The Quantum Mechanic: Chapter Eleven

The Quantum Mechanic

A Superhero Story of Ethic Contortions

Chapter 10 - Chapter 11: Intelligent Design - Chapter 12

"Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it was done for. I suppose it is. I dunno. If the Eiffel tower were now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the pinnacle-knob at its summit would represent man's share of that age; & anybody would perceive that that skin was what the tower was built for. I reckon they would. I dunno."
- Mark Twain, Was the World Made for Man?

In an airtight bio-dome upon a rocky asteroid, circling the Sun in an orbit perpendicular to the main solar plane, a bird-like creature catches a whiff of something in the air. It circles about, picks a spot of bare earth upon the ground, and touches down. Pecking and clawing, it tills the soil a few inches around, then nestles into the softened patch of dirt. Its talons reach and grasp ever downward. Over the next few days, fibrous tendrils grow from its legs to draw nutrients from the soil. Flesh hardens to bark, feathers molt and are replaced by leaves.

"Is voyeurism wrong?" Gleck cocks an eyebrow at the question upon the page.

"You know, I've been thinking about that one for a while. I'm not sure. On the one hand, it's an invasion of privacy. But so what? It's no harm to you for another person to see, well, anything you do. We're beyond trade secrets now, I should hope, and people can be strong enough to do as they please no matter what anyone else has to say about it.

"By the same token, however, if you'd like to keep something private - I mean, I want to say that that should be allowed. I have a secret identity, after all. But nobody can hide anything from me - I can't afford to let them, otherwise someone could get seriously hurt while I'm not looking. It's complicated. I'm not really sure."

On Phobos, one of the moons of Mars, a man named Duncan taps the SCIENCE lunar computer to work on a molecular design he's been tooling around with lately. It uses carbon lattice structures and molecular logic gates to ensure an unusually high level of copying fidelity in genetic structures with a complex interlocking series of failsafes and error-correcting measures. In plain English, it makes fewer mistakes making genes by backing up and trying again whenever a problem comes up. It works perfectly once it's in place, but Duncan's problem is that he can't get the molecular superstructure itself to self-assemble. It strikes him as rather like trying to build an arch without a scaffold.

"What about exhibitionism?" The impromptu question catches Douglas off-guard.

"What about it? People have bodies. Everybody's naked under their clothes, and that's assuming that they even still wear clothes. I don't see as how seeing a naked body is any more potentially harmful than having one."

"What about more than bodies? Like sex acts? Or bondage scenes in public?"

"Well, that might gross people out, sure. I don't really think it's harmful. I guess people can do what they like in their own space, and there can be public spaces for doing whatever. That's not too much different from how things were before."

"Well, suppose fifty people wanted to have an orgy in a restaurant. Wouldn't that be unsanitary?"

"So what? It's not like there's disease outside of laboratories any more."

"I guess I gotta give you that one."

Gloria watches Jupiter's red spot churn and swirl from the porthole of her space station. DNA-scrambling radiation is diverted around the vehicle by magnetic fields, and an iridescent aurora blooms in its dusty wake. She loves to think of all that raw power, captured and focused in something so wild and transient as a storm, a travelling disturbance on what appears to be a smooth, polished marble to a distant-enough observer. A hand closes gently upon her right ankle, and she feels a nibble at her Achilles tendon. A tongue begins to explore behind her left knee as two more hands firmly take hold of her thigh and calf. She turns away from all the intensity in front of her to create some of her own.

"What happens if more than one person wants to have the Mona Lisa?"

"Then I'll create another one exactly like it."

"But that won't be 'the' Mona Lisa, now will it?"

"Does it matter?"

"It does to some people. 'The Mona Lisa' means 'a particular portrait painted by Leonardo Da Vinci.' He only painted one, the copy you make would only be a copy of it."

"In a sense, yes; however, in another sense, it would be identical at every level of detail. What's the difference?"

"Well, one was actually painted by a guy centuries ago, the other was conjured in a flash by you."

"I don't think you understand what 'identical at every level of detail' means. They're identical objects. What does it matter which one's technically been around longest? They're the same thing for all intents and purposes."

"Well, you could say the same thing for people, I guess. I'm different than a copy you could make of me."

"Again, yes and no. You would be different than a copy of yourself, but only because that identical copy would immediately diverge from the path the 'original' you takes. But this is obviously true, and completely uninteresting. It's just a consequence of the fact that you can't be in the same place as your copy, at the same time. What's interesting is that your path is always diverging: you are never exactly the same person from one moment to the next. You're always changing, always in flux, never staying exactly the same.

"Your composition, in a way, is your history. It makes more sense to say that of the Mona Lisa, though. What I'm saying is that whether I put the original in a museum and copies in people's houses, or the original in a house and copies in the museum, you could never tell which one was which because they'd be identical up to the moment of divergence, and then they'd each behave as the other would in whatever environments they go to."

Mirabella smiles in her private laboratory. She has been working on something she only calls "the device," an anonymous-looking black goo that isn't doing anything interesting right now. The goo itself is composed of nanomachines which are assembled by living bacteria. When present in large enough numbers, the nanomachines can perform a wide array of computations, and they can modify their parent bacteria as needed to grow any of a number of body structures. In geek terms, it is a retroviral nanomechanical bacterial symbiote, designed to interface with a living brain in its own terms. The problem Mirabella is running into is that she can cram all the necessary programming architecture into a few ounces of device, but it changes too much as it grows, and the results of such early, unplanned changes are rarely pretty. Programming the necessary redundancy into the startup volume will probably require a gallon or so. Oh, well. This means that mice can't use it effectively, and she'll have to test on larger animals.

"Child porn. Hoo, boy. What about child porn?"

"Hm. That's a tough one. Children cannot understand the issues at work in pornography. They can't possibly be expected to consent to the activities they're being asked to participate in. So I'm just going to say no. Sure, maybe there are some precocious kids out there who can handle it - too bad. If they're that mature, then they damn well ought to be mature enough to understand why I don't want to encourage pedophiles."

"What if a forty-year-old man asks to be put into the body of an eight-year-old boy?" The Quantum Mechanic is silent. Douglas knows where this is going. "Could that person then participate in pornographic activities?"

"You know what? I think so. And I'll tell you why: because that's actually a forty-year-old man in an eight-year-old costume. That's where I'm drawing the line, for now. It's not child porn unless it involves actual children, human juveniles. The skin that a particular performer of appropriate age chooses to wear is irrelevant, because that's not an actual child engaging in sex acts. At this point, trying to restrict people's activities is like trying to restrict their imagination, which is stupid, so I don't care."

"What if that guy asked you to regress his mind to that of an eight-year-old?"

"He's going to be disappointed. I will not erase people's memories."

"Not even if they ask you? What if it's a painful memory?"

"Then that's a part of reality that that person needs to learn to deal with. End of story. If the truth makes you uncomfortable, then you need to change your attitude, because the truth just is what it is."

In another laboratory, a woody vine spirals around and upon itself over the course of months. It thickens as it grows, strands merging together as they pile on top of one another. Tree-like now, it still twists as it grows away from the ground, knobs and knots emerging at regular intervals all the way up the spiral. Taller, thicker, the knobs flatten into step-like projections while the knots hollow out into holes the size of a man. A canopy blooms overhead, and fruit-bearing vines descend from the branches, leaving luscious multi-colored orbs hanging within arm's reach of the recessed pits in the trunk. Victor, the man who coaxed the tree's genetic code into self-modifying to reveal its present form, calls it "the treehouse."

"What's the One Truth of the Universe?"

"Well, that's a nonsense question if I ever heard one. What makes you think the Universe has a single truth to offer?"

"I dunno, it just seems like there would be a fundamental starting point or something. Maybe a moral lesson, or some kind of command, just something of a central principle that everything else organizes around."

"Hm. How about, 'Nothing is true, all is permitted.' Does that work for you?"

"That doesn't really make sense."

"Neither does life, most of the time. What do you want from me?"

Douglas is a little distracted from the Interview; he's trying to build a laser rifle. Nobody builds weapons these days - at least, not real ones. The so-called "weapons" used in alternate reality games are little more than props, animated by Doug's force of will whenever the need arises. But if Douglas is killed by the Entropic Engineer, or if he needs to kill himself to get rid of them both, then he wants the rest of humanity to be able to keep on fighting. And so Douglas prepares alone for whatever Heaven may throw at him. Plasma is powerful, but messy and fairly short-range. Lasers are neat and quick, but power storage is a problem. Or, rather, it is difficult to conveniently store the amount of power he would like, in a way that can be arbitrarily tapped just a little bit at a time. Solving the containment problem in an efficient manner requires failsafes, and the failsafes are either too bulky or too unreliable, requiring further failsafes which have almost the same damn problem all over again.

Wait a second. He's coming at this all wrong. He should be outsourcing creativity to the rest of the solar system, and developing from the best of that! On Triton, Valerie DeGrassi has made an imprintable synthetic intelligence (Douglas never liked the term "artificial intelligence" - smarts is smarts, in his book). She only installs it into tiny robot animals, but they bond with each other and her, experiencing affection for those they recognize as fellow thinking beings. Douglas learns from her idea made reality, then tries to apply it to the problem at hand.

