by Exurb1a
HARE: Your pet project.
LAMBERT: Quite so, though she is more a tiger now when once she was only a kitten. This is only a corollary matter at present, however. With modern computation, we are still at least a decade away from reaching the upper-limit of our requirements. By then the Hephaestus project should have either reached fruition, or proven itself impossible.
HARE: Look this is fascinating and all, but I'm really only here to-
LAMBERT: As I've said, Dr. Hare, the only person who knows the whereabouts of your wife is your wife.
HARE: Then there really isn't any point in me staying.
LAMBERT: Not so. Aside: Would you bring him in please?
HARE: What's going on?
Door opening. Muffled shouting.
HARE: Hayden….
LAMBERT: You'll have to forgive the restraints. Mr. Hayden is an industrious man. He'll remain bound for the time being.
HARE: What the hell is he doing here?
LAMBERT: Truth be told-
HARE: Oh brilliant. I was the bait, huh? To lure any prying eyes into the foreground.
LAMBERT: That isn't your only function, but yes, close enough. Polly planned this several years ago, making sure your suspicion would get the better of you. She knew you'd follow her here eventually. By that time, hopefully whichever agencies we need to be careful of would already be following you here also. Once again, please understand this wasn't in any way a slight against you, merely an opportunity capitalised upon.
HARE: Well, are you going to let him speak?
LAMBERT: Certainly.
Sound of gag being removed.
HARE: Are you all right?
HAYDEN: Fine.
HARE: You're quite the detective.
HAYDEN: I'm not a detective.
LAMBERT: No, Mr. Hayden is what modern parlance would describe as an 'intelligence officer'. Isn't that right?
HAYDEN: You'll let me go immediately or there'll be hell to pay.
LAMBERT: Ah, no, I don't think so.
Sound of gag being reapplied, accompanied by more muffled shouting. Sound of door being closed.
HARE: And the point of that was what, exactly?
LAMBERT: No more than a demonstration.
HARE: Of?
LAMBERT: Whichever clandestine organisation it is Mr. Hayden works for, they'll be sure to send more like him to investigate his disappearance. Upon searching your house they'll unfortunately chance upon his hair and blood.
HARE: What.
LAMBERT: I won't give some villainous speech, Dr. Hare. We're logical folk here. For starters I consider myself an axiomat through and through. It has been my experience that most conundrums can be split in two, much like taking an axe to a melon. For example, space and time had a beginning, or they didn't. Think on that. The universe either materialised from nothing, for no reason, or it has existed eternally. Now-
HARE: What did you just say about hair and blood?
LAMBERT: Humour me, the point will make itself clear. Let's first imagine the universe had a beginning in time. One obviously has to wonder what came before that point. Well, by definition, nothing. Matter as we know it requires time as a medium for change, possibly even for its existence in the first place. So, even if we were to imagine a state preceding the initial cosmic singularity, that would still not be the true beginning, and we would need to ask what then came before that, and so on and so on. Eventually we will reach a point where the universe materialises out of a true vacuum – no, less than that – and for absolutely no reason whatsoever, by definition. So we might suppose all of space and time had no beginning. That's easy enough to model mathematically. Numbers lend themselves well to infinity. The real world does not, however. If you were to pass me that teacup you'll notice there is a very finite dribble of Earl Grey at the bottom, not an infinite sea of it. The shoes on your feet appear size 11 if I'm not mistaken, rather than infinitely large. This room too is bounded in space and occupies only a very small portion of the planet, rather than an infinite plane. The natural world, our world, is not infinite. If time and space had no beginning there would be infinite time for all possibilities to play out. All actions would happen simultaneously and on an infinite scale. Since this does not appear to be the case, we can suppose then that nature had a beginning in space and time, and the cause was causeless.
HARE: This all sounds pretty religious.
LAMBERT: Do shut up, we're almost at the point. Now, we notice that the universe is set up in a particular configuration. Physics is not infinite in its complexity, natural law has a character. What could have defined that character? Whatever it is, the deciding moment must have come at the beginning of time, no?
