Living in the Present

by Guy Hasson

She’s laughing inside my head.

What’s so funny?

It’s the Professor, she says. I know what she means.

That loon, I tell her, may be the greatest genius alive, but he’s still a loon.

Still a loon, she agrees. What’s he doing, she says.

Right now he’s waving a videocassette in front of my face, I tell her.

“This,” he says. “You gotta see. This is going to kill you.” His voice is in my ears; her voice is in my head.

He just asked me to do the wildest thing, she says.

What, I ask.

He pointed a video camera at me and asked me to stick my tongue out, she says. And she laughs, and her laugh rolls. And I miss her that much more. God damn it, I haven’t seen her in a year!

“Professor,” I tell him. “I want to see Gena.”

“This first,” he says. “I timed it perfectly.” And he inserts the cassette into the machine.

For god’s sakes, Gena, I just spent a year in outer space, away from you. The only thing I want is to finally see you again, and he won’t let me. He wants me to see a tape. Admittedly, he wants to play the tape on what seems to be the smartest video cassette recorder I’ve ever seen. It looks like there’s an atomic clock counting away not the seconds, but the milliseconds. They pass so fast, I can’t even glimpse one di— And my thought freezes as I see the picture on the screen an instant after he pressed ‘Play’.

What’s the matter? She says.

What’s the matter? She sounds panicky. She’s not laughing anymore.

It’s you. It’s a picture of you on the screen!

A picture of me?!

A video of you!

I didn’t take any— Oh, like the one we’re taking now. Are you starting a series of video sessions with me, she asks her Professor Lathan. He says “Not exactly”, she says.

“What are you doing, Professor Lathan?” I ask him. He doesn’t know she just asked him the same thing four years ago.

“I got this idea,” he tells me. “A few days after your liftoff. You’re going to get a kick out of this. But I had to wait almost a year to make this coincide with your landing.”

“Timed what?” But he just smiles. “Timed what, Professor?”

“Shhh,” he says. “Listen!”

He presses the ‘Sound’ button on the television, and the Gena on the screen suddenly looks at the camera - straight at me - and says: “You can see me?!?!”

Gosh, I haven’t heard that voice in a year. And, no, it’s not like the voice in my head. In my head, I can hear her words, her intonations, but not her voice, not the way it really sounds. It’s just quantum magic inside my head. Quantum and relativistic magic.

The Professor freezes the picture. “The future,” he says, and winks at me. What the hell is he talking about! He presses ‘Stop’, then ‘Rewind’. He looks at his watch. “We still have a few moments to spare,” he says. “Good.”

The tape quickly reaches the beginning.

“There we go,” he says. “The Past!”

The man is a loon.

An absolute loon, she agrees. And she laughs.

He presses ‘Play’. There’s Gena, again, sitting on the same chair, looking aside, this time. Then she looks at the camera and sticks her tongue out. I laugh. On the screen, she’s laughing, too. That only makes me laugh harder. And her laugh rolls and rolls exactly the same way it did a few seconds ag—

Wait a minute!

“Is that—?!” I don’t get to say more than those two words before Professor Lathan begins to giggle wolfishly. He presses ‘Stop’ and programs the VCR to go to a specific time. The VCR fast-forwards.

Gena, I have a sneaking suspicion that he’s planning something wicked.

I hate to break it to you, darling, she says, but he’s cackling like the devil back here, four years in your past. He’s a loon.

An absolute loon, I agree.

“Observe the time,” Professor Lathan points at the two digital clocks - one underneath the other. “This,” he points to the bottom one, “represents us. Observe the microseconds dashing forward. This,” he points to the top one, “is the video. Notice that the time on the video is less than thirty seconds into the future. The video,” he explains, “is perfectly synchronized. When our time becomes the same as the number here, on the video, it will begin to play. And then,” he smiles, “we’ll see the present.”

“The present? What are you talking about,” I ask him.

“Do me a favor,” he ignores my question. “Ask her to wave.”

“What?!”

“No, seriously, ask her to wave.”

“To wave?”

“Yes, to wave,” he becomes impatient. “Tell her to wave at the camera.”

Uh... Gena?

Yes, she says.

He wants you to wave.

To wave?! she says.

To wave at the camera, I tell her.

What, you mean— and suddenly the frozen picture on the screen comes alive, and the Gena on the screen finishes Gena’s sentence – “like this??” And her image raises its hand.

What the hell?!

Jack?! I hear her inside my mind, even as I see her on the screen looking around in confusion. What happened? And out loud, on the screen, she looks aside, and says: “Professor, do you know what’s going on?” I can hear him laughing off-screen.

“Tell her to say ‘Hi’ with her voice,” the Professor, my Professor, the Professor in the present, tells me.

Gena.

Yeah, she says.

Say ‘Hi,’ I tell her. Say it out loud.

