by Mark A Labbe
“You know, Kev,” said B24ME slyly. “You must realize I know you’re not exactly the same Kev who just disappeared from our meeting.”
At that point, I realized that I could only exist in one location and form at any one point in time, that time being my present in a way, an interesting revelation. I tried to work through the mechanics of this, trying to determine what effect this would have on the past, but for the life of me, couldn’t figure things out, even with the vast store of knowledge I now possessed.
By coming here like this and supplanting my old self, had I changed my past? How could I tell if I had? Could I tell? I had a relatively clear memory of being nine years old, in the conference room with Clive and B24ME. I remembered no discontinuity during this event, no moment where things suddenly shifted. Wouldn’t there have been some sort of discontinuity given that the younger me was no longer in the studio for some period of time, at least until the moment I would leave here with the sphere?
Clive would have to have a memory of me disappearing, and possibly seeing the older me if I now chose to reveal myself to him. B24ME had seen me and knew I was not the same person. So, his present self would have to know what had happened here. I thought it unlikely that they wouldn’t have mentioned this to me at some point in time. Perhaps they had. The brain in the vat had given me back many of my memories, but not all of them. At the times I had connected to the brain I had not had all of my memories, so it was possible that Clive and/or B24ME had told me that I had been in the studio in an older form while we were wrapping up our meeting.
Something bothered me. How did B24ME know that I was me? How did he recognize my older self? This was B24ME’s past, right? I knew I was missing something, but couldn’t find that piece to the puzzle.
Did Clive and B24ME exist at only one point in time at a time like I did? If that was the case, and assuming that my present was theirs, wouldn’t they have had to come to this point in time from the present or wherever they were in time to meet me here, in order for me to find them here? If that were the case, would the Clive that I found in the conference room be the present, older Clive? I couldn’t tell by looking at B24ME because B24ME was a floating, black cube, an artificial being that did not age the way Clive and I did. So which Clive would I find in the conference room?
“B24ME,” I said. “How old is Clive right now?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Why don’t you come to the conference room and see for yourself?” said B24ME.
“Just tell me, B24ME.”
“No.”
“Fine. Answer this. Is this your present or your past?”
“Interesting question. I think you might be on to something right now,” said B24ME. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. Can you at least tell me if you understand what is going on?”
“To be completely honest, I don’t. You explained it once, but I have to admit I didn’t understand. So, do you want to come to the conference room? Maybe you’ll understand if you do.”
I knew I would get no more from B24ME, so I agreed. He escorted me to the conference room, wherein I found a now nine-year-old Clive sitting at a long white table, a broad grin on his face. I knew in that instant that Clive and B24ME were not like me, that they did not exist at only one point in time.
“Wow, you’ve changed, Kev. What are you up to, I wonder?” Clive said, chuckling. He didn’t seem surprised. Why?
In one corner of the room, hovering in the air, I saw the Proth Sphere.
“Hey, buddy,” said the sphere. “Want to connect?”
“Yeah, Kev,” said Clive. “Why don’t you connect to the sphere and see what happens.”
I knew I could control what I gave the sphere while connected to it. I knew I had done that in the past, so I believe I could recreate the universe without feeding the sphere the nightmare where the universe got sucked into a giant nozzle (note that at this point I didn’t have the memory of Aputi’s nightmare. That had been wiped away after I pressed the button on the black cube six times.) However, I didn’t fully trust my memories, and now, given that Clive wanted me to connect to the sphere, I thought maybe re-creating the universe wasn’t the best idea. I believed that because I remembered, in that instant, I was playing some strange game with Clive and the others and suspected that I might lose the game if I connected with the sphere. I did not want to lose, even if I had no clue what I was playing.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” I said.
“Kev, you have no idea what I would like, and I wonder if you ever will.”
Was he angry? I wondered if Clive was truly my friend. Was I playing a game or was something else going on, something sinister? I remembered a few things in that moment. I remembered something about Clive wanting to end all creation, although the memory was quite vague. If I connected to the sphere, would I end all creation? I remembered Clive coming after me with the sphere at one point. At that time I had even more knowledge than I did now. I had knowledge of something specific, something dangerous, a nightmare. I also remembered Aputi. However, I didn’t remember Aputi’s nightmare.
Clive rose from his seat. “So, what are you going to do, Kev?”
I knew I could control the sphere at this point. I could essentially force it to come with me and I could hide it somewhere, somewhere Clive would never find it.
I smiled and said, “Better luck next time, bro,” grabbed the sphere and teleported to heaven, a place I knew Clive could not come looking for me, or at least a place he had once said he couldn’t visit.
I didn’t know what Clive was up to, but I knew enough to know that he did not want me to have the sphere. I knew enough to know that he believed I was onto him.
“What did you do that for?” cried the sphere. “Why can’t I connect to you?”
“You and I are going to have a little chat, and you are going to tell me everything or you will never connect to anyone ever again.”
