Random book chapter : Chapter 12 - Conscience

from book "Future Imperfect"

by Adrian Tanase

Alan woke up in his room. It was morning, 7:22 to be precise. Outside, the sun bathed Alandra in a wonderful spring light. Remi had also woken up in his cage and was cleaning his feathers. Alan looked out of the window through the transparent curtains, got out of bed, and went to put some grains of food in Remi’s cage. Last night he had dreamed strange things but somehow he had woken up with a very clear head. Perhaps his subconscious had somehow forced the thoughts that were tormenting him out, or perhaps it was something even deeper than that. What was stranger was that Alan felt that his destiny was beginning to be fulfilled. This idea had been following him for two days. He'd been feeling this way since yesterday when he came back from his last alternate. Mr. K., to his surprise, hadn't arrived yet, although he'd had plenty of time to come since the night before. Alan had waited for him for a good two hours, feeling a lot more at ease than last time. He felt he needed someone to tell him more of what was going on, to give him some reassurance that everything might still be okay.

He went and got a bottle of spring water and poured it into the coffee pot. He then slowly put it on the stove heater, and turned toward the window. He stared blankly for a moment at the thick glass, thinking. In his mind he hoped that the alternate he had been in, even though he had visited the year 4220 in which he was absolutely forbidden to travel, had not influenced the main timeline that much. That's what he wished for with all his heart. Part of this truth, he thought, was supported by the fact that Mr. K. had not yet made his appearance. But hadn't he come because they weren't allowed to divulge their mission secrets? Or if he did show up, was he somehow influencing the main timeline even more? Or had the incident Alan had witnessed been so minor that it hadn't been taken into account at all by K. and his agents? Could it be...? Alan didn't know much about temporal logic but he was beginning to flirt in his mind with certain things that had to do with alternates, the Substance, and the possibilities of altering them.

This morning Alan felt free. And there was no way he could explain it. After all, he was still in a refugee colony, he thought. But why did he feel this way? He was sure that the event he'd witnessed in the alternate had something to do with it. But how? And how much of the main timeline could he have influenced from such an event in an alternate auxiliary, like the one he had attended? He felt more and more that the timeline he and K. belonged to had to be kept intact, and he clearly now had a role in that. He didn't know why he felt this way, it was something on a purely intuitive level, but he felt it in the most natural and logical way possible.

The coffee water was beginning to softly boil. He turned off the stove heater and opened the top cabinet where he kept the coffee can. He poured some coffee generously into the pot and stirred carefully until it slowly dissolved into the hot water. He then took a strainer and poured the coffee into the mug; he couldn't wait for it to cool a little. He quickly took a few sips, burning his tongue a little.

He began to analyze his thoughts with the coffee mug in his hand. He realized that Mr. K. was the key. He wished he could call him now if he could, just to talk. No matter how far he spoke on the subject, he wanted to see in his almost impassive eyes any trace of a gleam that would assure him everything was okay. On the other hand he didn't understand why he still felt so relieved now, especially since the worry of altering the secondary timeline seemed to give him no peace of mind? He took the kettle and poured the remaining coffee into the yellow mug until it filled to the top.

In his mind, a few scenarios were beginning to take shape. He was trying to put his mind to it, using everything he knew, from experience, so far, about the alternates he had been on Substance L. What was the difference between timelines, secondary or not? Realities were defined by their timeline. So in any given reality, basically the timeline that was secondary to him became the main timeline when he was in it, and all the others, including his main timeline, became secondary. He had never thought of it that way before. And that's because he was just beginning to see that. For him, especially for his peace of mind, now and here meant Remi, his room, Mr. Bill, the Colony, and Alandra. This was his life, and nothing more. And this was his timeline of reference. Everything else was just potential futures experienced through the Substance. But now ... he saw that there were actually realities in which the timeline he saw as secondary could become the main-timeline itself, when in it, and everything else became secondary. It was that simple. How could he not have thought of this before? He suddenly realized that the almost infinite causes and effects generated in a timeline made it so important for the people that live in it, so that every alternate was a universe in itself.

He felt as if he had discovered addition, by mistake, more precisely the universal quality of addition. Even K.'s reality had secondary timelines, or possible futures as he liked to call them, but the secondary timelines people viewed K.’s timeline as auxiliary. That was the risk of trying the Substance, he thought, but he shaked his head, as if to get rid of this thought.