The Gena on the screen raises her eyebrows in confusion. “Hi?” her image on the screen says hesitantly.

Oh. My. God.

“You see,” the Professor says, a giant grin on his face. “I’ve synchronized it perfectly. You talk to her through the Gizmo, but she talks to you out loud. It’s like a closed-circuit tv, only it’s with the past. You can see her when you talk to her.”

Gena, what you’re doing, in front of the camera, I’m seeing it right now. Like it’s live.

You mean you can see me? And then the Gena on the screen says out loud, “You can see me?! You can really see me?!” And a wave of nausea hits me. That was the first bit the Professor showed me. I’m talking to Gena, she’s reacting to me, on a tape - on a set tape - that’s gathered dust for the last four years! Nothing on that tape can or will change, and yet I’m talking to her!

Yes, I can see you, I tell her. I hear you talking. You know, with my ears. I see you now. I see the way you crinkled your eyebrows when you just heard me say that.

Oh, gee!

But that second, when you said, ‘You can see me,’ the Professor showed it to me a minute ago. He showed it to me before it happened. This is, this is... incomprehensible! You’re on a videotape, a recording that can’t change, but I’m talking to you live! I might say anything! And your response is already on the tape!

Don’t get spooked, she tells me. It’s weird, but it makes sense. “I’m in your past. Why wouldn’t you be able to see a recording of me?”

But if he presses ‘pause’, the picture will freeze, but you won’t. And if I fast forward, I’ll see your responses before I ask the questions.

“Forget that,” she says through the screen. “I’m sure the Professor has watched this tape a thousand times between now and the time you’ll see this.”

“That’s right,” the Professor nods.

“But,” she continues, “don’t you see what he’s done? He’s given us a chance to communicate! When we did this - we separated ourselves in time! But he’s found a way to breach that gulf, at least partially, by letting you see me, not your present me, my future me, but the one you’re talking with. That’s amazing. Thank you, Professor.”

“You’re welcome,” he says.

“I’m talking,” I tell him. But, Gena, you can’t see me.

“Well,” she says. “There are disadvantages to this not-exactly-time-travel project we’re in. But forget that,” and she turns to the camera, leans forward, and says in her softest, sweetest voice, “How have you been?”

And I melt. Oh my god, I melt.

“I’m fine,” I say. Then I realize I talked with my mouth. The television screen can’t hear, you idiot. I’m fine, I tell her in my head - in her head. I’m just... I miss you. I want to see you. And I’m...

“You’re what?” Her recorded image asks me.

Nervous. I’m nervous.

She becomes visibly worried. “Why,” she asks.

It’s not that we’ve been a year away from each other. Or, rather, that I’ve been a year away from you. And I imagine that’s hard enough a reunion. But...

“But what?”

But the Gena here, the Gena who’s waiting for me probably no more than twenty meters from here, is not you. I’ve been talking to you the whole time. But she’s not you - she’s you four years from now. She’s... She’s not the person I talk with. She’s not you. She’s probably changed after all this time.

“Let me tell you: She’s me. I’m her. And she - me - we - have been waiting for you for five years. She is me, and she has been in contact with you all this time. Remember: She’s kept talking to you - your future you - all this time. She’s talking to a you that’s four years into your future. She misses you. I’ll bet my life that she misses you.”

And a tear falls down her cheek.

Don’t cry, I tell her.

Shut up, you bastard. “Look, I’ve had enough of this, it’s making me sad. Go. Meet me.” And report back to me - to this me. If you don’t - one of us is going to kill you. I laugh. She smiles. “Now go,” she says. “Go. Professor,” her image turns sideways to her Professor that’s out of view. “Enough of this.”

“Just a minute,” I hear his familiar voice on the screen. The camera turns, and now I see him, Professor Lathan, a bit younger than he looks today, his hair still black, much closer to the him I left behind.

“See?” he says. “This is magic,” he gloats, and his eyes are shining. “Given to us courtesy of quantum physics. And, Jack, Jack, Jack, this is just the beginning.” He smiles: “This is going to be a wild ride, Jack. We’re going to have fun!”

Professor Lathan, my Professor Lathan, the present one, looks at me with the same glint in his eyes. “God,” he says, “I love the way I talk.”

**********

Gena, I can see you, I tell her.

The two of us are standing there, in front of each other, alone in a room, and we haven’t moved for more than a minute, I think.

Did you say anything, she asks me in my head. No, I tell her, I—I—I don’t have the words.

And the Gena in front of me takes a step closer. “You can see me,” she says. “You’re not saying anything,” she says. “You don’t have the words.”

My mouth drops.

“You forget,” she says. “I was here. Four years ago, living through this exact meeting through your thoughts. I remember everything about it.”

“I, uh— I still can’t find the words,” I say aloud.

What’s happening, the Gena in my head inquires.

Hold on.

