Flashforward. Part 11

"I wasn't watching the newscast live; it was recorded. My vision started with me fast-forwarding; I wasn't using a remote, though. Rather, the player was responding to my voice. But it was skipping ahead. It wasn't videotape; the sped-up image was absolutely smooth, with no snow or jerkiness." He paused. "Anyway, as soon as a graphic came up behind her showing a picture of-well, it was of you, I guess, although you were older, of course-I stopped fast-forwarding, and began to watch. The words under the graphic said 'Un Savant 'Un Savant tue-'death of a scientist.' I guess that t.i.tle intrigued me, you know, being a scientist myself." tue-'death of a scientist.' I guess that t.i.tle intrigued me, you know, being a scientist myself."

"And you watched the whole report?"

"Yes."

A thought crossed Theo's mind. If Rusch had watched the whole report, then it must have lasted less than two minutes. Of course, three minutes was an eternity on TV, but . . .

But his whole life, dismissed in under one minute and forty-three seconds . . .

"What did the reporter say?" asked Theo. "Anything you can remember will be a help."

"I honestly don't recall much. My future self may have been intrigued, but, well, I guess I was panicking. I mean-what the h.e.l.l was going on? I'd been sitting at the kitchen table, over there, drinking some coffee and reading some student papers, then suddenly everything changed. The last thing I was interested in was paying attention to the details of some news story about somebody I didn't know."

"I understand that it must have been very disorienting," said Theo, but having not had a vision himself he suspected he really didn't understand. "Still, as I said, any details you could remember would be helpful."

"Well, the woman said you were a scientist-a physicist, I think. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"And she said you were-you will be-forty-eight years old."

Theo nodded.

"And she said you were shot."

"Did she say where?"

"Ah, in the chest, I think."

"No, no. Where I was shot-what place?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Was it at CERN?"

"She said you worked at CERN, but-but I don't recall her saying that was where you were killed. I'm sorry."

"Did she mention a sports arena? A boxing match?"

Rusch looked surprised by the question. "No."

"Do you remember anything else?"

"I'm sorry, no."

"What was the story that came on after the one about me?" He didn't know why he asked that-maybe to see where he had fitted into the pecking order.

"I'm sorry, I don't know. I didn't watch the rest of the newscast. When the piece on you was finished, a commercial came on-for a company that lets you create designer babies. That did did fascinate me-the 2009 me-but my 2030 self seemed to have no interest in it. He just turned off the-well, it wasn't really a TV, of course; it was a hanging flatscreen thing. But he just turned it off-he said the word 'Off' to it, and it went dark, just like that; no fading out. And then he-me-we turned around and-I guess I was in a hotel room; there were two large beds in it. I went and lay down on one of the beds, fully clothed. And I spent the rest of the time just staring at the ceiling, until my vision ended and I was back at the kitchen table." He paused. "I had a nasty b.u.mp on my forehead, of course; I'd smashed it into the tabletop when the vision began. And I'd spilled hot coffee on my hand, too; I must have knocked over my mug when I pitched forward. I was lucky that I wasn't seriously burnt. It took me a while to collect my wits, and then I found out that everyone in the building had also had some sort of hallucination. And then I tried to call my wife, only to find out that . . . that . . ." He swallowed hard. "It took them a while to find her, or, at least, to contact me. She'd been walking up a steep flight of stairs, coming out of the subway. She'd almost made it to the top, according to others who saw her, and then she'd blacked out, and fallen backwards, down sixty or seventy steps. The fall broke her neck." fascinate me-the 2009 me-but my 2030 self seemed to have no interest in it. He just turned off the-well, it wasn't really a TV, of course; it was a hanging flatscreen thing. But he just turned it off-he said the word 'Off' to it, and it went dark, just like that; no fading out. And then he-me-we turned around and-I guess I was in a hotel room; there were two large beds in it. I went and lay down on one of the beds, fully clothed. And I spent the rest of the time just staring at the ceiling, until my vision ended and I was back at the kitchen table." He paused. "I had a nasty b.u.mp on my forehead, of course; I'd smashed it into the tabletop when the vision began. And I'd spilled hot coffee on my hand, too; I must have knocked over my mug when I pitched forward. I was lucky that I wasn't seriously burnt. It took me a while to collect my wits, and then I found out that everyone in the building had also had some sort of hallucination. And then I tried to call my wife, only to find out that . . . that . . ." He swallowed hard. "It took them a while to find her, or, at least, to contact me. She'd been walking up a steep flight of stairs, coming out of the subway. She'd almost made it to the top, according to others who saw her, and then she'd blacked out, and fallen backwards, down sixty or seventy steps. The fall broke her neck."

