In their dark world, the two twisted, hideous, thin-limbed forms plotted and planned.
"Does he know?" asked one.
A pause, then the other said, "No. We can see no way he could know. We are almost certain he does not know."
The first one hissed, then calmed itself. " ‘Almost?’ You say 'almost?’ That's not good enough. We need to be certain. Need I remind you what is at stake?"
"I know what is at stake! We all know… We have been working on this relentlessly, and we do not see what more could be done. And… we must act."
"So be it. We have re-established the link?"
Quickly, it replied, "Yes! Yes. This we are certain of! We have found him actively involved in the quantum experiments, and this has led us back to him."
"Can he do it?"
"Yes, we think so. He can do it. But we must persuade him."
"And if you do not convince him?"
"We must convince him. That gives us our best chance."
"But if you do not convince him, then what?"
"Then we will simply remove his brain, and do our best to use it to get what we need."
Without so much as a knock at the door, or even taking the time to see if the door was locked, Al Turen burst into my home and launched into Kitt and me.
"How dare you two! Who do you think you are? You are just a couple of theorists. Without me you’d have nothing. You break into my lab and use it without even… without me!"
On and on he went, until he finally ran out of adrenaline. Of course he would record anything going on in his lab.
"Granted, Al, we were wrong to do that. We just had to know for sure," said Kitt. She smiled and asked if we might sit and talk about it, thinking this might ease the tension. Al Turen got angrier, and burst out again.
"Never mind talking. Look here. I have it all recorded. I watched everything you two did. Look!"
Al Turen then called up his computer and played the holo for us, without giving us a chance to say anything. I didn’t want to face this. Kitt didn’t remember what had happened, not everything. I did. I was uneasy to think about what the holo would show.
Kitt and I had, indeed, used Al Turen’s lab, and we had done a number of experiments. We had gone at Kitt’s insistence to repeat experiments that the three of us had done just a few days before. Kitt and I had again seen the same thing, but we had different memories of what had happened.
The holo showed the two of us doing the time travel experiments. The recording had begun with our entrance into the lab. Anxiety welled up inside me as I watched. Would we see what Kitt remembered, that her theory had been confirmed as true? I very much wanted that. Or, would it show what had actually happened, that some of the experiments verified my theory and proved Kitt’s to be wrong? I wanted for someone other than just myself to see this to be so. I had another reason for wanting this to happen: I knew that my childhood monsters, real and grotesque beings, were coming back into my life, and that I would be facing this very soon, anytime now. I wanted some reassurance, some confidence.
I wanted Kitt still to have her theory, but I wanted to see someone witness that backward time travel was real, that my theory was correct. I couldn’t have both, could I?
The holo played on, and the first experimental result was … evidence of backward time travel. Finally. My excitement was quashed as soon as I remembered that people’s memories of these crazy experiments had differed before and might differ now, as we viewed this holo. I also felt a flood of shame, for I had put Kitt second. Having seen her devastated before, I didn’t want her to go through that a third time.
I finally made myself look at Kitt, to see how she was doing. She seemed fine. She wasn’t the least bit upset, and I was relieved.
Then, I turned to Al Turen, his anger evident.
"So, Ralph. What's this all about? You have clear evidence of backward time travel. What is it you intend to do?" He circled about me as if I was his prey. "You know I have already published my paper detailing our first experiments and that we never once had a case of backward time travel. What are you trying to do? Are you going to publish this? Show everybody I was wrong?" He wagged a finger in my face, and circled some more. "How did you manage this? We had hundreds of results showing not a single case of backward time travel! You … you come along and get evidence of time travel to the past on your very first try?! What are you up to?"
Kitt had a look of complete disbelief.
"What are you talking about Al? Are you seeing things? The holo showed quite clearly that no signal arrived, and no backward time travel occurred in this experiment. So why are you saying it did? Are you trying to give Ralph a hard time, or—"
"Me? Me give him a hard time? Bahhh!" he cried as he threw his head backward. He pointed his finger at Kitt, and then again at me. "You two are in this together. I just have to figure out … how you did this. Messed with my holo-recorder."
I was weary. There was nothing I could do, so, as they began arguing, I just turned away and let them go at it.
