Time Machines and Free Cell Games

"... I predict that scientists might one day adopt a new principle: "NP-complete problems are hard." That is, solving those problems efficiently is impossible on any device that could be built in the real world, whatever the final laws of physics turn out to be. The principle implies that time travel is impossible, because such travel would enable creation of uber-computers that could solve NP-complete problems efficiently. Further, if a proposed theory were shown to permit such computers, that theory could be ruled out. Application of this principle would be analogous to applying the laws of thermodynamics to conclude that perpetual-motion machines are impossible (the laws of thermodynamics forbid them) and to deduce previously unknown features of of physical processes." Scott Aaronson, The Limits of Quantum Computing, Scientific American, March 2008.

Alas, my time machine short stories are limited to the realm of fiction. Dr. Aaronson uses an interesting argument in banishing time machines to fiction. It's postulating that NP-complete problems are hard to solve. What in the world does that mean? NP-Complete refers to a type of problem that is difficult to solve, not only for humans, but for computers too, even quantum computers. An example of an NP-Complete problem is Free Cell. It is easy to verify the game has been solved, all the cards are stacked on the top right. But solving the game is not done easily, it takes many steps for solve a game, especially in written program for a computer. Free Cell is one of more than 3000 known NP-Complete Problems. (I am looking for Web articles that clearly explain NP-Complete, but the best I can do so far is a Wikipedia article that says, "All or part of this article may be confusing or unclear." It goes down hill from there on the other articles I've Googled for a general audience.)

There is a simpler class of problems, call P. These kinds of problems are solved more quickly than NP-Complete, especially as the number of elements (such as cards in Free Cell) grows. There is a conjecture that either:

(a) NP-Complete problems can be reduced to P complexity problems. In other words, there are ways to make NP problems more quickly solvable.

(b) NP-Complete problems cannot be reduced to P complexity problems. In other words, NP problems are hard and cannot be solved more quickly in a computer program.

Aaronson believes the latter. It is a conjecture, based on observation that no proof has come forth for (a) and try as they can, the NP problems are hard for everyone, including MIT professors like Aaronson. If Aaronson is correct, and (b) is one of the foundational laws of the universe, then time machines are impossible, just as perpetual motion machines are impossible because of the laws of thermodynamics. The reason time machines would be impossible is that a time machine would allow us to construct a computer that uses a time-loop, which loops forward into time and then back, to perform the calculation, over and over and over, while in our world outside of the time-loop, the computer would solve the problem in mere moments (even thought the time-machine loop may have iterated for billions of years in processing time). Such an arrangement would violate the hardness law of NP problems.

But thinking of the laws of thermodynamics, wouldn't those laws rule out the spontaneous organization of the universe just prior to the Big Bang? Wouldn't it rule out a perpetual motion universe, or metaverse spawning many multiverses? NP-Completeness and Free Cell games have a correspondence to the impossibility of perpetual motion machines, like the universe and metaverse that spawns it.

Think of that the next time you play Free Cell. Unwittingly, you may be playing a game that points to the face of God.

Googling 2012, CERN, and Wormholes

Every once in a while I check how people arrive at this blog. Many poor unsuspecting people arrive doing a Google search on metaschema, which is a database term. At times, this blog will be the top entry on that search. For those of you who come here, unsuspecting, my apologies.

Someone came by the other day with the Google search of "cern 2012 wormhole". I had written a short story that tangentially mentioned CERN, took place in 2012, and it had wormholes -- a speculative way of tunneling in and out of the universe and end up in a different time. I was curious about "cern 2012 wormhole", so I performed that same search. I discovered a funny series of web pages.

Apparently there is a story circulating in various websites and blogs that CERN, the European center for nuclear research, at their Large Hadron Collider, will be making wormholes in 2012 which will serve as a terminus station for people traveling backwards in time. Some Russian mathematician claims the center will produce wormholes with those properties. You heard it first here. A mathematician! They're never wrong, especially Russian mathematicians because they are so smart.

...and people believe this stuff. Oh yes, various websites and blogs write how various ancient calendars, such as the Mayans, made the most accurate calendars ever, and many of these point to the pivotal year of 2012. It's on the web, so it must be true.

It reminds me of the 1970's when so many Christian prophetic experts predicted Christ would return in the 1980's. I even heard it said at the church I attended that you ought to get a 15 year interest-only loan with a balloon payment at the end because all us Christians would be raptured by then. Credit agencies couldn't come after us. The nice thing about the current 2012/Mayan/CERN/Wormhole stuff is that in comparison, those prophetic experts don't sound as goofy as these -- and I had to really dig at the bottom of the barrel to find this.

In any case, it's fun to find what weird, goofy things people believe and document. It makes my Calvinism look very sophisticated. :-)

Freedom! What's the Point?

So what's the point of my previous story? The story explores the interrelationship of the properties of the future in time and space and freedom. Suppose somehow you watched a video of your future activities a week from now. Is it possible, in principle, for you to change your activities? This thought experiment opens all sorts of philosophical and theological issues. There are all sorts of opinions from people a lot smarter than me. Here are some possibilities:

1. The future is fixed and in some way "predetermined." Most classical Christian theologians take that point of view, Roman Catholic and Protestant, classical theological Arminians to Calvinists. Surprisingly, even some physicists take that point of view in the sense that time is a artificial construct in the universe. Physics, in other words, can be formulated without reference to time.

2. The future branches into nearly infinite paths, all existing at the "same time." Some of the "many worlds" interpretation in Quantum Physics view this as happening.

3. The future, in principle, is not defined or predetermined in detail. Some theologians see problems with the classical definitions of God's foreknowledge in which all the details of the future are known by God. Those theologians believe that humans cannot possess freedom under those circumstances and cannot be held responsible for their actions. They view that God has limited omniscience, or has limited he omniscience to "all that is possible to know." In their view, God possessing perfect omniscience and human freedom are logically incompatible. Since God cannot do illogical things (such as making a "square circle"), and they view freedom as a necessary condition, God cannot have classical omniscience. This view is call Open Theology or Open View.

There are other possible views. I just outlined only three popular ones in this post. View 1 can be subdivided further, which would divide the classical theological Arminians and the Calvinists. The story, Freedom!, takes viewpoint 1. It plays with the idea of how someone would operate under those conditions. The main character, Earl Flask, views his future activity and is given a financial incentive to change his activity in the future. Since the future is immutable, I wrote the plot around that premise and hypothesized how someone would behave in that situation -- how would everything work given premise 1. I am also working with the assumption that freedom, in a very real sense, works in this situation. The model of freedom I am using is one described by Jonathan Edwards in his classic book, Freedom of the Will. In this view, Edwards says the heart of freedom is the ability to choose what you desire to do from the complex of dispositions within you. There are many competing desires and dispositions towards what you will do within you. From that dynamic, competing mix, when you make a selection of what to do, you do so by which of these desires is the strongest at the moment of your choice.

The thought experiment in the story brings interesting issues. What would have been interesting is for the future Earl Flask to be unaware that he was being recorded and then given the option of changing his behavior. However, with premise 1, we are faced with a logical contradiction with that scenario because by the time the future comes around to Earl, he has the information about the attempt to change his behavior. Since there is only one future, Earl knew this in his future recording of himself. Given a single future and the requirement for logical consistency, the story then focuses on why Earl did not change his activities and whether or not he was really free. Earl was free if we follow the definition of freedom given by Jonathan Edwards.

