.”

  “Dark energy,” both David and Gabriela said simultaneously.

  “Precisely,” stated Dr. Wheeling.

  “And how do you tap into it?” asked David.

  “Through the mind of course. But that is where the challenge lies. It all occurs at the electromagnetic level. And because the pulses are so tiny there are quantum fluctuations that must be accounted for. And that is what we have been focusing on for the last few weeks. And I should say that Dr. Ozawa has been invaluable in this area.”

  Catherine Ozawa shook her head, “These guys are way over my head. I just help with the meditation aspects that prove the theory. You see we are learning that not all people have equal abilities to do the mentalization. And the variance among people seems to exist both because of training differentials but also genetic differences. Some people seem naturally pre-wired so to speak, while others seem to have no wiring for it at all.”

  Gabriela quickly saw the sociological implications, “So mankind will once again be split into the haves and the have nots. And I presume the variability among individuals lies along a spectrum, with some with a very high potentiality, some in the middle and some at the low end.”

  Catherine nodded, “Yes, we think so, but it is too early to tell how that spectrum will map parabolically.”

  David then spoke up, “Did I understand correctly that you said that there is variability in the degree of difficulty – or perhaps I should say the energistic requirements -- to mentalize certain changes?”

  “Precisely” Dr. Wheeling answered. “The more energy required to turn X into Y or the more energy required to move X from A to B, the greater the amount of mentalization is required – that’s where our equation is put to work with the new mathematical constant.”

  Planck then added, “And we were correct here in believing that mentalization powers can be synergistically linked together through a highly focused group meditation – particularly among those trained in meditation. And we were correct about the enhancement capabilities of our amplifier – though I have to admit that Plato’s people could not keep from laughing at how primitive my amplifier is. Which obviously means that there is a lot of room for improving output and efficiency.”

  “Are you determining the limits as to what can and cannot be accomplished through mentalization?” David asked.

  Planck nodded, “We’re developing parameters. For instance, we can recombine and alter molecular structures, but we can’t affect whether the Cowboys beat the Redskins in a football game – too many moving parts and too many variables. Though let me take that back …I suppose that if we mentalized the weakening of a knee joint for instance of a key player, if that player then blew out his knee that might affect the outcome of the game.”

  David grimaced, “Put that power into the hands of the gamblers in Las Vegas and betting on sports would change forever.”

  Dr. Wheeling chastised them, “Let’s focus on the physics, please. What we are discovering is that as we would have hoped, once again our understanding of how the universe works does comport with a mathematical system that can be used to predict outcomes which can then be proven empirically.”

  Gabriela laughed, obviously delighted with how this was proceeding. “What I love about Physics is that Physics provides an understanding of how to describe what the universe does while the universe itself remains such a mystery to us. We now know that consciousness is absolutely at the heart of all existence while still not understanding what consciousness is or where it comes from.”

  Dr. Wheeling seemed almost insulted by Gabriela’s outburst. “Gabriela, the day will come when we better understand the nature of existence; but for now we face a very immediate existential threat created by our own political ineptitude and the arrival of these other Earths. Our work here may help us survive these perilous times.”

  Planck then further added to the professor’s concerns, “I still fear what happens when people everywhere find they have what would just a few months ago have seemed like super powers reserved for Marvel comic book heroes and villains.”

  Catherine Ozawa had been quiet until then, but now offered a different view. “Personally, I’m very excited at the potentiality offered to us by our Participatory universe. Excuse the pun but keep in mind that the doorway to mentalization is meditation. Meditation by its nature requires calm and quiet and balance. A world filled with people who practice meditation will be a very different world than the one we have today. I think it will be a very much better world. And those who cannot achieve a calm and serene state of mind – a peaceful state of mind – will find they are the victims, not the aggressors. Our leaders in such a world might well more closely resemble the philosopher king ideal found in Plato’s Republic.” Then it was Catherine’s time to laugh and she might have blushed as well. “Of course that’s the Plato of our own Greek history, not our new friend – who also espouses that ideal.”

  Later David sought out Plato for their pre-arranged meeting. When David found Plato in a room that Plato had set up as his office, he was surprised to see that General Carl Greene was there too. The general and David shook hands and Plato greeted him with what was now his customary locked forearms – a practice from his home Earth.

  “David, I asked the general to join us because I think it will save us time – and time could be very important to us.”

  “It’s fine with me.”

  “Good,” General Greene stated. “But as I have been telling Plato, I’m not really the right representative of the U.S. Government to be working with you guys here. There are others whose jobs are more closely tied to protecting our national security against terrorism. And in inviting me here, that is what Plato tells me this meeting is about.”

  “But as I keep telling the general,” Plato interrupted, “he is the only one I am willing to work with. I know him; I do not know the phalanx of others who would want to meet with me.”

  “Then maybe I’m the one who shouldn’t be here,” David said. “I don’t know there is anything I can do about this wave of terrorism that is occurring right now.”

  “In that respect I think you are wrong.” Plato responded. “You see David, I believe you are uniquely able to be of assistance. As General Greene can tell you, the United States believes that either The Freya, The Lucky Dragon or The Bucephalus is actually a major instigator of terrorism and is behind the recent attacks and may even now be setting up future attacks.”

  “OK. But how does that link to me?”

  “It links to you because I believe you can tell us which one of the visitors from other Earths is the guilty one.”

  “I can do that?”

  “Yes I think so. But first I need to clarify something. The charter that I operate under as I go to the many Earths is a limited one. The limits are imposed on me by my government and they have proven over time and many experiences to be wise limitations. The most important limit is that my crew and I are never to be direct actors – we can take no direct action. Nor are
we to take sides politically that might favor one local government or political faction over another. We have learned that the chain of cause and effect is too unpredictable and random for us to know what is best for the future of any Earth. However, that is not to say that I am prohibited from providing guidance and counsel, nor are we prohibited from facilitating technological development. In fact that is what my true role is. But the participants from each Earth get to decide for themselves what they should do. So here, your future is in your hands, not mine.”

  “Sounds like the Prime Directive from Star Trek. And I always thought it was stupid.” David interjected.

  General Greene spoke up, “We’ll take whatever help we can get. I’m not concerned about philosophical nuances. Plato, just by coming here you have altered the flow of our future. Whatever our future trajectory would have been, it now will be different. Maybe that will prove to be a good thing, maybe not. As you say, the chain of cause and effect is beyond all understanding. Our cultural, political, scientific and religious foundations are now all in flux. We may not have been all that stable before, but we are on the edge of disaster now. So what can you do?”

  “I believe I can help David give you the answer to the biggest question you have right now.” Plato replied.

  “I know the answer? I don’t even know the question!” David responded. Greene’s look at David showed he was as doubtful as David was.

  Plato nodded at both of them. “David, you may not know this, but you are the only person from your Earth who has actually been on The Freya. And you have been on it twice. And I believe you will also soon go to The Lucky Dragon.”

  “I did seek a meeting with the Captain of The Lucky Dragon last week and was told yes, we could meet. But the date they gave was for next week.”

  “Really?” General Greene exclaimed. “They have been ignoring us so far.”

  Plato explained, “David now has a global following. And his ability to explain to everyone what is occurring has made him a valuable presenter of the points of view of the other Earths. David limits his expression of personal judgment and his urge to pontificate – though he does cross that line occasionally.”