Loss

Henry Heart

Richard (Dick) Diamond

Julia

Beat Cop

I’m sorry for your loss Henry.

Henry nods towards the beat cop standing at the yellow police line. He makes his way through the onlookers and onto the crime scene. Red and blue lights illuminate the dark night, bounding off of puddles and wet asphalt.

Henry sees Julia and makes his way towards her.

What have you got?

A seasoned crime scene tech, she should have something of value for Henry.

...

You have to cut through the bullshit and get to the facts.

His partner’s voice replays in his head.

...

Adult male, about 45 years old. He’s cut up like hell Henry. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Henry looks down at man’s body laying flat near a tool shed at the back of the house.  A pair of jeans and no shirt. The whole torso is covered in red lines.

How did he die?

Julia swabs the cuts and seals the samples,

Poor bastard must have suffered a thousand cuts. But, he couldn’t have died from this. There is barely any blood. We’ll do an autopsy. I’ll keep you in the loop.

Why am I in the loop Julia?

The boss said you were working a missing person case for Liz Thompson.

...

But I don’t have any facts Richard. I don’t know anything about my past.

Henry’s voice sounds off screen, one of Henry’s memories.

Then you have to find them. You’ve been avoiding it for too long.

...

I wasn’t, but Dick was.

Well, this is her husband.

Hmm. Any sign of her?

I don’t think so. This isn’t even their house.

...

Everyone should know where they come from. You deserve that Henry.

...

Henry looks at the two story home. White siding. Nice enough. He looks back down at the body.

What caused these cuts?

I don’t know. They are too thin for a knife. Maybe a scalpel?

Henry bends down to get a closer look at the man’s face. Henry’s featureless head gleans with the scattered light and as he get’s closer, a dim twisted reflection of the mans face appears on Henry’s.

What’s his name?

Harry Thompson.

...

You don’t talk about it, but I know it matters to you Henry. People can say things without talking. You just have to pay attention.

...

Should I look for your wife Harry?

The man’s eyes are still and looking at the sky. His mouth is open as if in the middle of trying to answer.

Yeah, I guess I should.

Henry starts to get up, but just before he does he notices something white inside Harry’s mouth.

Do you have some tweezers?

Sure.

Julia hands Henry a pair and he proceeds to pull on a piece of paper. It takes some effort, but he’s able to get it out.

Maybe you have something to say something after all.

He opens up the paper and staggers back.

What is it?

The camera starts to move to show the paper.

...

Don’t be pissed at me, but I did look into it and might have found something. It’s not much. It’s just a technical readout for your model. But it’s old. Really old.

...

I don’t understand. This makes no sense.

...

You are pretty unique Henry. Look here, this says you were part of something called the Icarus Project. It’s not much, but it’s something.

...

Why is this here?

The camera zooms all the way to the paper,

Project: Icarus
Model: D0R1-AN
Imprint date: 26-DEC-10115
Neural Circuit: Advanced Quantum Mesh
Followed by a Henry's schematic and technical details.

Dr. Arbor Clemet

Young woman

Young man

A man with white curly hair that is less prominent on top than his chin sits at a table with four younger individuals. They all look at him with keen attention. His face is freckled and round, but his eyes are sharp and pierce right through his listeners.

We think of time as a sequence of events  that go on forever in an infinite universe.

Right, of course, cause and effect. What do you call it, reductionist?

A young pale woman with long red hair tied in a loose pony tail and lips that reveal excitement, interjects herself. 

The man smiles,

Yes, indeed. Do you study physics?

Just a few classes.

A coy smile passes her lips as well.

Ah well, you are correct. In this reductionist view, everything can be traced back to the interactions on the lowest levels. If you had the knowledge of the original state, in principle, you could re-play the cosmos exactly as it has.

A dark young man, absent-mindingly stirs his drink for way longer than needed with a toothpick that has an olive on the other end bathing in the concoction,

Like this very conversation?

Like this very conversation. However there is a catch. At the smallest, most fundamental, level something creeps in. A randomness, a layer of quantum foam, that shifts your starting position just enough that the system will always deviate.

That’s a bummer.

The young man puts his drink down, not even drinking it.

Well, perhaps. However this noise is what everything emerges from and in a profound way, we are actually very lucky.

So this is all just a roll of a die?

It’s deeper than that. You see as we evolve these systems in powerful computers we can see that they basically end up in three kinds of states. Convergence to steady state, where nothing changes. Pure randomness, where no structure can ever form. And, the precipice of… everything. You see, chances are overwhelming that these quantum fluctuations plunge the universe into sameness or chaos. But, this universe somehow rolled the dice and ended up on the least likely outcome. And here we are.

Like it was made for us.

The older man shakes his head without hesitation,

Well, there is a theory, called the anthropic principle that states that is indeed so. However I think a better way to look at it is that we are a puddle. 

The young man raises an eyebrow and frowns,

You’re losing me doc.

The old man man frowns and narrows his sight on the young man,

Hold on. Think of a puddle of water nesting itself within a crack in the road. This puddle must think, “Look at this marvelous thing. This world was created just for me. I fit perfectly within each crack.” But, of course, it is just a puddle. It has formed as it is, because the crack in the road chances it to be so. Thee crack few feet away is entirely different.