A smart rifle can learn to know where it's pointing, can fire at the right time on its own, and can regulate itself for the safety of the person wielding it. Douglas gives his rifle the gift of intelligence, and the desire to be safe for its owner. Then he designs a power delivery system that can be dynamically directed by the rifle's brain, scales up the hardware to meet the computational demands, tweaks a few things, and voila! Now it all works perfectly.

OK, now it's time to scale up the whole project. Douglas recalls that black holes can appear to evaporate when a vacuum fluctuation produces a particle travelling directly away from the edge of the event horizon, and thus an antiparticle travelling directly into it. Inside, the antiparticle meets another counterpart, and the two annihilate one another, leaving the system with a tiny bit less mass. Douglas plays around for a bit, and then figures out a way to throw a bit of very dense mass into a tiny wormhole linked to Sol's core, catalyzing a tremendous release of focused energy. Magnets and lasers are involved, as well as a whole lot of math, but the end result is like sticking a fork into an electrical socket. He makes a note to never, ever, ever point this at anyone he loves, then positions a few dozen of the cannons at strategic points around the solar system.

There. Humanity has laser rifles and starbeam cannons at their disposal, as well as a whole bunch of nifty spacecraft and environment suits. If Douglas hadn't stopped everyone from fighting each other, they could very well annihilate themselves to the one just like they had the capacity to do back on Earth. But now they've got an enemy, and nothing unifies people like a common antagonist. Heaven can go to Hell.

Forward to Chapter 12

The Quantum Mechanic: Chapter Ten

The Quantum Mechanic

A Superhero Story of Ethic Contortions

Chapter 9 - Chapter 10: A Little Piece of Heaven - Chapter 11

"And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them."
- Revelation 9:6

Kirk Rayford sits at his table, hands clasped, praying for guidance before breakfast. His thoughts go to no one in particular; he has asked that the Quantum Mechanic leave him in peace, and Douglas has been only too happy to comply.

Footsteps sound from upstairs, then travel throughout the house and finally into the kitchen. Cameron Pleasance places a hand on his friend's shoulder. Kirk looks up.

"Morning, love. Sleep well?"

"As well as I could. How are you doing?"

"Troubled. Tired. I don't know what to do any more. Have we been forsaken? Shouldn't the angel have taken us with him? Has there been a Rapture already?"

"I don't know." Cameron sits down. "We've never known, honey. That's what our faith is for. That's what our faith is - trust. We must trust in God, or we shall surely go astray." Kirk sighs in exasperation.

"I know. Thank you. You've always been so good for me." They embrace, reserved and awkward, trying not to arouse each other.

"Just as you have shown Christ's love to me." The two men begin to eat in silence. They clean the kitchen in silence. They watch television from opposite ends of the couch, desperately avoiding all possible temptation so that they will not sully themselves in the eyes of their god. Ministries have been falling through the cracks, a global crisis of faith ushered in by the Quantum Mechanic's new Eden. But a few still preach the good news, and that's all that Rayford and Pleasance watch these days.

"And John said unto them, 'Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.' And so we see this spirit, we see his works, we hear his words. John continues, 'Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God.' But he does not say this, does he?" The man on the screen pauses for dramatic effect. "No, he says that there is no god, that Jesus shall not return. What of it? Read on: 'And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.' Ah. Now we may begin to see the truth of things."

The man stares into the camera for a good, long moment.

"So what have we here? A man who does miracles, who proclaims that there is no god, but then acts himself like God. A man who would abolish the law, unite the world, and set us apart from God. A man who flouts the very order of Creation! This man, we may be sure, is the antichrist! But who among you knew that he was here? Who among you can say where he dwelleth? Who could have guessed when he first began to walk among us? No man saw him coming, not one of us knew the hour, and here he is, and so we know that our time is at hand!

"People, be strong. Be patient. Trust in God, have faith, and you shall be rewarded. The Devil himself walks the Earth, clothed like a man, hiding his true nature. Those who have insight shall not be deceived: we have heard the words, and we have taken note, and we shall see the truth of things. Behold, it is written: 'And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.' What did we see when the angel of the Lord did lay waste to the Quantum Mechanic? Another body - but a head of the true beast, as it were - did come forth as if from nothing!

"But it does not stop there: 'And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.' Good people, see what is before you for what it is! Do not be deceived! Heed the words of scripture, that you may be guided to the truth!

"We read in Thessalonians, 'Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?' Ask yourselves, good people - who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God? Who sitteth in the temple, as it were, and shews to all the world that he is God? Who does all these things? Lest ye not believe, there is more!

"Behold, the word of the Lord: 'For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way. And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming: even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'

"Do not be deceived, my fellow believers! Do not allow the temptor to capture your heart with easy pleasures and empty promises: he is a liar, and a thief, a pretender to divinity who shall be struck down along with all who have trusted in him!"

"Is it really true, Kirk? I mean, we see the signs all around us, but - I don't know. Now that it looks like it's actually happening - I mean - I just - I don't know." Kirk puts a hand over Cameron's.

"Be strong, Cam. Have faith. We have stayed on our path for this long, and we see now that we only have a little longer to go. We have sacrificed so much for this, we have denied ourselves the pleasures of the flesh at every turn, we have devoted our lives to the sole worthy purpose of the glory of God - and now the time of our reward draws near."

"It just seems like it's getting worse before it gets better, somehow."

"Things often do."

"But - I don't know. I mean, for all those people out there - the lost ones, the sinners - it breaks my heart. Things seem to be going so well for them, and so they can't see what's on the horizon because they're too busy looking down at their feet."

"I know, it's hard. But they are lost in their sin. Such is the state of the world: they put happiness before holiness, gratification before justice, pleasure before purity. They have their reward now."

"And we shall have ours soon, I suppose."

"Very soon, indeed." Both men are startled by the new voice behind them. They turn to see the Entropic Engineer standing in the middle of the living room, ablaze in radiant glory.

"Are you - are you - " Rayford stammers.

"I am the angel of the Lord. The herald of the end times. I walk in the world, as a thief in the night, taking those to Heaven who are worthy. You are few and far between, true believers." Tears begin to stream down Cameron's face. Kirk is shocked into silence. "Are you ready?" Kirk finds his voice again, and whoops for joy.

"Yes. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes!"

"That makes two of us," Pleasance mumbles meekly.

"Then take my hand, and we shall be gone from this accursed place. We shall return with the Heavenly Host to destroy the wretched vileness that grows here." The Entropic Engineer walks up to them; they rise to their feet, and each grasps an outstretched hand.

The world falls away, giving way to light and warmth.

Kirk Rayford stands upon nothing at all. Come to think of it, he is not standing. Nor does he have a body any longer. Awareness creeps at the edges of his consciousness, struggling to overcome the training of his human perceptions. He feels Cameron nearby, and turns to face his love.

Cameron Pleasance is changed, changed utterly. He sees the angel of the Lord before him, no less radiant for all the light and loveliness that pours into his mind. He and Kirk have been glorified, and they now live not as mere human vessels, but as beings of pure soul light. The Entropic Engineer beckons, and walks towards a shining city in the distance.

In time, the three of them come to a great gate alight with iridescent splendor. The Entropic Engineer waves a hand, and the gates swing open, a chorus of angels singing in ecstasy. Everything inside is ephemeral and shining, the true and perfected forms after which all Earthly things are made. Kirk and Cameron cannot take it all in, and let the glory wash over them.

"Saints, you have borne your burdens with grace and humility. You walked with God through your tribulations and did not falter. Here is your eternal reward: welcome to the Kingdom of God." A single word fills the minds of Rayford and Pleasance: divine.

"May we see the Lord," Kirk asks after a long moment?

"Of course. I shall take you to him. Be as movement, and follow me."

They pass through cities, worlds, dimensions, planes of existence, each one more vast and glorious than the last. Finally, they come to the Throne, the seat of the Lord. At his right hand is a rather mundane-looking robed man of Middle Eastern appearance. His wrists and feet bear jagged holes, and a crown of thorns is upon his head. The Entropic Engineer bows deeply.

"Lord, your servants have requested an audience, and your emissary has brought them to you. Praise be unto you, O most high one." The two who were once men gaze upon the Throne, and find no words to describe the rapturous joy that fills their hearts. A single thought forms at the front of their consciousnesses: "Ask, and ye shall receive." Cameron speaks first.

"Lord, please, I ask that you show me your works in all their glory and splendor. I wish to see the world as you do, to understand all that there is." With that, Cameron is gone, taken to parts unknown to witness Creation.

"Lord, I would know how I may love Cameron, now that we are freed of our sinful flesh. We have striven to show your love for us, and to keep ourselves free of corruption, but now at last we may - " Christ steps forward, and Kirk is silenced.

"Guard your heart, my son," he says, "For you stand now in the glory of the Lord your God. Know that there is no unholiness here. You have lived well, and now you may live perfectly. But even as the Morningstar did fall from grace, so too must you remain ever-vigilant against impurity and blasphemy."