He took another long sip of his latte. He put some cold milk from the fridge in his coffee so he could drink it right away. That's what he really wanted. Plus he needed some cold, fresh air for a bit.

He was beginning to become aware that no matter what, things weren't being arranged by him. Things were arranged on a cosmic level, and they were all connected. The fact that there were alternate timelines meant that they were as real as he was and that Mr. Bill was now writing in his notes. Or that the coffee vendor across the street had just sold some coffee. That much real. The fact that he perceived them as "ancillary" didn't just make them "something he could experience". That was his mistake, he'd taken things too lightly. For him it was simply a trip, or a new experience. He considered it just "an experiment", when in fact, even the Substance was something real, which merely facilitated the transition from one reality to another, of course, for a short period of time.

His mind seemed to have cleared. Everything was interlinked and everything already made sense. He began to visualize timelines as being protected by huge energy fields that held space-time realities in different waves of reality. That is, until something like Substance intervened and chose one of these realities in favor of the other for a few hours. He was beginning to see that he of here was he of all the alternates. Obviously, in each alternate he had a different "life", he was dressed differently, he was conditioned differently by society, but at the lowest level, he was still Him. He began to understand that if he was suffering here, at the quantum level, in the universe, somehow his actions were also spilling over to him from other timelines, perhaps infinitesimally fine, but ... everything was somehow finely interlinked. And when the substance opened a vortex from his timeline into another parallel timeline, then his influence on that timeline was more than infinitesimally fine.

He had another sip of coffee. He was thinking fast as if he had to act somehow and had to make a decision. The question he couldn't answer was: how much of the alternates he had been in had changed his main timeline. Only a major and extremely long-lasting change could affect the other alternate timelines, including his own, especially if he or someone else was dealing with it directly.

He walked quickly to the terminal in the living room and sat down. He closed the Alandra news video app and hurriedly opened the app that gave him access to everything he could find in Alandra's online database. That included fresh news, from the last few days. He began searching feverishly. He focused at first on the latest news.

An ambassador from Kree'li was visiting the planet for the first time. A science symposium was taking place in the Expo Center. An ambient music performance by K'aari artists was taking place tonight in the Arts Faculty Concert Hall. A press conference reported that two researchers were going to announce a new discovery in the field of energy, to which top scientists from Alandra were going. A new complex, including a 60-storey building and conference halls had been inaugurated this morning. He stopped and thought about the tall building he had been in. Was it the same building that it was inaugurated today? He had no way of knowing for sure.

Then other almost unimportant news. No sign of anything new that could help him. He searched for another 15 minutes, but found nothing that could have anything to do with what he was looking for. He calmed down a bit, seeing that nothing extraordinary was happening in his timeline today. He laid back slightly and sat down with his hands at the back of his head. If the event in the alternate had influenced his timeline as well, and he was sure it couldn't have, it seemed to have happened at such a fine point that no visible event in Alandra had happened. Yet. He thought that perhaps the ripple in the space-time continuum might be so fine and long, that perhaps in a few days, weeks, or even months he might notice a slight change or event happening because of that. He shuddered at the thought. Would it really work like that? The fact that he had been using the Substance so much lately, and the fact that every time he came back from the alternate he noticed himself as a less intelligent copy of himself, the fact that his mind had become so mature that he understood things from a completely different perspective, made him see things entirely differently now.

He thought of calling Jeeves. It was a little bit past 9 AM. It was a little early and maybe Jeeves was asleep, or maybe eating his breakfast. He remembered that he hadn't really looked where he was supposed to. He should have looked in the newspaper that displayed the most trivial and out-of-the-ordinary things in Alandra. He had never read it, but there was every piece of news that could keep you in a state of nervousness, if that interested anyone. They still had newspapers like on Earth, where you could see all the non-important news that they were making a fuss about. He had never understood what purpose they served, but it seemed he now desperately needed one now.

He hurriedly dressed with what he could find on the chair, opened the door and hurried down the stairs. There was no one downstairs. He left the building and crossed the road in front of his block in his slippers. The stall with coffee, cigarettes, sweets and newspapers was open.

"Yes?"

"I'd like this morning's paper."

"Which one?" asked the vendor. "We have several … "

"The one with the social events and small ads, if you have it."

