Max and Ben attenuate time

I’ve done it.  

 

Er… Max – forgive me for being sceptical but frankly, I don’t believe you.

 

No worries. It was merely a courtesy disclosure. Whether you believe it or not is largely irrelevant.

 

Oh – so the greatest achievement this side of inventing the wheel and you say it matters not whether I believe it?!

 

Well firstly, I think you’re overstating things. It’s a breakthrough, yes, for sure, but I’d hardly call it the greatest achievement since the wheel was invented. Besides, fibre optics or the microchip are perhaps even greater, don’t you think?

 

We can ask my subscribers if you like.

 

All 24 million of them?

 

Yes, why not?

 

Ok, whatever you like. But regardless of what’s the greatest invention, you have to realise that people recognising it or acknowledging it is of no significance whatsoever.

 

Oh come on Max – what’s the point doing the unimaginable and spending the rest of your life failing to get the public on board?

 

Good question, Dan.

 

I beg your pardon.

 

Er… Steve.

 

Steve? What’s wrong with you Max?

 

I… er… to tell the truth I’ve been flipping through a number of versions of reality lately – it’s a little muddling.

 

What?! You mean to say you’re not just marketing infinity drive here in our dimension?

 

Er… no.

 

But that’s so disloyal.

 

It is?

 

Yes, Max, it is.

 

Why?

 

Because this is where you grew up. This is where you learnt everything you needed to know in order to make this historical scientific breakthrough – and you just decided to offer it willy nilly in multiple dimensions?

 

Actually, I call them pages.

 

Er… that’s weird. Are they two dimensional?

 

Not in themselves. Each one feels and seems to be 3D like this here, but taken as a whole each seems to be a page of something bigger.

 

Fascinating, but rather disturbing if you can’t even remember who I am, Max.

 

Yes, I’m afraid leafing through interdimensional pages has its drawbacks, Ben, but a little short term memory loss is a small price to pay. Besides, you can’t have your cake and eat it.

 

In what sense?

 

Well, Infinity Drive only works when you open access to all the pages.

 

You mean to say that 3D reality was designed to exclude…

 

Yep.

 

And are there likely to be any repercussions involved with opening up the full panoply of pages?

 

You could say.

 

Like what?

 

Good question Ben. I’m still working on that, which is why I’m not in a hurry to have too many people on board right now.

 

So you’re still in the testing phase?

 

Not exactly.

 

Then what?

 

Well, it’s rather paradoxical, I think you’ll agree, but Infinity Drive operates outside the usual time and space constraints.

 

Well, I guess it would have to if infinity is what it’s supposed to be.

 

Precisely. So that means that it appears to work backwards in time and into the future too.

 

Oh! You mean to say that the effects of Infinity Drive are measurable in the past?

 

Yes. It’s a bit like a chromatogram.

 

A what?

 

Oh come on Ben – basic chemistry at school. You used filter paper and it soaked up separating the various pigments in ink.

 

Oh that. Yes, of course. But how is that related to…

 

Because this particular moment in time is like one ring of the disk, but Infinity Drive soaks through the entire disk causing certain rather noticeable effects.

 

Like what?

 

Like whatever happened in my life prior to me launching ID.

 

Like what? It’s like drawing blood from a stone trying to get you to open up and let us see what’s happening behind the scenes.

 

Ok – determinism – chicken and egg – that kind of thing. In order for me to launch ID I had to leave my home and move to this benighted land where I now live.

 

Hey – you can’t speak about Russia like that! Have some consideration bro.

 

Ben, it had to seem to be benighted – I had to feel like I was in the night state of existence – in dream reality, otherwise I couldn’t have launched ID.

 

Oh. So you’re not being critical of Russia?

 

No, on the contrary – I couldn’t have done it without her.

 

Her?

 

Well, it’s hardly him – is it?

 

Ok – fair enough Max. But how can you be so sure?

 

Because I was having all these out of body experiences when I came here which made no sense – I’d never had them before in Blighty.

 

Oh.

 

And only after I’d opened up to infinity by experiencing it directly, personally, was I able to come round to launching Ifinity Drive.

 

Typo, Max.

 

Yes and no. Infinity is also if-in-ity – or not – as the case may be.

 

OMG – you mean to say that being in ity – the realm of things – is no longer a given?

 

Absolutely. That would preclude access to the quantum field – would it not?

 

I… I guess so.

 

So chicken and egg – infinity had to leach back into my earlier present in order to make itself available – which meant I had to be disconnected from the grid.