I wrote this story because this issue has fascinated me since middle school. It's also been a topic I've engaged with numerous people, partly because I am an outspoken Calvinist. I wanted to write a thought experiment exploring these issues.

Freedom!

This is another short story. The fictional character, Earl Flask, narrates the story again. This continues the series from the three previous stories:

A Hole in Time
Holy History
Chasing the Probe

This story explores the questions of whether the future can be altered and what is freedom.

Monday, October 8, 2012, 9:12 AM

My cell phone played the opening strains of Gustav Holst’s The Planets, performed by the Atlanta Symphony. I reached for my cell phone and flipped it open.

“The Atlanta Casual Observer, Earl Flask speaking.” I answer.

“Hi Earl.” The voice got my attention.

It was Dr. Sanjee Puthenparambil, the new CEO of Q-Corp. Just months earlier Sanjee resigned and blew the whistle on a Q-Corp project where she played a key role. The project was the Wormhole Time Displacement (WTD) machine. Sanjee’s pioneering research in manipulating quantum wormholes, the tiny tunnels crossing out of space and time and looping back into it, formed the foundation of a time machine, where a quantum wormhole was inflated into a long tube just wide enough to push a marble sized spherical probe through it. Sanjee had discovered how to establish a time difference between the two ends of the wormhole. Depending on which end the probe entered and then exited the wormhole, the probe would either go back into time or go forward into the future. The first significant use of the WTD was to send a probe back nearly 2000 years ago to the tomb of Jesus. The probe was lost and had become a valuable relic owned by the Eastern Orthodox Church in Constantinople. The project manager of the WTD prepared to surreptitiously take back the probe from the church’s headquarters. Sanjee discovered the plan, resigned, and setup a sting operation that resulted in an international incident where the project manager was arrested and Q-Corp’s contracts with CERN in Europe were canceled. The CEO of Q-Corp did something remarkable; he took responsibility for the fiasco and resigned, suggesting that Sanjee replace him because of her integrity and courage. The board of directors agreed. In the few months she ran the company, Q-Corp made a remarkable turnaround. Business practices changed, ethics and accountability got high priority, and CERN restored their contracts with Q-Corp.

“Dr. Puthenparambil, it is a pleasure to speak with you.” I said.

“You said my name well. How long have you been practicing?” Sanjee asked.

“Since the day you reprimanded me for not knowing anything about you, including your last name.” I said, a little embarrassed.

“Don’t take that too hard,” Sanjee said, “it all worked out well, and by the way, call me Sanjee.”

“Thanks” I said.

“Earl,” Sanjee continued, “we’re getting the Wormhole Time Displacement machine ready for an experiment, the first since the adventure you were involved in. I’m inviting you to participate in the experiment and report on it. If you’re free, I’d like you to meet with us this afternoon. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.”

I expressed my interest and we arranged to meet at her office at 1:30 that afternoon.

Monday, October 8, 2012, 1:30 PM

I arrived precisely at 1:30 in the afternoon at the Q-Corp lobby. Security had gotten noticeable stronger since my last visit. Everyone entering the building had to display his or her security badge to the armed guards. I was escorted into Sanjee’s top floor corner office.

“Sanjee, it is a pleasure to see you again.” I said coming into the office.

Sanjee smiled and stood up, “Earl, it is good to see you.” We shook hands.

“Earl, I brought you here for a real inside reporting job. This might get you into both a psychology journal and a physics journal.”

“That’s a lot better than the National Enquirer.” I said. My last article on Q-Corp dealt with the details about the probe placed in the tomb of Jesus. My editor thought the story was great, but rather unbelievable. He didn’t want to put the fragile reputation of the Casual Observer to further ridicule, so he sold the store to the National Enquirer, which published it with the story that Hilary Clinton was abducted by space aliens. In a twist of irony, Matt Drudge picked up the two stories in the Drudge Report during a slow news week. It was labled as strange stories of the week.

Sanjee smiled, “Things didn’t turn out as you hoped, did they.” Sanjee paused and I nodded. “The time machine is now under the oversight of a committee made up of people from the Federal government, international, and university communities. Believe it or not, your story in the National Enquirer was required reading for many people all over the world. It caused quite a bit of alarm in many quarters about how this thing could be used.

“The new project director of the Wormhole Time Displacement machine and I have made several proposals of experiments to the oversight committee. One of the experiments needs a human guinea pig.”

A voice from behind broke in, “Yeah, someone expendable.”

I turned to see it was Michele Gordon. My jaw dropped. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with time machine.”

“I didn’t, not after the tomb stunt. But Sanjee told me that she needed a skeptical, cautious project manager for the time machine, and that the board of directors was begging me to come back.

“So Earl, here’s the experiment.” Michelle pulled out a marble sized spherical capsule and rolled it in her fingers. “We are going to send this capsule through a wormhole to a week into the future, to Monday, October 15th. We want you, a week from today, to wear this capsule in a headband to record what you are doing for eight hours, then we will fetch the capsule through the wormhole back to our time. We will view the recording to see what you are doing a week from now. The question we’re exploring is whether the future is fixed or if it is changeable. We will ask you to change what we recorded you doing in the future to do something else instead. For instance, let’s say during that eight-hour period you shop at Kroger for groceries. We’ll ask you to do something else instead, and we’ll make it worth your while by paying you one million dollars to do something else. In fact, we’re going to pick three things for you to do differently during that eight-hour period. For each thing you do differently, you will get one million dollars. So, during an eight-hour period, you could earn three million dollars.”

“You’re kidding, is that it?” I asked incredulously. “That’s an easy three million dollars.”

“It might not be as easy as you think.” Said Sanjee. “The future might be unchangeable.”

“I think there are many possible futures.” Michelle said, “And Sanjee thinks there is only one possible future.”

It took a while for this to sink in. “If there is only one possible future, then it would seem I have no freedom.”

Sanjee replied, “That’s Michelle’s position. I think freedom can exist under the conditions of only one future. Michelle thinks that there can be no freedom when we can only follow one path without any possibility of variation. After the experiment, we want to interview you on what prompted your actions.”

Michelle jumped in, “Especially if you don’t change your actions. We want to understand why you didn’t change your actions.”

“Are you in?” Sanjee asked.

“Yes, I’ll do it. I’ve never had the chance to get three million dollars before. This will be fascinating no matter what happens.”

“Good.” Sanjee said, handing me a booklet. “Now, you are going to have to follow certain rules. You cannot go looking for information where you’ll get financial gain. Michelle and you, as well as I, are going to be audited by the IRS and the Securities and Exchange Commission for inside trading and taking unfair advantage of future information – with the exception of the three million dollars we are offering you. You will be signing disclosure agreements and other documents.”

The Michelle took over. “At 2 pm today, in less than an hour, we are going to open the wormhole to October 15, 2012 at 9 AM, a week from today. We will send this capsule through the wormhole to that time.” Michelle held up the marble-sized silver capsule. “You will wear this capsule during your 8 hours of activities. We will pick up the capsule about 8 hours later, bringing back through the wormhole to our time, which will be sometime around 8 pm our time tonight. Tomorrow we will look at the recording to see what you did in the future.”