“I remember the conversation you’ve had with a video cassette a few moments ago, she says. I remember how nervous you were to meet me. I’m not another person, Jack. I’m still me. Much too old. Much too nervous. Dear god, Jack, you look just the same. While I’m older; I have more wrinkles. We should have done this the other way around.”

“Don’t be silly,” I tell her. “Your wrinkles, they only form where you make a face that’s yours. And your faces, they’re you. Your wrinkles only show who you are. They only make you more beautiful in my eyes.”

She sighs. “Thank you,” she says, putting her hand on my chest.

“So, uh...” I hesitate. “You’ve been through this once already.”

“Yes,” she says.

“Then what happens now?”

“Now?” She says. “Now we’re going to kiss.”

“Are we?”

“We are,” she smiles.

We do.

**********

“Okay,” the Professor says. “Let me try and explain what’s going on without using any big physics words.”

We’re at a press conference. The hall is stacked with hundreds of reporters, cameras, and microphones. We’re standing at the podium, the Professor in the middle, me to his left, Gena to his right, and behind us a few bigwig paper-pushers who are responsible for the funding and so have a right to bask in the glory.

“And for starters,” the Professor says. “We’ll start with that gizmo in each of their heads,” he points to my head, moving the hair aside. “See that silver thing, he asks. That’s a computer we’ve installed in his head. It’s not a computer the way we understand computers. Rather, it’s a very advanced communication device. Jack Preston here sends thoughts, through his mind, to the computer. The computer in turn sends out signals to”—and he turns—“Dr. Gena Preston’s computer, which then interprets them, and puts Jack’s thoughts inside her thoughts. This works both ways, of course. Gena communicates with Jack the same way. The two of them can talk and none of us can hear. Think of it as if we’ve achieved telepathy through neurosurgery.

“Now. That’s the least of the miracles we’ve accomplished. The gizmo here, whose scientific name is really long and has my name about five times in it, so we just call it the Lathan Gizmo – the Gizmo communicates not through radio transmissions or any kind of transmission at all. It communicates through a very special quantum technique.

“Let me explain. You may have heard that all kinds of particles like photons, electrons, and so on, that they can crash, collide, come together, split into other particles, that kind of stuff. And even if you haven’t, they still do that anyway. Now, let’s take electrons. If two electrons emerge from the same ‘event’, let’s call it, then they’re connected. Not physically. They’re connected in no way we understand or see - but certainly in a way we can exploit.

“I’m getting ahead of myself. They’re connected. How are they connected? I’m glad you asked. Say one electron goes one way, and the other goes in the opposite direction. Now, if something happens to one electron then that affects the other electron. It’s like they’re part of the same unit. In physics, they’re certainly part of the same equation.

“The beautiful thing here is that the first electron doesn’t notify the other electron by sending out information in any sort of fashion we know. Rather, the effect on one is transmitted simultaneously to the other - no matter how great the distance between them. In short, the information doesn’t travel in the speed of sound or the speed of light - it is instantaneous! It really is like they’re now part of the same thing. That means, for example, that we can put people on faraway planets and communicate instantaneously, with no time needed for the message to pass.

“Now, we have discovered how to translate information into quantum events - I don’t want to get too technical here, but the point is, the Lathan Gizmos utilize this quantum effect, and so the data transfer from Jack to Gena and back is instantaneous. There are more than enough particles in each Gizmo to keep this back-and-forth transmission between the two for the next two hundred years - which is more than they have a hope of living. So there’s no danger of us running out of quantum particles.

“Do we understand things so far? Excellent. Because now,” and he smiled a huge smile, “I’m getting to the wacky part of our project. And that involves Relativity!

“You may have heard that when a spaceship moves at speeds which get close to the speed of light, time for the passengers passes significantly more slowly than time for us down here on Earth. Now, keep in mind that it doesn’t seem to pass more slowly, time actually does pass more slowly. And at the speeds we’ve sent Jack here five years ago, and they are incredible speeds, we all have aged five years, while he has only aged one.

“Okay,” he says, leaning forward. “Think about it.” He pauses for effect, then he points at my head again. “The particles in his head,” he says, “are a year older than they were when he left. That means that they are in communication with their twin particles in Gena’s Gizmo, which are also a year older than when he left. But Gena’s Gizmo here,” he points to her, “is five years older than when he had left. So he’s not talking to this Gizmo. The question is: where is the Gizmo he is communicating with? Remember that he has to be talking to a Gizmo that’s aged one year since he left. So the answer is simple: the Gizmo is inside Gena’s head, four years in the past! One year after he left! He is talking to her four years in the past - and she - four years in the past - is talking to him now! The past, folks, still exists! It’s not gone! It’s not dead and buried! These two, folks, are communicating through time! And Gena here,” he points to her – “she’s talking to a Jack that’s four years in our future, and that future Jack is right now standing beside his present Gena, who is talking to a Jack yet another four years in their future!