Still, I felt a tremendous relief. All this time, these past three days, I had been working very hard to suppress a thought that I no longer needed to bury. In the back of my mind, I had been wondering if I was crazy, hallucinating, or something like that. But I had kept it from my conscious thoughts. "Occam's razor": the simplest theory is usually the right one. The easiest way to explain all that I had seen, before this bit with Al Turen showing us the holo, was simply to say that I was nuts, imagining things, whatever. But I was free from that now. Al Turen, as disgusting a person as he was, had saved me. He too saw the evidence of backward time travel. I knew then that I wasn’t crazy, and it wasn’t just in my head. With that thought, I was brought back to having to face my childhood monsters, for they were real too, and they were inexorably marching toward me.
Their imminent arrival was another reason I had wanted Al Turen to see what I had witnessed, to see what had really happened. Now I knew I truly did have some ability, some power, to select what would become real out of all the possibilities. That ability might help me in facing my demons. I would soon find out.
Fatigued, I felt lightheaded. I left Kitt and Al Turen to argue. I started to feel dizzy. Stress? That’s what any medical doctor would say. So much stress these past three days. The swirling grew, and I had no choice but to sink into the sofa.
Al Turen and Kitt were too involved to notice me, but I certainly noticed them, and I didn’t like what I saw and what I heard. Their movements slowed, gradually, and I soon realized that they were moving at a different pace, a slower rate, than I was. Their words were dragged out. They were slowing down. No. No, that couldn’t be right. It must have been me. It must have been me seeing their movements as slowing down. Either way, it went on, and on, until they were moving ever so slowly in front of me.
Queasy, I fell off the sofa onto my hands and knees. I broke into a cold sweat. I looked up at Kitt and Al Turen and saw them frozen, neither was moving nor speaking. A sharp stab of panic. Then, all about me, things began to fade. A heavy murkiness grew, and it got darker and darker. I could barely see Kitt and Al Turen. All about hung a dreary gray fog. Gripped by raw fear, I fell into this darkness, and I waited for the inevitable collapse into unconsciousness.
It never came. "Kitt! Turen!" There was utter and total silence. I could make out nothing in this dim fog. I blinked, and blinked again. What was happening to me?! I called again, several times more. Silence. Darkness.
I lost my sense of up and down. I wobbled on my hands and knees. I lost my balance. Ever so slowly, I turned over on my side, and fell, until I felt my side hit the floor. I got up gradually, and noticed that there was indeed gravity, but it was weak, very weak, like being in water, even less so, but without any feeling of equilibrium. I managed to get to my hands and knees again, and then I tried to stand up. I had to move slowly. Now standing, I spread my arms about me, carefully so as not to fall. I blinked and blinked again, but still saw just the gloomy darkness of the gray fog. The air was thin and I gasped, taking deep breaths to get enough air.
As slowly as the light had faded, now a dim light grew around me. I waited.
Two thin, tall shapes began to emerge from the ocean of darkness. I felt fear, for these forms were horribly familiar. I could now make out their thin, long limbs, and next the impossibly huge heads. The light grew and I saw them in their fully hideous and repulsive forms. Yes, I saw: limbs that glistened like slime, bloated heads, slits for eyes.
They had come for me again. I had no idea who these creatures were, no idea why they had taken me, and no idea where I was. Unfortunately for me, I would soon learn the answers.
"Greetings Artemit."
I shuddered. They knew me by name? "Who are you?! What do you want?! Where am I?!" My voice cracked and I struggled to control myself. I wanted badly for this not to be happening.
"Artemit. We have brought you here so you might help us." They looked at one another and twittered in high pitched shrills.
What were they saying?
"Help you?" I asked. "Help you with what?"
"Artemit. You are One Who Chooses. We ask you to choose us."
What did this title, "One Who Chooses," mean? Instantly I knew, or I had a good guess. I asked them, "What do you mean, that I am The One Who Chooses? What do I choose?"
"You are One Who Chooses. You are One Who Selects what will become of what might be. We are Ones Who Might Be."
They turned and twittered again. Then they looked at me and one of them said, "We believe that you know of your powers, that you know that you can choose. Is this so, Artemit?"