"We have it, of course we do," said the salesman in the booth, with a certain pride in his voice. "With us you can always find fresh press, every morning. Just 2 credits. Would you like a coffee too?"

"No, thanks, I already have mine," said Alan. He fumbled for two one-credit papers in the pockets of the trousers he had dressed in, and handed them to the salesman.

"Thank you. Here's the paper," he said and retreated to his booth.

Alan crossed the road back as fast as he could and walked up to his appartment. The door remained open. He pulled it behind him and sat down on the couch. The bright colours and banners with all kinds of advertisements filled the pages. In the middle, as usual, news.

He skimmed a few headlines. At one point a headline grabbed his attention. Written in big letters it said: "Assault attack on SkyTech Corp’s. President, at the top floor of Alandra’s one of the tallest buildings."

He wondered if this person could exist in two different timelines. Of course he did; he existed in the same way, otherwise there was no way he could have made the jump with the Substance.

He started reading the article.

"Last night, around 7:30 … ". 7:30? It was 12 o'clock in the alternate evening, he said to himself ... President Trias Berg, of SkyTech Corp. a powerful corporation whose main business is manufacturing fusion reactor units for energy, was assaulted by an unknown person. Nothing is known about the attacker or how he managed to get into the company's secure building, but Alandra police are still looking into clues to find a lead. It is known that SkyTech Corp, as a leader in the production of small-scale and industrial fusion units that focus primarily on power generation, holds a monopoly and is adamantly opposed to alternative energy sources that are not licensed on Kalara IV. As you know, their motto is - "Fusion, the cleanest and most sustainable energy source, brought to your door by SkyTech Corp."

He paused for a moment, and read on, with much more interest.

"The Alandra police are considering the assailant to be part of a far-right activist group, which has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack. The president of the corporation is now safe, the assailant's shooting having been ultimately stopped by the protective energy field around his desk. Alandra police are now searching for him. We will be back with more information soon."

Alan closed the paper and leaned back. He reached for his coffee mug and took another sip. Now he knew something about a president of an influential company on Kalara IV that produced units that generated electricity through the fusion process. Big deal, he thought. Maybe it was all just a protest by the far right, and he just happened to be part of the whole ruckus. Still, he was almost sure this was the person he'd seen in the alternate. It seemed that this time, somehow, and he couldn't explain how, the action in the alternate timeline had directly affected his timeline, and he couldn't imagine how. Maybe events of this magnitude create bigger ripples between timelines, he thought.

He had to smoke a cigarette. A regular tobacco one. He went to get his pack from the kitchen and lit one. He felt like a teenager, in his kitchen. He paced back and forth not knowing why he felt so relieved of whatever was holding him back until now. And he usually had a lot on his mind, but today it didn't seem so.

It was clear what he'd seen in the alternate. The man had been shot, with an energy device. Three times at least. And he'd seen the blood on his shirt. In his normal timeline the man had probably just been scared, and shot only once with a classic gun, which hadn't even penetrated the protective field around the desk that Trias Berg had apparently activated at the last minute. He remembered about K. The fact that he and his agents had posted themselves on Alandra and were working could imply that perhaps it had been a concerted action in several ancillary timelines ... to assassinate the corporate president? Or perhaps under certain circumstances, an action resulting in an alternate affected the other parallel timelines? At least in two timelines this had been confirmed, from what he had seen with his own eyes and from what he had learned today from the newspaper. Could multiple individuals have traveled back in time to multiple instances of 4220 to generate this assassination at any cost? But why? It was clear that something very important was going on in 4220 and that had to do with this politician. Now he realized how important this year was; that's why Mr. K. had banned him from 4220. It was off-limits to him, and it was clear that Mr. K.'s agents had staked out the time zone around that year, perhaps in multiple timelines, to thwart any kind of incursion by anyone trying to change anything. It was certain that Mr. K. was not acting alone, and that was clear from the silence with which he had spoken when they met.

And yet the incursions had been made. The deed was done. But what was so important about this man that he was targeted in temporal incursions by someone to kill him? Thinking about it, he could find no answer. Not even a potential one. He had to act somehow. Surely there were important things about SkyTech Corp, more or less visible. Or directly related to its president. Was he corrupt? Did he have any hidden ties to Alandra's government? Did he have something to hide? Why was he the target of an assassination, and not directly, but through multiple temporal incursions? He stubbed out the cigarette he still had a little of, with hurried movements.