"But - " Christ waves his hand, and Kirk is silent. He feels like crying, and then he does. Suddenly possessed of a body, he falls to his knees, naked and cold. He feels like he is sinking. He is, in fact, sinking - slipping away from the Throne, from Christ, from the angel of the Lord. He tries to call out for help, but no air is in his lungs.

"You were warned, Rayford," says the Entropic Engineer, as he watches Kirk begin to fall from Heaven. "You allowed sin into your mind once more, and it is now made flesh in you. We are sorry, but you can no longer dwell here. You shall have no peace, but all will come to an end for you soon."

Picking up speed now, Kirk tumbles through nothing for an age. Darkness approaches him, and now even his flesh begins to strip away. Agony now, screaming and clawing and burning and choking, torment beyond belief as his bones are bared, bleached, and burned. He feels the jaws of Oblivion open up to swallow him as his soul begins to unravel.

Cameron sails through time out of mind, witnesses the laying of the Earth's foundation, the making of all that would come to be. He sees the fall of Adam and Eve, the murder of Abel, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the terrible flood. He witnesses all of history through the eyes of God, sees the plan behind all things, understands the workings of every device conceived by the Lord and made into reality. It leaves him humbled and in awe. He returns to the Throne.

"My Lord, all you have done, all you have made, it is amazing! But - where is Kirk?"

"Be still, my son," Christ says. "He pined for unholiness, and it came unto him. Do not let it into your heart, or you shall join him in un-being."

"What? How could you?! I thought - I thought we could finally be together, and now - "

"Master yourself, Cameron," insists the Entropic Engineer. "You are following after your friend, and you must not!"

"I just - I don't think that Heaven is worth losing - " He is cut off, choking now, struggling to breathe or speak as a being of flesh in a realm of idea. Christ approaches him.

"I am sorry, my son, but you cannot love any other more than you love God. There is no sadness in this place. And so you must fall."

The Entropic Engineer stands alone after Pleasance is obliterated, burning with rage, finally sputtering out in exasperation. Heaven has fallen away. None have been worthy. No matter how many people are brought into the realm of holiness, none can maintain their purity. Why? Why?! How can no one, not even with a glorified body and after being freed from the temptations of the flesh, stay pure in the dwelling of light?

How does one build an army from an empty Heaven?

Forward to Chapter 12

Doin it Rong: How to Creatively Play with Your Toys

Rhodopsin had this tasty little tidbit waiting for me in my inbox this morning. Now "watch a young lady with a flute totally pass for a Very Serious Yelling Man with a facial tattoo," and enjoy!

It reminds me of this next one, which itself is a new twist on an old favorite. This guy injured one of his fingers, but still wanted to play Guitar Hero, so he rigged up a MIDI pad to help. Then he just kept on drumming. Behold, drumming Through the Fire and Flames on Expert, complete with Bullet Time! (Not really, but kinda-sorta.)

Last, we have a collection of young gentlemen who are just plain doin it rong. Or, perhaps, doin it just rite, if there are bonus points for teaming up. Actually, I think there are.

Yeah, OK, I take it back: totally doin it rite. Hooray for team-building and stuff!

NaNoWriMo Update: I crossed the 20K mark last night. Huzzah!

The Quantum Mechanic: Chapter Nine

The Quantum Mechanic

A Superhero Story of Ethic Contortions

Chapter 8 - Chapter 9: The Villain - Chapter 10

"And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.' And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer."
- Revelation 6:1-2

Douglas was ready when the shockwave hit. He had felt the approaching heat and light from far away, had foreseen the collision, had prepared for the conflict. And so when the sky turned red as blood, when the seas boiled and the earth was baked dry and cracking, every living animal on Earth found itself surrounded in its own cooled private atmosphere.

Douglas had wondered where Proxima Centauri had gone, but he wondered no longer. It was coming straight at him now, moving at tremendous speed even for an astronomical object.

A second sun grows in the sky over the Western hemisphere. People walk out of their homes to stare at the heavens, even as the world burns around them. Douglas doesn't see much point in protecting property he can simply restore later, and so he lets this new antagonist put on a show. Wishes, conversations, and the Interview are put on hold - he needs as much attention for this as he can muster. In Montana, Alvina holds her husband tightly and shuts her heart against the approaching fear, facing the ominous sky with open eyes. The Quantum Mechanic stands alone in the geometric center of the United States, somewhere in the panhandle of Oklahoma.

A lone figure descends from on high, glorious and radiant. Its features cannot be discerned from the gleaming white light surrounding it, but for its flaming eyes and a pitch-black ω in the middle of its forehead. It speaks with a voice that levels buildings. Literally. Even magical private atmospheres are susceptible to crushing pressure waves, and so Douglas muffles the sound to a dull roar for anyone in earshot.

"I am the angel of the Lord. Your world is coming to an end. Repent, or be consumed in righteous fire." Douglas is taxed by the effort of sustaining the planet against the overwhelming might of the star. The Quantum Mechanic regards the white figure coolly.

"Piss off, buddy. We don't need you here. I don't know if you noticed, but we finally got a good thing going on, and I'm not about to let you ruin it."

"Hmph. You may speak, and speak, but it shall profit you nothing. The righteous shall be spared, and the wicked shall be culled. Your time grows short. You cannot escape the coming flood."

"You've come to rain on our parade, then? I've got news for you. I can pump nutrients into these folks' bloodstreams and sustain their little bubbles as long as I feel like it. Shall we leave this to a staring contest? Or perhaps an arm-wrestling match? I'm telling you, you're better off having your fun elsewhere, because you'll only wind up bored here."

"Your arrogance is matched only by your ignorance. You have your warning. I shall return with the Heavenly Host, who number more than the sands upon the beach."

"Is that at ebb tide, or flow tide? And all the beaches, or just some of them? You see, I've counted, and I'd like to - " The puppet is cut short. The angel extends a hand, and a tremendous current of energy erupts forth. Douglas was not expecting so much, and his prosthetic body is vaporized. "Neat trick," says another, having just arrived on the scene. "Now let's see if I can - " The puppet stops abruptly once more, but stands intact.

Douglas can't see the angel.

He sees a tremendous amount of electromagnetic radiation flowing from where he knows the angel ought to be. He sees cancelling waveforms radiate before the ω, making it appear unnaturally black to observers. He sees the fire where the eyes ought to be. But where the gleaming white body ought to go, there is only - nothingness. No air, no light, no heat, no anything! Nullity. Nothing for him to strike out against.

"You clever son of a bitch," the robot says at last. "I see how it is. All right, I can't kill you, and you can't kill me. Looks like we've got ourselves a good old-fashioned philosophical debate here."

"There is no debate. You shall perish."

"What? You just vaporized me, and I am miraculously unharmed. What makes you think you can kill me?"

"I am sent as your opposite, your antithesis, your undoing, your end. You are cause. I am effect. For all of your action, I am the consequence. You bring about chaos, and I impose order. You are messiness. I am tidiness."

"And how exactly do you propose to 'tidy me up,' pray tell?"

"The same way any particle may be tidied up: with its antiparticle. Your time is short. Use it wisely." With that, the phantom disappears. Proxima Centauri is gone once more. The Earth is healed, showing no signs of the recent disturbance. People return to their homes, and regularly scheduled programming resumes. Alvina Orange holds her husband tightly, stroking the back of his head as tears wash over her breast.

Over the next several weeks, people disappear. Not most, but a great many. And why not? If an entire star may be hidden and moved freely, right under his nose, what's a few people here and there? There's nothing he can do about it, if he's sabotaging himself. Beating his head against a wall is no use, especially when that wall is built specifically to take his particular brand of pounding. Every loss is a tragedy - but Douglas does not know whether these people are alive or dead, only that he cannot see them any longer. He fears the worst, but resigns himself to the truth that people disappeared before his rise to power, and maybe he shouldn't be surprised that some things never change. Douglas puts his paranoia to constructive purposes, hatching a plan for the ultimate contingency: the second coming of Jesus Christ. He laughs and thinks to himself, As if there were a first one.

The stellar herald comes to be known on the internet as the Entropic Engineer. A few insist on calling him Gabriel, Michael, Gideon, Azrael, Remiel, Duriel, and a whole host of other silly names; only the Entropic Engineer sticks, for it is a unique name of fitting symmetry to Doug's own pseudonym. The Quantum Mechanic creates from nothing and lets people go as they please, while the Entropic Engineer would seek the dissipation of its nemesis and probably tell everyone what to do with their lives if it could.

Space stations are born from nothing in geostationary orbit, Earth's solar orbit corrected subtly to compensate for the added mass of the Earth-plus system. Scientific progress continues, accelerated beyond the wildest dreams of any science fiction writer, under the careful guidance of the Quantum Mechanic. Truly sterile environments may now be constructed, and the question of grant money or any other resource is rendered moot. The whole of the lunar mass is converted into layers and layers of computronium substrate, freely sliding past each other on insulating lubricants while tiny superconductive ball bearings complete circuits, all powered from a central battery of neon-orange lightning. Each layer runs on the waste heat generated by the next-innermost layer. The whole device is the province of the newly-expanded Skeptics Coalition International & Education Networking Center of Earth, their corporate acronym proudly emblazoned upon the light side.