“Look, Kev, I told you, I don’t really know what’s going on. All I know is that I can’t help you. I swear,” cried the sphere. “Why won’t you believe me?”
We had been going at it for over an hour and I had gotten nothing from the sphere other than variations of this answer. While at first I didn’t believe the sphere, I now concluded that it did not, in fact, know anything.
“Well, I’m pretty sure you are central to whatever plot the others have cooked up,” I said, annoyed.
“Are you really going to trap me here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m pretty sure Clive can’t come to heaven.”
“Why is that?”
“I have a memory of him saying that.”
“But everyone in heaven has nothing but nice dreams,” whined the sphere. “It will be so boring.”
“Yeah, maybe, but you won’t be able to cause any trouble here. Anyway, once I sort everything out, I’ll come and get you.”
“Kev, there is something you haven’t thought of, something you’ve forgotten.”
“What’s that?”
“You have hidden me here before, but he has always gotten me back. Why do you think that is?”
“I’d ask, but I know you’re not going to tell me.” I suspected that one of the others might have retrieved the sphere in the past, but had no clue who it could be. I doubted it was the girl. I wondered if it could be Bri. Another possible suspect was Aputi, but I couldn’t quite see how that was possible. I knew enough about Aputi to know that the chances of him ever getting into heaven were virtually non-existent.
“I’ll tell you if you connect with me,” said the sphere.
I found myself sorely tempted to connect with the sphere, desperate for more information, information that could help me understand and maybe allow me to win whatever game I was playing. I believed I knew how to control what I gave to the sphere. However, Clive had wanted me to connect to the sphere. Did h
e know I knew how to control what I gave it? Maybe not. Maybe he wanted me to connect with the sphere because he thought I couldn’t control what I fed it.
I had memories of the dreams and nightmares of countless souls in my mind. I could just pick one of them and give it to the sphere, something harmless that would come true. If I did that, the sphere would tell me how Clive had managed to retrieve it from heaven in the past. But what if I was wrong about being able to control what I gave the sphere? I had many terrible nightmares locked away inside of me, including one of my own, one in which a giant nozzle sucked up the entire universe, thus destroying it. I didn’t want that to come true.
My memory of being able to control what I gave the sphere was quite clear. In fact, I remembered a previous time when I had possessed all of the memories from the brain in the vat, a time when I used the sphere to recreate the universe many times. However, I also remembered what had happened when I did that. I had screwed up many things and had ultimately returned the sphere to Bri and requested that the two of them fix all of the things I had botched up, which they gladly did.
At that point in time, I had been trying to recreate the universe in such a way that I would be able to get everyone in the universe to give me the information I wanted. I had been trying to create a universe that would give me an advantage in the game, although I did not succeed. I wondered if I knew enough now to get it right, or at least right enough to allow me to figure out what the hell was going on.
I searched through all of my memories, the memories of dreams and nightmares. What if I could select a set of these that would allow me to create a universe that would somehow enlighten me, or, at least, have the sphere make this set of dreams and nightmares come true, thus altering the fabric of the existing universe? In fact, I believed it would be best not to try to recreate the universe, given that I did not have enough dreams and nightmares to create a fully fleshed out universe and could end up causing a disaster.
So many dreams and nightmares, an impossible number to sift through, but sift through them I did, trying to identify ones that would help me.
I found one of Brok’s dreams buried within me. Brok had connected with the brain in the vat many years ago, right after a time when the girl had brought me to Uthio Minor from the park in Macon to get me to drink green tea, the next day, in fact, after having a dream in which I figured everything out and won this game. What would happen if that dream came true?
“I will let you connect to me if you will tell me exactly what is going on. I want to know what this game is. Why does Clive want me to connect to you? I want every bit of information you have,” I said, not believing for an instant that the sphere would agree to this.
“Sorry, Kev. No can do. Rules are rules. I was willing to break them just a little bit, but you are asking me to truly violate them,” said the sphere.
“Fine, but you have to tell me how Clive manages to get you out of heaven,” I said.
“Deal,” said the sphere. I released my hold on the sphere, immediately feeling it latching onto me, probing me, and in that instant, I fed it Brok’s dream.
The sphere immediately disconnected from me, saying, “No way. I’m not doing that.”
“Why not?” I said.
“Rules are rules,” said the sphere.
“Well, I connected with you, so you have to tell me how Clive can get you out of heaven.”
“Okay. He doesn’t get me out of heaven. You always end up setting me free and then I leave heaven and he eventually finds me,” said the sphere.
“Why do I set you free?”
“I’m not telling you,” said the sphere.
“Bastard,” I said.
“Not nice, Kev. You of all people should understand why I can’t help you.”
“Why is that?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Well, I’m not going to release you this time.”
We were in the middle of a beautiful pasture in heaven, a pasture covered with a wide variety of wild flowers. In the distance, I could see an immense floating city. I knew of a place in that city, a place that I believed would make an excellent hiding place for the sphere.