The first experiments. They had gone as I had ended up wanting them to go, and somehow I had selected what would become real out of all the possible outcomes, and this had become my reality, but also Kitt’s reality, and even Al Turens’s reality. Out of the infinity of multiple universes, I had selected the particular one that we all moved into.
The second experiments. Kitt and I had gone alone to Al Turen’s lab. I couldn’t stand to see Kitt observing experiments that proved her theory wrong. I wanted Kitt to be happy, to have her theory to be right, and her memory had changed, and she ended up remembering that all the experiments had supported her theory. I had selected again the one world, of all possible ones, that would be ours.
There was more. It wasn’t just people’s memories that changed. In the first experiments, the computer recorded first the results that had really happened, but ended up with its final record having changed, ending up being what everybody had eventually remembered. Kitt and I had used pens, to write on paper the results of the second experiments, and when I had wanted the results to be those that Kitt wanted, what Kitt and I had written had changed. Her memory changed as well.
In all of this, only I remembered what had really happened.
Somehow, I was able to select, out of all the possible outcomes, a single one, and that became my reality, and if I wanted, I could make it be everyone’s reality. This was what these creatures meant. They wanted me to choose something for them.
"OK. Yes. It is so. I can choose. At least, I can choose somewhat." A thought occurred to me and I asked, "What is it about me that makes me The One Who Chooses?"
More twittering, followed by some gasps that meant … something.
"Artemit. Do you think you are the only one with this power?"
Blood flushed my cheeks. How arrogant of me. These beings were not calling me "The One Who Chooses." They were calling me "one of those who can choose." Of all people, I should know this. In the infinite number of multiple universes, there would be an infinite number of people, or beings, who would, for whatever reason, be able to choose. I was not special. I just happened to be one of an infinite number who had this power. On realizing this, I almost laughed.
"So why me? Why not one of the infinite others who could choose for you whatever you want? Why me? What is it that you want?" Another thought came to me: "Why don’t you have one of your own kind do your choosing?"
They twittered. I waited.
"Artemit. We cannot do this ourselves, but you can do this for us. We found this when you were younger, but we lost our link with you—"
A string of expletives burst out of me. I don’t think they knew the words I was using, but they had to sense my anger. "Do you have any idea what my life has been like because of you? You selfish monsters! Do you know the fear I faced as a child? You were coming for me every night! You were my childhood monsters!" I flung more colorful language their way, until, exhausted and out of breath, I stopped.
They waited in silence until I stopped, then one of them said, "Your fear was miniscule compared to the need of all of our kind. We did not intend to frighten you. Your abilities are strong. That is why you saw us. That is why we choose you."
Their answer didn’t convince me. I had a bad feeling about all of this. There is no logical explanation for what I thought then, but I knew that I would not, must not, help them.
They had made my life hellish. Now they wanted me to help them. They showed no concern for me. They offered me no comfort. They were all business and concerned only for themselves. I realized that these beings were not human beings, so I shouldn’t expect them to behave as such. But I couldn’t shake my sense that something was wrong, and it bothered me that they were so direct in getting what they wanted.
I needed to get back to my world, to Kitt. To do that, I would have to learn more.
"Who are you and what is it you want me to choose for you? Tell me, why I should do anything for you?"
"We are Ones Who Might Be."
"You said that already. What do you mean?"
"Artemit. You should know this: it is what you made your life’s work. You exist in one of the infinity of multiple universes. You came to be because choices were made that brought you from having a possible existence, to actually existing."
"And so you are saying that you, here in this place, you do not actually exist? That you merely have a possibility of existing?"
"It is so."
"No, no, no! This makes no sense. How can you, if you only have the possibility of existing, how can you even talk to me, if I actually exist and you do not?"
It gazed deep into my eyes, leaning toward me, a terrible grin grew on its face, and the slits in its eyes opened up. The stink of its breath almost made me gag. It said: "Just as you, one who chooses, can act upon those of us that might come to exist, Artemit, so too can we act upon you. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? You can make us be. We can affect you. Proof of that is that you are here, in a place of what might become."
My eyes watered because of the foul stench. It backed off a bit, and the grin faded.
"OK. OK. So you want me to make you real, is that it?"