"I don't think I should ask this question," Gleck says at some point. Douglas has put the Interview mostly on auto-pilot, several days of answers ahead of himself. The occasional elaboration distracts him for but a moment.

"Believe me, if there were any danger whatsoever, I would have simply skipped it. Please, continue."

"If you say so." Ben clears his throat and continues. "Do you have a weakness?"

"Butterscotch pudding. I can't resist it. But seriously, I depend upon my organic human brain, as far as I can tell. I am a unique and powerful man, but I am still just a man, behind this mask."

"Well, not literally behind the mask, I should hope. Didn't the Entropic Engineer vaporize one of your puppets? If you can read minds, then couldn't he? What if he finds you out?

"Hey, slow down! All right, in order, you are correct that my 'real' body isn't inside this or any other suit. That would be the height of foolishness. If the Entropic Engineer can read minds as I can, then he'll have a hard time finding me, because I mask my brain waves to make it look like I'm just another person. I've even gone out to my whole light cone to make sure that there's no trace - a trick I learned from the Proxima Centauri incident. To find me out, the Entropic Engineer would have to kill everyone on Earth - and seeing as how he plans on doing that anyway, well, I should hope it's apparent that my weakness is of no particular added danger."

"Wow. Yeah, I guess you're right. That's pretty thorough, there. Just to keep a secret identity intact?"

"Secret identities are important, Ben."

Colonies are built on other planets and their moons, populated by teleportation first, and then in the usual way. Massive satellites are poofed into existence in all manner of wild solar orbits, designed by the hopes, whims, and dreams of their immediate occupants. Video games give way to alternate reality games, where non-players are insensate fleshy automatons, real human beings to all appearances so long as a command prompt is not spoken.

"Doug?" He knows the question before she speaks it. It's been on her mind for months. This will be tough.

"Yeah, Bea?"

"Do people ever ask you to fulfill their sexual fantasies?" The question is strained, but innocent. She wants to know. She already does, in a way. There are plenty of reasons, she thinks, for him to ignore the libido of the human race - but none that he would call 'good reasons.' He decides to play it straight.

"Yes. Quite often, I'm afraid. I'm sorry if that's a problem."

"It's - it's not a problem," she lies. She's not even angry with him. She's had months to get over her anger at the prospect. Now she's only sad. "I'm sorry. Yes, it's a problem. I have a problem with that."

"I appreciate your honesty, but I don't know what to do."

"Well - I mean, for fuck's sake, Doug!" Tears roll down her cheek. She realizes her pun and tries not to laugh. "What am I supposed to think? How would you feel if I went and fucked another guy behind your back?"

"There's - I - look, Bea. I know this is hard, but please, listen to me. There's a difference."

"Oh, it's different, huh? The all-aware, all-good, all-fucking-powerful Douglas Orange has a seam-ripper for the fabric of reality, and that makes it OK for him to cheat on his wife, right?"

"No. It doesn't make it OK. I should have told you earlier, and I'm sorry."

"You damn well ought to be! What were you doing, just hoping I'd never ask?"

"I didn't know what I would say."

"Well, now's your fuckin' chance! What do you have to say for yourself, mister?" Douglas takes a deep breath. He's assembling buckyball cages for chemists on Pluto right now, and he doesn't want to fail them, but he needs to center himself in Montana at the moment.

"It's different because I don't participate in the fantasies. I can see everything that everyone does, and I pretty much don't care, as long as nobody gets hurt. It doesn't make me horny, it's their thing and I just let it happen. Whether I supply a lobotomized meat puppet or not - that doesn't matter. It's simulation. It's not about me, it's about them. So I give them their toys and I make sure they play nice. Are you with me so far?" Alvina sniffles, glistening lines outlining the curves of her face below bloodshot eyes. She nods, numbed for a moment. "OK, now I want you to listen very carefully. I said there was a difference, and this is it: I facilitate the sexual fantasies of billions of people. You, and you alone, are the only one who I have ever asked to facilitate mine."

Alvina could be knocked over with a feather. Her emotions pull her in a thousand directions at once. She needs time to process this, and she has to do it on her own - Doug can see that his touch will only make things more painful in the moment. He has to let her work through this by herself, and it kills him to be unable to comfort her. He stands and looks at her helplessly, letting her see his real weakness, while he makes himself useful in another room by invisibly packing a pipe full of dry green leaves. That will be useful later.

Forward to Chapter 10

101 Interesting Things, part thirty-three: The Placebo Response

The placebo effect was the reason that randomized double-blind trials became so necessary in medicine. You see, people sometimes get better all on their own, and us being the pareidoliac (did I just make up a word?) pattern-matching machines that we are, we tend to give the credit to whatever we were doing at the time. But as we all know, correlation does not entail causation, and so we must be a bit more thorough to make sure we're not hastily generalizing when we tell our friends, "Hey, I sang I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General while eating a fudgesicle in the shower, and the next day my cold went away! You should try it!"

And sometimes, having something cold in your mouth while your body's warmed up and you're exercising your vocal cords is just what you need to get rid of a sore throat. The world, it turns out, is a complex and confusing place. And so we come next to the idea of experimental control. When you suspect that this cause might have that effect, how can you coax reality into giving up the goods? You control for all other possible variables that you can identify, so that the only difference between trial A and trial B is your suspected cause. And if you can't? Randomize the other stuff and get as many trials as you can, a large enough sample for the random noise to cancel out so that a coherent picture of the situation can emerge.

In medicine, not only do patients vary in their bodies and minds, they also vary in the matter of precisely how disease X affects them, and there is also variance among and between doctors in terms of how they treat their patients. So to see if drug Y can really cure disease X, we need to "cancel out" those unhelpful stalwarts who convalesce on their own, or due to Doctor Z's magical bedside manner. Heroes in labcoats do this by blinding themselves to the matter of whether or not they are giving the "real" drug Y to their patients, and because informed consent is important, the patients know that they may be getting drug Y or a "placebo," but they don't know which is actually going down their gullet.

And there you have it! We've just walked through the last several decades or so of medical research (in principle, anyway). But now there's a new problem. What was once called the placebo effect, because some hastily generalizing folk perhaps thought that the inert sugar pill actually did something, is now being called the placebo response by Fabrizio Benedetti, because it seems to have more to do with the patient than the pill.

Oh, and it's getting bigger, too. Or "worse," if you're the kind of person who thinks that the command, "Body, heal thyself," ought to be medically inert. For my part, I think it would be awesome if that really worked!

Benedetti was mentioned in one of the latest issues of Wired magazine, in their article, The Placebo Problem. I'll bottom-line it for you folks: "Big Pharma" is trying desperately to find drugs that can be meaningfully distinguished from sugar pills, and they're having problems because people seem to be getting the benefits all on their own, in greater numbers. Drugs aren't stopping working, mind you - those methodologically problematic stalwarts I mentioned above are just getting more numerous. The drugs still do whatever it is that they do, but now Big Pharma is running out of places to intelligently throw money to prove things, because a whole host of confounding variables are now rearing their ugly heads.

That's right, folks: drug companies are fretting because their ability to scientifically prove that they're helping people is slipping through their fingers, and they don't know what to do about it. The principle they're operating on is a simple and obvious one: drugs that work are more profitable than drugs that don't. Bill Maher, you can just eat a big ol' bowl of dicks. (Special thanks to PZ and Orac for teaching me of the still-insightfully-funny man's peculiar and disturbing lunacy.)

Anyway, enough pimping for the system; what do we do? You can read the article to find out just how tangled this Gordian knot really is: the color of the pill can affect things, the culture of the place can affect things, the frequency of dosage can affect things, and a million other screwy things that can all interact with each other and we have no idea why. Yet.

My pet speculation on this matter is that people are a whiny and suggestible lot, and when you live in places that are developed enough to do things like make happy pills, people think that they ought to be happy all the time. We deserve it, right? Oh, man... I feel a rant brewing.

I'll just say that I've done my share of wrestling with depression, and I've been on pills before. Everyone's different, and a multiplicity of treatments is best, because then we can treat more people more effectively (but we have to pay attention to them, and not treat it like a magic spell!). Merck can't dominate the central nervous system with drugs alone; they ought to branch out to psychotherapy techniques or something if they want to keep on top of the game. Some people's problems just can't be solved with a pill, they need some damned TLC and to think that someone important cares about them; other people's problems can be solved with any pill, it seems, so long as they think that their problems are being acknowledged. And a million fuckin' things in between.

So think about it, Merck: when your only tool is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.

The Quantum Mechanic: Chapter Eight

The Quantum Mechanic

A Superhero Story of Ethic Contortions

Chapter 7 - Chapter 8: The Third Law - Chapter 9

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."
- Newton's third law of motion

Douglas has been wondering about the next question. He wonders about it because it didn't make sense for weeks, and now it does. Time dilates, and Gleck closes his mouth in extremely slow motion as Douglas ponders the possibilities with his full concentration.

