Post by Bonnie Blue on Aug 15, 2014 13:24:34 GMT -5
Somewhere in Bavaria, 1344
A monstrous beast clad in armor thunders down a dirt lane, sending sheep fleeing in every direction. Two shining eyes in front send their own illumination cutting through the night's darkness, metal teeth bared, a low growl emanating from deep in whatever passes for the creature's throat. Its fiery tail lights the evening behind it as it continues along the road, heading straight for a run-down old monastery.
The monster screeches to a halt in front of the abbey and promptly goes to sleep. Part of the beast seems to detach itself and disgorge a dark, man-shaped figure. Inside the monastery, a little cluster of Franciscan friars watches through barred windows, whispering nervously to one another.
" 'Tis a demon from the Pit! Bar the doors!" cries one, panicking. This elicits a murmur of general agreement from the others.
"It isn't," says a much older man, his voice perfectly calm. "Were it a demon, no lock would keep the beastie out."
"But it travels inside a metal animal, the like of which no man living has ever seen!"
The older fellow looks at his compatriot sharply. "Oh, aye? And I suppose you've seen a lot of animals that go about on wheels, have you?"
The younger brother follows the man's gesture. Beneath the flickering light of the torches at the entry, he can clearly see that the metal thing has wheels, not feet. Still, he isn't entirely convinced. "Perhaps the Beast makes his demon monsters that way..."
"The Beast does not create. Only the Lord Most High may do so. The Beast can corrupt the shape of man or animal, but he cannot make anything new. That -- strange as it may be -- is made by the hand of man. It is a conveyance. Maybe from the Orient."
"If it's a conveyance, Father William, then where are the horses?"
Father William doesn't have an answer for that. He is spared having to think of one by a mighty banging on the wooden doors. Without hesitation, he throws back the bolt and opens one side, urging the stranger to come in. The newcomer is wearing clothes of unfamiliar materials: denim jeans and a pre-shrunk cotton T-shirt bearing a picture of a Confederate flag and the words "New Confederacy" -- which wouldn't mean anything to these guys, even the ones who can read. He appears to be of a similar age to Father William, though of darker complexion. He could probably pass for Greek or Italian.
"Hola, Bernardos!" says the stranger, smiling.
"Good evening, traveller," says Father William. "We are but a group of very poor monks, though you are welcome to anything we have. I am known as William..."
"William of Ockham?" asks the stranger.
At the other's nod, the aging Mexican grabs his hand and pumps it enthusiastically.
"Excellent, Bernardo! I am Don Jesus Luis de Guadalupe. I am from the future, and I need your help."
This seems to shake even the unshakable Father William, who has survived public ridicule, excommunication, and banishment without complaint. Ah, but this... this is an entirely unexpected situation.
"My help?" he repeats, blinking. "I don't see how -- "
"Nevermind that, Bernardo of Ockham. Time is of the essence! We must go!"
Without waiting for a reply, Chuy takes Father William by the hand and ushers him out the door. It takes a little convincing even for so rational a thinker to get into the Ranchero, but eventually he does, and soon, the car goes roaring off down the road -- to vanish in a flash of radiant colored light.
Berkeley, California 1971
The University of California campus is packed with students gathered outdoors to enjoy the early fall sunshine. Some are clustered around guitarists on the spacious lawn. Others are gathered in small pockets behind trees or shrubs or around the corner of a building, sparking cigarettes that smell of anything but tobacco. Yet other students are dancing across the grass, or kicking a hackey-sack, or basically just relaxing as the sun shines gaily overhead.
Two adults weave their way through the merriment. One is a young, bespectacled Hispanic gentleman wearing bell-bottom jeans and a suede jacket with lots of fringe; he chats pleasantly with his companion, a tall, slender Caucasian with shaggy salt and pepper hair. He wears a more conservative tweed jacket with suede elbow patches.
"...tell you who you should talk to," says the white guy. "That Carl Sagan. Man, he is far out!"
"Really? He seemed a little square to me," replies the other man.
"Nah, he's just shy."
A female student wanders up, bouncing excitedly. Neither of them can help watching the play of breasts beneath her sweater. "Oh, wow, man. Dr. Leary! That was an awesome presentation this afternoon. Like, cosmic!"
The older man shakes the young lady's hand, giving her a polite smile. "Glad you enjoyed it. You know, for the good of mankind, it is encumbent on all of us to shift our paradigm. Civilization as we know it is going nowhere without brave pioneers of consciousness on the forefront of science and politics."
He lectures without taking his eyes off her, even when she hands him a copy of his most recent book, Jail Notes, for him to autograph. The girl is clearly enamored of the famous, popular, and controversial psychologist, staring after him even as he and his companion continue on their way.
"That happen a lot?" asks the younger man.
"All the time, Chuy. All the time."
"Groovy. Hey, would you happen to have time to look at something I've been working on?"