"Yes! Yes! That is all! Just bring us to becoming," said the other.
Again, there was something about this that felt wrong. If I really was cursed to have this ability, and if I did indeed bring them into becoming, into being actually real, what would be the consequences of that? I put that thought on hold as another question came to mind. "Surely you exist in one of the multiple universes. Even more, you exist in an infinite number of the multiple universes. So why do you need to be brought into being? You already exist. Think about it. We know backward time travel exists. We know that the infinity of multiple universes exists. Time travel experiments have proved this. The implication is that anything that can exist, no matter how unlikely, as long as it is possible, does exist. That means that you already exist. And if you already exist, then you exist right here and right now. So this is not a place of ‘potentially existing,’ or whatever you call it."
I am a physicist, not an exo-biologist. I have never studied the habits of intelligent life-forms. Nevertheless, I could tell that what I had just said had had a huge impact. They tried to hide it, but they twittered in a way that they hadn’t before, and their limbs jerked noticeably, even if ever so slightly.
"No! We do not exist and we do want to exist! You can give that to us!"
I was silent. Somehow this wasn’t quite right. Gradually a question took form in my thoughts, and I asked them, "What will happen as a consequence of you being brought into existence?"
"Nothing! We will simply move into our own world, a real world. That is all. Nothing more!"
It had answered too quickly, too intensely. I thought that perhaps they were stupid creatures, until I remembered that they were not human beings, so I couldn’t expect them to act as human beings. Then I feared that maybe I couldn’t trust my reading of them. But, no, I would trust my instincts, and I had a gut feeling. An overpowering sense of wrongness coalesced inside me, and I had one single thought: "LIARS."
I don’t know how to explain this, and there is no scientific way to address this, but that one word scream filled me with revulsion. Something bad, something terrible would happen if I brought them into being. I wouldn’t do it; I would not help them. This decision was my turning point.
I needed to know more.
"Who are you?" I asked them once again. "What is your potentially real world?"
"We are, like you, beings of Earth, another Earth. We are what one type of dinosaurs would have evolved into, had they not become extinct, had the asteroid not struck that world."
All along, I realized, these monsters had looked familiar. Not just in the sense that they were my childhood monsters, but also that I had seen them somewhere before. Then I remembered something I had read a number of years ago. I had seen beings like these in an anthology of speculations by scientists, speculations based on known facts, but without the rigor required for serious science. There was a Canadian scientist that had speculated what this line of dinosaurs might have evolved into if they hadn’t been wiped out 65 million years ago. I later found that this type of dinosaur was called Stenonychosaurus. It had the beginnings of an opposable appendage (a thumb, so to speak), binocular vision, a relatively upright posture, and a relatively large brain. I remembered an illustration that looked, now that I thought about it, quite a bit like these beings, but with one chilling difference. These being I was confronting were much like the evolved dinosaurs, the Stenonychosaurus, but taken to an extreme where they were repulsive, ugly creatures: their limbs were much too thin and their heads were much too large. These beings were like what the Stenonychosaurus might have evolved into, had that asteroid not struck the Earth.
In that case, humans wouldn’t exist. What they were trying to hide from me was that, if I chose for them to exist, this universe we lived in would branch over to one where dinosaurs had never become extinct, and where humans had never come to be. This bothered me because it seemed like some sort of echo going back 65 million years and coming forward to the present. I don’t believe the past can be changed like that. Little things, maybe, but 65 million years? No way. This is what logic told me, but I couldn’t bring myself to believe it. I knew that if I brought them from being "Ones Who Might Be" into actually existing, that they would replace humans, and we would cease to exist.
This crazy idea went against all that I knew about backward time travel, the infinity of multiple universes, and the idea that you cannot change the past. Yet I could not shrug it off. I wanted to believe that they could exist and nothing would change for us, because the idea that they would replace us didn’t fit into my view of our world. I had to accept that my beliefs didn’t matter, and I knew I must not make these creatures real.
I looked up at them again. Despite all I had been through, I felt sorry for these creatures. They were intelligent beings that had evolved from dinosaurs. Nevertheless, I wasn’t going to change my mind.
"Artemit. What is your decision?" one of them asked, as if it had read my thoughts.