Then Sanjee said, “Earl, I want you here, at my office, at 8 am, Monday, October 15. We will pick three things for you to do differently that day. We will give you a headband. The headband will hold two capsules. One is the capsule we get from the wormhole, which we send into the future and get back. The other is a capsule we put on that day. It doesn’t travel into the future or back. We will compare the recording of the second capsule from the recording of the capsule we sent into the future and got back.”

My head was swimming. “Won’t they be identical recordings? On October 15, both those capsules will be recording the same thing.”

“This is where it gets interesting.” Said Michelle. “There are different possibilities on how the universe works. Back in 1957, Hugh Everett proposed that the universe splits into parallel universes during a quantum event. A quantum event is something that happens in the incredible tiny world of quantum physics, which is smaller than atoms. The nature of a quantum event is unpredictable and can only be stated in probabilities of occurring. Everett proposed that when a quantum event occurs, the universe splits into two parallel universes, one universe where the quantum event went one way, the other universe where the quantum event went the other way. Since there is billions upon billions of quantum events each second, so there are billions upon billions of universes splitting from each other.

“When we send a capsule into the future, we are sending it into these split parallel universes, and the capsule we get back to our time may show a future that is different from the one we eventually see a week later. In that case, the recording we retrieve tonight will be different from the future we really see. Understand?”

My brain was hurting. “I think so.”


Monday, October 8, 2012, 2:00 PM

Down in the underground “bunker” where the WTD was located, we watched from a thick green-tinted glass porthole the robotic arm take the capsule and put it into a large cylindrical tank nestled in six large donuts resembling six MRI machines. We saw a brief flash coming from within the cylindrical tank.

“The probe’s been pushed into the future.” Sanjee said. “Now we wait.”

Monday, October 8, 2012, 10:00 PM

I spent the afternoon and early evening performing various errands. We gathered again in the underground bunker. This time another man joined us, wearing a back suit and tie. I couldn’t help but being reminded of the movie Men in Black. He told us his name is James Smith. He was a liaison to the international oversight committee watching the operation of the WTD. The plan tonight was to fetch the probe from the future and place it in a safe. The probe’s recording would be played in the morning in the presence of the full committee, just in case there was something newsworthy about the future that everyone needed to know about, like the end of the world.

Right at 10:15 pm, we saw the flash from the cylindrical tank. The robot arm retrieved the probe and dropped it into metal drawer beneath the porthole and the arm shut the drawer. Michelle opened our end of the drawer and fetched the capsule. We walked into an office on the other side of the hall where there was a wall safe that took two keys. Sanjee had one key and James Smith had the other. They locked the capsule in the safe and we departed for the day.


Tuesday, October 9, 2012, 10:00 AM

We met in a small theater room on the top floor of Q-Corp. A large display hung in the front of the room. A podium stood to the right of the display. Five rows of cushioned seats faced the display and podium.

Sanjee started the meeting. She introduced the full oversight committee consisting of nine people, a psychiatrist, Dr. Rosen, who was observing the experiment, Michelle, the project director, and me, the test subject of the experiment. Sanjee briefly reviewed the project and how they had sent a capsule a week into the future that recorded eight hours of my life and then sent the capsule back to the present. Sanjee explained that Dr. Rosen and Michelle were going to pick the three things they would ask me to do differently in the future and the financial incentive of one million dollars for me to do those things differently. This morning we will rapidly view my eight hours. Then this meeting would end. Dr. Rosen and Michelle, and observers of the oversight committee would meet in the afternoon and the next few days to consider which activities for me to change. On Monday, October 15, when I come to perform my part of the experiment, I would be told which three activities to change during the eight hours that were being observed. Sanjee held up a DVD disk and said this contains a copy of what the capsule recorded in the future. Sanjee then started the playback of the recording from the capsule.

Apparently I cooperated in the future. The first thing the recording showed was Michelle looking at us (she was looking at the capsule, holding it level to her head with an outstretched arm. In the top right corner of the screen a digital clock showed it was 9:11:23 am on October 15, 2012. The clock displayed the time in the granularity of hundredths of a second. The view of Michelle turned to reveal me, wearing a goofy headband with one capsule attached to it and an empty spot for this capsule. Great, I will go around Atlanta and upscale Cobb County with that geeky headband. Oh well, all in the name of science.

I am not a flashy exciting guy. After leaving Q-Corp, I headed to Cumberland Mall and bought five cards in a Hallmark card shop. I closed the transaction at 10:18:32 at the cash register. Fortunately they sped up the playback.

What do you do when you know lots of people are going to watch every action you take? Well, I decided to go to the Atlanta Aquarium, then next door to the World of Coke, and finish it off with a greasy hotdog at the Varsity. Fortunately when I had to relieve myself, they had given me a remote control to block the recording devices. The screen would be blank except for the digital clock that kept the time at the top right corner of the screen. I saw I had one of those blank moments at the World of Coke. I must have drunk a lot of soda.

It took 60 minutes to fast forward through my life of 8 hours that day. The psychiatrist took plenty of notes of my activity. I felt a little uncomfortable; maybe he saw some signs of mental illness in me.

After viewing my life, the morning meeting was over. Others would continue to review my life; my next assignment was to show up at Q-Corp at 8:00 am, Monday October 15, 2012.


Monday, October 15, 2012, 8:00 AM

We met again in the Q-Corp theater room. Michelle moderated the meeting this time. Sanjee, Dr. Rosen, the nine oversight committee members and myself were in the audience.

Michelle started, “Earl, thank you for participating in this experiment today. This is a groundbreaking time. Dr. Rosen and I have spent the last few days going over Earl’s life and we have settled on the three things we would like you attempt to do differently. We cannot force you to do these differently, but we are giving you an incentive of one million dollars for each of these three things you do differently.”

The screen behind Michelle came to life showing the entrance of a Hallmark card shop at Cumberland Mall.

Michelle continued, “The first is we don’t want you to purchase the five cards at the Hallmark store. For one million dollars we think that is an incentive for you to put that off for another day.”

Next the screen showed the entrance to the World of Coke.

“Next,” said Michelle, “we don’t want you to go to the World of Coke. I understand you’ve been there before and it shouldn’t be a hardship for you not to see it today.”

I nodded, then the display showed the food order counter of the Varsity with lots of people in disorganized lines in front of it.

“Finally,” said Michelle, “we don’t want you to order any hotdogs at the Varsity. You can go to the Varsity, if you want, and order something to eat, but not a hotdog.”

Simple enough requests, I thought. Michelle opened the meeting to questions and discussion. There was some idle chat, and then Michelle pulled out the headband I was to wear.

“Earl, this is the headband you are to wear.” Michelle held up a stretchy cloth headband. She pointed to two receptacles spaced near each other. “These are two holders for the capsules that will record your activities. I am putting one capsule in now. I will put in the other capsule shortly. That capsule is the one we put though the wormhole last week and we are retrieving it now, downstairs, as I am speaking. We will return that capsule through the wormhole opening this evening. The recording you’ve watched of Earl is from the capsule we’re getting now downstairs, that we sent last week to today and we’ll send back again. The capsule will record what Earl does today and we’ll see what Earl does differently by viewing the recording of the first capsule and comparing it to the recording we’ve already watched.”

A young man entered the room holding a capsule. He gave the capsule to Michelle.

“Earl,” Michelle said, “Come down to the front.”

I got up and walked to the front and stood next to Michelle. She put the headband on me, adjusted it so the receptacles were in front. Michelle picked up a small control unit, the size and shape of a credit card.