I teleported the sphere and myself into a windowless, doorless chamber with walls of glowing gold, a chamber in the heart of the city. In the center of the chamber stood a short pillar, a pillow resting on top. I placed the sphere on the pillow.
“So, this is it then?” said the sphere. “I’m just going to be a useless decoration for this empty room?”
“It’s not empty. You’re here. You can guard it from intruders. Should be a lot of fun.”
“You know, if I get out of here, I’m going to find a way to connect to you and you aren’t going to be able to control what you give me, and then we will see what happens,” growled the sphere.
“Maybe. Maybe not. I’m feeling pretty confident right now.”
“It won’t last, Kev. It never does.”
That irked me a little. While I didn’t know everything, I knew a hell of a lot, and I believed I knew enough to avoid screwing things up. I believed there was no way I would get trapped on The Show again, and I thought it likely that I would have enough time to figure out what was going on, now that the sphere was contained in heaven. Of course, I knew that there had been many times where I thought I had things in hand and had completely botched it up, so there was room for doubt. I just had to figure out what this game was all about. What were these rules? What did the others know? What was Clive’s role in all of this?
I teleported to the bar on Uthio Minor, in the present. It was still night, although the storm had passed.
“So, did you figure it out?” said Brok.
“I figured something out,” I said. “Have you seen Clive?”
“Can’t say I have. You want a green tea?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Brok served me a tall glass of tea, and I took a sip. I heard children laughing and playing, followed by, “Hello, Kev. Welcome to The So You Think You Have It All Figured Out Experience.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “Get on with it.”
I found myself in a small workshop, standing in front of a table. On the table I saw a small black cube (I did not remember the black cube at this moment, given that none of my memories gained by connecting with the brain in the vat had anything to do with the black cube, and also because my memories were pretty compromised anyway) with a circular hole in one face. Beside it I saw a cylindrical insert with a blue button. I put the insert into the cube. I pressed the button once and let go, but nothing happened. I pressed it twice and nothing happened.
“This is the experience?” I said to the voice.
“This experience is what you make it, Kev,” replied the voice.
I pressed the button three times and appeared in a small city on the edge of a river. It looked like twentieth century Peoria, a place I had been to as a child. I pressed the button four times and felt a little dizzy. I pressed the button five times and for the briefest moment had almost infinite knowledge, far more knowledge than the brain in the vat had given me.
I then appeared in the park in Macon, standing at the top of the fort. Beside me I saw the girl and Clive.
“Do you think he’ll figure it out?” said the girl.
“I doubt it,” said Clive.
“He has never taken this long before.”
“Yeah, well, you know how he is.”
“Yeah. I’m going to go to the barn. See you in a few.”
“Yup. I’ll go get Kev. You know, maybe you can take us somewhere that will jog his memory. Maybe we should go flying today.”
“Good idea,” said the girl.
I saw a flicker of light and then found myself back at the bar, looking at Brok. I reached into my pocket and pulled out three cubes, red, clear and black. I placed them on the bar, my eyes on the black cube. What would happen if I pressed the button on that cube?
I will tell you right now, because I want yo
u to know, because I think it will help you understand. I did press the button five times and I did get almost infinite knowledge, but after pressing that button five times, I blacked out for thirty-seven days, and when I blacked out, I lost control of the sphere, setting it free.
I wanted to talk to Clive before experimenting with the black cube, thinking I might be able to get him to give some things away. So, I teleported to his home, into his family room, where I found him sitting on the couch eating a bowl of sugary cereal.
“Neat trick,” he said.
“Which one?” I replied.
“Going back in time and stealing the Proth Sphere, you moron.”
“Wow, so you remember that after all this time?” I said.
“You’ve made your move. I take it you’ve figured things out,” said Clive dryly.
I wondered if I had him, if he really believed that I had figured everything out, and I thought I might be able to get him to divulge things that he normally would keep to himself. “I know you want to use the Proth Sphere on me, Clive. I know a lot of things.”
Clive smiled and said, “You almost had me, but you couldn’t keep your mouth shut, could you? You’re a real character, Kev. Why on Earth would I want to use the Proth Sphere on you?”
I cursed silently, but pressed on, remembering something Aputi had told me at one point. “You want to end the universe forever, don’t you?”
Clive’s face changed for the briefest of moments, a split second reaction that would have passed unnoticed if I had not been looking for such a reaction.
“Bro, you’ve been drinking too much green tea. It has addled your brain.”
“What if I told you I have hidden the Proth Sphere in heaven? You aren’t able to get it there, are you?”
Clive laughed and said, “Now I really know you are full of shit. Too funny. Rules are rules, Kev. I can’t go to heaven. I’ll admit that, but that doesn’t mean I can’t win. Don’t you wish you knew what was going on? Wouldn’t that make your day?”
I knew I had lost, no wiser than I was before I had come to him. “Yeah, well wishes are pointless when the entire universe is set against you.”