I had no choice now but to tell them.
"Find yourselves another ‘one who chooses.’ I won’t do it."
Stunned, they didn'tt speak, didn't even twitter. They just stood still and waited.
"Are you certain?" one asked, eventually.
I told them I was.
"We are sorry Artemit. We must find another way. There is one other way."
"Yes? What's that?" I asked.
Now they did look at each other, and they did twitter.
"We will remove your brain. We will use it to generate thoughts that will be close to those you would have thought voluntarily. In this manner, we might still come to be."
I couldn’t believe what I had just heard.
They turned, and started to walk away.
Nothing I said would turn them around, and I couldn’t bring myself to follow them.
I expected them back soon, but they didn’t come. In waiting, I did what I do best: I thought without trying. All I could do was to try to find my way back. That worried me, for even if I did get back, it would always be possible for them to reach me again. Was there any way out of this dilemma?
Then it came to me, all at once. If I could find my way back, it wouldn’t do them any good to come for me again. I’d refuse them just as I had now, and I’d escape, just as I would now, if I could. That would mean they would have to find another of the ‘ones who choose,’ from another of the multiple worlds. My universe, our universe, would be safe. Safe from them, at least.
What I had to do was to find my way back. But how?
I let my mind drift. Thoughts came and went. Eventually, the answer came to me.
When I was a boy, they came for me in the dark, in the night, in the quiet. But they never came in total darkness, and I never knew why. I still did not know why. I did know that they had shown me how to escape. If I could choose for them, then they could come for me. That told me how to get back. They could not take me from a place of total darkness. I could begin my journey home by finding a place of total darkness.
I closed me eyes and imagined the dark. I concentrated and waited for a long, long time. The feeble light died out, but with an agonizingly slow pace. My sense of weight gradually returned. The air grew thicker and I breathed normally.
I heard a distant cry. It became louder. I heard Kitt’s voice, felt her hands on my shoulders, heard her calling my name.
I opened my eyes, my hands reaching for her face. She pulled me toward her in a warm embrace. She hugged me and I felt an enormous relief. I realized how weary I was, unable to hold up my arms, and I sagged to the floor.
Kitt asked me what had happened, where I had been.
"Al and I were arguing and … I didn’t notice what was happening to you, until … until … it was too late and I … we couldn’t do anything!"
"What happened to me … what did you see Kitt?"
She was very upset.
"You were still here, Ralph, but not really here. You seemed dazed, and, oh, this is going to sound crazy …"
"What, Kitt? Tell me."
"I could touch you, and feel you, just like now, but, you were … soft, somehow, not solid like you are now. You kept mumbling and rolling, and getting up on your hands and knees and then standing and swaying, turning and mumbling. You wouldn’t answer us. We called to you and shook you, but you went on and on … until you just curled up and … We had to check your pulse, you were so still, and then you … you weren’t … soft anymore, you’d become solid again. Ralph, please tell me what happened," she cried.
Kitt had said "we" and only then did I remember Al Turen. I looked at him. He was flopped out on the other sofa. He was pale, and there was absolutely no expression on his face. He stared into some empty pit, oblivious to Kitt and me.
"What's happened to him!?" I asked Kitt.
"Ralph, tell me what happened. Please!"
"Kitt … it's so strange … I almost don’t believe it myself." I paused, pondering what I would do if they came again. Would I be able to get back, and what would I do if they came right away?
They didn’t come, and, gradually, I calmed myself and told Kitt what had happened.
For a long time, she sat very still and spoke not a word. That bothered me.
Again, I asked her what had happened to Al Turen.
"What?"
"What happened to him? Look at him!"
Al Turen broke out of his trance and looked at me. There was something in his eyes; he had seen something … something horrible.
He spoke so quietly that I could only just hear him and I strained to capture every word.
"I … I saw them. Kitt saw you, but I saw you and the two of them." He paused. " I saw the … I saw the time travel experiments. I mean, I never saw them on the holo at first. But Kitt kept asking me what was the matter with me. Why I didn’t see what she saw. And then … then …." Blood drained from his face.