“This is a remote control for the capsules.” Michelle said. “In a second I am going to turn it on. I want you to notice two important buttons. One is a red button labeled stop. Press this button whenever you desire privacy, such as going to the restroom. The other green button is labeled REC. Press this button when your private moments are over to continue recording.”

Michelle pressed the green button. She held up the capsule from the past, looked at it, turned the capsule to record me, then put the capsule in the other receptacle in my headband.

“You are ready to go.” Said Micelle. “Have fun and return at 6 pm today. We will interview you about your day then.”

With that, I left the room. As I walked, going to my car in the parking garage, I thought about the three requests to change my activity from what the recording showed me doing: buying cards at Hallmark, going to World of Coke, and getting a hotdog at the Varsity. A week ago when I watched the video of activities I would do today, I didn’t have a clue why I’d buy five cards. I didn’t have a clue until yesterday. Yesterday afternoon I visited Jim McGregger. He was the original project director of the WTD project, as well as the chief engineer at Q-Corp. Because Jim got caught doing some illegal activity in running the project, Jim ended up in prison. Jim worked out a plea deal where he confessed to a lesser crime where he would spend six months in a minimum-security facility in Atlanta. Yesterday was the second month of his imprisonment and Jim was feeling despondent. His career was over. He didn’t know what he could do to rebuild his life. I spent a couple of hours with him trying to encourage him. I got home yesterday evening feeling I accomplished nothing. I only seemed to make things worse. It reminded me of how things turned out in my own life, going badly in many ways. Then, I heard the doorbell. It was a friend from church, who dropped by with a card. This friend told me how I touched his life a year earlier. He gave me a card in which he wrote how a series of conversations I had with him, chatting over coffee, made the difference in his life, saving his marriage and family. I was blown away. After my friend left, I read his card again and I broke into tears. I couldn’t believe what he wrote about me. This friend had encouraged me with a visit and a card. I knew several others who encouraged me who I never thanked. I decided I wanted to thanks and encourage five people with cards. I wanted them to know how they positively impacted my life, starting with my friend who gave me a jolt of encouragement last night. I wanted to write a card to Jim who got me into these interesting circumstances with the time machine. I immediately thought of two others, and I knew there must be at least one more.

These friends, who have been such a rich blessing in my life, were worth more than a million dollars to me. As I drove towards Cumberland Mall, it started raining. I knew I could have scheduled this activity for another day, but its meaning would not be the same. These were my million dollar friends. Their friendships were priceless to me. Besides, there were two other opportunities to get a million dollars today. I would be comfortable with two million dollars. As I completed the transaction at the Hallmark store, with people staring at my funny headband, I was enjoying this. I was delighted with my choice of turning down a million dollars here.

Next, I drove to the Georgia Aquarium. I parked on the top deck of the parking structure. The rain had stopped; the sun was out, the air clean. All the years I lived in metro Atlanta I had never seen the aquarium. I was glad that Michelle and Dr. Rosen did not exclude the aquarium. I enjoyed my time there. By 1 pm, I had enough. I was getting tired and I looked forward to skipping the World of Coke. I got into my car on the top deck and started to back out, when something caught my eye – or rather someone caught my eye. Three people were walking past my car. They looked familiar, but I couldn’t place them. Then it hit me. These were friends I knew in high school that I had not seen since my first year of college, two women and a man. One of the women, named Ruth, I had dated in my last year of high school and first year of college. Then we broke up. My heart raced. I had thought about this woman a lot. I sometimes would wonder what life would have been like if I had gotten back with her.

Oh blast! Here I was wearing this goofy geeky headband where my life was being recorded. A whole rush of emotions and thoughts came to me. I was shy, which was one of the reasons I never initiated talking with her again. I wanted to desperately jump out and say hi, but I feared rejection. But most of all, I didn’t want Dr. Rosen and the oversight committee to watch me attempt to talk with an old flame. They’d think of it as a childhood crush. Also, I didn’t want anyone to see my humiliation of being rejected.

I moved the car back into the parking slot and turned off the engine. I grabbed one of the blank cards next to me. Two were already written, but the action was not recorded. I wrote those cards in the restroom in the aquarium with the capsule recording off. I found how to be sneaky with these gadgets I wore. I caught my breath. I opened my door and got out. The threesome was down the deck near the elevator. They hadn’t seen me. The elevator door opened, they stepped in, the doors closed. I casually sauntered over to the elevator and looked over the wall down to the courtyard below. After about a minute, I saw them emerge from the parking structure below walking over towards the World of Coke. I moved my eyes only, keeping my head straight because I didn’t want anyone watching the recording to really see who I was looking at. I thought for a few minutes, about Ruth, how we broke up, and how on a rebound I dated and married another young lady instead, who died a couple years later from pancreatic cancer. How I wanted to meet Ruth again, but I didn’t want Dr Rosen and others to watch this private moment. I finally formulated a plan. It was iffy, but it might work.

I took the elevator down to the courtyard. Ruth and her friends were in the World of Coke line. I planned on staying far away and out of sight until they entered, then I’d get in line and enter at the next opportunity. World of Coke was not busy. I should be able to get in with the next group of people. Once inside, I would look for them in the main lobby, keeping my head still and only moving my eyes. I was going to give up another million dollars, but this was a lifetime opportunity, well worth the cost.

I kept my distance, and entered the World of Coke according to plan. It worked. I noticed the three friends taking the main stairs up to the next level. I hung around on the bottom lobby until they were up, carefully watching them out of the corner of my eye. The three surveyed the lobby below them and then moved on. I quickly walked up the stairs, caught sight of them again, and looked at the exhibits keeping well behind them. When they entered the theater, I waited at a location across from the theater exit to see when they came out, but far enough away to be unnoticed.

Finally they entered the last feature of the Coke tour, the tasting room, where all the flavors Coca Cola makes are dispensed from soda fountains. I watched the three of them tasting all the different sodas. Finally, I saw Ruth walk to a restroom. I quickly walked to the men’s restroom nearby, turning off the capsule recording. I frantically opened the blank card I was carrying and wrote:

Ruth,

This is Earl Flask. I am conducting an experiment right now so I can’t talk, but I want to talk with you after today. My phone number is: 404-xxx-xxxx, and my email is earl.flask@gmail.com. Please call or email me.

Earl

I walked out of the rest room and waited. My heart was pounding, my palms sweating. I felt I could vomit out of nervousness. Finally Ruth walked out of the restroom. I took a quick look at her left hand. No rings. I approached her.

“Hi Ruth,” my voice cracked. “I’m Earl Flask. Remember me?”

Ruth stopped, turned her head, and stared for a couple of seconds. She looked at my goofy headgear and must have thought I had flipped out. She looked a little apprehensive.

“Hi Earl. Yes, I remember you.” She said hesitatingly, looking at my headband.

“I’m involved in an experiment, it’s a long story, that’s why I’m wearing this goofy headband. The experiment concludes tonight when I can shed this headgear. I’d like to meet with you tomorrow, or whenever, at your convenience. Can I call you?”

Ruth paused for what seemed like an eternity. Then she smiled and said, “Okay.”

I gave her the card I written. “My cell phone and email address is here. Can I get your phone number, or do you want to call me?”

