“For I am transformed! I have left the mortal plane behind me! In truth, I have risen above the mantle of godhood!” Victor said with maniacal glee, followed by the obligatory muahahas.
“Okay, Titan, simmer down.”
Simon handed the ticket to Spencer, and she folded it into her purse, which she placed in her bag.
“Alright, now that’s all sorted, let’s get back to that wine,” Spencer said.
∆ ∆ ∆
The trio had resettled in the living room of Spencer’s flat and partaken in a celebratory drink or two, of which they were now feeling the effects. Spencer and Victor had melted into the sofa while Simon lay back in a reclining chair by Victor’s side. Simon was equally tipsy, despite only having a few sips from his champagne glass. Vicky was in her bedroom, so they were trying to talk quietly about their plans for the winnings.
“Well, renovation of the warehouse is a priority, since it’s going to be our base of operations,” Simon said. “Then, once our wages are paid, everything else should be poured back into the drive project.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Victor said. “Fixing the warehouse won’t be cheap, especially since we need to expedite the work, but our wages will be negligible. How much will we have left? Our prototypes might be expensive to produce.”
“Well, the jackpot is an eight point eight million roll-over, but we don’t know how many winners there’ll be, so we can’t finalise budget. Maybe we should have sent that information back from the future.” Spencer said.
“We could still do it,” Victor suggested.
“Well, yeah we could, but what difference would it make? The other winners have most likely already bought their tickets, and even if they haven’t, it’s not like we could force them to choose losing numbers. I’m sure we can wait a day before we have to set out a financial plan.” Spencer said.
“Right, we can’t — and probably shouldn’t — cheat anyone out of their win, but we can add an extra winner. If we buy another ticket, our share will increase. Plus we get to test the drive again, and that’s fun.” Victor said.
“Isn’t that getting greedy? We’re still cheating someone out of a portion of their win.” Spencer asked.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Victor replied. “Besides, what are they going to do with their share? Squander it on extravagances? Ours will be used for the betterment of the human race. Even in the unlikely event that they give their entire win to charity, what we have planned could eventually render those charities redundant anyway.”
“Okay,” Spencer said resignedly, knowing any argument from her wouldn’t win out in the end.
“I’ve made a note of the time,” Simon said. “If we’re set on sending that message, it should already be on the drive.”
“We sure are,” Victor said. “Let’s do this.”
With a slight alcohol-induced wobble, Victor detached himself from the sofa and headed to Spencer’s bedroom. Once there, he used the trackpad on the laptop to open the Received folder and, sure enough, he found a new file with the name winners.txt. Victor opened the file with a double-click, and the notepad once again appeared on-screen.
There are two winners, including ourselves.
Victor performed a double fist pump and mimed a yes as Spencer and Simon entered the room then read the message. They joined his celebration, Spencer trying to appear more nonchalant about it. This meant a win of over four million for them.
“Okay, what if we sent this message back to this afternoon?” Victor asked. “It took a few seconds to find the numbers because the pop-up failed, so we won’t notice anything amiss when there are extra files. What do you think will happen to our present if we get this information early?”
“I presume that this conversation will never have happened,” Simon said, “and we’d be back in the living room, having never had a reason to come here in the first place.”
“We also won’t have learnt anything,” Spencer said. “For experimental purposes, it will be a wasted exercise.”
“That’s something we’ll have to change for future messages,” Simon said. “Maybe some kind of versioning system so we can tell how many timelines we’ve created. It can’t be automated as the computer will be no better than we are at differentiating one timeline from another, so we’ll have to agree on a format for manual input.”
“In the meantime, we could add a postscript to our new message, letting our past selves know what’s new. You know what would be interesting? Can the drive handle sending videos back yet?” Spencer asked.
“The entangled photons send information faster than the speed of light, so I should think so,” Simon replied. “The only limitation is on the physical hard disks and how quickly they can write. They’re solid state, so they’re fast but not as fast as the photons. The video will appear on the drive slightly after the new text file, and hopefully before we find the numbers.”
“Okay, so if we make a video message about the change to the timeline, we can send it back to ourselves, and we’ll have a video diary from a reality that no longer exists. There are some cool experimental applications after all.”
“Excellent,” Simon said, calling up the laptops webcam software.
After they had made their video, Simon selected it, along with a file named winners.txt and chose a destination time that was one second after they had received the lottery.txt file. He clicked the on-screen button marked ‘Send’.
Chapter 5
Spencer finished her wine and placed the empty glass on the coffee table, in front of where she and Victor lounged on the sofa. She reached over the arm of her seat, grabbed her bag, placed it on her lap and pulled out her purse.
“I just want to have another look at them,” she told the others. “Do you think they’ll get suspicious that we both used the same numbers?”
She looked at the pair of lottery tickets, identical save for the signatures on the back. One of which was hers, the other Simon’s.