"My G.o.d," said Theo. "I'm sorry."

Rusch nodded this time, simply accepting the comment.

There was nothing else to be said between them, and, besides, Theo had to get back to the airport; he didn't want to run up the cost of a hotel room in Berlin.

"Many thanks for your time," said Theo. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his business-card case. "If you recall anything else that you think might be helpful, I'd really appreciate it if you'd give me a call or drop me an email." He handed Rusch a card.

The man took it, but didn't look at it. Theo left.

Lloyd went back to Gaston Beranger's office the next day. This time the journey took even longer: he was waylaid by a unified-field-theory group on their way over to the Computer Center. When he at last made it to Beranger's office, Lloyd began, "I'm sorry, Gaston, you can try to oust me if you want, but I'm going to go public."

"I thought I was clear-"

"We have have to go public. Look, I just got through speaking to Theo. Did you know he went to Germany yesterday?" to go public. Look, I just got through speaking to Theo. Did you know he went to Germany yesterday?"

"I can't keep track of the comings and goings of three thousand employees."

"He went to Germany-on a moment's notice, and he got a cheap fare. Why? Because people are afraid to fly. Because people are afraid to fly. The whole world is still paralyzed, Gaston. Everyone is afraid that the time displacement is going to happen again. Check the newspapers or the TV, if you don't believe me; I just did myself. They're avoiding sports, driving when only absolutely necessary, and not flying. It's as if-it's as if they're waiting for the other shoe to drop." Lloyd thought again about the announcement that his father was leaving. "But it isn't going to happen, isn't it? So long as we don't replicate what we were doing here, there's no way in which the time-displacement will repeat. We can't leave the world hanging. We've done enough damage already. We can't let people be afraid to get on with their lives, to go back-as much as possible-to the way things were before." The whole world is still paralyzed, Gaston. Everyone is afraid that the time displacement is going to happen again. Check the newspapers or the TV, if you don't believe me; I just did myself. They're avoiding sports, driving when only absolutely necessary, and not flying. It's as if-it's as if they're waiting for the other shoe to drop." Lloyd thought again about the announcement that his father was leaving. "But it isn't going to happen, isn't it? So long as we don't replicate what we were doing here, there's no way in which the time-displacement will repeat. We can't leave the world hanging. We've done enough damage already. We can't let people be afraid to get on with their lives, to go back-as much as possible-to the way things were before."

Beranger seemed to be considering this.

"Come on, Gaston. Someone is going to leak it soon enough anyway."

Beranger exhaled. "I know that. You think I don't know that? I don't want to be obstructionist here. But we do need to think about the consequences-the legal ramifications."

"Surely it's better if we come forward of our own volition, rather than waiting for someone to blow the whistle on us."

Beranger looked at the ceiling for a time. "I know you don't like me," he said, without meeting Lloyd's eyes. Lloyd opened his mouth to protest, but Beranger raised a hand. "Don't bother denying it. We've never gotten along; we've never been friends. Part of that is natural, of course-you see it in every lab in the world. Scientists who think the administrators exist to stymie their work. Administrators who act as though the scientists are an inconvenience instead of the heart and soul of the place. But it goes beyond that, doesn't it? No matter what our jobs were, you wouldn't like me. I'd never stopped to think about stuff like that before. I always knew some people didn't like me and never would, but I never figured it might be my fault." He paused, then shrugged a little. "But maybe it is. I never told you what my vision showed . . . and I'm not about to tell you now. But it got me thinking. Maybe I have have been fighting you too much. You think we should go public? Christ, I don't know if that's the right thing to do or not. I don't know that been fighting you too much. You think we should go public? Christ, I don't know if that's the right thing to do or not. I don't know that not not going public is the right thing, either." going public is the right thing, either."

He paused. "We've come up with a parallel, by the way-something to toss the press if it does leak out, an a.n.a.logy to demonstrate why we aren't culpable."

Lloyd raised his eyebrows.

"The Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse," said Beranger.

Lloyd nodded. Early on November 7, 1940, the pavement on the Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge in Was.h.i.+ngton state began to ripple. Soon the whole bridge was oscillating up and down, ma.s.sively heaving, until, at last, it collapsed. Every high-school physics student in the world had seen film of this, and for decades they were given the best-guess explanation: that perhaps the wind had generated a natural resonance with the bridge, causing it to undulate in waves.

Surely the bridge-builders should have foreseen that, people had said at the time; after all, resonance was as old as tuning forks. But the resonance explanation was wrong; resonance requires great precision-if it didn't, every singer could shatter a wine gla.s.s-and random winds almost certainly couldn't produce it. No, it was shown in 1990 that the Tacoma Narrows Bridge had collapsed due to the fundamental nonlinearity of suspension bridges, an outgrowth of chaos theory-a branch of science that hadn't even existed when the bridge was built. The engineers who had designed it hadn't been culpable; there was no way with the knowledge then available that they could have predicted or prevented the collapse.

