Jump Starting the Universe

by John David Buchanan

  In an attempt to be absolutely honest and transparent, we should indicate we are open minded to the occurrence of multiple personalities in scientists – it sometimes makes for regrettably unremarkable science, but absolutely astonishing theatre. Furthermore, and to be even more absolutely and complete transparent, as in - see through us like a recently cleaned clear glass window transparency - we own zero (as in 0.0) shares of ULT; that would be stupid wouldn’t it. If you don’t believe us ask David and/or Tom (for the record, two entirely separate people).

  If you have already invested in ULT, please refrain from entering any field of science; the fewer absurd answers we have to deal with the better!

  “So how do we do this Blackie, how do we slip out without being noticed?” asked Amelia.

  “It’s all about diversion,” he said. “These guys take their jobs very seriously, and honestly I’m glad they do. But it provides us with a small advantage. When anything, any little thing seems out of place it gets looked at pronto.”

  “Great, that explains everything,” said Mark.

  “Not so fast Mark,” said Amelia, “let him finish.”

  “Yeah, I’m riveted,” Wayne said dryly. Amelia shot him a look and turned back toward Blackie.

  “So here’s what I do. First I make the rounds on the first floor, then all the floors that connect to the parking garage by a regular or emergency exit. Normally I’m in my work out shorts so it looks like I’m exercising.”

  “I’m sure you’re stunning,” said Mark with a grin.

  “Mark, be quiet.”

  “But what I’m really doing,” continued Blackie as if Mark hadn’t interrupted him, “is surveillance; finding out where the security guards are stationed and how many of them are at each location. Then, I go to the restaurant to get a drink.”

  “Well yeah, after all that hard exercise,” interjected Mark.

  Blackie went on, “In the restaurant I grab some extra napkins and I write down where the guards are stationed on every floor, then I note where the emergency exits are relative to the guards. I pick an exit close to where only one guard is stationed, and where there is another non-emergency exit close by but no additional guards in the area, that’s critical. Then, I leave the restaurant, the charges are on our bill by the way, and I take the elevator to the floor above my intended exit door. I take the stairs down to the other emergency door nearby and jimmy the door to make the silent alarm trip. Immediately I head to the stairwell, run up the stairs to the next floor and down the hall, I get some strange looks but I just yell “working out” and head back down a stairwell near the exit door I’m going to use. When the guard leaves to check the first jimmied door I exit through the unguarded door, one with no alarm. At any time, if anything doesn’t go strictly to plan I abort the attempt.” Everyone was quiet. “Once I’m outside I make a bee line to the museum. I don’t try it every day; emergency alarms tripping everyday would be suspicious and might lead to an inquiry, I’m satisfied with a clean, unhampered getaway.”

  “How many times have you aborted?” asked Wayne.

  “Just once, once when the guard left to check the diversion alarm but another guard moved into his position. It wasn’t worth the chance of being caught and grilled about what I was doing. Plus, Joules’ dad wouldn’t be pleased to know I’ve been outsmarting his guards.”

  “At this point,” began Mark, “I should publicly withdraw my complete and contemptuous skepticism and say, dang Blackie, you might make an excellent burglar.”

  “More spy-ish than burglar I think,” said Wayne, “Blackie this is a great ruse, I’m impressed.”

  Amelia flashed an I-told-you-so look at Mark that was priceless and asked, “Do you think it will work for all of us Blackie? We’re all getting cabin fever and need to stretch our legs in a bit of fresh air.”

  “It will,” said Blackie, “but we will have to coordinate our moves, it will be much more complicated with this many people. We can’t all go wandering around the halls together, no one will believe we’re working out, the guards will think we’re up to something, remember they are paid to be suspicious. Everyone will have to leave the suite at a different time, remember we are being watched, and everyone will have to reach the stairwell above the target floor by a different route. So, the first person out the door will need to go to the level farthest from our suite. The extra time it takes for the first person to descend the stairs will give the next person out an opportunity to reach a level or two below the first person’s level and so on. The last person out the door will have the shortest route and must be careful to avoid suspicion and still make their way around the hallways quickly. Once everyone is deployed, each of us can make our way to the rendezvous point and arrive at or about the same time. To make this work everyone will need an assigned departure time and floor assignment. Each day we try to go out, each of us will have to do a trial walk to see how long it takes to make his or her assigned course without being too fast or too slow, both of those arouse suspicion. The guards don’t deploy in the same area consistently so the target door will be different almost every day, and that will affect the time it takes each of us to complete our rounds and make it to the meeting area. The best thing that could happen is our first real attempt to be the same door we use during our trial run tomorrow morning.”

  “Tomorrow? Isn’t that a little soon?” said Amelia.

  “No,” said Blackie, “it’s not too soon at all. Tomorrow I’m going out. If you lot want to join me then we make our practice runs today, compare times, and we implement tomorrow.

  “What are the odds we’ll be successful with so many of us and so little time to prepare?” asked Nita.

  “About the same as investing in penny stocks I suppose,” said Blackie.

