Flashforward. Part 15

Theo took an Olympic Airlines flight to Athens. The seat sales were over; people were flying again as before, a.s.sured that the consciousness-displacement would not recur. He spent the flight time poking holes in a model for the Flashforward that had been emailed to him by a team at DESY, the Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, Europe's other major particle-accelerator facility.

Theo hadn't been home for four years now, and he regretted it. Christ, he might be dead in twenty-one years-and he'd let a span of one-fifth that length slip by without hugging his mother or tasting her cooking, without seeing his brother, without enjoying the incredible beauty of his homeland. Yes, the Alps were breathtaking, but there was a sterile, barren quality about them. In Athens, you could always look up, always see the Acropolis looming above the city, the midday sun flaring off the restored, polished marble of the Parthenon. Thousands of years of human habitation; millennia of thought, of culture, of art.

Of course, as a youth, he had visited many of the famous archeological sites. He remembered being seventeen: a school bus had taken his cla.s.s to Delphi, home of the ancient oracle. It had been pouring rain, and he hadn't wanted to get off the bus. But his teacher, Mrs. Megas, had insisted. They had clambered over slippery dark rocks through lush forest, until they came to where the oracle had once supposedly sat, dispensing cryptic visions of the future.

That kind of oracle had been better, thought Theo: futures that were subject to interpretation and debate, instead of the cold, harsh realities the world had recently seen.

They'd also gone to Epidaurus, a great bowl out of the landscape, with concentric rings of seats. They'd seen Oedipus Tyrannos Oedipus Tyrannos performed there-Theo refused to join the tourists in calling it performed there-Theo refused to join the tourists in calling it Oedipus Rex; Oedipus Rex; "Rex" was a Latin word, not Greek, and represented an irritating b.a.s.t.a.r.dization of the play's t.i.tle. "Rex" was a Latin word, not Greek, and represented an irritating b.a.s.t.a.r.dization of the play's t.i.tle.

The play was performed in ancient Greek; it might as well have been in Chinese for all the sense Theo could make of the dialog. But they'd studied the story in cla.s.s; he knew what was happening. Oedipus's future had been spelled out for him, too: you will marry your mother and murder your father. And Oedipus, like Theo, had thought he could circ.u.mvent destiny. Forearmed with the knowledge of what he was supposed to do, why, he'd simply avoid the issue altogether, and live a long, happy life with his queen, Iocasta.

Except . . .

Except that, as it turned out, Iocasta was was his mother, and the man Oedipus had slain years before during a quarrel on the road to Thebes had indeed been his father. his mother, and the man Oedipus had slain years before during a quarrel on the road to Thebes had indeed been his father.

Sophocles had written his version of the Oedipus story twenty-four hundred years ago, but students still studied it as the greatest example of dramatic irony in western literature. And what could be more ironic than a modern Greek man faced with the dilemmas of the ancients-a future prophesied, a tragic end foretold, a fate inevitable? Of course, the heroes of ancient Greek tragedies each had a hamartia hamartia-a fatal flaw-that made their downfall unavoidable. For some, the hamartia hamartia was obvious: greed, or l.u.s.t, or an inability to follow the law. was obvious: greed, or l.u.s.t, or an inability to follow the law.

But what had been Oedipus's fatal flaw? What in his character had brought him to ruin?

They'd discussed it at length in cla.s.s; the narrative form employed by the ancient Greek tragedians was inviolate-there was always always a a hamartia. hamartia.

And Oedipus's was-what?

Not greed, not stupidity, not cowardice.

No, no, if it were anything, it was his arrogance, his belief that he could defeat the will of the G.o.ds.

But, Theo had protested, that's a circular argument; Theo was always the logician, never much for the humanities. Oedipus's arrogance, he said, was only evidenced in his trying to avoid his fate; had his fate been less severe, he'd never have rebelled against it, and therefore never would have been seen as arrogant.

No, his teacher had said, it was there, in a thousand little things he does in the play. Indeed, she quipped, although Oedipus meant "Swollen Foot"-an allusion to the injury sustained when his royal father had bound his feet as a child and left him to die-he could just as easily be called "Swollen Head."

But Theo couldn't see it-couldn't see the arrogance, couldn't see the condescension. To him, Oedipus, who solved the vexing riddle of the Sphinx, was a towering intellect, a great thinker-exactly what Theo felt himself to be.

The riddle of the Sphinx: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? Why, a man, of course, who crawls at the beginning of life, walks erect in adulthood, and requires a cane in old age. What an incisive bit of reasoning on Oedipus's part!

But now Theo would never live to need that third leg, would never see the natural sunset of his span. Instead, he'd be murdered in middle-age . . . just as Oedipus's real father, King Laius, was left dead at the side of a well-worn road.

