Chapter Eight
The Switch
"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
-Lord Acton
Absolute power does not exist nor corrupt, it is the illusion of absolute power that corrupts. It allows one to put themselves above all else and even in the seat of God. And once in the seat of God, one has denied all higher moral authority, so one can believe they are the pure embodiment of goodness, and at this your acts inevitably become wicked."
-Paul Meyers, The Worshipers Dilemma
I uncapped the marker, the reality of destiny’s touch was still churning within me, and I was still trying to make order out of it all. “Okay, Charlie, correct me if I’m wrong, but this is what you’ve discovered.” I tapped the marker against the whiteboard furiously to make a series of dots. “So, time functions like a series of points. A particle field, if you will, and each point represents something that could happen within the bounds of physics.” I said, my hand shaking from Destinies Touch a little. It had been like the most potent caffeine injected directly into my neurons.
“This point is if the Germans won World War Two and this point where your parents never met, and this point is if I ate a toast instead of eggs for breakfast,” I said, gesturing at random points on the field.
“Time is like a line that passes through these points and excites them, and every point time passes through it is reality. It’s what happens. Like any other particle field in physics, the reality is just the place where energy meets the points and excites them,” I said, drawing a line that traveled along the field like a graph.
“That’s a good way to think of it,” Charlie agreed.
“Yeah, but you’d expect this line to go straight. That requires the least amount of energy. Depending on where you start, you just travel in a perfectly predictable straight line, intersecting every dot that’s in front of the other. Big bang, this rock bumps into that rock, moves this way, and reflects light over here, causing this dust particle to heat up, et cetera, et cetera. Everything in the universe is just the natural consequence of what happened before, like really complicated dominoes. Therefore, with a powerful enough computer, you could predict exactly what will happen in the universe.” My philosophical conversations with my dad loomed in front of me as I spoke
“The future is set. There is only one place the line will go. But you guys discovered something that changed this. Some of the energy which makes the field got into reality and began working through complex electromagnetic carbon beings. This infusion of energy allowed for change and for the line to go in different directions. It allowed the universe to change and flow.” I understood the ideas better the more I explained them.
“As far as we understand it, the energy manifested itself as free will, in conscious beings. We are the mediums through which it passes and through which change can occur in the universe. Maybe it’s been with life since the beginning, maybe it’s what started life, but it’s what’s with us. It’s why we are conscious and observe the universe as if from outside of it. It gives us the ability to make real decisions. The energy was almost impossible to measure though, that’s why we never discovered it. But we’re like animals can tell earthquakes coming without knowing how. We can measure it on an instinctual level. We can tell when something’s conscious and when something’s not. As a consequence, we’ve developed silly religious ideas like spirit and soul, but it was really just us intuiting what we were made of.” I said, throwing in a jab at religion to fight back against the memory of the conversations with my dad.
“So, when you were finally able to rip open reality,” I said, drawing a circle on the timeline. “What came pouring back out was that same energy, and the only device which can interrupt and measure that energy is the human mind. That’s what Destinies Touch is. It’s touching pure being, pure consciousness, pure reality, and pure potential.” I finished, realizing I was talking much faster than I meant to. Everything was coming into focusing now. The thing I had begun to understand was flowing into words.
Josh leaned back in his chair, “Nice little explanation, but we already knew all that. I hope you discovered something else.” He had obviously taken my promise to heart.
“I did.” I erased the dots and redrew them neater, and drew my little line graph through them, “This line is not set in stone. The same energy can change it via free will, can be used to change it by traveling upon it.” I paused, “This was your hope, but you’re not quite sure how to direct it yet, and what the consequences would be. But the way to direct it would be the human mind and some redirection of the energy flowing out of the hole you’ve already made. And don’t worry, the consequences aren’t catastrophic. Time-traveling won’t cause any world-shaking paradoxes.
"Going forward in time is quite predictable and boring. We do it all the time. We even know how to speed up or slow down this process, using gravity and speed. It's going back that would be the world-shaking and paradox-making." I paused, realizing I had accidentally rhymed. "The classic example of this is the grandfather paradox, you go back in time, kill your grandfather before he can meet your grandmother, and as a consequence, you're never born, and if you were never born, how did you go back and kill your grandfather, to begin with? Some have argued this idea outlaws the ability to time travel since it is simply logically impossible.
"But I found a solution. Going back to the grandfather paradox. When you kill your grandfather, the trajectory of the timeline will be changed. If you stick in the timeline until your father is supposed to be born, he won't be, and then later when and you're supposed to be born, you won't be. You will discover that you are the only you from this timeline. You only exist here because you traveled via time from a place that no longer exists.
"You can exist because you're not from the 'future,'" I said, circling the new line that was made when the grandfather was killed. "You're from here," I said, circling the dot the line no longer intersects. "You are a visitor from a place which is no longer accessible. A point in space-time that can never be reached again. You are an invader from the point that the road of reality no longer passes through. A souvenir of what could have been."