Ruth gave me her cell phone number and said she would be free anytime after 10 am tomorrow. I told her I would call her at 10 and that I had to leave now. After saying bye, I turned on the capsule recording and walked out through the gift shop as if I was floating on air. This was worth more than a million bucks to me.

It was 4:00. I had a little time to kill before I had to get back. Thoughts about Ruth danced through my head. Without thinking I drove to the Varsity on the other side of the freeway. I entered, my head still swimming over my encounter with Ruth. I walked up to the counter and ordered a hotdog. I got it, sat down, smiling, being so happy. I bit into the hotdog and realized that hotdog cost me one million dollars. I started laughing. People around me looked at me, one family moved away. I was deliriously happy over my one million dollar hotdog. I thought it was hilarious. Dr. Rosen wasn’t going to tell me what to do. I was free to do what I wanted to do. I thought of Mel Gibson in Brave Heart yelling “Freedom!” That was the best tasting hotdog I ever had.


Monday, October 15, 2012, 5:48 PM

I returned to Q-Corp and was escorted up to the small theater. Everyone was there. Michelle stopped the recording at 6:00 pm sharp, took the capsule that was sent to us this morning from last week and had it delivered downstairs. It was sent back via the wormhole.

In the theater, Sanjee held up a DVD. “This is the recording everyone saw a week ago of Earl’s activities. A week ago it was one week in the future. We’re now going to going to play what Earl did today. During the playback, I want you to wear these glasses.”

Sanjee passed out plastic framed glasses. For those who wear glasses, Sanjee passed out clip-on glasses.

“The playback will look weird if you don’t wear these glasses.” Sanjee said.

The video started. Sanjee had advanced the video to where it showed me walking out of the theater at 9 am this morning. It was a 3-dimensional video.

“As you can see, you are seeing a three dimensional view of everything.” Sanjee said. “Your right eye is seeing what we got a week ago, your left eye is seeing what we recorded today.”

We were all quiet, and then suddenly murmuring broke out. Sanjee said what I was beginning to realize.

“The recordings are identical, except for the position they recorded from. The capsule from today and the capsule from last week are the same distance as our two eyes. So far, the events occur exactly the same way because you keep seeing the stereo view. If there is any variation in what the capsules record, your eyes will see it immediately.”

In the video I walked past other people, they were in the identical positions. As I drove to Cumberland Mall, I could see the raindrops on the windshield. Sanjee froze the video.

“Notice the raindrops. Identical timing and location.” Sanjee said. “This is remarkable, because any slight variation in a week’s time in anyplace on the earth would result in different weather. But notice that it’s raining, starting at the identical time. Notice the identical position and timing of raindrops. This indicates identical weather for the last seven days.”

Sanjee continued the playback. I entered the Hallmark store. We all saw identical action. Sanjee froze the recording.

“Earl, you just lost one million dollars. Why did you do it?” Sanjee asked.

I gave my thoughts as I remembered them.

“Did you feel coerced? Do you feel you were forced to do this?” Dr. Rosen asked.

“Not in the slightest.” I replied. I got up and took out two cards. “Sanjee, and Michelle, I wrote two of these cards for you that I bought this morning.” I walked over to Sanjee and handed her a card, and then to Michelle and handed her a card. “You are a couple of my million dollar friends. I want you to know how much I value your friendships these past months. What you have done has turned my life around in many ways.”

Both Sanjee and Michelle were speechless. Michelle seemed to be blinking back some tears. I sat back down. Sanjee continued the video. It showed the rest of my activities. Sanjee fast forwarded the playback and slowed it down at various times.

It took two hours this time to playback the video in fast mode, slowing it for closer examination. All of the activity was identical. Everyone, all the people around me, all were there doing exactly the same thing they were recorded doing a week previously. The future and redoing the future were lock step identical.

Everyone in the room seemed to be struggling with a rigid, unchanging future, as unchanging as the past. As Dr. Rosen put it, “How can there be freedom in a predetermined, impossible to change, future?”

But I didn’t see the problem. I guess they had to walk in my shoes to see it. I felt really free today, freer than I had in a long time. Yes, I did exactly what the video of last week showed I would do. But I enjoyed this day immensely. I broke out of my selfishness to tell people how much they mean to me. I rediscovered an old friend and broke through my shyness, fear of failure, my goofy looks, and phobias to restart a friendship that I wished had never ended years ago. I enjoyed a million dollar hotdog and laughed so hard it further lifted my spirits. That’s how I knew I was free.

New Plot -- Altering the Future

I'm having fun playing the different story lines based on a time machine I used in the last three short stories.

Here is one story line. Suppose you received a video that recorded your activities a week in the future. You observe what you do in the future. Could you change what you do a week later to be different from what was recorded in the video?

Erlenmeyer Klein Bottle

What would happen if Erlenmeyer Flask married Klein Bottle and had children? Why you'd have Erlenmeyer Klein Bottles, as pictured on the upper left. The picture is an actual product you can purchase from Acme Klein Bottle.

I've got another short story in the works (the stories with the time machine are: part 1, part 2, part 3). It's going to take a month to work out the issues. Now that I've got this interesting time machine, it's a shame to scrap it. There are lots of interesting issues to explore with a traversable wormhole time machine.

The story I have in mind has some theological and philosophical twists in it. This will be different, in some degree, to the issues pondered in the last trilogy of short stories. It's going to be a very simple experiment, I have the one paragraph plot. But I've got to frame the issues in as clear of a way as I can and wrap the plot to highlight those issues.

What's the Point?

What was the point of the last three stories? There are several. One is that there are respectable ways to argue against God even if there is a lot of evidence for God. In three part story, A Hole in Time, Holy History, and Chasing the Probe, I did a what if exploration, a thought experiment. What if there was undeniable unambiguous evidence that Jesus rose from the dead? Wouldn't it mean that Christianity was true? I would think so. However, the seeds of an argument against Christianity, even in the presence of undeniable evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, are present in some proposals of cosmology. In particular, a proposal of an infinite universe, one where space extends infinitely in each direction, provides one way to argue against Christianity. One of the characters in the short stories puts it this way:

If there is the slightest possibility [of Jesus rising from the dead], no matter how improbable, there will be a part of the infinite universe where it will happen. By using the anthropic principle, which is a valid scientific way of looking at things, we are in that part of the universe where Jesus rising from the dead occurred.

This sounds crazy -- and it is. Part of the reason it is crazy is that we operate viewing events as having significance. In an extreme form of science, there is a view that nothing has significance. There is no transcendence beyond the natural universe. No transcendent meaning.

Another reason this is crazy is the self defeating epistemology this view has. We assume our reasoning is sound, but under this scheme of the universe having no purpose, as chaotic order or disorder, there is no reason to assume we view the world around us as being "sound". Order that we see in this kind of universe does not necessarily imply real order. Order could be an illusion. If the universe, on the other hand, is based on a rational God, then it has a reasonable epistemological basis. It also fits with how we operate.

The argument of how the resurrection of Jesus could be meaningless is the same type of argument against intelligent design. After a period in scientific history of thinking the development of life as a probable development of the basic laws of the universe, there is an awareness of the improbability of life developing in a randomly configured universe. However, in an infinite universe, life is possible across that infinity. It is the same kind of argument that rings so hollow when used about the resurrection of Jesus in Holy History. Would people argue in such ways as did Jim did in my story? I've actually come across some who did. One person with a physics background, after I presented evidence for the resurrection, basically said, okay, Jesus did rise from the dead, but it doesn't mean anything. I thought I had closed the "deal" when this person conceded that Jesus rose from the dead, but I discovered I was far from it. Those were the days I thought logical argumentation was sufficient for people to come to Christ. I have learned otherwise since then.