  He took a paper napkin and at the top wrote Door 2B. “This door goes into the parking garage.” Then he made a chart with cartoon character names and told each of them which character they were. “It’s not smart to leave scraps of paper lying around with names on it,” he explained. The chart had estimated departure times from the suite, floor assignments for each character, when the silent alarm would be set off, and the exact time they were to assemble near the target door. “Remember, you won’t hear the alarm, you have to stick to the plan and be prepared to move to the assembly point at the specified time. Don’t hurry and don’t lag about, don’t engage in conversation with someone in the hall, and don’t make eye contact. So, if the alarm doesn’t trigger, if our guard doesn’t leave to inspect the emergency door, if anything else goes wrong, we abort. One more thing, if someone doesn’t show at the assembly point we leave them.”

  “What?” said Mark rather loudly.

  “The group can’t be caught in a stairwell when a silent alarm is going off, so whoever meets up with the group will exit together, stragglers will stay. If you make it to the assembly point and no one is there, retrace your route and try to look like you’re taking a walk. If you’re left behind, find someone in the hall to talk to, it will look less suspicious. We’ll meet back at the suite at this time,” and Blackie pointed to a time written on the napkin.

  “You’ve overlooked one crucial point Blackie,” said Wayne, “how do we get back in the hotel without being noticed?”

  “That’s the easiest part of all,” said Blackie with a grin, “the restaurant. Every day in the early afternoon delivery trucks line up to unload food for the restaurant between the rush hours; virtually no one is in the restaurant and the kitchen staff leave for their break. All I’ve done is walk up to a truck, say, 'Can I help you with some of that', pick up a small box of food and walk inside the kitchen. I put the box down, find my way through the door leading to the sitting area, have a seat and wait for someone to take my drink order. Service in the late afternoon is horrible though. You need to come up with your own line, or if the delivery man is already inside, I’ve just walked in like I belong there. Also, some of us should take the service elevator up to their respective walkin
g floor then come back down the regular elevator, how about every other character,” he said as he put small checks by their assigned avatar. “Stay out of the stairs; we don’t want the security guards to see us using them.”

  “You really think this will work?”

  “It has so far.”

  “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  “Well the worst for me,” said Blackie “is you lot screw my escape plan and I don’t get to visit the museum.”

  “You are really keen on that 'museum' aren’t you?” said Mark.

  “Pretty keen,” said Blackie unapologetically.

  They agreed to give the plan a try and each of them was assigned a time to do their test walk. One person at a time made their assigned rounds and returned to report their time; everyone else was in the suite or at the public pool. That evening after diner they went back to the suite where Blackie put each person’s walk times in a chart and assigned each avatar a departure time for the next day. Full speed ahead, thought Blackie, full throttle or not at all.

  The next morning they had coffee and pastries in the suite as Black canvassed the hotel. He wasn’t gone long. “Everything looks good, we are going out door 2B,” said Blackie as he closed the door behind him. There is only one guard and no one else close by to take his place, we got lucky, looks like one of the guards must have taken the day off. Everyone get dressed and ready.” Except for Blackie, everyone was still in their pajamas.

  “I’m leaving first to double check the guards,” said Blackie to the dressed and assembled group, if we need to abort I’ll call the room on the house phone.” Out he went. No phone call came and one by one they left the suite. Nita did get cornered by a nice lady who admired her outfit and wanted to talk about fashion. Wayne got caught-up with some cat on the fourth floor talking about bass amps - turns out the guy just knew he must be a bass player. Mark got tons of attention as he unwittingly touched everything in the halls with his left hand; the table, the vase, the doily, the paintings, and several door knobs as he passed them. In spite of all that, and a guard stopping Blackie to ask him how he liked the hotel, they all arrived at the rendezvous point more or less on time. Blackie, who had already tripped the silent alarm joined the group and peeked out the door. No guard. The group flooded out of the stairwell and made straight for the exit door that led into the garage. Seconds later they were out on the street.

  “Sweet freedom,” said Amelia.

  Blackie was about to have an aneurysm but once everyone made it through the door and onto the street he calmed down. “Are you okay?” asked Mark.

  “Yeah, I’m fine, but this was a lot more stressful than when it was just me. This was like the last game of a basketball playoff.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Yeah, but not anymore,” said Blackie as the group made their way toward the museum. It was nice to be outside.

  “Are we staying together or splitting up,” said Amelia, “I would love to go to the park.”

  Mark looked at Nita, “Park?” She nodded. “Wayne, are you going to the park?

  “Sure.”

  “There you have it. Have fun at the museum Blackie, we are going to the park and we’ll catch up with you for lunch. We’ll find you,” finished Mark.

  “See you around noon then,” said Blackie and off he went in a determined stride toward the museum.