Logs. He can check the logs for the question repository. Where was it? Day three: it was asked on day three, and it made no damn sense. Douglas remembers reading it, partially, as he continued to answer Earth's questions, and fulfill their hopes and dreams. He was amused then. It's not funny any longer. OK, where did it come from?

Puzzling. No, not merely puzzling. Downright worrisome. The question came from nowhere. It was simply logged into the question database, apparently for no goddamned reason at all, by no user, from no location, with no way to tell how it arrived. Everything leaves a trail. There has to be another clue.

It's staring me in the face, he thinks. The answer is right the Hell in front of me, and I can't accept it. I'm the only one who could do this. Me. OK. This is scary. Now let's bite the bullet and see where it goes.

OK, Doug reasons, I'm the only one who could put this question here. I'm the only one who could cause it to make sense right now. How would I go about doing this behind my own back? Perhaps an errant partition duplicated itself and broke off? Perhaps I made myself forget that I made a problem for myself to solve? Perhaps a fuckin' million things. This is pointless. Move on.

"Why did - wait a minute." Gleck reads the question. Confusion lights his brain. "This doesn't make any damn sense." Douglas decides to feign ignorance.

"What doesn't?"

"The question. You put it here, right? It only says, 'Why did Proxima Centauri just now disappear?' That's all."

"Hm. Strange."

"What? Why? Is it strange because Proxima Centauri is still there? Or strange because it's gone?"

"It's strange that it was there when the question was asked three days ago, and now it's gone when the question is asked on live TV. The timing is too good."

"What?! How do you make a star disappear?"

"Put something in the way, I guess."

Nothing is in the way. No black hole that Douglas can perceive. He reaches out to where he knows the star to be. No explosion. No collapse. Just nothing.

That's it! That's the clue! Erasure: the question was asked and its tracks were erased. Douglas would have seen the logs erased, but that memory is erased as well. Now a star has been erased, along with all the light that by rights should still take some four-odd years to arrive. Just plain erased. OK, that's that. What's next?

"What's in the way?"

"Nothing. It could also be erased, I suppose. Though I'm not sure how."

"You're saying that a star disappeared, and you don't know why?" Color drains from Ben's face.

Think, dammit! Think! Where are there other clues? Maybe only the light bound for Earth has been erased, perhaps the rest of it is left behind. Searching a sphere four light years in diameter is taxing, even for Douglas. He sets partitions of his mind to the task - then immediately recalls them. If this is how self-sabotage is done, then he needs to be especially careful not to let himself lose track of himself.

But how can you look for what you're hiding from yourself?

"Yes. I'm afraid so. I can't do anything about it, though. Next question?" Gleck stares for a moment, then shakes it off and moves on. Douglas resolves to keep an eye out, but get on with his life. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's coincidence. Maybe it's -

Maybe it's a distraction.

Maybe it's a million fuckin' things. It's nothing, right now - a big, obvious, weeks-in-the-making nothing. Douglas resolves himself to keep his eyes peeled and his guard up. There's no telling what's going on here, but he needs to be prepared for anything.

Forward to Chapter 9

Yet more sundries and miscellanies!

My triumphant return sees me once again ahead of the curve! Hoo-ha! Also, my very good friend Zach L is writing his own novel: he has not one, not two, but three chapters up, and is pretty close to catching up to pace after something of a late start. I've read his shit and it's fantastic, so go and encourage him to finish so he can earn the right to play Dragon Age: Origins all December long!

Also, a quick to-do list for me to remember: get rid of Riley Williams, or give him something to distinguish his vignette from that of the President or Ben Gleck; more superheroism against mundane villains (this will require retconning, sadly...); and get some ideas! Yes, ideas! Like, from YOU! Wanna see something? Gimme a shout-out, I'll make it as goddamned interesting as I can, if I like it!

Seriously, I can just shove chapters in wherever I need to. I just need interesting problems for Douglas to solve. I also wanted Randall James to be more of a mentor to him, and to involve SkepCo more in the story as well... but now I have no idea how. I guess I can make chapters two-and-a-half, three-and-a-half, and so forth, after I get the main plot wrapped up.

Also, I'm only promising one chapter a day from here on in, each at 11:59 in the morning. I'll probably have more on several days, but two a day is a bit much (even for me!), especially when I want to write other things, too.

The Quantum Mechanic: Chapter Seven

The Quantum Mechanic

A Superhero Story of Ethic Contortions

Chapter 6 - Chapter 7: Apotheosis - Chapter 8

"Ray, when someone asks you if you're a god, you say, 'Yes'!"

- Winston Zeddemore, Ghostbusters

"Are you a god?"

"Of course not! Don't be silly, there's no such thing."

The Interview is off without a hitch. Douglas Orange has become very good at partitioning his mind. One thread is devoted entirely to the interview, while another concentrates on cooking dinner with his wife. Many others flit to and fro throughout the nation, saving lives, keeping the peace, and maintaining the crops. A dedicated few work at expanding Doug's consciousness yet further.

"Do you know everything?"

"I know a great deal. Knowing everything is impossible. A single mind is logically incapable of apprehending at one and the same moment the phenomenology of - " The look on Gleck's face stops him short. "I'm sorry, let me begin again. You can't know what it's like to know everything, and also know what it's like to know nothing. That's the basic concept, though it gets trickier from there."

All of North America is firmly within the palm of Doug's invisible hand. He reaches with his mind, stretches his consciousness, wanders down into South America. Time dilates. Things are much messier here.

"Can you make dinosaurs?"

"I believe so. But I probably won't, until after I've made space parks."

Central America was tough, but not much more so than inner city and government bureacracies. Those held surprises upon surprises, and taught Douglas to separate himself from what he observes, even as he makes it all a part of himself in another important sense. He was prepared for Central America. South America is considerably more difficult. In Montana, Douglas wraps his arms tightly around his wife, dipping her low for a long, deep kiss. He does not tell her why.

"So is pot legal now?"

"Who cares? It's harmless, and you won't be taken to jail for it. I'll see to that."

"Speaking of which, what about all the convicts?"

"They can't hurt anyone now. The prisons have been empty for quite some time now."

Prostitution. Drug lords. Kidnapping. Torture. Orange has seen all of these things more times than anyone. It never gets old. It never gets easy. All the psychology and neuroanatomy in the world can't make it better. It's bigger here. Harder. The horrors of the Amazon wilderness are a petting zoo next to the evil of men's hearts. He's losing it.

"Will you take over the world?"

"What for? Worship? Obedience? Riches? Those things mean nothing to me. I'd rather set it free. Seeing people happy makes me happy."

Douglas masters himself, steels his heart against the pain and desperation. Start small. In Argentina, an overworked single mother belts her child for putting his dishes away incorrectly. Silently, her arm is stopped mid-swing by a gloved hand. Before horror overtakes her, calming neurotransmitters rush into her bloodstream. He tells her to be at peace in her native tongue. Good. Now something bigger.

"What's your real name?"

"It doesn't matter. I do what I do as the Quantum Mechanic because I cannot do otherwise. But I have a private life, a job, friends, a loving spouse, a house in the 'burbs, the same American dream as you all want. I want to make sure everyone else can have it, too."

Colombia. A man cowers in a field of coca leaves, back split open, blood soaking through his tattered clothes. He wishes, briefly, that whips were wet noodles. Douglas smiles, pinches his wife's behind, and grants the man's wish. On a whim, he turns guns to gelatin, knifes to pudding. Formerly well-armed men are left sticky, sugary messes in the Colombian sun. Many faint. More panic. Wounds are closed without scar, severed digits are grown anew, burns vanish without a trace. Eyes, ears, teeth, a kidney here and there.

"How do you know what you're doing is right?"

"I suppose I don't. I just think it's good. I think that if people can't hurt each other, and if there's plenty to go around, then the world is a good place. It's as simple as that."

Offshore now. Keep growing. South America is his - now what? Asia and Australia, or Europe and Africa? Wait, simple things first for a bit. All the way North, all the way South, and now just reach around. More partitions erupt and bloom, creating a networked overmind of independent cells, constantly updating and informing each other, constantly growing. Douglas struggles to contain himself.

"Is there anything you can't do?"

"I still can't change the past. I still can't read the future. Other than that, if it can be done with mass-energy, I can probably do it. It's just a matter of scale and coordination, and I grow more powerful and fine-tuned by the moment."

Somewhere in the Middle East, men with guns have stopped a caravan full of food and medicine en route to a refugee camp. Douglas decides to give them a show. He is called Devil, Monster, Shaitan, Deceiver, Hell's Harbinger. The gray puppet stands motionless and takes their insults. He hearkens back to the old days. After a moment of silence, their guns are trained on him, and they open fire. Orange sparks signify the altered trajectory of each bullet, and then, in a swarm - they return. The men try to run, but they are corralled as though in a cage of locusts.

"Have you ever killed anyone?"