"But this is unnatural. The most simple state of the world has you in your original point. So, if a wormhole opens near enough to you, you'll get sucked through, sucked right through to that point you left behind forever, and whatever you did in the past to mess up the timeline to divert will be undone. You shall return to an unchanged world, you the only thing diffrent about it." I was crescendoing now all of it clicking into place.
"It's like your a piece of a magnet, you can be broken off of the magnet and taken away, but you will always still align with it, and when you get near enough back to you're the source, you will be pulled right back in. Once you have taken this one-way trip back to your correct time, you can never time travel again or risk utter destruction." I said, hitting my marker against the whiteboard for emphasis. "This energy is what time is, it's what free will is, and it's in everything to an extent, to time travel, you use the mind and conversion of mass into this energy to tunnel to another point on the line. You would do this by changing the type of energy you were aligned with, like electrifying metal, to make it magnetic. By doing this, then you can leave your place time to a different one of your choice. You can stay suspended there, like someone up on a stable tower. Energy has raised you above your natural state, but if someone punches a hole in the tower beneath you, you will fall back to your point of origin. You have created Athena to be a tower to the heavens, a tower to the previously inaccessible."
I finished and gulped in breaths. The energy that had been imparted in me during Destiny's touch had flown through me.
Charlie leaned forward, narrowing his eyes thoughtfully, "How does the object know its point of origin?"
"That energy that allows free will, and defines time, it has an energy signature from that time."
He nodded, "And you're not suggesting a multiverse theory, are you?"
"No, each point is not its own universe. They are only the potential of the universe. The only true universe is the one excited by the timeline. If all points were equally real, then free will seise's once more, some version of you is always making every decision, so they are all never really making it. And in that version, you could just move along the x access to the adjacent but different version of reality, no need to go back and redirect time."
"So you are saying that as you understand it, Athena could be used to time travel to the past without paradoxes?" Josh asked, leaning forward.
"Yes." I said, capping the marker, "With a trained mind and a little bit of new tech, it would be quite simple, as I understand it."
Josh glanced over at Charlie, "Charlie, remind me to give you a raise," and then he looked at me, "And you, you're hired, you have the job. You will be the man who pierces the walls of reality or whatever you said. In the very least, you will be the spokesmen of project Athena."
It was at that moment that Josh placed the last brick of pride in my defense wall. I was right. I was a genius. I had figured it out on my first day, no less. That is when the new voice took control.
You were too good for Jenna, be glad she's gone.
***
I stopped questioning the morality of using taxpayer dollars to pay people large salaries when one of those salaries became my own.
Because gosh darn it, that's a lot of money. Now, I am not legally allowed to tell you the number, but it was an order of magnitude more than anything I'd ever made. Avery, to my joy, became my personal bodyguard and driver. Apparently, he had served in the French military and could kill a man with a pair of keys if required.
Gertrude explained most of this to me in a meeting later that day.
"You will be working Sunday through Friday. If you would like, you can get clearance with Avery to leave the area on Friday, but you must report back on Monday." Gertrude was young, blond, and pretty, but she spoke with zero emotion or care. She was the definition of professional, wearing a smart blazer with her hair pulled back in a ponytail.
"Sounds great," I said.
"Tomorrow, we'll give you your schedule and a debriefing."
How many things about this job need to be debriefed? I wondered
"We have a moving team to move your personal effects from charlotte by the end of the week."
My face reddened as I remembered the state I'd left that place in. I don't think you can be fired for being a slob, though, so I didn't get too nervous.
"You will need a personal assistant. We'll assign one of the workers here to you, as well as one of the publicity agents who will take over your social media and begin giving you training in correspondents with the public. Furthermore, we will have a team of editors to help you begin work on a book about Athena."
I smiled and nodded. I was glad to see they were making use of my writing experience.
"Officially to the public, friends, and family, you are working as a UN scientist studying the effects of Nuclear power on the environment."
After more info and paperwork, I was sent home to recover to destinies touch and tell my family that I would be living in France now.
Avery drove me back, I was too tired to say anything to talk much to him, and he seemed to like this state of affairs. As I sat in the backseat, exhaustion crept into every corner of my being. I was like a rubber band that had been stretched all day, and now I was snapping back. My mind had been ultimately used up by Destiny's Touch, and my body believed it was 10 at night, so neither was very happy to still be conscious.
It felt like Athena had held me up, and as I left Her, I both lost Her support and gained peace as I was able to fall down. As we road through the fields, the goddess behind us, I rested my eyes on the feilds bathed in the red light of sunset.
"Avery," I began, "how much do you actually know about what's going on?"
"I learned a long time ago not to ask questions. But I know what I'm doing is in defense of my country, liberty, and beauty."