  The rest of the group made their way uneventfully to the park and casually walked the perimeter pathway. Then they explored the various paths into the interior. One path led to a small lake with crystal clear water whose shallows were covered with small stones, and the beach was covered with the fine grain sand. Birds that looked like snow geese were swimming near a stand of plants that looked like cattails from Terra Bulga. Mark and Wayne began a rare, if not deep and philosophical, discussion of parallel evolution versus intelligent design. Nita and Amelia were sitting on the bench with their faces toward the morning sun, trying to get a little color in their cheeks. Now and then Amelia would overhear Mark or Wayne make a surprisingly astute observation, and say to no one in particular, “nice point.” Mostly they didn’t hear her as they were 'deep and thick' so to speak.

  Finally Wayne said to Mark, “That’s rubbish, if you’re going to quote that guy we can’t really have an INFORMED debate.”

  Mark looked across the table at Amelia and said, “He’s right you know, but that’s all I had,” and shrugged.

  “Maybe intelligent design included ability for species to evolve in parallel,” suggested Nita.

  “Nice one,” said Amelia. “You may have just completely destroyed a very good argument,” said Mark.

  “It’s what I live for,” replied Nita.

  “How do you feel about song endings?” asked Mark.

  “Don’t go there Mark,” said Wayne, “if our plan doesn’t work, we’ll consult Nita, 'Nita the destroyer'.”

  “Very funny Wayne, that’s very funny,” looking at Wayne with her eyes crossed.

  “Mom said those could get stuck like that,” said Mark.

  “Yeah, well if you were looking at me with your eyes crossed, I’d tell you pretty much anything to make you stop,” said Wayne, who quickly swayed out of the way of a left jab.

  Blackie entered the museum and wandered around before heading to the library. Wonder why he did that? He pulled two books from the shelves, Shumbrans and Why You Should Avoid Them, by Itzhac Perktanian, and Centorians, Guardians of the Universes, by Stueben Stalcrys. He plopped into a chair at an old desk near the east end of the sitting area that was bathed in the morning sunshine. The desk looked like it was a hundred years old.

  “You’re here early,” came a familiar voice from behind, “and settled in for some light reading I see.”

  “These, oh yeah, better read than dead,” said Blackie, turning a bright shade of something between 620-740 nm on the electromagnetic spectrum when he realized what he had said. “What kind of wood is this?” he asked looking at the desk trying to hide his very warm face.

  “Kingfosi wood; that desk has been here forever, or so says the Head Librarian. She said her grandmother remembers that desk in this exact spot when she was in primary school. It wears like iron; the wood doesn’t dry or crack or splinter in the sun, that’s one reason it’s located here. You can’t find a scratch on its surface and it gets abused daily; I can assure you our student visitors are not gentle with it. Yesterday, I caught one cutting out shapes from a Quidlid sheaf with a razor knife. I yelled so hard the sun coming in that window was sprinkled with little bits of dust from the chandelier. 'What do you think you are doing?' The young man sneezed and said, 'Ease up with the dusting lady, I put a piece of paper under it.' In the next sentence I think I used the words fool, and idiot, and I’m fairly confident moron,” said Joules. 'If that razor knife cut through that sheaf', I said, 'what do you think it’s doing to the paper and more importantly the desk top'. He picked up the sheaf and paper and showed me the desk. Not one scratch. He sneezed and said, 'I hate dust'. Anyway, I told him, “Everyone hates dust.”

  She was wrong of course, you could look it up right there in that library, but who would, who cares about dust; people hate dust. But not all dust, and not stuff on the ground. Joules apologized for yelling. The young man apologized for not scratching the desk?

  “Well I had better make my rounds,” said Joules,” see if anyone else needs help.”

  “Or a good yelling at,” smiled Blackie.

  “Careful,” she smiled back, “I’ll bring dust down on you like a meteor shower.”

  “Have you ever heard of meteor day?” asked Blackie.

  “Can’t say that I have,” responded Joules.

  “Oh man, I’ve got a great story for you. The rest of the group will be by here around noon, if you think you can go to lunch I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “I’ll check with my boss and let you know before noon,” she said, then turned and walked down the aisle offering help to a young student with
a lost and puzzled look on his face.

  Blackie thought that could be Wayne 10 years ago and sniggered so loud he got a shush from the Head Librarian as she passed by.

  Blackie opened the book on Shumbrans and began to read - Shumbrans and Why You Should Avoid Them. The introduction was less than complimentary, just as he expected. The most poignant comment in the introduction was “they are considered the antagonists of the galaxies.” According to Itzhac Perktanian the Shumbrans have no known allies, they are friendless beings who at best only tolerate other Shumbrans and then only just. There is historical evidence they once reached out to other beings but systematically alienated them all. Every species they encountered they abused and abandoned having only learned the worst cultural aspects of each. The Shumbrans were drawn to the darkness of others, never the redeeming qualities or beauty, the shady and shadowy things appealed to them most because those fit their own disposition and desire. They learned deceit, ambition without balance, and they became devoid of feelings for the suffering of others. Blackie remembered being at the restaurant with Joules and how she described them, “They don’t interact like we do, they don’t recognize subtleties or even blatant kidding, they are brutal and dangerous creatures,” After reading for another hour or so he thought to himself, “I’ve had enough of this, I get the big picture, Shumbrans are the Huns of the universe.”