HARE: Is that rhetorical or are you actually expecting an answer?
LAMBERT: Go ahead.
HARE: Well I know what Polly thought about all this and so do you. I can't really see the point of discussing it.
LAMBERT: What did Polly think?
HARE: That the starting state of everything is logic; that logic is built into nature itself.
LAMBERT: And before nature. Logic is the trellis nature grows up and through. She can bloom and sprout all she likes, but she must always cling to that trellis. This begs the question then, what put logic here? Why is it so fundamental? Ah, now we're getting to the crux. Now we're covering some ground!
HARE: You're completely bloody mad.
LAMBERT: Just think of it, logic, a foundation so strong and fundamental it would be the same in any universe, however odd. And there we have our answer. From whence came everything? From logic. And why? Because of logic. And what defined its quantity and shape, its configuration, its extremities? Pure logic, at the beginning of time itself. Think of the implications then. We might ask: Could the universe have come about in some other way? The answer is a resounding no. Could there have been any material cause of the universe before logic itself? Again no, by definition. Well, you might say, why should nature be built on logic? Why not chaos? Because there is overwhelming evidence to the contrary. How would it even be possible in the first place to apply mathematics to a world entirely founded on chaos? And how could a universe found itself on chaos? Atoms would be completely unstable. Furthermore, no universe could have been created to begin with. Remember, the central tenet here is that the starting point of all things is logic, and it is from logic that matter came. There is our prize. And think then what that means for this conversation. If we created time and space once more, fourteen billion years ago and ran it forward, if the universe may only come about in one configuration, then we would be destined to sit here once more, with that teacup almost empty, with that sad look on your face, with Mr. Hayden gagged and with things exactly as they are once again. That makes this very moment somewhat holy, no? It makes every moment somewhat holy, I should say. Holy in a true sense, beyond God, beyond theology. Holy in a fundamental way, the only form of holiness worth respecting. In that sense your wife was spiritual. In that sense as am I, as is everyone here. It is no longer necessary to pick away at little phenomena, trying to untangle nature's webs. Rather we can go straight to the source. On what axiomatic principles is nature founded? What physical processes would we expect to rise from them? An elegant approach, no?
HARE: How do I know you haven't just killed Polly and lured me here?
LAMBERT: To what end? What could we possibly stand to gain from you?
Pause.
LAMBERT: Exactly, Dr. Hare. With respect, you are not a scientist, nor much of an amateur logician. Still, the 248 Committee is now under your control.
Sound of paper being unfurled.
LAMBERT: I, Polly Hare, hereby declare that my husband, Benjamin Hare, is to take over the organisation known as the 248 Committee in all matters administrative and executive. He is also to receive the liquid assets in account number…
HARE: My god, why?
LAMBERT: Because she trusts you.
HARE: You're all completely and utterly insan
e. Polly would never have been a part of something like this without telling me. She wouldn't be running a fucking thing like this without telling me.
LAMBERT: If you like you can take it as a sign of her affection for you that you were kept in the dark about this side of her life. One wonders if this is the true motivation, but emotional comforts needn't be scrutinised too intently.
HARE: Fuck off.
LAMBERT: Well, shall I give you a tour of the grounds? A room has been prepared on the fourth floor if you'd like to make yourself at home. I suspect you're about to launch into some kind of diatribe. Let me save you the effort. Hayden's murder has been contrived in such a way that the evidence is practically undeniable. You are of course welcome to return to the outside world and tell the entire story of the last hour to the police, no one will try to stop you. It goes without saying that no one will believe you either. May I instead suggest that you stay?
HARE: And what? Join your weird little cult?
LAMBERT: If you like. Or don't. At the very least we will expect you to oversee certain aspects of the operation. This was Polly's explicit wish. There are a number of people who would be very interested in meeting you.
HARE: You're mad. You're all completely mad.
LAMBERT: Quite possibly. Now Dr. Hare, if you will kindly follow me.
END OF PART I