“I know this is confusing, and that it sounds impossible. So let’s take a step back and see why this works.

“Remember those particles that talk with each other instantaneously, no matter the distance? Well, it turns out, thanks to relativity, that ‘instantaneously’ also means through time. For the particles in Jack’s head ‘instantaneous’ means four years in the past, because that’s where the particles are the same age as the particles in Jack’s head.

“Makes you want to redefine the term ‘instantaneous’, doesn’t it? Makes you want to redefine time, doesn’t it? Actually, it probably makes you want to get a pill for your headache. If physics says that ‘instantaneous’ can happen through time, then maybe the present isn’t what we think it is. Maybe the present isn’t about the year 2,001 or any other year. Maybe the present is something that involves both future and past?

“I don’t know about you, but I love this. This isn’t just physics we’re dealing with, this is philosophy. Are we the present? Are we all there is? He’s talking with the past - he’s interacting with the past and the past is interacting with him - that means that the past still exists. Meanwhile, Gena here, our present Gena, is in communication with her husband four years from now! They are interacting, too. The future also exists now! Or maybe it’s the present, and we are the past? Could it be that the universe remembers everything that ever happened and ever will happen? That it’s somehow accessible? Or have we created two or three presents, two or three parallel worlds, by splitting this couple off and flying Jack at relativistic speeds? Do we exist? Are we data? In any case, the past exists now. And we can communicate with it. And we can...”—and his tone drops and whispers conspirationally—“influence it.

“Oh, yes, folks. This is it. We may not have achieved time travel. But this is the next best thing. Because after we’re through with all the standard tests, we’re going to get to the interesting stuff. We’re going to finally solve that damned time paradox that has plagued our minds for the last few centuries.”

“Excuse me, Professor,” a hand rises from the multitude.

“Yes,” he says patiently.

“But isn’t trying to create a time paradox a bit risky? I mean, aren’t you afraid of creating a mistake in the fabric of space-time or something? I mean, mightn’t that destroy the universe or the galaxy or something?”

“So it’ll destroy the galaxy,” Professor Lathan shrugs. “There are plenty of others. What’s the big deal?”

Massive gasps from the crowd.

“No, no, I’m kidding. You mustn’t take me so seriously. There’s no chance of us wiping the galaxy out with an experiment or two. The galaxy is much too big. Worst case scenario: it’ll destroy our solar system.”

Gasps again.

“No, no, I’m kidding. Look, I’ve always thought that was a bit silly, all those theories about creating paradoxes, and the universe imploding-or-something because it can’t handle the paradox. It’s ridiculous. We can’t possibly do something that is impossible. So by definition, we’re not going to do an impossible thing. The universe works. Little old us can’t make it not work. Beside, all those stories of coincidences which prevent you from changing time, I don’t buy them. Coincidences can be prevented. Not to mention the fact that the universe works at an atomic and subatomic level. It can’t make humans or animals or trees behave in a certain way to prevent something. That’s just silly. And, lastly, there is no scientific evidence that the ‘universe’ will react violently to our experiment.”

“Isn’t it true that there’s no scientific evidence to the contrary,” asks the same journalist who raised his hand before.

“Also true. The truth is we have no scientific evidence of any kind. No theory has yet been able to come to terms with the paradoxes time-travel, or, in our case, time-communication, offers. At least none that seem reasonable to me. I’m sure that within the next year we’ll have a reasonable theory based on sheer study of facts. If the solar system doesn’t explode, that is. Yes, any more questions?”

**********

After a million more tests, I get the okay to go home for a good night’s sleep. Gena and I sit far away from each other on the sofa. God, this is awkward. Gena, thankfully, has tactfully kept ‘radio silence’, letting Gena and I get reacquainted. We don’t seem to be doing that.

This is unbearable. It’s like sitting across from a stranger. No, it’s worse.

“You know what will come out of the experiments,” I ask her aloud.

“Yes,” she says, “I do. But there’s that Chinese Wall we’ve set up. I can’t tell you. Not yet. Some things you have to find out for yourselves.”

“Can you tell me about the me in the future?”

“What do you mean?”

“Am I... me?”

She smiles. And I melt, just like I melted in front of that television screen a few hours ago.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” she says.

“Forget it,” I tell her. “I just got an answer to the question I wanted to ask.” And I lean toward her, and put my hand on her cheek, and she falls into it, shutting her eyes.

All of the sudden, all the distance, all the years, all the experiments, are gone. It’s just her and me, reliving the day we first made love. Before we know it, we’re on the floor with our clothes off. I tell the Gena in my head everything that’s happened.

“I love you,” I tell her. I love you, I tell her in my head.

I love you too, she says.

I open my eyes, and I don’t know which one of them said that. “What... did you say?” I ask.