In a way, these stories of mine are parables. They are far inferior to the master parable teller, Jesus. In one of his short stories, one of the characters made a similar point:

He said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’

Chasing the Probe

This is the third installment of a series of short stories. The first, A Hole in Time, was about sending a small spherical probe back in time to the tomb of Jesus. The second, Holy History, was about retrieving the probe and seeing what it contained. The third story, Chasing the Probe, continues the series.

Again, the fictitious character Earl Flask is narrating the story. All characters are fictitious. Unless I have further inspiration, this will probably finish this sequence for a while. I will resume normal blogging.

We had just witnessed seeing what the time probe had recorded in Jesus’ tomb. The priest who had the ancient probe that contained the evidence just walked out. Jim’s deputy project manager quit a minute ago. Things seemed to be spinning out of control.

“So, what are you going to do?” I asked.

Jim was still surprised what the recording showed and was thrown off balance from Father Demetri’s sudden departure. “I don’t know.”

Jim seemed frozen in inactivity.

Then I stood up, “Well you’ve got to do something quick or else you’ll never get the capsule.”

“What do you mean?” Jim asked.

“I think Demetri was testing you.” I said. “He wasn’t going hand over the most valuable artifact in history just because you asked him. You offered him nothing.”

“But the blasted capsule is our’s!” Jim said passionately. “He has no right to it.”

I replied, “Prove that in court. From Demetri’s point of view, he has an artifact that was lost 2000 years ago and it’s a religious relic that has been in the church’s possession since that time. That’s his right to it.”

“So what do you suggest?” Jim asked.

“What can you and Q-Corp offer him?” I asked. “It’s a valuable relic to him and his church and he feels he’s in danger.” I paused, “Look, do you really want this capsule?”

“Yes! Okay, I see your point.” Jim said. Jim tapped his keyboard. “Demetri just got off the elevator. We need to track him.” Jim punched numbers on his desk phone.

“Sanjee, this is Jim. Do you have your GPS tracking handheld? Good. I’m coming down.” Jim was snapping out of his fog. “Earl, come with me. Okay, Michelle’s out. I’m going to see if Sanjee is willing to help. Sanjee can track Demetri for up to a mile with her handheld tracking unit. I’ve got to talk with the CEO and the Chief Counsel ASAP to see what we can offer Demetri.”

We took the elevator to the underground level of the time machine. We walked into Sanjee’s office.

“Sanjee,” Jim said, “we’ve located the capsule. It’s in the possession of the leader of the Orthodox Christian Church who came to my office this morning. I’ve got the data from the capsule. The capsule recorded Jesus’ resurrection. It was a real resurrection. The patriarch refused to give us the capsule. I want you and Earl to find the patriarch. I think he’s on his way to the airport. I’m going to see the CEO and see if we can to come up with an offer for the capsule. I’ll call with the offer. Sanjee, will you help?”

“Okay, yes.” Said Sanjee.

“Earl, will you talk with Demetri?” Jim asked.

“I’m a reporter. I said. “I’m not an agent of Q-Corp.”

“Earl,” Jim said, “You’re a Christian. He’ll listen to you. This is something that is valuable to the Christian world, isn’t it? Don’t you want the historians to see this? If we don’t get the probe, they’ll think the recording’s a fake.”

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll talk with him.”

Jim turned to Sanjee. “Sanjee, you’ve got to know this. Michelle resigned over this. She thinks it’s a fake and refuses to have anything to do with this. She thinks this will bring us all down, not only in the company, but with the outside world as well. We might not be able to get jobs in our field any more. You might want to reconsider. Do you still want to help?”

“Yes.” Sanjee said.

Jim put his hand on Sanjee’s shoulder, “Thank you. I’m going to talk with the CEO and Chief Counsel right now. Sanjee, track Demetri. Earl, at the airport see if you can talk with him. If he gets through security, you may need to figure something out like buying airline tickets to get through security yourselves. You’ll be reimbursed for expenses if you can’t get a refund on the ticket. If you can get on Demetri’s flight, that’s even better.

“My passport is out of date.” I said.

“I don’t have my passport with me.” Sanjee said.

“Okay,” Jim said. “I’ll figure something. Just go, quickly, before he gets out of range.”

I started to go. Then Jim said, “Wait, We’ve got some people in Geneva, they need some equipment. Earl, are you driving?”

I nodded my head.

“Pull up to the drop off point at the lobby. I’ll be there with the equipment.”

Sanjee gathered some things at her desk and then went with Jim to get the equipment. I ran to my car in the parking deck. I pulled up to drop off area as Jim and Sanjee were carrying two small footlockers out of the lobby. I got out to help.

“We ship stuff to Europe all the time.” Jim said. “Find out what flight Demetri is on and ship it on that flight, otherwise ship it via Air France or Delta. We’ve got an arrangement with Air France for CERN equipment. Sanjee, you’ve got the paperwork. Now go find Demetri. I’ll phone you with Q-Corp’s offer.”

I drove off, Sanjee sitting in front on the passenger side. She had the handheld GPS tracking unit a soft leather case. She unzipped it, took a stylus and started taping the screen.

“Are you getting any signal from the capsule?” I asked.

“No. He’s out of range.” Sanjee said.

I raced onto the freeway. It was shortly after 2 pm, the traffic was not heavy. Fortunately for me the Georgia Patrol doesn’t monitor the traffic that much. I pushed my car up to 80 miles per hour, heading north on Interstate 75 towards the airport. As we got into downtown, the traffic got heavier and we slowed down.

“I don’t know what Jim was thinking of.” I said. “Sending equipment at a time like this when we should have been on Demetri’s tail. We lost him because of that.”

“I’m picking up a signal.” Sanjee said.

The traffic was slowing us down. I got into the commuter lane; we slowly drove past the heavy traffic. I turned on the local news station. The traffic report told of an accident ahead of us.

“He’s going slowly too. It looks like he’s in the HOV lane.” Sanjee said.

“How does that work?” I asked, nodding towards the handheld.

“This is a modified Global Positioning System handheld,” Sanjee said, “like a Garman or TomTom. In addition to the GPS, it has a transmitter where we can transmit commands to the capsule, like the ‘Call Home’ command which asks capsule to transmit a ‘here I am response’. Every time we issue a ‘Call Home’, we read the capsule’s changing direction from us as we move about and the handheld unit can calculate its position and shows it on the display. There’s more to it, but that’s the basic idea. These handheld units can basically run a capsule, such as start recording, stop recording, and change ways the capsule responds to ‘Call Home’. We can even read the data recorded on the capsule.”

“Can you erase the recording?” I asked.

“No. Once a recording is made, it is permanent.” Sanjee answered.

“So, can you fake a recording in the capsule?” I asked.

“No.” Sanjee replied. “There are lots of mechanisms that prevent that.”

I continued driving in the heavy traffic.

“Earl,” Sanjee said, “ could you tell me what happened in this morning’s meeting?”

“Sure.” I said.