I felt a slight buzz at this. I was the hero of those things, the champion of them now.
And to think I had been eating pizza bites only a week before.
"Congratulations on getting the job," Avery said as we turned into the gravel driveway. "I am proud to be defending you."
***
Martha had a meat pie ready for me when I got home, which was a work of art. After that, I stumbled up to my bed and wistfully let my mind wander as I pulled the covers over me. I'd done it, I'd gotten the job, I was the Columbus of time. Crossing the ocean, Man had never crossed before. My books, life, friends, and family were all a prologue to this.
Then my eyes snapped open. Kelly, I hadn't even considered her for a moment. She was expecting a book out of me… she had always been by my side. I couldn't just abandon her now.
A prologue, The voice reminded me, She was a prologue.
And with that, I contently slipped off to sleep.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
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125,020 Literary Works • 672,733 Reviews
Hi MaybeAndrew,
Mailice here with a short review!
A bit late, but here I am!
Wow, that's probably my first impression here in this chapter. We've been inundated with so much information that I almost didn't know where I was anymore. The story has now opened up so much and also somehow merged with my book by Stephen Hawking that I stood there for a moment and had to start reading the chapter again, because on the one hand I was thrilled by your explanations, which were really extremely good and manageable, but were nevertheless so many that in some cases I can't even list how Matt got from one point to another.
This chapter had one thing; dialogue. You did a good job of portraying Matt's long monologue. As I said, very good explanations, and you could see quite well how a kind of mania came through in him. I wouldn't describe it as a passion, but almost as an obsession. You can see it clearly in some places, how he explained everything he saw to Charlie and Josh in a teacher-like manner.
I think you've shown a very good interest in physics in this chapter and I also know that this is something that not everyone likes, probably because it's a bit uninteresting or difficult to understand for some people. You've done a good job of describing and introducing all of this, but I think that maybe in a revision you might try to shorten the point. It can lead to a lump in the throat when I describe it in this way.
But we mustn't forget that we got to see a bit more of Matt and his private life at the end. I like that we have such a change of focus and that the story develops both internally and externally. I continue to like his thought processes and the way he tells his story, and the way you sometimes insert various details is a good way.
Other points I noticed while reading:
I see it a little more critically, but I would describe it as "Nazi Germany” not just as “Germany”.
I know that! I'm glad that you try to give real examples to explain something to the reader.
This is the third spelling I have seen here today in the chapter of destiny's touch. You definitely have to come up with a single spelling and choose it.
I had completely forgotten that he didn't even have the job yet.
I would insert a comma here instead of a question mark.
Have fun writing!
Mailice
Haha, yes, I definetly need to choose a spelling for Destiny's Touch
Sorry about that.
And I agree, the explanations have been a lot recently. I need to figure out a way to introduce all these ideas before they become important without everwelming the audience, any advice or ideas?
The easiest way I sometimes use it is to insert it as a kind of "textbook" story where a protagonist reads the knowledge or hears it from the radio. But maybe you can also animate it with a discussion or some kind of quiz? Like, for example, Charlie is still suspicious of Matt's necessary knowledge and asks him out? Maybe you could also put it as a "quote" at the beginning of each chapter, like the quotes in the previous ones. Of course, they would then be a bit longer, but I have seen something like that in literature.
Yeah, and I want to spread out the knowledge over the story a bit...
Maybe I could use quotes from charlies book, like I do from matts dad sometimes, at the beginning of chapters, to kind of fill it out through the rest of the story... and I do love a good fictional epigraph. Thanks!
Hey! Forever herever here with a review!!
Wow, this was a great chapter if you talk about science stuffs. To be honest, I didn't expect that much success in the first attempt but seeing the main character succeed is quite a great thing and at the same time there are very few stories where the protagonist succeeds so easily, so it actually creates a sense of some danger very soon that will spoil the total success.
Now the science stuffs. The science explanation seemed to be very simple and complex at the same time. Like I understood all the words and the terms and meanings but if you talk about the concept itself, I shouldn't deny that I understood it a bit but not fully. Hoping to understand it in a detailed way but no need to provide that if that's not really necessary.
Seems like these people don't believe in the multiverse theory or and they don't want to believe to. I don't know why but I do get a feeling that it can come to the plot again and influence it. I like how the grandfather paradox was a bit justified here and you showed that it's possible. The explanation kind of made some sense to me.
So Matt got the job kind of easily and I guess Matt will have to a lot more careful than he would have to be if he were really a UN scientist studying the effects of Nuclear power on the environment. It might just be me but I just want an one-line summary of the characters like Margaret. Why do I forget characters so much... The voice inside Matt's brain is really funny and interesting. Yeah, one more thing. In this chapter, we got to see how Matt's father influenced Matt. Where did that line go though? I mean the ones you used to include from his book.