The tense forehand on the young man relaxes with revelation,

Ah ok, so it’s all random and we have chanced on this universe which has the properties that led to the world as we know it.

A satisfied smile returns on the old man’s face,

Very good.

The young woman’s cay smile grows as she leans back and sips on her tall drink,

But you left out one thing.

The old man raises his eyebrows and smiles back,

What is that Liz?

Well this randomness, what did you call it? A quantum something. 

Quantum foam.

She leans into the table,

Right. What if we could affect all this right at the base state? Could we somehow pass to different realities or control where things end up?

He relaxes into his chair, with hint of speculation,

Well, I suppose then you would be talking about a self referential loop.

Could that happen?

Technically yes. Entropy would push you away from that, but it is statistically possible, In principle.

She leans in further, her elbows on the table,

Well if it’s possible, then doesn’t that mean that, in an infinite universe, it does indeed happen?

Satisfied, she grabs an olive out of the young man’s drink and eats it. All the young people lean in without even noticing.

Dr. Liz Thompson

Man's voice

Henry Hart towers alone in a dark dingy room. The overhead lights are on, but most seem to have shined their last light. His head is in shadow, above the light fixtures. His red eye is looking down at a table that is filled with circuitry and Petri dishes. Pitter patter of rain drums on the ceiling above. To Henry Hart's side is a recliner resembling a dentists chair.

Thee tranquil hum of rain drops is broken with a female voice,

I don’t think I can do this anymore.

On the side of the table a small distorted screen is showing an older woman with unkempt red hair. The camera is zoomed in close to her face. She looks to the side as a deeper voice come from somewhere out of shot,

Liz, at this point, it is your only chance. The brain is degrading. With every minute a memory is lost.

I know, it’s just…

You are worried that there is no going back?

Yeah. I can barely understand this circuitry. The environment for the underlying impulses is different. That chances this will work are very slim. It’s a very narrow margin between nothing and utter nonsense.

A hand rests on her shoulder and she grabs it and squeezes it,

I know, the precipice of everything.

There is more in that narrow margin than we can ever hope to fully comprehend.

A trickle of blood slowly inches out from her nose.

Shit.

She quickly wipes it and closes her eyes. A tear escapes. She quickly wipes that as well and goes back into focus as the voice continues,

Like you said, given enough time, the improbable becomes…

…inevitable…

Unir, how many times have I done this?

41

Why do you keep on coming back to this loop? You are torturing yourself.

The base conditions change every time, even if we can’t see it. I have to continue.

Do you think you will ever find her?

Either that or she will find me. As you will find yourself.

Young man

Young woman

An excited tall man with bushy curly hair and a plaid bow tie sits across the table from a rather tall woman whose brown eyes appear rather focused on her meal.  

How do you know that you are you?

She give the man a side glance without  letting focus of of her meal, which consists of eggs and bacon,

Isn’t that the only thing one can know?

He adds some milk to his tea cup,

No, how do you know that you are who you are, right now, at this moment?

She shakes her head,

I feel like we’re going in circles.

His eyes focus on the swirls that the milk is making as it mixes into his drink,

Ok, here’s a proposition for you. Have you ever heard of a Boltzmann Brain?

She grimaces, unimpressed,

A what?

The man seems to enjoy the cold reception and smiles,

Long ago an astrophysicist has postulated that in an infinite universe there is an inevitable chance that a brain with just the right preconditions and inputs can spontaneously appear into existence and think itself in any place. A place just like this. Perhaps even eating eggs.

Picking up on his smile, seems to only push the woman further,

You are scaring me and you are going to give me an identity complex.

He leans back with the tea in his hand almost spilling on the neighboring table,

Well, this brain would think it’s part of some greater narrative, but in reality it would exist only for a moment. A brief time, just long enough to think that thought.

She picks up her cup, almost as if protecting,

But we’re not in a brief moment. We are our experience, a sequence of real events, that combine into patterns in our brains that make up who we are.

He leans in an almost pushes himself into the table, the cup now half way across,

How would you know if it’s not otherwise? How do you know this moment is not just a random fluctuation that inevitably happens in a sea of infinite possibilities?

She reflexively drops her utensil and leans back,

You’re ruining my lunch with your nonsense.

He presses on,

Well, ok what if it wasn’t as random?

What do you mean?

Well, you remember about that experiment I told you about?

The quantum computer cult thing you got that general to pay for, DOR1-AN or something? I told you. You are fucking with things you shouldn't touch.

Her leg shakes nervously,

Close. We were able to do a deep scan of this woman’s neural circuitry as she was thinking, down to neural impulse detail.

That seems like an impossibly large amount of data.

We only captured a few seconds. Anyway, we replayed this pattern within our simulator.

She pushes her plate away in exasperation,

Ok, well there it goes. I can no longer eat my eggs. Have you ever thought of the ethical implications of what you are suggesting?

He pick up a piece of bacon from the plate and bites into it,

You can’t fight progress. This is going to happen.

You are paying for lunch.

He reclines back with a big satisfied smile as she motions to the side,

Waiter, I think I’m going to get the Bloody Mary after all.