“Do you really have to ask,” she says, as she kisses my chest.

This is more intense than anything we’ve ever done, I tell her. And I’m not sure whether I use my mouth or my brain or both. “More intense. There are two of you here.”

“I know,” she says. “There are two of you here, too,” she says.

I smile. And she smiles. I laugh. And she laughs, that large, boisterous, rolling laugh of hers. And the other she laughs. And the other me is probably laughing, too.

I’m home.

**********

“Well,” Professor Lathan says, “we’re finally ready to test the time paradox.”

It’s been a month since I’ve arrived, and after endless recheckings of all communications between past-Gena and present-me, we’re ready to get to the interesting stuff. Me and the Professor, we’re sitting in a room with a glass wall. On the other side is a closed room with a table and a glass vase on it. The glass vase has Gena’s name on it in my handwriting - I remember writing it before I left.

“All right,” the Professor says. “This is how it goes. The room has been locked and sealed before you left Earth. This entire affair has been done in a double-blind manner. I haven’t worked with Gena or been in much contact with her during your absence, and certainly have not talked to her about the experiments. All to prevent me from having any knowledge that might interfere with the results. Gena has been accompanied by my assistant, Professor Summers, who has been keeping the results of our experiments for herself in a safe. She has the only key to this room.

“Now, it is designed that this experiment will only take place if the glass vase is still on the table. As you can see, this is the case. There are cameras monitoring every corner of the room, and they have been running for the last five years. I have done a quick scan of the digital tapes with special attention to the time of our experiment, four years ago. They do not show anyone entering the room, or the glass vase being tampered with.

“The experiment is simple, Jack. Tell Gena to tell Professor Summers to give her the key. The code word is ‘worms’.”

“She has the key, Prof.,” I tell him.

“Now tell her to unlock the door.”

My heart flitters. My god, we’re making history here.

Gena, unlock the door.

Done, Jack. She sounds tense.

“She’s unlocked the door, Professor.”

He takes a deep breath. “Tell her to go in, take the vase, and leave the room with it. And don’t forget to tell her to lock the door behind her.”

I hesitate. Maybe the galaxy will be destroyed? I shut my eyes and tell Gena what he told me.

I’m walking to the table, Jack. Silence. I’m taking the vase in my hand.

“She has it in her hands,” I tell the Professor. The two of us are staring at the vase. It’s still there. It hasn’t moved.

I’m walking out of the room, she says.

“She’s walking out of the room,” I tell him. The vase is still there.

I’m locking the door behind me.

“She’s locking the door behind her.” The vase is still there.

“Ask her if it’s the same vase with your handwriting on it?”

It is, Jack.

“It is, Professor.”

“Tell her to show it to Professor Summers, to make sure it’s the one.”

It is, she says.

“It is, Professor.”

What now, she says.

“What now, Professor?”

He looks worried. “Tell her to smash the vase against the floor.”

I tell her. She does it.

“She did it,” I tell him. The vase is still in front of us, unbroken.

“Tell Professor Summers to destroy the key,” he says.

Done, Gena says. I tell the Professor.

The Professor is staring at the vase. My handwriting is still clearly on it.

“What just happened, Professor?” He keeps on staring. Then he goes to the computer, and begins to click. The image of the room appears. It’s the cameras. He checks the tapes for the time of the experiment. I look over his shoulder. Nothing. The vase goes undisturbed. The door is unopened. I know that later he’ll look over the entire five years to check if anyone had ever taken something in or out of the room. Somehow, I don’t think anyone did.

Suddenly, I remember why it is that Gena and I were asked to participate in this experiment, and why it is that Gena was the one who was picked to stay behind. Her reputation in the scientific community as a person of unblemished integrity got her the job. Because exactly in times like these you have to trust that the other side is not lying. Gena is not lying. I assume the same is true for Professor Lathan’s choice of a partner: Professor Summers.

Well, if Gena’s not lying, what did happen?

“What does this mean, Professor?”

“Call Gena in,” he says.

“What?” I ask.

“Not the Gena in the past, call our Gena in.”

I open the door. Gena and Doctor Summers have been waiting there. They come in.

“Tell me,” Professor Lathan says. “What do you remember of our first experiment.”

“You asked me to remove a stone from a room just like that one, she points at the glass.”

“A stone?!” I say.

“Don’t interrupt,” he says. “I had ten alternative tests. But the truth which only I knew was that there were only two alternative tests as far as I was concerned. If the vase was missing, we’d have done the same experiment in a different room with a special stone. If the stone was missing, we’d have tried it with the vase.”

“And—?” I ask.

“The stone was missing,” he said grimly.

“I know,” Gena said, “I removed it, and Professor Summers here destroyed the key. I just checked on it, it’s still not there.”

“What happened,” Professor Lathan asks Gena, “on our side, in your future then, when you removed the stone?”