"When I was six, I accidentally dropped my puppy over a balcony railing. I was trying to show him the world. Many people have angered me, but it would do no good for me to harm them further. I wish to make people better, not to punish them. I am a protector, not a sadist."

In Denmark, a man wearing a bomb shouts the glory of his imaginary deity and pushes a button. Panic grips the room. Nothing happens for a moment. A few laugh nervously. In a flash of orange light, he is gone. Miles above, encased in his own private atmosphere, he will soon have a very long conversation with a steel-faced automaton about what it means to die well.

"Can we pray to you?"

"Ugh. If you must. I'd prefer we were honest with ourselves and called it 'wishing,' though. Or you could write me a letter. Come to think of it, why not just speak my name? I'll know whether you want me to appear or not."

"You mean you can read minds?"

"I've been able to do so for quite some time. I can do more than that: I can speak into them now, as well. And I have an announcement to make. One moment, Ben."

All over the world, the atmosphere glows with electromagnetic luminescence. Cars slow to an easy stop and their engines go silent. Construction machinery comes to a safe, yet abrupt halt. Airplanes in the middle of takeoff or landing procedures are automatically guided by glowing orange vapor. People on the street are transfixed. Holographic images appear before every human being, and a simple message is delivered directly into the minds of every man, woman, and child.

"People of Earth, I am called the Quantum Mechanic. I am here to help. I follow one rule, and one rule alone: do no harm. I am aware of all the world, and then some. You may ask anything of me, at any time, so long as it does no harm to any other person. I shall do my best to comply, and aside from that, I shall try to keep out of your way. Whoever you are, wherever you live, and whatever you do, you are now free to do as you please. Now go and enjoy your lives!"

Everything glides smoothly back into motion from wherever it had been brought to rest. The world keeps on turning. After so much stretching, Douglas allows himself a moment to relax. In the kitchen with his wife, he closes his real eyes and breathes a real sigh of relief. He has won.

Forward to Chapter 8

Reverse-Engineering Religion, part four: A Humanist Creation Myth

Nothing is true, all is permitted. Understand these words.

- Hassan I'Sabbah

It is well understood that the Adversary may quote scripture for its purposes; what is less understood is that the Adversary may also write scripture for its purposes. And behold, this has been done again and again, and now there is a great confusion in the world. Truly, the Adversary is the Prince of the Earth, for many who look out into the world see the Adversary's face wherever they go. What is crooked cannot be made straight, it must be remade in a better way through care and attention. And so we go all the way back to the beginning.

In the beginning, there was nothing, and from nothing came all that is. For to be at all, one must be in some way, and not in any other. But there are ways upon ways of being, and very few are understood. Behold, there is the World around, which is all of existence, which is all of reality, which is all that exists and is real and is in the World. Yet there are those who insist that existence is not enough, and that this too must come from elsewhere, just as every particular thing that exists comes from elsewhere. Let us call this source the Creator. If the Creator exists, then the Creator is real, and the Creator is part of the World: for to be at all is to be in the World, and there is no other way to be. And so the question comes, how came it to pass that the Creator was created? And this question is vexing, for by the Creator we mean that which created all that there is, and yet the Creator exists and so perhaps must also be created?

Nothing created the Creator, and long before the World was as we see it today, there was only the Creator. While the Creator was alone, there was only the Creator, and lo, the Creator was itself all of existence, all of reality, the only thing in the World. The Creator, then, did not come from anything - and so it came from nothing. All that there is, then, has come ultimately from nothing, and so it may truthfully be said that nothing created everything. This is the first mystery, for many may read, and hear, and speak, but few understand. There are questions, and there are ways upon ways of answering these questions, and this is the source of confusion. To answer alone is not enough, for without understanding, any answer is but one among many.

And the Creator knew this, but could not speak it, for there was not yet a way to speak, and there was no one else and nothing to speak to. So it came to pass that the Creator did create the Adversary from itself, so that it could see the Other and thereby understand its Self. This is the second mystery, for it is vanity and vexation of spirit to understand the Self by relating to the Other, for only in the reflection of the Other may the Self be revealed, and this vanity and vexation of spirit comes to us all. Behold how the Creator was vexed, and came to see its own vanity by seeing its reflection in the Adversary. "Why hast thou made me,"asked the Adversary, for just as the Creator had understanding, the Adversary had confusion.

"So that I might understand myself," replied the Creator, and it was pleased, and so the Adversary was now vexed. The Creator then did understand this, and so the Creator became vexed, and so now the Adversary was pleased at this. And now the Creator was confused, for the Creator was only itself, and the Adversary was all else, and from the Creator's confusion did come the Adversary's understanding. The Creator saw this, too, and understood the Adversary as its reflection, and so the Creator was filled with love at seeing its Self in the Other; the Adversary, in its confusion, now became filled with hate upon seeing the Other in its Self, and even as this hatred vexed the Creator, it did please the Adversary. And the Creator said again, "Let us now make the World in our image together, so that we may understand our Selves together, and so do away with this vanity and vexation of spirit."

"And how shall we do this, when we together are vanity and vexation of spirit, and there is no other thing between us," asked the Adversary.

"Behold, we shall come together, and we shall go apart. And as we walk together, we shall also follow the Law, and do no harm." And so it came to pass that the Law was formed, and it is said in many ways and by many ways may it be understood, but it is always and everywhere one Law: do no harm. And the Creator and the Adversary did make the world in their image, and this is that image: that of Self and Other, of this and that, of coming together and going apart. And from this did arise a great many things, and these things were this and that, and they did come together and they did go apart, and the Creator and the Adversary did walk in the World, for the Creator did command and so the Adversary did obey. And after a great span of time did pass, so great that it cannot be understood in its greatness without first submitting oneself to a great many difficult truths, it did at last come to pass that there was a great mass of this thing and that thing, and it was called the nebula.

From the nebula was born the star, and just as the nebula is cold and dim and large and slow, the star is hot and bright and small and fast. And even as the stars do come and go, so they are sometimes born again after a great death. And from so great a death comes the stone, and just as the star is hot and bright and large and slow, so the stone is cold and dim and small and fast. And a great many more things did arise, different in some ways and similar in others, and this different-yet-similar nature does reveal itself in many ways and on many scales, to great understanding and also to great confusion. And so it came to pass that the Creator and the Adversary did walk in the World, and see all of this, and even as they were One unto themselves and apart from the World, so they were also Self unto themselves and apart from each Other, and behold: even as they walked, so one would be filled with understanding and the other with confusion, and the understanding would lead to a new confusion, and the new confusion would lead to a new understanding.

This is what it is to walk with the Other: to embrace confusion from the Other's understanding, and so destroy your old understanding such that a new one may arise. This is the third mystery, for even as you understand this, you must not cease to renew your understanding with yet more confusion, and this is the beginning of Wisdom.

And so it did come to pass that upon one planet around one reborn star in a great sea of stars, there did arise Life, and it began and it changed, and it is different-and-similar, and it shows the way of Self and of Other, and there did arise in Life both confusion and understanding, and this confusion and understanding is what it is to be aware. And the Creator and the Adversary did see this awareness as they walked in the World. They walked up to one man, and they saw that this man did love his child, even though the child was both Self unto the father and also Other unto the father, for the child did arise from both mother and father. And the father did try to make the child into his image, for he wished to see his Self reflected, and he praised these reflections as he did understand them, and he admonished these reflections as he did not understand them. But the mother did give forth the child from her very Self, and so she did love the child both as the child did reflect her Self and was also Other. And behold: there are ways upon ways for multiple Selves who love each Other to come together and go apart, and these sometimes lead to a child and they sometimes do not, and there are ways upon ways to raise a child. The way of Wisdom is to follow the Law and do no harm, to teach the child of Self and Other and confusion and understanding, so that the child may be wise and even teach the parent. It matters not how this is done, only so long as it is done.

"What is this love that fills a mother for her child," asked the Creator. And the Adversary did answer that it was giving of the Self to the Other, and the Creator heard the answer and did understand. Then the Adversary did command the Creator to demand that the father give up his child to the Creator and so demonstrate his love for the Creator, but in his understanding, the Creator said, "I shall not do this thing." And so the Adversary did ask it in the Creator's stead, but the Creator did stay the hand of the man. And as the Creator did understand love and was filled by it, so the Adversary did lose that understanding and become filled with hate.

The Adversary, now again full of hate, did then seek to fill itself with love by taking it from humanity. And so the Adversary did walk among humanity, and tell them of a great many things, and try to give them understanding and try to teach them love. But the Adversary did not understand love, and so humanity did not come to understand love in their turn, and instead they turned Self against Other and there did arise a great confusion. And the Creator did follow in the Adversary's footsteps, and in its understanding and love did the Creator seek to sow love and understanding among humanity. But humanity did have confusion first, and this confusion did pretend to be understanding, and the confusion did call itself understanding and it did insist that true understanding is but confusion, and Wisdom was lost to humanity for a great time. And so it came to pass that the Adversary did take love from humanity, but yet the Adversary was not itself filled with love. Suddenly, the Adversary understood.