Alan felt the need to get some air. He decided to get out for a bit. He dressed quickly and went downstairs. Mr. Bill wasn't there but his window was open.

Outside, a smell of fresh air hit him. The wind was blowing a little and the sun was warming quite strongly. He crossed the street, and walked towards the board game club. He thought he might stop by for a bit to say hello to the boys, but this time he wouldn't stay. He felt like walking. He knew it would clear his head enough to make him see things in a different light.

He was walking fast. He felt he had the energy for at least two hours of walking like that without getting tired. The passers-by, dressed more skimpily than usual and very colourful, walked up and down the street at a brisk pace and this made him feel at home. He was in the Colony. He was in his timeline and felt freer than ever. Maybe the Substance had cleared his mind, maybe the fact that he'd seen Jeeves recently and had opened him up, or maybe … even destiny. Maybe his path was unfolding and he had reached a point where his life was meant to be like that. He didn't know exactly what was wrong with him but he felt fulfilled, alone and free. He didn't need anything to make him happy and he didn't even need to be happy, really. That kind of freedom was enough for him. He could feel his hair that had grown quite long touching his unshaven cheek as he walked and his clothes, a little loose, gave him a comfort he hadn't noticed before. Perhaps something had happened in the auxiliary timelines as far as he was concerned and that was why he felt this way? Maybe ripples of auxiliary timelines would make Alan from them feel this way too? He had absolutely no idea.

Arriving in front of the board game club, he looked out the window and saw his gaming friends inside. He knocked on the window and waved. The people inside looked up and saw him. A few waved, the others lowered their interested eyes back to their game. He decided to stand in front of the club while he smoked a cigarette. He looked for his pack and found it in the pocket of his baggy pants. After a few puffs, he decided to continue down the street. After the second intersection there was a small, rather quaint park with plenty of benches where trees had just blossomed. He walked for 5 minutes and reached the park. He picked a bench and sat on it, stretching his hands on his back.

He tried to recall the events. It all made sense in his mind but he couldn't understand what role that man, that company president, could have played in him being attacked in Alandra at a time when things usually went on without special events like this. He was trying to recall what he had read today about what had been happening in Alandra lately. At some point he took out his communicator and started to look again for the latest news of the day. After a while he stopped on the news about two researchers. The news was about a new form of energy being tested. He wanted to move on to the other news but stopped and went back. He remembered SkyTech Corp's motto was "Fusion energy is the only clean energy source". May this new type of energy conflict with the fact that Trias Berg's company was focused on clean fusion energy? Would this type of new energy be cleaner, or maybe less expensive to produce? Did the extremist right in Alandra know more about the corporate ties that controlled Alandra economically?

He was sitting on the bench trying to unravel what he had just thought. What could this new form of energy be? I'll have to look more into that, he thought. Trias Berg's company was probably opposed to something like this, even if tacitly. It was normal, he thought. Any new energy had to be at least as clean as the one in use, plus there was the economic factor at play. Wasn't this new form of energy somehow better and he didn't want it just because it destabilized his corporation financially? Alan felt he was on an interesting track. But what if this new form of energy was the future and Trias Berg was only opposed to it because his whole business was based on mergers and the tacit acceptance of this new form of energy could put him out of business in perhaps ten or fifteen years in the future?

He didn't know if he'd found anything but it seemed he had no other option. He knew he might be a little bit paranoid, but as he knew the way the big corporate players were playing, they knew years in advance about the technological advances that were coming and depending on their plan, it could go as far as financially shutting out anything new that would appear on the market. They could even resort to the financial destruction of projects that came up with 'something else' than what they were producing. One could even buy the invention with big money and then file it in their files as a new patent, or as a future reference for their own research. At least he knew that was how things worked on Earth. Since he had been on Kalara IV, he had taken no interest in the local politics of the existing corporations on the planet, but now he had to. It was essential for him to know more about the subject.