There’s a silence for a while. “Nothing,” Gena says. “I removed the stone, but it remained there in the future.”

“Thank you,” he tells them. They leave. The Professor’s analysis can’t be contaminated by their reactions. They, after all, already know our future. They know what conclusions he’s going to reach. And we don’t want to mess with time too much. Not yet.

For a long while, there is silence.

“So what does this mean, Professor,” I ask him. “Are we experiencing parallel universes or something here? Did the universe split into two when you told Gena to do something that didn’t happen? “ The Professor doesn’t answer. I ask something else: “Is this the solution to the time paradox? Parallel universes?”

“No, no, and no,” he finally says. “I can’t tell you what did happen, but parallel universes? No, no... Jack, I don’t have enough data yet to go on anything else but my gut. But... In all the scientific breakthroughs I’ve made over the years, my gut has always been the thing that led me in the right direction. It has always been right. And my gut has always told me that the idea of parallel universes is as far-fetched as the universe blowing itself up because of this.”

“So what can alternative explanation be?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” he says. “I need more information. And...I need to think.”

**********

For the next few months, the Professor hammers at us with experiment after experiment, changing his original experiments. The result is always the same. Nothing ever changes. I am still in communication with Gena, but the more experiments we go through, the more it seems to me that the Gena inside my head is not the Gena I have come home to. The four years that separate us are two riverbanks growing ever wider, and there isn’t a bridge that could be built to bring the past we’ve created into the present we live in.

The Professor suggests yet another outrageous idea. Having looked over the obituaries from four years ago, having chosen a person who has died in a car accident, having obtained his death certificate, having exhumed his body, having had its DNA checked and his identity verified, having talked to the family that survived him, he then tells Gena to prevent his death. She prevents his death by keeping him elsewhere. She talks to him after he supposedly died, and gets information from him that his family (in the present) confirms only he would know. But nothing changes in our present. He is still dead. His body is decomposed. And yet for Gena, and for his family in the past, he’s alive. Gives a whole new meaning to the term ‘dead man walking’.

The Professor looks up at me and sighs. “There is no other explanation,” he says. “Something in me says that there must be some other explanation... But no. My gut got it wrong for the first time. Parallel universes. Parallel universes.”

I go home. Gena is there. I start telling her about the experiment...

“I know,” she says. “In my past, you told me to save the life of a woman. In the future, she remained dead. But we’re at the future, and she’s still alive. We’re in a different future, Jack. I know. For four years now I’ve been carrying this knowledge with me. I knew I had to be silent until the Professor went through with the dead-man-walking experiment.”

“Who are we, Gena? Who are we?”

“I don’t know.” A long, long silence. “We need to do more research, I guess.”

“Will research tell us who we are?”

“No. No, it won’t,” she says.

**********

Jack is finally coming home.

I see his spaceship on the screen as it descends through the atmosphere.

It’s been five years since he left, four years since I’ve made the video he’s going to see as soon as he lands. It’s been three and a half years since I’ve lost my innocence about this project. Three and a half years since I’ve carried with me the knowledge that this experiment has split us apart, has set each of us to live in alternate universes with alternate spouses.

I may have been alone for the last five years, but I’ve been talking to Jack all this time. I’ve lived through a year of time-lagged conversations (not that the communication itself has had time-lag, it’s just that it took him forever to answer: the answers were always at normal speed). I’ve lived through a few months of experiments until Professor Lathan’s verdict came: parallel universes. And then three years of ‘normal’ life with almost no experiments. And in all that time, with Jack’s voice always in my head, I have never been lonelier.

I know what’s going to happen. I know the future.

He’s going to land safely. He’s going to step off the ship and be surrounded by scientists and physicians. Then Professor Lathan is going to cart him off into a room, where he’s going to watch a video of me - his real me - the Gena from four years ago. Then we’re going to meet, and I’m going to hold off on the knowledge that we’re different for a few months until he learns that we’re not who he thinks we are.

Still. I can’t wait to see him. It’s been too long. Even though it’s a slightly different Jack, it’s still Jack. It’s Jack. It’s my Jack. The Jack I know so well. It’s still Jack.

I tell this to myself thousands of times. Eventually, I might even believe it.

**********

How are you doing, Gena, he asks inside my head a second after the shuttle comes to a stop.

Nervous as hell, I tell him. All my back is tense. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe how nervous I am.

You don’t want to hear how nervous I was to see you, he tells me. I was sweating like crazy—

Hold on, I tell him.

The door opens. A few seconds after the ladder reaches it. I’m in the control tower - he won’t appear bigger than a thimble, but I still want to glimpse him. There he is, his hand emerging first. Gee... I remember what he told me the instant he opened the door.