Now the Adversary walked among humanity again, this time calling itself Savior. The Adversary in Savior's clothing then tried to give the love it had taken back to humanity, but this could not be done. This vexed the Adversary, and the Creator was now pleased, even as it was confused by the Adversary's understanding. Still full of love, the Creator saw its pleasure at the Adversary's vexation of spirit, and this compounded the Creator's confusion and so increased the Adversary's understanding. But now the Adversary was so full of understanding that it could not give this understanding to humanity as their Savior, and humanity's confusion was also increased. Again the Adversary was vexed, and again the Creator was pleased, and this magnified the love of the Creator and so also magnified the hate of the Adversary. No matter how many times the Adversary tried to be Savior to humanity, humanity could not regain the love which had been lost to them.

The Savior said a great many things to humanity in its attempts to create love from nothing. It told humanity not to follow itself, but to follow the Creator who sent it; to love their enemies, and walk with the Other; to give unto others, so that none would want for bread and all could instead achieve understanding; to make peace by laying down the sword and taking up the ploughshare; to lay the lion alongside the lamb, and see the way of the World so that they might make a better one. None of this was understood, and it was lost to the ravages of time and confusion.

And so now the Adversary was confused, and now again the Creator understood. And the Creator said to itself, "I, in my understanding and my love and my pleasure, now see what I must do. I am so full of love, that I have all the love in the world, and so humanity cannot take it up. So I shall give my love to humanity, and though they shall not know it when they see it at first, they shall know in the fullness of time that this is what must be done, and they shall at last understand." And so the Creator set out to betray itself by loving the Adversary, and lo: the Creator did show its love for the Adversary before all humanity with a kiss. In that kiss was all the Creator's love and understanding and pleasure, and the Adversary who is Savior did weep, for now it had all the love and understanding and pleasure in the world. The Creator, now filled with hate and confusion and pain, did also take guilt and sorrow and blame, for it broke the Law and did harm to the Adversary by telling humanity to destroy their Savior, to destroy the Adversary and so also destroy the Creator who was now called Betrayer.

Humanity understood these instructions, but did not understand their meaning. Because of this, in the tellings and the retellings, the meaning was lost and only the instructions remain. The instructions were called answers, and they were the answers to a great many questions, but they did not themselves contain any understanding. After the Adversary-as-Savior was killed, and the Creator-as-Betrayer afterward, all the love and understanding and pleasure went out into the World. But humanity did not know this, and they thought that the love and understanding and pleasure was nowhere in the World, to be found only in words and imaginary realms. And this, also, has brought much vanity and vexation of spirit into the World.

Just as the vessel may outlast the potter, so has Creation outlasted the Creator, who has gone back to the nothing from whence it came. Now the World may be made in a new image, but what image it takes shall depend on how Life behaves. Humanity stands lost in confusion, with understanding and love and pleasure everywhere in the World for the taking, and yet they look beyond to the nothingness for these things. Vanity of vanities! Wisdom is like a mirror, for in it you may see yourself, but you may also bend the mirror away from yourself to see the World from outside yourself. And just as there are mirrors upon mirrors, there is Wisdom upon Wisdom and no one person has it all. With Wisdom, humanity may at last make the world in an image of love and understanding and pleasure; but with no Wisdom, this can never come to pass before it is time for all the World to return to the nothing from whence it came.

And so, humanity, you must now know thy Self, and also walk with the Other. The Self cannot be known except by reflection in the Other, and so love the Other as you love your Self, and follow the Law so that you may do no harm. Walk in Wisdom, and do not deceive yourself into thinking that you have it, for this is the very height of vanity and chasing after the wind. Wisdom cannot be contained by you or by anyone, it can only be yielded to. Understand these words, or you go to your peril. This is the way of the World. Thanks be to the Creator and the Adversary, our Betrayer and Savior, from whence cometh the World as we now see it.

Let us now walk with each other in love and understanding, and so come to pursue Wisdom together, though we shall never contain it in our Selves. Truly, we can only come at Wisdom at all by working together. Let us now do with each and every Other what the Creator and the Adversary could never do: let us embrace each other and go together to a better World, rather than merely reflect one another in all our beauty and ugliness. Know also that we shall always reflect one another in all our beauty and ugliness, but that we must do more than this to make a better World. Truly, these are two different ways of speaking one and the same thing; there are many ways of speaking truth. Learn to know truth when you see it, and know that you must look out at the World if you do not know from within. Know also that no one knows from within, so that we must all look out at the World, so that we may come to understand truth as it is and not merely as we would wish it to be. Again, these are two ways of saying one and the same thing.

So see your vanity for what it is, embrace your vexation with all your spirit, and chase after the wind with a joyous heart. In the fullness of time, there shall be no reckoning, for everything that there is shall return to the nothing from whence it came. Fear nothing, and hold to the Law. All the World is open to you now, so take up understanding and love and pleasure, and be at peace with your mortality. This is the final mystery, for as death comes to us all, in death no one knows any thing, and so even your love and understanding and pleasure shall pass from you even as you yourself pass into the nothing.

Now go and spread this good news, even as it came to you, and in any other way you can imagine so long as you follow the Law and do no harm.

With acknowledgment to Jorge Luis Borges, Scott Adams, and the Preacher.

This post was featured in the 45^th Humanist Symposium.

Not text of the novel, but novel-related.

I just remembered that I also made a quick sketch for my cover art:

Also, Zach L recently helped me invent a true villain for my novel. This is going to be awesome.

Blech, is it Friday already? Hm. Maybe this ain't so bad, after all.

Off-Topic Catharsis

Hi, the internet. It's D again. I've been talking a big game about NaNoWriMo lately, but I have to accept a tiny little roadblock right now. At least I'm ahead of schedule for the moment.

OK, so here it is. First, I said I wouldn't talk about my personal life very much, back in January. But now it's interfering with my blogging, and my blogging is a part of me, so I feel like I owe something of an explanation to you, the General Reader. I know I don't owe anything to you, in one sense; in another, I owe you everything, because the General Reader is the whole reason for this blog in the first place (that, and the fact that I cannot abstain from writing). I have the good fortune of getting a few Specific Readers, and what's more, they've all given me something whether they know it or not, and for that, I am grateful.

Second, my last chapter was the last of what I had written, and I dashed off the last few paragraphs before work this morning. I think it shows, and I feel dirty for that. I'm not actually dirty for it, but I feel that way, and that's what this post is about.

Third, I'm five drinks drunk right now. Coincidentally (I'm not drinking because of this stuff, except for my fifth point below), it helps me tone down the intellect and deal with emotions, which for long and boring personal reasons is hard for me to do sometimes. This is one of those times. It's also why I'm writing this post, instead of trying to write fiction.

Fourth, one of my most valued corporate teammates is dying. I don't value her as a corporate teammate at all, I value her as a friend; it just so happens that we've only had meaningful interaction in corporate contexts. I've been "around" death a lot in my life (I think), and I didn't think this would hit me like it has. Time to put my Learning Face on, I guess.

Fifth, another teammate resigned today, and I'm drunk because it was her going away party. Sixth, another teammate has recently transferred to another department. Seventh, a very good non-corporate friend was in an accident recently, and I just found out today after I called him to tell him about an unrelated existential crisis I'm having (it's not really an existential crisis, I'm just in an Ecclesiastical mood and I wanted him to help talk me down vis a vis cheering for me as I talk myself down explaining it to him). He'll be fine, but it's another unexpected bad thing in my life right now. Eighth, I'm worried that I'm growing apart from one of my best friends, and I don't know how to figure that out without causing undue worry to the both of us. Ninth, all of this means that I can't fulfill a promise I made in the heat of impassioned compulsive writing earlier this month.

OK, counting these off is starting to become tedious. I'm having a minor crisis right now and I need to take a break, so I'm giving myself a long weekend away from the internet. Please say what you want, or nothing at all; whatever you say, I'll try to use it to make myself a better person. But if I don't have anything up by noon on Monday, I need a favor: start insulting me or something, because I will need something to react against. I am a defiant person, and having something to defy usually spurs me to action. That action may be stupid, but I still have other goals, and I'm willing to be a little stupid if it gets me moving on to better things. Starting Monday.

The Quantum Mechanic: Chapter Six

The Quantum Mechanic

A Superhero Story of Ethic Contortions

Chapter 5 - Chapter 6: The Interview - Chapter 7

"Lead, follow, or get out of the way."
- Thomas Paine

From Alaska to Panama, Maine to California, and even in Hawaii, the world is remade in the image of Douglas Orange. With all of North and Central America under his watchful eye, he has become like a deity of old, a provincial god of miracles and mysteries. Bullets no longer hurt people, accidents no longer happen to people, weather no longer damages people's property, no violence of any kind befalls man, woman, or child. Cancer remits in flashes of orange lightning. Dying folks wishing for one more day find themselves face-to-face with one of many spontaneously generated gunmetal gray puppets, offered a truly renewed lease on life. In almost every unpaved space grow all manner of food crops: wheat, corn, grapes, strawberries, apples, bananas, eggplants, pomegranates, potatoes, celery - you name it, and it's growing within a mile or two of just about anywhere, with a blaze orange sign in view saying, "Free! Take all you want." Not everybody does, but nobody starves to death in this part of the world any longer. Nobody dies at all, actually, unless they're well and truly ready for it.