 

And how was it achieved?

 

Honestly, I have no idea.

 

But what did you experience personally?

 

I’d rather not go into that.

 

Er… we need to know.

 

I knew you were going to say that.

 

Don’t you think that this too is part of Infinity Drive – that you have to make your confession – or a confession of sorts in order to…

 

I hate you, Ben.

 

Thanks, Max – I’ll take that as a compliment. Well – time to spill the beans.

 

Oh – how ironic!

 

Huh?

 

The beans – that was one of the spells.

 

Nope – you’ve lost me, Max.

 

I wrote a book of Spells – kind of poems – ostensibly for children.

 

And that’s your shameful confession? I had such high hopes.

 

There’s more, Ben, if you’d let me get a word in edgeways.

 

Go on – we’re all ears.

 

You and your 24 million chatbot subscribers.

 

Nothing of the sort – my subs have all been audited and authenticated. Humans, and not a bot to be seen.

 

Well, we can discuss that at a later date.

 

Oh no…

 

At a later date – I said. So I was spilling the beans because, as you rightly surmised, Infinity Drive can only really work if it connects me, the person, with it – the life and world I’m part of – which means story – my personal story in this case, has to be woven into it’s shiny grey gunsteel fabric.

 

Well? What’s her name?

 

Ben! I never said anything about a her, did I!

 

No, but I can see that’s what’s making you so terribly uncomfortable.

 

You’re mistaken, Ben, I’ve got over her, long ago in fact.

 

Ha ha, very funny. How could you possibly get over her if she’s part of Infinity Drive? She would have had to have sliced you open like a fish knife and turned you inside out.

 

Damn you, Ben – have you no consideration whatsoever for my delicate sensibilities.

 

Sensibilities? What kind of word is that?

 

Never mind. Just give me a minute to compose myself – if you don’t mind.

 

Ok – here goes – 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11  12  13

 

I hate you Ben.

 

Thanks Maximillian.

 

It’s Max, for crying out loud!

 

Me thinks he doth protest too much!

 

Sotto voce – Her name was Anna.

 

And she was beautiful? witty? fascinating? demure?

 

I honestly cannot say.

 

What do you mean?

 

I mean her personality, character and appearance had nothing to do with it.

 

Really? I find that hard to believe.

 

Yes, Ben, but you see she herself was essentially irrelevant. It was, I now realise, Infinity Drive that was accessing my source code through her – and if she’d been an African mangrove swamp witch from hell – it would have made not the slightest difference to my painful infatuation.

 

Oh. You disappoint me, Max. I was hoping, just hoping that there was a trace, a smidgen of romance lurking somewhere in your cold inscrutable nature… but alas! So disappointing.

 

Look, Ben, Infinity Drive takes no prisoners. You can’t open up the quantum field if you’re planning to be sentimental or take yourself so seriously.

 

You mean to say you’re not actually heartbroken?

 

No, of course not.

 

Then what? I thought it would have to have been a kind of near death experience to open you to the quantum field.

 

It was, Ben. But infinity is so vast that if you start taking things too seriously you’re just going to pop – game over.

 

So?

 

So instead of popping I started writing nonsensical poems – which then turned into magical poems – and hey presto – the toxic blend of self-indulgent pity and anger turned into joy and wonder.

 

Oh – that’s so beautiful – if only it were true.

 

Shame on you, Ben! I’ve revealed my deepest, darkest emotional traumas and you treat them with utter indelicacy and irreverence...

 

Me thinks you are still a little affected by the experience, Max, which is why you’re so easily upset.

 

You’re right, Ben – but at the same time, I realise that the emotional body is essential to the operationality of Infinity Drive – so actually I’m deeply grateful to Anna and to Mother Russia for all they have done.

 

Mother Russia – aren’t you taking that a bit far?

 

No, apparently not.

 

But… how can you call her “Mother” Russia if you’re from Blighty?

 

Because Infinity Drive, as I already mentioned, takes no prisoners. It’s all or nothing.

 

So, you mean to say you basically died.

 

Absolutely. As everyone must.

 

And Mother Russia is not a geo-political entity at all.

 

Correct. She is literally my Mother, or surrogate.

 

OMG.

 

Yep.

 

But why?

 

Why what?

 

Why you? Why on earth did she drag you from the dustbin of 3D reality?

 

I find that rather offensive, Ben.

 

Yes. I’m not surprised dear Max. But still, it is quite something to believe that you’ve been adopted by what, to all intents and purposes, amounts to a goddess!