Lenny and Jimmy, they’re rushing up the ladder to help him. He takes the first step by himself - that was very important to him: The image of the hero returning home. Lenny reaches the top of the stairs first. He’s offering Jack both hands and his body to lean on. Jack, in return, offers his own hand, and leans forward. But— his hand misses! He leans in the wrong direction! Quicker than Lenny can react, Jack releases the pressure on his legs, and leans forward - past Jimmy and down the stairs. Oh, my god, Jack just fell down the stairs! He’s not getting up! He is not getting up! Everybody runs to his side to help him up.

“Jack!” I yell. “Jack!!”

Oh, my god. Oh, my god. This isn’t supposed to be happening! This can’t be happening! Oh, my god!

**********

Gena, you’ve been awfully silent. His voice is in my head.

Yeah, I know. I just—Hold on.

The Professor comes out of the room, where they’re keeping Jack. “Gena,” he says. “Don’t tell Jack anything about what’s happened here.”

“I haven’t,” I tell him.

“Good. Maintain silence with him, while we go on and look at Jack.”

Jack. The Professor wants to lecture me on something, and he wants my full attention. Can I get a few moments of silence?

Sure, he says. And then silence.

“Let’s go,” I tell the Professor.

He opens the door. “Prepare yourself,” he says. “You’ll need a strong stomach.”

Oh, god.

**********

Jack is lying on the bed. His hands and legs are strapped tightly, as he seems to move involuntarily.

“What’s the matter with him?” I ask.

But the Professor just puts his hand on his forehead, “I—uh, I—”

I go to Jack. “Jack,” I whisper, holding his cheek. “Jack.” I turn his head. And he looks at me. “Are you hurt, Jack?”

“Don’t be silly,” he says, his voice trembling slightly. He’s fine. “Your wrinkles,” he says, “they only form where you make a face that’s yours. And your faces, they’re you.”

What?! And then I notice it - his eyes, they’re not looking at me, they’re looking through me - they’re focused on something behind me.

“He can’t see you,” the Professor says. “And he can’t hear you. He doesn’t know you’re there.”

“But he’s talking to me,” I say.

“Your wrinkles,” Jack says. “Only show who you are. They only make you more beautiful in my eyes.”

I look at the Professor and chills run up my spine.

“Let me guess,” the Professor says. “That’s from the first conversation the two of you would have had.”

I nod dumbly. I can’t speak.

“We need to talk,” he says. “Not here. Let’s go to my office.”

We leave Jack with the doctors. He’s kissing the air.

***********

“The doctors don’t know what’s wrong with him,” the Professor says. We’re in his office, now. He’s looking outside, right at me. “I think I have a clue, though. But before I say anything, I need you to break the Chinese Wall we’ve put up. I need some information from the future.”

“Professor, I—”

“Look, the project just collapsed! My friend, my experiment, your husband - he’s gone, and may very well be dying. I can’t do this without data! I need information! Otherwise—”

“What do you want to know?”

“When you changed time. When you tried to change the past - what happened?”

I hesitate. Telling him would be— But then again, everything’s changed. The future I know is not the future that happened. Not even close. “I changed things, Professor. But in the future - nothing changed.”

“Oh, damn,” he mutters.

“Professor?”

“What was the explanation? What were the theories?”

“Well... Everybody thought that in splitting us up in time - we created parallel universes. You held out longer than anyone - but eventually you agreed you couldn’t think of any other explanation.”

“Of course I couldn’t. I was part of that universe. I couldn’t postulate that I didn’t exist.”

“What?”

He pulls at his whitening hair. “Oh, what have I done? How could I have known? What have I done!? I can’t believe I missed it. But who knew!? How could I have known!?”

“Professor...” I whisper. I’m close to hysteria, but I’m holding myself tight. “What’s. Going. On?!?”

He keeps his hand on his forehead, face hidden. “You’ve heard of all those experiments with photons,” he asks me even though he doesn’t look at me. “The ones in which the photons seem to know the nature of the experiment and react accordingly, or the ones in which a single photon seem to have been in two places at once? It’s the damndest thing. We’ve been able to predict their behavior using equations and to even exploit it in holograms, quantum computers, the Gizmo, and so on. But we’ve never been certain how this happens.”

“Professor, what does this have to do with—”

“People offered many solutions, among them parallel universes.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve always thought that was nonsense. I preferred the physicists who clung to the idea that the photon received information. How does a blind bat know how to avoid running into obstacles? It sends out sound waves, and it knows how to read the sound waves that come back. It doesn’t need to hit every wall to know the walls are there. Now, the photon obviously does not send out sound waves, but I do think - and there is a school of physicists who came before me who claim this - that light sends out some sort of information to the outside, and also receives information from the outside. Thus it doesn’t need to be in two places at once, it ‘knows’ what the situation is in each place and reacts accordingly.