Unless, of course, he could change the future; unless he could outwit the G.o.ds and avoid his destiny.

Arrogance? thought Theo. Arrogance? It is to laugh.

The plane started its descent into nighttime Athens.

"Your parents long ago booked flights to come to Geneva, and so did my mother," Michiko had said. "If we're not going to go through with the wedding, we have to tell people. You've got to make a decision."

"What do you want to do?" asked Lloyd, buying time.

"What do I want to do?" repeated Michiko, sounding stunned by the question. "I want to get married; I don't believe in a fixed future. The visions will only come true if you make them do so-if you turn them into self-fulfilling prophecies."

The ball was back in his court. Lloyd lifted his shoulders. "I'm so sorry, honey. Really, I am, but-"

"Look," she said, cutting off words she didn't want to hear. "I know your parents made a mistake. But we aren't."

"The visions-"

"We aren't," aren't," said Michiko firmly. "We're right for each other. We're said Michiko firmly. "We're right for each other. We're meant meant for each other." for each other."

Lloyd was silent for a time. Finally, gently, he went on. "You said before that maybe I was embracing the idea that the future was immutable too readily. But I'm not. I'm not just looking for a way to avoid guilt-and I'm certainly not looking for a way to avoid marrying you, darling. But that the visions are real is the only conclusion possible based on the physics I know. The math is abstruse, I'll grant you, but there's an excellent theoretical basis for supporting the Minkowski interpretation."

"Physics can change in twenty-one years," said Michiko. "There was a lot of stuff they believed in 1988 that we know isn't true today. A new paradigm, a new model, might displace Minkowski or Einstein."

Lloyd didn't know what to say.

"It could happen," said Michiko earnestly.

Lloyd tried to make his tone soft. "I need-I need something more than just your fervent wish. I need a rational explanation; I need a solid theory that could explain why the visions are anything but the one true fixed future." He stopped himself before he added, "A future in which we aren't meant to be together."

Michiko's voice was growing desperate. "Well, okay, all right, maybe the visions are of an actual, real future-but not of 2030."

Lloyd knew he shouldn't push it; knew that Michiko was vulnerable-h.e.l.l, knew that he he was vulnerable. But she had to face reality. "The evidence from newspapers seems pretty conclusive," he said softly. was vulnerable. But she had to face reality. "The evidence from newspapers seems pretty conclusive," he said softly.

"No-no, it's not." Michiko sounded increasingly adamant. "It isn't really. The visions could be of a time much farther in the future."

"What do you mean?"

"Do you know who Frank Tipler is?"

Lloyd frowned. "A candid drunk?"

"What? Oh, I get it-but it's Tipler with one P. He wrote The Physics of Immortality." The Physics of Immortality."

"The Physics of what?" what?" said Lloyd, eyebrows rising. said Lloyd, eyebrows rising.

"Immortality. Living forever. It's what you always wanted, isn't it? All the time in the world; all the time to do all the things you want to do. Well, Tipler says that at the Omega Point-the end of time-we will all be resurrected and live forever."

"What kind of gibberish is that?"

"I admit it's a whopper," said Michiko. "But he made a good case."

"Oh?" said Lloyd, the syllable pregnant with skepticism.

"He says that computer-based life will eventually supplant biological life, and that information-processing capabilities will continue to expand year after year, until at some point, in the far future, no conceivable computing problem will be impossible. There will be nothing that the future machine life won't have the power and resources to calculate."

''I suppose."

"Now, consider an exact, specific description of every atom in a human body: what type it is, where it is located, and how it relates to the other atoms in the body. If you knew that, you could resurrect a person in his entirety: an exact duplicate, right down to the unique memories stored in the brain and the exact sequence of nucleotides making up his DNA. Tipler says that a sufficiently advanced computer far enough in the future could easily recreate you, just by building up a simulacrum that reflects the same information-the same atoms, in the same places."

"But there's no record of me. You can't reconstruct me without-I don't know-some kind of scan scan of me . . . something like that." of me . . . something like that."

"It doesn't matter. You could be reproduced without any specific specific info about you." info about you."

"What are are you talking about?" you talking about?"

"Tipler says there are about 110,000 active genes that make up a human being. That means that all the possible permutations of those genes-all the possible biologically distinct human beings that could conceivably exist-amount to about ten to the tenth to the sixth different people. So if you were to simulate all those permutations-"

"Simulate ten to the tenth to the sixth human beings?" said Lloyd. "Come on!"

"It all follows from saying that you have essentially infinite information-processing capabilities," said Michiko. "There may be oodles of possible humans, but it is is a finite number." a finite number."

"Just barely barely finite." finite."

"There are also a finite number of possible memory states. With enough storage capacity, not only could you reproduce every possible human being, but also every possible set of memories each of them could have."

