A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is the final chapter. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39.
Standing in the doorway with the door open, Thomas watched his breath become visible and then vanish into the icy night air. He'd just spent half an hour communing with an NSEA system. Feeling sharp and a little tired, Thomas regarded Eggs, who was pacing the sidewalk outside. Eggs was excited about the digital communion he too had recently experienced.
"Why would I ever do drugs again?" muttered Eggs. "What would it take for me to get one of those machines?"
"Not a chance," said Thomas. "You know the rules. You signed them."
"I know, I know," said Eggs. "I just ... can't believe we have to wait until tomorrow to do it again."
"You know what I realized," said Thomas. "You know T2? Claimed to be me from another timeline? That he went back in time to help us? Well, he never fully explained his time travel technology."
"Not even to you?" asked Eggs.
"The best I ever got was some nonsense about programmable matter and a bunch of hand waving," said Thomas. "Do you know what I think?"
"What?" asked Eggs.
"I don't think there was a time machine at all," said Thomas. "More specifically, I think that the time machine was the person himself, his consciousness, combined with the right computer program operating an NSEA headset."
"So you think T2 just poofed himself into the past?" asked Eggs. "Like, with mind magic or something?"
"After what you just experienced in your communion, can you really imagine the limits of this technology?" asked Thomas.
Trish joined Thomas in the doorway. "He telling you his time travel theory?" she asked Eggs.
"All in the mind," said Eggs. "For sure."
"Anyway," said Trish. "You guys should come back. The group discussion has started."
When the three of them returned to the main room, Molly Oliver from West Virginia was speaking. "I'm glad I did it," she said. "But you won't catch me doing it again. It's like, you've invented nutrisweet but my world is already filled with sugar. That plus unknown risks equals no thank you."
"I just find the whole thing so interesting," said Dave. "For some reason, it makes me think of UFOs. We tried the god program. Imagine if there was UFO experience program. I'd be willing to help write that program."
"Are you all kidding me?" said Pocket, from the Colorado TAP ecovillage. "That shit was so real! It was like waking up from the matrix. I don't even know if I'm here or in my mind, after that. All I know for sure is that I feel less afraid now than I did before."
"The religious experience is all about social obligations and rituals," said Trish. "It doesn't make sense to say the tech produces religious experiences. I see that now."
"Makes sense," said Molly. "The tech obviously can't replace religion. But if we're not careful, someone could come along and build a religion on top of it."
"Just one of the many reasons we all need to keep this thing a secret," said Thomas. "This technology isn't for the masses. It's far too dangerous."
"Remember, if you can make it, someone else can make it, too," said Todd. "You might not be the only ones to have it for long. If god-on-demand is the upside of the equation, what's the downside?"
"Mind control," said Thomas. "That's what Reed Johnson was using it for. To mind control Kyle Clinton Kissinger into assassinating T2, among other things."
"Is it true that Kissinger is getting out soon?" asked Pocket.
"Maybe," said Thomas. "My consultants say maybe this year. But even if we could prove he didn't do it, and he definitely did do it, the whole appeals process is designed to keep innocent people locked up. So our strategy is to try getting him paroled, and I'm told that's going okay."
"I had something weird happen during my communion," said Trish. "There was a moment when I felt like I was being bathed in divine light. That part wasn't new. I'd experienced experienced it before, during the experiments Thomas and I did. The new part, the weird part, was that my mind suddenly flashed to 9/11."
"Is that something you think about a lot?" asked Molly.
"Not really," said Trish. "But what flashed in my mind wasn't 9/11 in general. It was Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex. You know, the building that fell down as if by controlled demolition despite having never been struck by a plane. Well, I thought of that, and the message I got from my consciousness was that Building 7 was, like, some cosmic mystery, presented to humanity as a symbol of deeper mysteries we're struggling to come to terms with."
"Fascinating," said Dave. "How do you feel about this idea now that you're not wearing a headset?"
"I feel like anything is possible," said Trish.
"I had a different kind of profound revelation," said Dave. "It wasn't about people or events. More like the fine structure of reality."
"What did you see?" asked Thomas.
"It's hard to explain," said Dave. "It's like, what things reduce to. In computers, everything is reducible to binary. Ones and zeros. Presence or absence. But we're not computers. Our consciousness doesn't reduce to presence or absence. Instead, it reduces to a different kind of binary. A binary of associations and distinctions, determined by biological composition. I don't know how useful that is, but it sort of blew my mind."
"Can we come back to the idea that a UFO experience could maybe be simulated by the program?" asked Pocket. "Where I live, in Colorado, tons of people see UFOs. Thomas even saw one, when he was visiting one time. We see them, but we don't really know what they are. All we know is that they might be important. If you start simulating those experiences, would that make them less important somehow?"
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
Read my novels:
- The Paradise Anomaly is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Psychic Avalanche is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- One Man Embassy is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Flying Saucer Shenanigans is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Rainbow Lullaby is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- The Ostermann Method is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.
- Blue Dragon Mississippi is available in print via Blurb and for Kindle on Amazon.