"If it had just been visions," said Beranger, "you know, we wouldn't need to cover our a.s.ses; I suspect most people would thank you. But there were all those car accidents and people falling off ladders, and so on. Are you prepared to take the blame? Because it won't be me that takes the fall, and it won't be CERN. When it comes right down to it, no matter how much we talk about Tacoma Narrows and unforeseen consequences, people will still want a specific human scapegoat, and you know that's going to be you, Lloyd. It was your experiment."

The Director-General stopped talking. Lloyd considered all this for a time, then said, "I can handle it."

Beranger nodded once. "Bien. "Bien. We'll call a press conference." He looked out his window. "I guess it We'll call a press conference." He looked out his window. "I guess it is is time we came clean." time we came clean."

BOOK II.

SPRING 2009.

Free will is an illusion.

It is synonymous with incomplete perception.

-Walter Kubilius

12.

Day Five: Sat.u.r.day, April 25, 2009 The administrative building at CERN had all sorts of seminar halls and meeting s.p.a.ces. For the press conference, they were using a lecture hall with two hundred seats-every one of which was filled. All the PR people had needed to do was tell the media that CERN was about to make a major announcement about the cause of the time displacement, and reporters arrived from all over Europe, plus one from j.a.pan, one from Canada, and six from the United States.

Beranger was being true to his word: he was letting Lloyd take center stage; if there were to be a scapegoat, it was going to be him. Lloyd walked up to the lectern and cleared his throat. "h.e.l.lo, everyone," he said. "My name is Lloyd Simcoe." He'd been coached by one of CERN's PR people to spell it out, and so he did just that: "That's S-I-M-C-O-E, and 'Lloyd' begins with a double-L." The reporters would all receive DVDs with Lloyd's comments and bio on them, but many would be filing stories immediately, without a chance to consult the press kits. Lloyd went on. "My specialty is quark-gluon plasma studies. I'm a Canadian citizen, but I worked for many years in the United States at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. And for the last two years, I've been here at CERN, developing a major experiment for the Large Hadron Collider."

He paused; he was buying time, trying to get his stomach to calm down. It wasn't that he had a fear of public speaking; he'd spent too long as a university professor for any of that to remain. But he had no way of knowing what the reaction would be to what he was about to say.

"This is my a.s.sociate, Dr. Theodosios Procopides," continued Lloyd.

Theo half-rose from his chair, next to the lectern. "Theo," he said, with a little smile at the crowd. "Call me Theo."

One big happy family, thought Lloyd. He spelled Theo's first and last names slowly for the reporters, then took a deep breath and pressed on. "We were conducting an experiment here on April 21, at precisely 1600 hours Greenwich Mean Time." thought Lloyd. He spelled Theo's first and last names slowly for the reporters, then took a deep breath and pressed on. "We were conducting an experiment here on April 21, at precisely 1600 hours Greenwich Mean Time."

He paused again and looked from face to face. It didn't take long for it to sink in. Journalists immediately started shouting questions, and Lloyd's eyes were a.s.saulted by camera flashes. He raised his hands, palms out, waiting for the reporters to be quiet.

"Yes," he said, "yes, I suspect you're right. We have reason to believe that the time-displacement phenomenon had to do with the work we were doing here with the Large Hadron Collider."

"How can that be?" asked Klee, a stringer for CNN.

"Are you sure?" called out Jonas, a correspondent for the BBC.

"Why didn't you come forward before this?" called the Reuters reporter.

"I'll take that last question first," said Lloyd. "Or, more precisely, I'll let Dr. Procopides take it."

"Thanks," said Theo, standing now and moving to the mike. "The, ah, reason we did not come forward earlier is that we didn't have a theoretical model to explain what happened." He paused. "Frankly, we still don't; it has, after all, only been four days since the Flashforward. But the fact is we engineered the highest-energy particle collision in the history of this planet, and it occurred precisely-to the very second-at the moment the phenomenon began. We can't ignore that a causal relations.h.i.+p might exist."

"How sure are you that the two things are linked?" asked a woman from the Tribune de Geneve. Tribune de Geneve.

Theo shrugged. "We can't think of anything in our experiment that could have caused the Flashforward. Then again, we can't think of anything else other other than our experiment that could have caused it, either. It just seems that our work is the most likely candidate." than our experiment that could have caused it, either. It just seems that our work is the most likely candidate."