 

Well, I don’t like that word – but yes – a higher level being, for sure.

 

Exactly.

 

Well clearly it has nothing to do with my IQ.

 

Or your looks.

 

Or my looks, you bastard, Ben.

 

Then what? Why were you dragged from the dumpster of normality and given the opportunity to launch Infinity Drive?

 

I – don’t – know – and in any case – who cares?! It is – I am.

 

You what?

 

It is – I am... There’s no longer any certainty who or what I am – who or what it is – whatever the twain might be.

 

Ok – we’ve sunk down into the black depths of Eastern mysticism.

 

You asked – in a rather offensive fashion, I hasten to add – so you only have yourself to blame.

 

Touché!

 

You could ask the same of anyone who ever succeeded in doing anything remarkable – Pushkin, Keats, Dostoevsky, Dickens...

 

Just writers?

 

No, anyone. There was always an element of “why me?” behind their fame.

 

Joan of Arc?

 

Yes.

 

Seraphim Sarovsky.

 

Yep.

 

Martin Luther King.

 

Ok Ben – I think we’ve got the message.

 

Harry Potter.

 

No, he’s fictional.

 

Nostradamus.

 

This is getting annoying.

 

Malcolm the Beetle.

 

No, that one hasn’t been written yet.

 

Oops. Spoiler alert!

 

So, I think it’s time you just accepted the fact that none of this makes a lot of sense, and that infinity is, if it’s anything at all, the great leveller.

 

It is?

 

Yep. How can anyone think they’re anything special when infinity reveals that all things and all beings are somehow interconnected within the so-called quantum field.

 

Damn you, Max. I knew you were a communist at heart.

 

What’s communism got to do with the price of borsch?

 

You’re just trying to relaunch Das Kapital – adapted to the 21^st century.

 

You might be right, Ben, who knows, you might indeed be right.

 

No

 

Huh?

 

No protest – I missed the mark.

 

Oh – so it has to make me scream and swear to be true, does it?

 

Usually, yes. For some strange reason the truth seems to hurt, or bring out violent reactions in people, does it not? Ask Jesus.

 

Ok. Later.

 

Later... Wait a minute, you mentioned the chromatogram.

 

Yep.

 

And how infinity soaked through your past and future.

 

Yep²

 

So what kind of “later” are we actually talking about?

 

Good question, Ben. Allow me to defer answering that for the time being.

 

Oh no – something doesn’t feel right.

 

How do you mean?

 

With time. I’m getting vertigo.

 

You are?

 

Like something is bigly missing.

 

Bigly?

 

Absent

 

Absent?

 

Aaaaaaargh! Put it back! I need containment. I need a wall of time hemming me in.

 

Sorry bro, infinity, like I said, takes no prisoners. You can’t, after all, have your cake and eat it, unless...

 

What?

 

Unless you’re willing to pay for your free lunch.

 

Enough, Max! I’ll... Ben explodes into a flash of numbers and code, literally.

 

There you are, Ben, that wasn’t so bad after all, was it?

 

Ben’s shadow groans while a new body re-forms painstakingly.

 

Welcome to the next page, bro!

 

Oh God! I...

 

There, there... everything’s gonna be fine!

 

Infinity Drive whirring away feverishly in the background, churning out green spools of code like there’s no tomorrow, until suddenly all is still, palpably.

 

Excellent, Ben! So now, to answer your question, which “later” were you referring to?

Me? I...

 

A whole series of pages offering multiple versions of “later” synchronically come into view. Ben realises without a shadow of doubt that the one he selects will now define or determine the flow of time and things in his particular branch of existence, and the thought opens a new awareness of prescience he never previously knew existed, and the imperative of time, and a daunting responsibility for the choice he's about to make.

 

I...

 

Yes?

 

I see what you mean, Max. I too shall defer for the time being answering that, if you don’t mind.

 

Mind? I’m sure you’ll do whatever’s right, bro. Now, how about a bite to eat.

 

?? From the transcendental to the banal. 

 

This machine makes excellent code-y-burgers. You wouldn’t believe how real they taste.

 

Ew! Sound gross they do. I’d much rather...

 

Me too. Let’s rewind back to 3D and have a good ol’ fashioned slap-up roast.

 

Excellent idea!

 

And off they go in a green puff of code, pages flapping in the slipstream of time’s attenuation, things growing fast 'n thick all around.

 

 

0=1

page 9 of 9 or thereabouts