“This isn’t without precedent. Gravity works the same way. Each object in the universe is pulled by all the other objects, depending on their mass and distance. How does my body know how far Pluto is, and that Earth is closer, and so Earth should have the stronger pull and not Pluto? It’s been long established that everything emits information about its own gravity - and that everything also receives all the gravity information from everything else in the universe, kind of sums it up, and acts accordingly. Why can’t light do the same thing? Why can’t it receive information about the universe from everything and act accordingly?”

“Professor...” I say. “I don’t see any relevance.”

“Relevance!? Information is what this is all about! There’s a quantum Gizmo inside your husband’s head! It’s constantly receiving information, and it’s connected to your husband’s brain! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell. Look, Gena, this is what I think happened. Let’s look at a photon experiment, okay?

“We did it once with, and the photon had only one, straightforward path. The photon got the information - ‘realized’ there’s only one path and reacted accordingly. Okay? But then, someone from the future contacted you, in the past, before the experiment took place. And you changed the experiment. Now there are two paths. So, the photon receives new information on top of the old one. Question is: What does it react to? New one? Old one? Is the photon capable of receiving two sorts of information at once? What if it can’t adapt? What if it still reacts as if there’s only one path?

“See, that’s what I think happened with Jack’s Gizmo. We’re all here, in the present, for the first time. But Jack - or, rather, the Gizmo - is here for the second time. He was here - and he sent information back to the past. Because of this information, the past became different from the past he knew. And so the present is different. And the Gizmo, his Gizmo, is incapable of receiving different information! It’s reacting as if everything that happened last time is still true! It can’t adapt!”

“So the Gizmo is wrong,” I say. “But why can’t he see me?

“I don’t know why, but that Gizmo is wired into his brain. Maybe the fact that the Gizmo can’t handle any change has caused things to reverse - instead of Jack’s brain sending signals into the Gizmo, the Gizmo is informing his brain what ‘reality’ is. The question is, why can we adapt? I can’t be sure, but maybe because our eyes and our brain and so on are made up of millions and millions of atoms and each is subject to Uncertainty. I think the data and the inability to adapt is somehow canceled out on our macro level. But the Gizmo - that works on a quantum level! It’s attuned to every change. Or, rather, it’s incapable of handling any change! And that thing is now controlling your husband’s brain. He’s living through his first arrival, as you remember it. He won’t be able to eat if we feed him - because his body will think it’s eating what he ate the last time exactly at the time he ate it - and won’t absorb other food or new food or slightly different food - and we can’t control every molecule in his stomach. His blood will react to stimuli that no longer exists. Gena... Jack is... He’s going to die soon.”

“So the Jack I’m talking to in here...” I touch the Gizmo under my hair.

“He’s dead, Gena. You’re talking to a metal Gizmo attached to a corpse. Maybe it isn’t even attached to his body anymore. You’re speaking to an advanced, but stupid, machine.”

Jack! Jack! I yell inside my head.

What? What’s wrong? He says immediately.

Nothing, I tell him. I just wanted to make sure that you’re there.

Oh, I’m here, all right.

“Professor, I can talk to him.”

“Of course you can. You’re talking to the Jack that-would-have-been. He doesn’t exist as anything other than information. Information that is no longer true.”

“So... He’s dead?”

“He’s dead, Gena. He’ll die within weeks. Perhaps days.”

Gena, what’s the matter, Jack says.

“But he’s alive inside my head, Professor!”

“He’s alive only inside your head. And he’ll keep on living inside your head for as long as he would have had. But it’s not really him, it’s just the Gizmo.”

“And I can’t tell him the truth?”

“I wouldn’t. But you do what you want. You’re the one who has to live with him.”

Gena, what’s going on, Jack asks.

You won’t believe the lecture I just got from the Professor, I tell him.

What was it about?

Crazy, crazy stuff, I tell him. Forget it, I won’t bore you with it.

So, he says, what’s been happening?

Ah... For a second I’m stuck for an answer. From the depths of me, I remember what should be happening. Jack, we just had our first meeting. Then they took you away for some tests.

Did we kiss, he asks.

It was inevitable, I say. And he laughs. They’re coming to take me to the press conference, I tell him, so I’ll have to go silent soon.

I remember that. The Professor talking about the galaxy exploding when he knew the truth was that nothing big or disastrous would happen. The man’s a loon to scare the press like that, he says.

The man’s a loon, I agree, trying to sound as jovial. And as I do so, I look at the Professor, who has tears flowing down his cheeks. He’s crying, just like me.

And Jack is laughing inside my head.

— The End.

© 2001 by Guy Hasson. Guy Hasson is a playwright as well as a science fiction writer. His previous sf publications include stories in Aphelion, Anotherealm, Millennium Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Planet. His science fiction book, In the Beginning..., was published last year by 4goodbooks.com, and his next sf book, Hope for Utopia, will soon be published by Fictionworks.