“I doubt it,” Simon said, “coincidence is perfectly plausible. Even if we’d bought three of four tickets with the same numbers, the only thing they’d think to question would be our intellect, since there’s nothing to be gained from it without rigging the draw. They know that’s impossible, so they just go back to thinking we’re idiots. Who would ever accuse us of having knowledge of the future?”
“No one,” Spencer said, “you’re right. If we bought more tickets, they would conclude that we’re morons, but there would be an investigation before they came to that conclusion. That would have caused trouble for our plans, so I’m glad we stuck to just the two.”
“The jackpot for tomorrow is over eight million,” Victor said, “so our two-thirds should work out at over five million, three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three pounds. I agree, two was enough.”
“So, we cheated someone out of a million and a third?” Spencer asked.
“We’ve been over this. They still have over two and a half million, I’m sure they’ll be happy with that.” Victor said. “Maybe our work will affect him or her in greater ways than those extra millions would. If not, when we’re turning in a profit, we can send whoever-they-are the extra if it makes you feel better.”
“It might,” Spencer said with an exaggerated sulky pout, then changed the subject. “Let’s watch the video again.”
She had made a copy of the video when it arrived with the numbers and stored it on her phone. Spencer cast it to the TV so they could all watch. The screen filled with the faces of all three friends, Simon on the left of the frame, Victor on the right and Spencer centre frame. Spencer was first to speak.
“Hi, alternate us!” the on-screen Spencer said.
“Hey!” Simon and Victor said in unison from either side of her.
“We decided to conduct an experiment regarding alternate timelines created via our actions.”
The original trio stared at the screen in silence, they watched themselves as they s
poke words that they had no recollection of ever having voiced. It was like nothing they had experienced before, not one of them could remember being so intoxicated that even a video replay couldn’t cure their amnesia. The knowledge that this had happened in an entirely independent reality added another layer of idiosyncrasy to the circumstance. A part of their consciousness had been split from their allegorical soul and removed permanently. Even second time around, the effect was eerie.
Video Spencer continued. “In our original timeline, we received the winning lottery numbers, but not the number of winners. We decided to try and leave evidence of our reality in the one that supersedes it. Yours. If this is to be a learning experience, it would be impractical of us to allow our participation to become eliminated. We suspect that this timeline will cease to exist once you know the number of winners, so in a sense, you’ve killed us.”
“Thanks for that. What did we ever do to you?” On-screen Simon said.
“Earn this.” On-screen Victor whimpered, overacting a tearful breakdown.
The video ended, leaving its first frame as a still on the screen. Simon, Spencer and Victor stared for a few more moments while their minds absorbed the unusual events once more. Watching the video made the reality of what they had accomplished all the more tangible. Simon was first to snap out of the reverie.
“It takes some getting used to.” he said.
“It does,” Spencer said, still a little stunned despite the knowledge of their own technology.
“They taught us a valuable lesson,” Victor said. “We should keep a diary of all our work, even the small stuff, we might not recognise the acorns that are destined to become mighty oaks. Data can be attached to any messages we send back, then we know that we haven’t completely erased any important puzzle pieces when we manipulate reality.”
“I wish I could show this to every creationist,” Simon said. “Proof of reality manipulation would really put a hole in their theories of divine plans. They’re not going to like it.”
The group had always found the religious — and their ability to ignore even the most compelling of evidence — immensely frustrating. Their vexation was a large part of their motivation in creating the time drive; a substantial portion of the human race was disposed to remaining stagnant in our pursuit of knowledge, others even choosing to regress. If the masses were unwilling to advance, either through apathy or fear of what they might find ahead, the team were more than prepared to give them a firm push.
“I don’t think there’ll be any part of this that the religious will be fans of, to be honest,” Victor said. “Do you think our alternate selves felt it when they were replaced?” Victor asked.
“I very much doubt it,” Simon replied. “Maybe it’s more like being rewound on a video. Time gradually runs backwards until it meets the point where the timeline skews. Not literally of course, but time is relative. It could be that time is moving both forwards and backwards simultaneously, the future and the past both existing in the same instant; or maybe there is no time, it’s just our physical nature that makes us experience time linearly.”
“It’s not like they’re new theories,” Spencer said.
“Of course not,” Simon replied. “I’m just trying to answer Victor’s question by illustrating that, even though we have harnessed it, our minds still can’t comprehend the nature of time itself. We’re unlikely to be conscious of reality being manipulated around us while our brains’ ability to perceive it is so limited. If the theory of the multiverse is correct, then we haven’t caused anything that doesn’t already occur naturally. If infinite universes are existing alongside ours, one for each and every variance of possibility, then our changes are nothing new, you can’t add to infinity. We won’t be conscious of the realities we create if we can’t perceive the alternates that are already there. Alternate universes could be like cul-de-sacs, the reality ends when a new event takes place, it goes no further linearly, but still exists in its own bubble of time and space while future events play out in the universes that sprung from the parent’s possibilities. Then there’s the possibility that the reality from which our video originated could still exist, continuing on after they sent the message.”