I told Sanjee about the meeting this morning between Father Demetri, Jim, and Michelle. I talked about Jim’s surprise over meeting Demetri, who he had met before, and the discussion we had prior to viewing the data in the capsule. I also told her about how the capsule was passed down during the hundreds of years and that people died defending it and keeping it. Then I told about watching the video inside the tomb, how Michelle and Jim were completely surprised and Demetri’s sudden exit. I finally told Sanjee how Jim had discovered the Demetri had swallowed the capsule and Jim’s anger over Demetri’s playing him like a violin.

Sanjee was quiet through all this. The traffic lightened and Sanjee noticed that the GPS put the capsule signal turning off onto I-85, heading towards the Atlanta airport. We were about half a mile behind. I changed lanes and took I-85 towards the airport.

Sanjee and I discussed strategy as got closer to the airport. We decided I would drop her and the equipment at the curb. She would buy a ticket to New York City to be able to get through security. She would leave the equipment with me, and she would go through airport security and track Demetri because she knew how to use the GPS device and I didn’t. Once she found Demetri, she would see what flight he was taking, and she would call me on my cell phone and tell me which flight to book the equipment through. I would then buy a ticket to New York City to get through security.

It was 3 pm when I dropped Sanjee off at the airport departure curb and left the equipment with her. I parked the car and found her inside the terminal. I took over watching the equipment as Sanjee walked off to security line.

My cell phone rang. It was Jim McGregger. “Earl, the CEO and the Q-Corp has agreed to offer Father Demetri two million dollars for the capsule. We can go higher, but see if this is in the ballpark. Are you at the airport, have you seen him?”

“We’re at the airport,” I said, “Sanjee is tracking Demetri to see what flight he’s on. When she finds out, she’ll call me, I’ll get the equipment on the flight an go talk with Demetri.”

“Great. Keep me posted.” Jim said.

Time crawled slowly. I wondered what was taking Sanjee so long in calling back. It was 4:15 pm when my cell phone rang.

Sanjee: Earl, this is Sanjee. I’ve located Father Demetri. It looks like he is flying Air France to Paris. It’s a code share flight being run by Delta Airlines. It’s leaving
At 5:20 pm.

On a hunch I was waiting in the Air France line. It was going to be close.

“Good.” I said. “I’m the next one in line.”

I showed the paperwork to the agent. They took the footlockers without question.

I already bought a ticket to New York City and I walked quickly to security. It was 4:20. This was going to be close to get to Demetri. He could be boarding the flight in about 30 minutes.

4:30, I was through security. I took the underground train to the International Concourse. By the time I got up the escalator, it was 4:45. I saw Sanjee, she pointed down the corridor. I ran. I heard the pre-boarding announcement for the Paris flight. I saw Demetri, sitting, looking at the agents. I caught my breath and walked up to Father Demetri.

“Father Demetri.” I said.

Demetri looked up. It looked like he had been expecting me.

“Where’s Jim McGregger?” Demetri asked.

“He’s worked out an offer from Q-Corp. Can we talk?” I asked.

We moved away from the crowed to a more secluded area.

“Q-Corp is ready to offer you two million dollars for the Orb.” I said.

Demetri simply said, “It’s not for sale.”

I persisted, “But think of what the Orthodox Church could do with two million dollars.”

Demetri was firm, “I don’t care if they offer one hundred billion dollars – it’s not for sale.”

There was an awkward silence.

Demetri continued, “You of all people should know this. I will not sell it to a corporation. I don’t trust them to take care of it. I am the custodian of this precious treasure. I will not sell it.”

Demetri turned to board the airline. He looked back and said, “Q-Corp is trying to steal the Orb.” Then Demetri boarded the plane.

I saw Sanjee down the corridor watching me. I walked over to her.

“I guess I failed.” I said.

Sanjee was silent. “I’ll take you back to Q-Corp.” I said.

My cell phone rang. “This is Earl.”

“Earl, this is Jim. Did you get our offer to Demetri?”

“Yes,” I said, “but Demetri refused. He said it’s not for sale.”

“Earl, thanks for trying.” Jim said. “I’ll be working late tonight. When you bring Sanjee back, drop in.”

I drove Sanjee back to Q-Corp. We didn’t say anything.

Back at Q-Corp, I parked the car and we both walked into the building. I told Sanjee I was going to see Jim. She said she needed to talk with Jim too.

Jim greeted us as we walked into the office. “Sanjee, Earl, thanks for coming in.”

Sanjee immediately stated, “Jim, you’re planning on tunneling a wormhole to get the probe, aren’t you.”

Jim fumbled for words.

Sanjee continued, “The equipment you had us send was the site survey equipment to prepare for the wormhole. You aren’t going to yank it out of his stomach, are you?”

Jim suddenly blurted, “Don’t be silly, of course not. We’ll wait until its put in a vault or other place away from Demetri.”

Jim looked like he realized he said too much.

Sanjee then said, “I will not be a part of stealing the probe, neither will I be a part of a company that would consider that. I resign, effective immediately.”

Jim said, “Sanjee, please, today has been stressful for us all. Please reconsider. Think about it overnight.”

Sanjee forcefully said, “I will not reconsider – I quit now. I am packing up my things from my office. I’ll be off the premises in 30 minutes. Goodby.” Sanjee turned and walked out the door.

“Is that true?” I asked. “The footlockers we sent are to be used to steal the probe from Demetri?”

Jim looked down and said nothing.

“Well, I better leave.” I said. And I walked out. I had felt used, stupid, compromised.

A week passed. I heard nothing from Jim, Q-Corp, or anybody. I tried contacting Father Demetri, his Holiness, Onesimus II, but I could not get through. I thought about contacting Sanjee, but I had no idea of how to contact her. I tried the Q-Corp main number, but they had no forwarding address for Sanjee.

One week and one day passed after the day after Father Demetri met us and we saw the recording. Jim called me on my cell phone.

“Earl, this is Jim McGregger. I’m at the Federal Detention Center in Atlanta.” The voice said.

I was surprised, “Why?”

“Guess. The news is going to break on this. I want you to get my story.” Jim said.

“I’ll be right over.”

I drove over to the center just south of downtown Atlanta. I went through the security process and finally met Jim. He was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.

“Thanks for coming Earl.” Jim said. “Let me tell you what happened.

“That Thursday, when Father Demetri came, and left, I decided to cover my bets. If I couldn’t buy the probe, I would simply get it though a wormhole. Sanjee was right; the equipment I sent with you was for doing a site survey for tunneling a wormhole. I also put the handheld GPS probe trackers in with the equipment. Q-Corp has people working at the Large Hadron Collider in Genva, Switzerland. I called three of them, people I knew I could trust, to follow Demetri. They left immediately for Paris. When Demetri arrived in Paris, instead of changing flights like I expected, he took trains to Istanbul. Our people in Europe tracked him all during that time. He finally got to the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriachate this past Tuesday and the capsule stopped moving with Demetri that evening. We had several sightings of Demetri going around town but the GPS units reported the capsule remained stationary in the second story of the headquarters. Our people performed the site survey and got the information back to us. On Wednesday we decided to start the wormhole. Thursday evening, last night, we opened up the wormhole in the second story location and grabbed the probe.

“We got the probe out of the wormhole, but I found we had a different probe. The probe identifier was different from the probe we put in the sepulcher and the recording was different. Somehow the Demetri swapped the original probe for the one we got. The recording showed Demetri’s face saying we shouldn’t steal relics. I was infuriated. Demetri once again was a step ahead of us. I tried calling our people in Istanbul, but I couldn’t connect. I left messages for them to call me about Demetri. In hindsight, that was stupid.