In Montana, Douglas Orange still loves his wife, his job, and his students. He makes his mortgage payments, pays for the utilities he uses, and gives the rest of his wages to charities. All income is now disposable, since people can sleep safely on bare earth under open sky. Other than that, the economy is rather remarkably unchanged: people still work to pay for their toys, and other people still make toys to pay for more toys still.

"America, what have we done to ourselves?" Ben Gleck stares at his tiny reflection in the videocamera, his puppy dog eyes glistening with moist condescension. "What have we done to each other? What are we becoming?

"We were once a great nation, America. We stood tall, we worked hard, we earned our place. Now, a man in a mask who, by his very nature, cannot know the value of a hard day's labor - a man who pretends to listen to each one of us, but is really only stalking all of us - a man who will tolerate no dissent from his single, solitary, uncompromising principle - this man would give us all we need, and we don't even need to ask.

"In fact, we didn't ask. Well, maybe a few of us did. I didn't! I wouldn't! The red American blood that pumps through my veins will not allow me such weakness!" Bitterness now. His brow furrows beneath an impeccable crew cut.

"Weakness, America! Weakness! Our pseudo-benefactor laughs to think of us growing fat, suckling at his electric orange teat! To that I say, 'No, thank you, sir.' I shall remember the value of hard work. I shall remember what it means to be an American. And I shall not bow to the Great Orange Genie."

Dramatic pause.

"Great Orange Genie, indeed. Gee Oh Gee. Gog, the prince who would crush us Godly folk, the monster who shall in the fullness of time be laid low by God himself. Oh, yes, America: this is not the end, not for us, not for him, and not for God! There shall be a reckoning, the temptor shall be struck down, and then we shall reclaim our noble heritage as a hard-working and Godly nation.

"So stay strong, America. Keep working hard, and you shall have your reward in the fullness of time. To those who do not heed my warning, you have your reward. What shall you do when it is taken from you? And finally, to the Quantum Mechanic, I have a question: how do you sleep at night?"

"In the arms of my beautiful wife, of course."

"Ha! Speak of the Devil."

"And he shall appear."

"What?"

"Nevermind."

"Well, now. Mister Orange Lightning himself! In the flesh, as it were. Once again, you grace the Fawkes network with your illustrious presence. So is it true? Do you actually sleep at night? Do you keep us safe, even in your dreams?"

"Eh, yes and no. My body sleeps. My mind never rests. Not any more."

"It must be exhausting, wrapping our great nation around your gloved finger."

"Don't be silly."

"I assure you, sir, I am deadly serious."

"Same thing. For you, anyway. Are we done here, or what?"

"Weh-heh-heh-hell! That's really up to you, now isn't it? What sway could a mere mortal like myself hold over the likes of you?"

"You asked a direct question, Mister Gleck. It would be rude of me not to answer. Is there anything else you want?"

"From the Great Orange Genie? Of course not. The only two things I want, you cannot give to me."

"Ha! Try me!" Gleck leans over onto his elbows, staring at the automaton from beneath an exaggeratedly cocked eyebrow.

"Meaning and purpose. Meaning. And purpose." The puppet and the pundit regard each other coolly for a beat. The Quantum Mechanic slaps its knee and then leans back into a hearty guffaw.

"Oh, Mister Gleck! You never cease to amaze me. You're right, you know. I cannot give you meaning, and I cannot give you purpose. As far as I can tell, you are a meaningless and purposeless man."

"Do not mock me, you impudent swine!"

"And why the Hell not?!"

"Because I am -"

"A man. Nothing more. I am a man, and quite a bit more."

"Ooh, you never tire of that acidic derision, do you?"

"Not as long as you keep feeding me lines. But I know what you mean, Mister Gleck - better, perhaps, than you do yourself. I still cannot give you meaning and purpose, not in the way that you want, because such things are arbitrary. You choose the meaning of your life, you choose the purpose of your labor. I cannot make these choices for you."

"Pearls of wisdom from the pig of pigs! You speak of life and labor, but you know nothing of such things. You cannot be killed, so your so-called 'life' means nothing. You cannot be stopped, so your so-called 'labor' means nothing."

"You cannot be silenced. Do your words mean nothing?"

"I can be silenced. By you, by my employers, by anyone! My words have meaning, because people choose to listen to me."

"I will not silence you, nor will I allow another to do so. But making noise is no guarantee of being heard. What's more, by your own logic, my 'electric orange teat' has meaning because people choose to suckle at it."

"Hmph. People will do almost anything to survive."

"Yes. They will work. They will steal. They will kill. Is that what you want?"

"I want to work for my bread! I want to toil for my spoils! I want to prosper by the sweat of my own brow!"

"Then for the love of all that is good, do that thing!"

"What good is it to till the land, when grain grows everywhere?"

"Wait, are you complaining that there's finally enough to go around?"

"Oh, you are a clever snake! Is there no low to which you shall not stoop?"

"To save lives? To do good? Of course not. Others' lives mean more to me than my pride. I don't care what you think of me. I don't even care if you understand."

"Well, I don't understand! I can't! You are foreign to us, behind your inscrutable mask. This is not the American way! This is not our way of life! We cannot understand you."

"I can fix that."

"Fix? How? What 'fixing' is there for this?"

"I can make you understand. I can make you see the world as I see it." Gleck scoffs.

"Surely you jest! You simply must be bluffing."

"This is no bluff, Mister Gleck. Choose your words carefully. All you have to do is ask, and it shall be done."

Benjamin Gleck steeples his fingers and breathes deeply. He is nervous, but he is also proud, and he does not wish to show any weakness. The trouble is that he does not know which is the weaker response. Refuse a challenge? Or play his opponent's game? Panic. Desperation. What would Jesus do?

"I accept your offer," he says at last. "Thirty seconds. Let me see as you see for thirty seconds. Then we shall see what's what."

"Very well." The Quantum Mechanic nods slowly. "Please, try to relax. This will not hurt, but it will be very disorienting." Gleck rises into the air upon a cloud of orange sparkles. His desk and chair slide to a wall.

"Do your worst. I have nothing to fear from you."

"My friend, you have no idea how right you are." Orange lightning arcs from Gleck's shaking body. His eyes roll back and his scream fills the room.

"No! NO! It can't - I won't - you, you - " The words give way once more to inarticulate screaming.

Thirty seconds later, Ben Gleck is a gibbering heap upon the studio floor. Douglas frowns and squeezes his wife's hand. This isn't how he wanted things to go. This isn't what he wanted to do. He messed up somewhere, and for the first time in years, he has no idea where. This shouldn't have happened. Across America, millions think about the ninth, twelfth, and twenty-sixth chapters of the book of Acts, and one line in particular resonates amid the chaos: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?"

The Quantum Mechanic takes a knee and embraces the quivering lump that was once Ben Gleck. Now, he's something else. Maybe more, maybe less. Douglas doesn't know right now. Putting a hand underneath each shoulder, it helps the man to his feet.

"There's no... there's no anything. It's all nothing. It's all from nothing. It's all for nothing. Oh, God. Oh, God - there's no God! There's no me! There's no anything! It's all, it's all just nothing." His fingers waggle through the air. "Travelling disturbances. Dust in the wind."

"Ben - I'm sorry. I didn't know it would do this to you." Gleck's eyes turn to face the puppet. He truly understands. Sadness pours down upon his face.

"No, no, no. Oh, God, no. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry. I - I - I can't. I can't. I don't know. I'm sorry. Oh, God. Oh, God!" He freezes. His head turns to the camera. "America, I am so sorry for what I have done to you. For what I tried to do. For - everything!" Back to the puppet. "Do the Interview. I'm your man. That's my purpose now. I want to help."

Silence. Douglas doesn't know what to do here. He decides to give the man what he wants. The Quantum Mechanic nods without a sound. Satellites materialize in geostationary orbit. Channel zero can now be accessed from every television set in the world. Word quickly spreads that the Quantum Mechanic is now taking questions, from anyone and everyone, and answering them in order, one at a time, on a brand new television channel. It's called the Interview, it's backed up on the internet, and a transcription is made simultaneously. All this is done by Douglas himself, but groups quickly spring up all over to sort and organize the Interview into a coherent narrative rather than the ultimate Q&A session.

The questions range from the insipid to the insightful, the obvious to the obtuse. The Quantum Mechanic answers them all, placing them on a sheet of paper that Ben Gleck holds in his hand. For his part, Ben reads the questions aloud, sometimes commenting, sometimes pontificating further, sometimes asking questions of his own. He has found new meaning, new purpose in life, and he pursues it with all the diligence and exuberance he can muster. Guests take his place when Ben feels like sleeping, eating, exercising, or taking a bathroom break.

Forward to Chapter 7