He spent more than 20 minutes on the bench looking for more information about what he was looking for, on his mobile, pocket-sized terminal. He found nothing. Almost nothing. Just two news scraps, from almost anonymous news sources, about a new project that apparently succeeded in creating a device that "could facilitate" a new type of energy called "black energy". It was so called because the energy could be seen with the naked eye flowing through tubes similar to, but much thicker than, fiber optics. The energy was contained in these tubes because of the coating of the tube, which was made of a special material that did not allow the energy to escape from the tube. It was also said to be similar to electricity, but it propagated like light waves, at a speed close to that of light. It could, once it entered a specially built device, be converted into conventional electricity and was very cheap and clean to produce. Aha! So that was it, Alan thought. Electricity, very cheap. That must be the problem with the right-wing separatists: they want progress, so they went directly to Trias Berg to make sure this will succeed. Trias was clearly opposed because his "clean" electricity from fusion devices could be replaced by electricity from this invention that generated "black energy". Is that it?

He sat for a moment and thought. In the park people were walking quietly, and on a few benches next to him, a few lovers were kissing. He couldn't help but look. They hugged and talked quietly. Occasional flowers from the flowering trees fell from the trees and the smell in the park was reminiscent of spring in Japan, subtle but present in all the air around.

So Trias is right, Alan thought. The amount of electricity generated in 2000 years from an industrial "black energy" generator is colossal, and very cheap to produce according to the article, because the technology was simple. That would mean ten times more and ten times cheaper energy for at least 2000 years, when a new invention would probably take its place.

Alan remained still. Clearly, he thought, there's an energy revolution right here in Alandra, and the one most targeted is of course the head of the corporation that mass-produces fusion units for the government of Kalara IV. He's the one who might oppose this new project, and since he deals directly with the Alandra government, he has quite a bit of leverage.

Alan breathes a sigh of relief. Things were beginning to make sense. But why the temporal incursions? The thought made Alan give up thinking about it. He chose to remain quietly on the bench for another ten minutes, content that he had unravelled at least part of the mystery in his mind. The fact that he had unwittingly participated in an assassination in an alternate timeline and was at least 50% the deciding factor for why the assassin had rushed to pull the trigger still weighed on him quite heavily. He knew that in every alternate timeline he entered, even without doing anything, the fact that he was there influenced the timeline in a very small way. This time, because of his presence, the assassin rushed to liquidate Trial Berg and wanted to liquidate him as well. The stakes were far too high in this case. Even if he was an innocent bystander who might even have been killed too, even in that alternate, he shouldn't have been there. He should have been out of the alternate when he saw the year was so close to 4220. He had to realize that the fireworks meant new year, and that could have been December 31. Either way, he acted totally wrong, and that was even with Mr. K.'s warning. But what if he killed me in that alternate? He was trying not to think any further, because the thought gave him the creeps.

What was clear, was that the surge in the alternate timeline and his timeline will alter the other timelines in a way that can't even be thought of yet. This is the head of an entire corporation, a man of extreme influence on Alandra. It's not that ice cream fell on his floor in an alternate and a child slipped on it. This time, the change in timelines was massive. And apparently there was a lot more at stake. Assassination had been tried and succeeded by time incursions, in probably at least other ten or twenty alternate timelines, from what I could surmise, he thought. The fact that he wasn't killed was lucky for him. A thought crossed his mind. What if the assailant had killed him in the alternates, would he still have made it back to his timeline?

He came to his senses remembering that he was in the park and that spring had brought him outside for some fresh air. He thought he should give up his temporal incursions for a while and stay quietly in the Colony, playing board games with his friends and smoking herbal cigarettes, and occasionally seeing Jeeves, but avoiding talk of the Substance. Although he liked the Substance a lot, he knew he had entered into a rather complex game without his will. Either way, he had to keep playing safe now, and only use the Substance when it was necessary, at least until he would meet K. again. The die had been cast, and he couldn't stay away. He already knew enough, and if there was anything he could do to help the state of affairs, he would. He had to keep going. Either way, he had to. It was his duty.

He rose from the bench quietly. The afternoon was dawning full of sunshine, and the fresh, fragrant air in the park did him good. Occasionally, someone else would pass him, and the feeling of being in a park made him feel good. He felt so free today. Freer than ever. And he knew he had to act. How he would do it, he didn't know yet. But he knew he had to. He had to talk to Jeeves too, but for now he wouldn't tell anyone. All he knew is that he had to find a way to resolve the present situation, as soon as possible.