“This morning the FBI came to my house with an arrest warrant for me. Turkey has issued a strong complaint and protest to the United States concerning my retrieving the probe. Apparently, Demetri set up a trap using this other probe as bait. I am told that Turkish police were stationed in the headquarters of the Ecumenical Patriachate’s second story office, with cameras running. They filmed us snatching the probe. They knew what to look for. I’ve been told the FBI also raided my office this morning and retrieved the probe we got. All I can figure is that Demetri has some spies inside Q-Corp who have been helping him. They’ve had years to plan for this and I’ve been caught in their trap.

“I called the Q-Corp CEO. He is infuriated with me. CERN in Switzerland has cancelled their contracts with Q-Corp, the guys who followed Demetri in Turkey are under arrest, Federal marshals are stationed at the wormhole machine. I’ve got to find my own lawyer. That blasted Demetri! He set me up all along!”

I talked with Jim more. He was abandoned by Q-Corp. Q-Corp’s lawyers were not going to help him. He had a public defender, but I promised to find a lawyer from my contacts. The story had not broke yet with CNN or anybody. I headed for home to type up the story. This was my chance to get on the Drudge Report.

As I was driving home, my cell phone rang. I quickly put on my blue tooth earpiece and answered, “Atlanta Casual Observer, Earl Flask.”

“Earl…” the voice said and I instantly recognized it as Sanjee, “this is Sanjee.”

“Hi Sanjee, are you okay? Have you heard about Jim McGregger?” I asked.

“Yes, I heard.” She said.

“Are they going to arrest you too?” I asked.

“No. I believe the expression is whistle blower. I am the one who blew the whistle on this.” Sanjee answered.

“What?” I asked. I thought this was out of character for her. “Did Demetri put you up to this?”

“No. Earl, one of the exasperating things about you is you jump to conclusions about people. You don’t know me. You think I’m some passive foreign girl. You don’t even know my last name.”

Ouch! That comment stung. I realized it was true. I didn’t know Sanjee at all.

“Sanjee, I’ve been a jerk. Please forgive me.” I said.

“Really I should ask for your forgiveness. I used prejudices and lack of curiosity to my advantage.” Sanjee said.

“How so?” Now I was curious, although my pride was still smarting from the remarks.

“When Jim told me about probe’s contents and asked me to go with you to find Demetri, I was happy to do that. I thought this was a great discovery and I that I might be able to help persuade Demetri to cooperate. But when Jim said he needed to ship the equipment to Europe, I knew exactly what he was up to. That was surveying equipment used by us to direct the wormhole equipment to find the location to open the wormhole to. I didn’t want Jim to get the capsule, and I wasn’t sure that I wanted Q-Corp to get it either. When I gathered my things, I took a fresh, unused probe. I wanted to somehow use this probe as a decoy. To do that, I had to keep you busy and keep you away from Demetri while I found him and talked with him. Since I had the GPS tracking unit, I knew how to use it and you didn’t, and we needed to get to the equipment shipped, that left you to take care of the equipment and me free to talk with Demetri.

“So I went off to the airport security and I found Demetri was in the line. I had an airport ID pass that allowed me to bypass security. So I waited on the other side. After he passed through security, I approached Demetri. I told him he was in danger, that Jim was planning on stealing the probe, I briefly told him about the wormhole machine, how it works and how we track the probe. This is when I made my proposal.

“I told Demetri that I was a Christian, an Indian citizen and am a member the Mar Thoma Church of India. Demetri was familiar with the group. I come from a long line of Christians in India. I asked Demetri his forgiveness for my part in sending the probe back to the tomb and the cost of lives it caused and danger it put him. Demetri was very gracious, granting me his forgiveness. I showed Demetri the unused capsule I was carrying. I told him we could use it as a decoy. I also said the Orb, as he calls the tomb capsule, was a heritage to all Christians, and that I could carry it for him. I also said we could even setup a trap where the decoy capsule could be stolen by Q-Corp and have them caught red-handed, which, hopefully, would shutdown Q-Corp from using the time machine again.

“Demetri thought for a few moments and then said that was a good idea. The problem was that the Orb was in his intestines and he needed to, well, extract it. He carries a strong laxative to do such a thing, but that it would take 45 minutes for him to get the capsule. That’s why it took so long for me to call you when you were waiting for my call.

“Demetri finally produced the Orb, I gave him the decoy capsule. I told him I needed to activate the recording briefly so the capsule would respond to ‘Call Home Commands.’ Demetri briefly recorded his message, I stopped the recording, and the decoy capsule behaved like the original, except its electronic identifying tag was different. I was hoping no one would notice – and apparently no one did until it was too late. Demetri then swallowed the decoy capsule, which is his usual mode of traveling with the Orb.

“Demetri also thought of the idea of getting the Turkish authorities in on it, knowing the Turkish irritation of Western corporations and national interests at the expense of them. I gave Demetri my cell phone number and told him call me when needed further information when talking with Turkish. I also told Demetri to keep on the move, take trains, keep moving with the decoy probe until he was ready. In that way Q-Corp would not be able to establish a wormhole because the time machine needs a static location for the wormhole exit. After Demetri was prepared at the airport, I called you. I then walked way and pretended like I never talked with Demetri. Your lack of curiosity worked so well that I didn’t have a crisis of conscience where I would have to lie about my actions with Demetri. You simply assumed I never talked with him. I was grateful for that."

"Why didn't you trust me?" I asked.

"Because you did whatever Jim asked you, I thought you were working for Jim and I didn't know what you'd do if you found out." Sanjee replied.

Sanjee continued, “The next day I contacted the FBI. They took my report, but didn't seem to do anything. I told them that Turkey would possibly issue a complaint. Last night I had a call from both the FBI and the United States State Department. The Turkish Prime Minster strongly complained to the United States Ambassador in Turkey at 1 am. The Ambassador called the State Department with this crisis in American/Turkish relations.

“From what I understand, Federal Marshals are at the wormhole machine at Q-Corp, with an injunction to shut it down. I am cooperating with Federal Authorities in their investigation of the case.”

“Sanjee,” I said, “please forgive me, how I acted.”

Sanjee replied, “Earl, we all behaved badly. I worked on this project out of ambition. I was hoping for a Nobel Prize in physics. I did the original discovery and work on manipulating quantum wormholes. I purposely ignored the ethical implications of all this. It was only God’s grace that he opened my eyes and my conscience.”

“So, what will happen to the real probe? Are you going to get the information out?” I asked.

“Not now.” Replied Sanjee. “I wouldn’t worry about the probe now. It’s not going to change people’s minds. It didn’t change Jim’s mind, or Michele’s. It’s in God’s hands.”

“So, Sanjee, what is your last name?” I finally asked.

“It’s better you don’t know.” Replied Sanjee. “I may be going into the witness protection program; depending on how widespread the wrongdoing is and how much danger I’m in. No more physics for me. Maybe I’ll teach high school math.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I said.

“Don’t be. I’m in my God’s loving hands. I’m doing fine.” Replied Sanjee.

“And Earl, don’t give up on Jim. I don’t think God is finished with him.” Said Sanjee.

“What about Michelle?” I asked.

“I’m in touch with her. Earl, you take care, God’s blessings to you. I’ve got to go.” The call ended.