Overall, this chapter was a fast-paced chapter because Matthew's brain was going very fast like the other characters' brains. Excitement on rise. He got some good opportunities like writing a book and being the representative of the Athena project. I do get a thought that someone is going to hack in this very secret project.
Keep Writing!!
~Forever
Thanks for the review! You have some real interesting predictions there (;
and thank you for reminding me to put a paul quote at the top because I somehow forgot! It has now been added
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
. There was rarely anything questionable, and it sort of seems to be acting as the filler between the first experience of Destiny's touch and Matt actually getting to his job.
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!
First Impression: Hmm...I liked this chapter better than most of the others...not that I didn't like any of the others, I just liked this one better
Anyway let's get right to it,
Those descalated quickly...
But hmm, this sounds like we're in for some kind of really fun explanation based on time travel and I'm already very much in to see what Matt has managed to decipher from all the craziness that he experienced.
Well...not the most convincing explanation but I don't see anything immediately off about it. He does appear to be good at diluting this sort of thing down when required at any rate, and that's always a good sign.
Hmm, this is actually a really fun way to look at time that I personally like to believe, cause I mean, if the timeline was one predetermined thing that could never change...that would be really really boring, there has to be some variation there to account for all the fun alter egos that you can possible imagine.
Oh course...you have toss one of those in there to take this to another level...well I don't think I've seen any story go in this particular direction so points for uniqueness, it always fun to imagine theories like this cause you never know this sort of fiction is someday going to be proved to be a reality.
HAhahahaha...I love that line there. You make him go an a properly impassioned nerd outburst..and I know I do this literally every time I understand a new concept in science so this very realistic, but then we've got the dude who already knows that burst his bubble and cut to the heart of the matter exactly like you'd expect them to.
OKay...well we're dragging paradoxes into this now are we? But hmm, I am loving the way this is going here. Especially as far as the theory of going backwards in time is concerned. Going forwards in time is something people have technically already done but the backwards is where physics falls apart and then proceeds to immediately give up.
This is I think somewhat similar to the idea of time travel they used in Avengers Endgame, the explanation sounds a little familiar but of course this is a little different and I think Matt's going to end up making a different point, but the gist of this particular time travel seems like it might be something like that.
Hmm, so this I believe is the version of time travel that's to be used in this story. Its a bit rambly I will say that, someone's gonna need to read this paragraph three times to fully understand it but I also totally get why this paragraph is the way it is cause that's just the natural thing to say. So uhh...while this paragraph is a bit tougher to digest, its an occupational hazard of the genre
Heyy...what's wrong with the multiverse theory, I happen to believe that one...
So they didn't know that already? Cool...I thought they already had the whole thing mostly figured out...or did I read too much into their confidence from earlier? It's not a plot hole or anything, I'm just curious to see...cause I know you probably mentioned this somewhere else and I just don't remember cause its been a couple of weeks.
Oh bad...bad bad bad...what is that? Who is that? Who are you? What's going on? I love this scene transition here, there's a bit of a high and we as the readers are happy for Matt and just relaxing them BOOOM...we have a very intriguing tidbit through at us.
Ahh...well...classic way to avoid having to quantify money, especially cause it sounds like a very legit reason that no one would ever question. Also the weakness of money...xD. Also also...Avery definitely gave of that vibe right from the start so that's cool...but I do still think killing three men with a pencil is more impressive than a pair of keys..
Uhh...hold on a minute "Sunday through Friday" implies that only Saturday is free right? SO in that case if he leaves on Friday, he has to come back by Monday?? What happened to Sunday? I'm a little confused. Is time travelling already included in the office hours too?
Hmm, always fun when you get a team of highly trained professionals to work for you and you have to barely do a thing...also poor guy getting embarrassed about the state of his apartment has become such a Matt thing at this point...and I think I can safely say you're character's personality has been established as unique pretty nicely by now.
Hmm...cool job description but hmm...he should've gotten to pick at the very least, seems a little rude to dump that on him, but then this is a government matter so that's probably the more realistic way.
Ahh, so we get to see him physically decompress from the day there...that makes a good amount of sense...its nice that we get to see the full toll that the day had on the guy.
Aww...that was an unusually sweet thing to say...for someone who this guy met like a day ago or maybe two days. Not sure whether I should be happy at that little bit of sweetness or questioning why it happened so quickly.
The voice is officially creeping me out, and I think you mean to do that, so good job there....also hmm...a very interesting line of thought there to sort of give us a teensy summary of just what Matt has gotten himself into here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall, this was a pretty satisfying chapter right here. It properly closed out the job hiring sage, introduced a mysterious and very creepy voice aand set us on the path for the future, or should I say the past
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Thanks a toooon for the review harry! I agree, some of those science paragraphs are in need of editing... but at least they're unediteness mirrors how unedited matts thoughts are at that moment.
You're Welcome!! xD