Lloyd looked over at Dr. Beranger, whose hawklike face was impa.s.sive. When they'd rehea.r.s.ed this press conference, Theo had originally said "the most likely culprit," and Beranger had sworn a blue streak at the word choice. But it turned out to make no difference. "So are you admitting responsibility?" asked Klee. "Admitting all the deaths were your fault?"

Lloyd felt his stomach knot, and he could see Beranger's face crease into a frown. The Director-General looked like he was ready to step in and take over the press conference.

"We admit that our experiment seems the most likely cause," said Lloyd, moving over to stand next to Theo. "But we contend that there was no way-absolutely none-to predict anything remotely like what happened as a consequence of what we did. This was utterly unforeseen-and unforeseeable. It was, quite simply, what the insurance industry calls an act of G.o.d."

"But all the deaths-" shouted one reporter.

"All the property damage-" shouted another.

Lloyd raised his hands again. "Yes, we know. Believe me, our hearts go out to every person who was hurt or who lost someone they cared about. A little girl very dear to me died when a car spun out of control; I would give anything to have her back. But it could not have been prevented-"

"Of course it could have," shouted Jonas. "If you hadn't done the experiment, it never would have happened."

"Politely, sir, that's irrational," said Lloyd. "Scientists do experiments all the time, and we take every reasonable precaution. CERN, as you know, has an enviable safety record. But people can't simply stop doing things-science can't stop marching forward. We didn't know that this would happen; we couldn't couldn't know it. But we're coming clean; we're telling the world. I know people are afraid that it's going to happen again, that at any moment their consciousness might be transported once more into the future. But it won't; we were the cause, and we can a.s.sure you-a.s.sure everyone-that there's no danger of something similar happening again." know it. But we're coming clean; we're telling the world. I know people are afraid that it's going to happen again, that at any moment their consciousness might be transported once more into the future. But it won't; we were the cause, and we can a.s.sure you-a.s.sure everyone-that there's no danger of something similar happening again."

There were, of course, cries of outrage in the press-editorials about scientists messing with things humans were not meant to know about. But, try as they might, even the sleaziest tabloid wasn't able to come up with a credible physicist willing to claim that there was any reason to have suspected that the CERN experiment would cause the displacement of consciousness through time. Of course, that engendered some halfhearted comments about physicists protecting one another. But polls rapidly switched from blaming the team at CERN to accepting that this was something that had been utterly unpredictable, something totally new.

It was still a difficult time personally for Lloyd and Michiko. Michiko had flown back to Tokyo with Tamiko's body. Lloyd, had, of course, offered to go with her, but he spoke no j.a.panese. Normally, those who spoke English would have politely tried to accommodate Lloyd, but under such dire circ.u.mstances it seemed clear that he would be left out of almost every conversation. There was also the awkwardness of it all: Lloyd wasn't Tamiko's stepfather; he wasn't Michiko's husband. This was a time for Michiko and Hiros.h.i.+, regardless of whatever differences they'd had in the past, to mourn and lay to rest their daughter. As much as he, too, was crushed by what had happened to Tamiko, Lloyd had to admit that there was little he could do to aid Michiko in j.a.pan.

And so, while she flew east to her homeland, Lloyd stayed at CERN, trying to make a baffled world understand the physics of what had occurred.

"Dr. Simcoe," said Bernard Shaw, "perhaps you can explain to us what happened?"

"Of course," said Lloyd, making himself comfortable. He was in CERN's teleconferencing room, a camera no bigger than a thimble facing him from atop an emaciated tripod. Shaw, naturally, was at CNN Center in Atlanta. Lloyd had five other similar interviews lined up for later in the day, including one in French. "Most of us have heard the term 's.p.a.cetime' or 'the s.p.a.ce-time continuum.' It refers to the combination of the three dimensions of length, width, and height, and the fourth dimension of time."

Lloyd nodded at a female technician standing off camera, and a still image of a dark-haired white man appeared on the monitor behind him. "That's Hermann Minkowski," said Lloyd. "He's the fellow who first proposed the concept of the s.p.a.ce-time continuum." A pause. "It's hard to ill.u.s.trate the concept of four dimensions directly, but if we simplify it by removing one spatial dimension, it's easy."

He nodded again and the picture changed.

"This is a map of Europe. Of course, Europe is three dimensional, but we're all used to using two-dimensional maps. And Hermann Minkowski was born here in Kaunas, in what is now Lithuania, in 1864."

A light lit up inside Lithuania.

"There it is. Actually, though, let's pretend that the light isn't the city of Kaunas, but rather Minkowski himself, being born in 1864."

The legend "A.D. 1864" appeared at the lower-right of the map.

"If we go back a few years, we can see there's no Minkowski before that point."