"And then I saw what Kitt saw! But I still remember what I saw before, I mean, when I first looked at the holo …." He looked at us, alternating between us, as if trying to figure out which of us could explain to him what had happened. "But now," he concluded, "when I look at the holo I just see what Kitt saw all along." The significance of this did not escape me.
Then he whirled and yelled, "What is happening? What is going on? None of this makes any sense! I see two different things in the holo and Kitt sees the same thing all the time. And you, rolling around on the floor while … while they moved around you … until they faded away and you … came back. What is … How can I make any sense of this?"
"Maybe I can. First, though, tell me what they looked like." As he told me, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that he’d seen, again, what I’d seen.
Al Turen was not a nice man. He’d gone out of his way to hurt people, not a few of whom were people I’d cared about. Nevertheless, he had now given me something of great value. He’d seen not only the proof that backward time travel did occur, but also the monsters. His description was so accurate that I was certain that they were real.
I wanted to ease his misery. Unintentionally, he’d given me invaluable peace of mind. I felt I owed him. Worse, I knew that I needed him for the one last thing I had to do. So I was glad that he’d witnessed backward time travel. I didn’t want his memory to change.
Then I considered the implications. If Al Turen retained his memory, Kitt would eventually know all that had happened, and she’d lose the success of her life’s work. If I left his memory just as it was, I would have to tell Kitt, and I did not want to do that. But not telling Kitt wouldn’t be right, not any more. She remembered, even after the second experiments, even after seeing Al Turen’s holo, she remembered that backward time travel had never been observed, and that confirmed her work. I couldn’t keep it from her any longer. It was time to tell her the whole truth.
I said to Kitt that I needed to explain some things and that I really needed her to hear my whole story before she responded, and she agreed. So I told her (and I suppose Al Turen was listening too) all about the first experiments, how we had observed backward time travel again and again, how we had all argued, and everyone’s memory had changed, and the record in the computer also changed, leaving me the only one to have remembered the backward time travel. I told her that when we had gone back to the lab and repeated the experiments, she and I had witnessed time travel three times, and that she remembered the results of the first experiments, but then her memory changed, again leaving me alone in remembering what had really happened. I emphasized that I had done what I had, chosen as I had, because I wanted her to be happy, and this was why I asked her to let me tell her everything before she replied.
Would she forgive me for not having told her sooner? Would she accept that I was doing what I thought would bring her the most happiness?
There was an uncomfortable silence. Al Turen said it was time for him to go, that he wanted to go back to his lab. I asked him if he would agree to all three of us repeating the experiments.
"Maybe. But certainly not right now," and he disappeared.
My childhood monsters had frightened me beyond description. Now, I had to face Kitt, and, if the truth be known, that frightened me quite a bit too.
With her arms folded, her lips tense, and a sharpness in her eyes, she looked at me and said, "You lied to me, Ralph."
I nodded and replied, "I did."
There was an uncomfortable silence. "Kitt, the reason—"
"I don’t want you to decide for me what will make me happy and what won’t make me happy."
"I know that Kitt."
"Don’t lie to me again." A pause. "Please."
I nodded again. "I won’t."
"Thank you."
We stood there in silence. I didn't know what to say. I asked if she minded staying long enough for me to set up my sleeping room so I could be in total darkness, and she said that would be fine. I set up my room, and, awkwardly, we said goodnight.
I went quickly to my sleeping room, got in bed, and started to think what I would do upon waking. I must have fallen rapidly into a deep sleep. I woke to total darkness. I prepared myself to encounter them again, dressed, and left the room.
The Stenonychosaurus did not come for me that day or that night, and haven’t come since. Are they really just in a would-be world? I’m not sure. I think that they might actually exist just as we do, in their own universe, but don’t know it, and I wonder why they wouldn’t. If they do exist in another of the multiple universes, they must have found a way of connecting with ours, and I don’t understand how they would have managed to do that. Perhaps I’ll find out someday.
Kitt forgave me two weeks later.
I managed to convince Al Turen to keep the lab active, and also to keep the time funnel open. The funnel needs to be replaced by a larger one. I hope it doesn’t take too long. I need it, you see, because there is someone who needs my help, and I need to give that help, and the larger time funnel is my only hope.
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Bela Hermanek