“I think we’ve learnt more about quantum physics over the past few hours than anyone in the whole scientific community for the past century,” Spencer said, “but we’re still not really sure what the hell is going on.”
“Like I said,” Simon reminded her, “it’s unfathomable via our limited perceptions.”
“I wonder how different this timeline is now,” Victor asked.
“Well, we only decided to get another ticket because of the winner message so our share will have increased by over a million in comparison to the previous reality,” Simon replied, “but who knows what other smaller changes occurred. Especially since the video didn’t go into any other detail. One thing’s for sure, all this has highlighted the rudimental nature of the drive system, it does need some rework to incorporate all this new information.”
“Yeah, first we need to fix the notifications for new messages. Maybe we can write a phone app and send via push, so we don’t have to be at the drive.” Victor said.
“That would be much more convenient. Then we need some kind of indicator for attachments that are a record of erased timelines,” Simon added.
“I’m getting a headache from all this sciencing, plus I’m probably a little bit too drunk to handle it,” Spencer said.
“Yeah,” Victor said, “Let’s take a sciencing break until after the win tomorrow. It’s all a little overwhelming.”
Chapter 6
Spencer, Simon and Victor were once more sitting in Spencer’s living room, side by side on the sofa. Subconsciously, the big moment had brought them to need physical proximity, group hugs were a likely occurrence.
“It’s crazy,” Spencer said, “I know it’s a foregone conclusion, but I still can’t help but feel nervous for the draw; like it still might not happen.”
“It’s most likely because our minds are fully conditioned with the knowledge that nothing is a certainty, other than the laws of physics.” Simon said, “We may have repealed those laws, but it might take a while for our minds to catch up.”
“Yeah, I’ll just make do with Dutch courage for now,” Spencer said as she poured herself another glass of wine.
The trio had a feast of chips and dips, pizza and wine on the coffee table. Vicky was out on the town with her friends for the night, and most likely not coming home till the very early hours of the morning, so they could celebrate in secret. They had decided to keep the win to themselves to avoid drawing attention to their work, for which they had developed a front organisation. The cover was only partly false, as the business would deal with technological innovation, using Simon’s warehouse as a think tank base of operations. Simon was planning to make himself a sleeping area in the building so he could live there and keep an eye on the drive; he may have lost his home, but he wouldn’t be homeless. Spencer and Victor had spent most of the day under Gary’s watchful eye, helping Simon move the rest of his things from the flat to a rented moving trailer. Victor would return the trailer tomorrow, once they had emptied its contents into the warehouse. Builders were due to arrive on Monday to fix the west wall, to begin with; then they were to replace windows, doors and ultimately make it livable for Simon with a shower and kitchen. He’d need to sleep in the warehouse tomorrow night to make sure that nothing was stolen, the west wall void was temporarily boarded while waiting to be repaired. Simon would be living in a building site until all was finished. He had decided to keep the space open-plan and not add walls to make his bedroom, he would place a bed in a corner of the upper floor — where most of their work would take place — and surround it with screens. Simon felt a great relaxation while in his workspace, separating himself from that source of comfort was counterintuitive to him. Though still in need of some renovation, the upper floor was mostly intact, the group could work
there without being disturbed by the builders, shifting temporarily to the lower level when work there was complete. The drive would look like a heavily modded gaming PC and didn’t create any large, conspicuous whirling wormholes through dimensional space and time, there were no Wheel of Fortune style spinning wheels behind their seats or vehicles leaving flame trails. They didn’t have to worry too much about what the workers saw, they would just need to keep the discussion of future events to a minimum.
The three scientists — though already feeling a natural buzz of excitement — became all the more alert once the pre-draw game show came to a close. Soon enough, the show’s host handed over to the part of the studio where the lottery ball machine stood. His co-host welcomed the audience, reminded them that there was a double roll-over eight million pound jackpot up for grabs and engaged in the usual officiating of the security features for the draw. Eventually, the host wished the viewers good luck, and the over-sized red start button was pressed. The balls began to spin within the large clear plastic globe.
The trio moved to the edge of their seats in anticipation of the first number. A ball popped out of the machine and rolled down the metal track to the end point. It was marked with a number six.
“Oh, my God, it’s really happening,” Spencer beamed.
Another ball rolled to a stop next to the six, this one marked forty-two.
“Yes!” Victor shouted with a fist pump.
When thirty-four rolled into place, they were all standing and whooping, almost missing eleven’s appearance.
Next up was twenty-two and Spencer, Simon and Victor screamed with excitement.
The last number popped out of the machine, rolled down the track to fill the last spot at the end - forty-four.
The three bounced and jumped for joy, then crowded into a scrum style group hug, spinning in circles.
“Oh. My. God!” Spencer cried, holding out the last syllable until she almost ran out of breath.
Simon grinned. “It begins,” he said dramatically, grinning from ear to ear.
Drive Time Page 3