"But you'd need one simulated human for every memory state," said Lloyd. "One in which I ate pizza last night-or at least had memories of doing that. Another in which I ate a hamburger. Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam." Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam."

"Exactly. But Tipler says you could reproduce all possible humans that could ever exist, and all possible memories that they could ever have, in ten to the tenth to the twenty-third bits."

"Ten to the tenth to the . . ."

"Ten to the tenth to the twenty-third."

"That's crazy," said Lloyd.

"It's a finite quant.i.ty. And it could all be reproduced on a sufficiently advanced computer."

"But why would anyone do that?"

"Well, Tipler says the Omega Point loves us, and-"

"Loves us?" us?"

"You really should read the book; he makes it sound much more reasonable than I do."

"He'd pretty much have to," said Lloyd, deadpan.

"And remember that the pa.s.sage of time will slow down as the universe comes to an end, if it eventually is going to collapse down into a Big Crunch-"

"Most studies indicate that's not going to happen, you know; there isn't enough ma.s.s, even taking into account dark matter, to close the universe."

Michiko pressed on. "But if it does collapse, time will be protracted so that it will seem to take forever to do so. And that means the resurrected humans will seem to live forever: they'll be immortal."

"Oh, come on. Someday, if I'm lucky, maybe I'll get a n.o.bel. But that's about as much immortality as anyone could ever hope for."

"Not according to Tipler," said Michiko.

"And you buy this?"

"Wellll, no, not entirely. But even if you set aside Tipler's religious overtones, couldn't you envision a far, far future in which-I don't know, in which some bored high-school student decides to simulate every possible human and every possible memory state?"

"I guess. Maybe."

"In fact, he doesn't have to simulate all the possible states-he could simulate just one random one."

"Oh, I see. And you're saying that what we saw-the visions-they're not of the actual future twenty-one years from now, but rather are from this far-future science experiment. A simulation, one possible take. Just one of the infinite-excuse me, almost almost infinite possible futures." infinite possible futures."

"Exactly!"

Lloyd shook his head. "That's pretty hard to swallow."

"Is it? Is it really? Is it any harder to swallow than the idea that we have seen the future, and that future is immutable, and even foreknowledge of it won't be enough to allow us to prevent that future from coming true? I mean, come on: if you have a vision that says you'll be in Mongolia in twenty-one years, all you have to do to defeat the vision is not not go to Mongolia. Surely you're not predicting that you're going to be forced to go there, against your will? Surely we have volition." go to Mongolia. Surely you're not predicting that you're going to be forced to go there, against your will? Surely we have volition."

Lloyd tried to keep his voice soft. He was used to arguing science with other people, but not with Michiko. Even an intellectual debate had a personal edge. "If the vision has you in Mongolia, you'll end up being there. Oh, you may have every intention of never going there, but it'll happen, and it'll seem quite natural at the time. You know as well as I do that humans are lousy at realizing their desires. You can make a promise today that you're going to go on a diet, and have every intention of still being on it a month from now, but, somehow, without it seeming like you have no free will at all, you might very well be off your diet by then."

Michiko looked concerned. "You think I need to go on a diet?" But then she smiled. "Just kidding."

"But you see my point. There's no evidence even in the short term that we can avoid things through a simple act of will; why should we think that over a span of decades we'll have self-determination?"

"Because we have have to," said Michiko, earnest again. "Because if we don't, then there's no way out." She sought out his eyes. "Don't you see? Tipler to," said Michiko, earnest again. "Because if we don't, then there's no way out." She sought out his eyes. "Don't you see? Tipler has has to be right. Or if he's not, there has to be some other explanation. That to be right. Or if he's not, there has to be some other explanation. That can't can't be the future." She paused. "It can't be be the future." She paused. "It can't be our our future." future."

Lloyd sighed. He did love her, but-d.a.m.n it, d.a.m.n it, d.a.m.n it. He found his head shaking back and forth in negation. "I don't want that to be the future anymore than you do," he said softly.

"Then don't let it," said Michiko, taking his hand, intertwining her fingers with his. "Don't let it."

17.

"h.e.l.lo?" A pleasant female voice.

"Ah, h.e.l.lo, is that-is that Dr. Tompkins?"

"Speaking."

"Ah, hi. This is-this is Jake Horowitz. You know, from CERN?"

Jake didn't know what he'd expected to hear over the phone. Affection? Relief that he'd made the first contact? Surprise? But none of those emotions were conveyed by Carly's voice. "Yes?" she said, her tone even. That was all; just "yes."

Jacob felt his heart sinking. Maybe he should just hang up, get the h.e.l.l off the phone. It wouldn't hurt anything; if Lloyd was right, they were bound bound to be together eventually. But he couldn't bring himself to do that. to be together eventually. But he couldn't bring himself to do that.