Dr. Leary nods, and his feet begin automatically tracing the path toward the working laboratories. Instead, Chuy leads him toward the workshops, typically occupied by the engineering department. His shop is a stand-alone Quonset hut, set about twenty yards from the rest of the complex in the most remote part of the campus. Inside, makeshift shelves are covered in all manner of machine parts and tools. And something else -- something that wasn't there a couple of hours ago when Chuy left to attend Leary's presentation.
Right in the middle of the space is a metallic-emerald Ford Ranchero, but not like any either man has ever seen. And leaning casually against the hood is a fifty-something year old man clad in what would seem to be monk's robes.
"Uh..." Chuy begins, his mind full of questions, each vying for dominance.
The be-robed man nods, as if in agreement. " 'Tis a situation most odd, I will grant thee."
"Uh, who... how did...?" The PhD candidate shakes his head. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"
"I am William of Ockham, and I have been brought here to help you."
The younger man glances at Dr. Leary, who looks equally as mystified as he, and simply shrugs.
"Help me what?" Jesus asks.
For reply, Father William gestures at a rather complex assortment of machinery and wires resting on a table, looking completely harmless.
"And how, precisely, is a Fourteenth Century monk going to help me unravel the secrets of trans-temporal relocation?"
"Logician," Leary reminds him. "William of Ockham... once you discount the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the answer. Paraphrasing, of course."
"You're familiar with my work. I am impressed...and duly humbled. You're not with the Church, are you?" Father William's spirits are dampened considerably by this thought.
Dr. Leary snickers. "Hardly. We're scientists."
"Alchemy?" Ockham looks suspiciously at the equipment around the shop.
"Sometimes," Chuy replies. "That doesn't explain the Ranchero, though."
"You mean the carriage? You -- er, the man who brought me said you would need it."
"I don't understand," Chuy says.
"Neither you nor, indeed, myself," Ockham agrees.
"Me, three. But I know what might shed some light..."
Grinning like a madman, Leary withdraws a small leatherbound address book from his jacket. With exaggerated care, he removes a loose page -- quite unlike any of the others -- handling it by the edges. He proceeds to fold along miniscule perforations, tearing off tiny squares of the paper; to distribute one each to his companions, before popping a third into his mouth. Gleefully, Chuy follows suit. William Ockham has no idea what these two madmen are doing, but when in Rome... or Berkeley, as the case may be.
At the request of both men, Father William proceeds to tell them of his arrival. How a stranger came calling at his monastery, with claims of being from the future and desperately in need of William's help. And then, of the astounding journey through a non-land of swirling color and light, where nightmare images and angelic dreams merge into an unfathomable whole that outshines the sum of its parts. He speaks of arriving in a strange fortress, all low buildings and paved ground, where a carriage -- identical to the one he had ridden in -- waited; and how the man conducting the journey had chained the two vehicles together before driving off into the void again.
"And upon our arrival here, I helped him move this carriage inside. Then he disappeared again, like magic," Father William concludes. "Do the walls of this structure usually ...breathe? I feel like the walls are breathing."
"That's just the LSD. You'll be fine," Leary assures him.
"What is... ellisdee?"
"Something to expand your consciousness," Chuy answers.
"Oh. Because it almost feels like that time I ate some bread that was made from bad rye."
Dr. Leary and almost-Dr. Guadalupe exchange a knowing grin. Leary stretches lanky arms and wanders over, at last, to the work table to examine Jesus' project. Scattered around the surface are papers covered in handwritten notes. Careful not to disturb the order, he leafs through them.
"Hmm. Mm-hmm... Interesting..." He glances up at Jesus. "This isn't really my forte, but it all looks pretty solid. Father William?"
Ockham hops down off the hood of the car, fairly spry for a man of his age, and joins Leary in studying the notes. His brow creases in a deep frown. He doesn't understand any of the calculations; it might as well all be written in Chinese. Moreover, there is a small sketch of several round things circling a bigger round thing. The big orb is labelled as "sun" rather than "Earth."
"Oh, I see your problem," Ockham begins, pointing. "Your model of the universe is all wrong."
============================================
"...and then at that point, the cat is neither alive nor dead. Or is both. But its state isn't determined until you open the box to check. Correct?"
Leary and Guadalupe gaze at Ockham, astonished. They've just spent the last three hours bringing him up to date -- almost 700 years worth of scientific discovery -- and with the exception of a few questions, he has had no trouble keeping up.
"That's basically it. Not that anybody would actually do it, it's just a means of illustrating the Uncertainty Principle," says Chuy.
"Far out," William says. "Let me look at those notes again."
=============================================
Three men cluster around the Ford Ranchero's open hood, the space where the engine should go now occupied by the strange contraption previously sitting on the work table. Like men possessed, they are adding to it. The entire construct looks like the result of an ill-advised love affair between an old-fashioned copper cappuccino machine and a modern nuclear reactor.
"There," Chuy declares, at last. "Now all we need is a power source."
"That would require something capable of smashing atoms into each other to then make use of the resultant energy output," Ockham says, his tone a little derisive. "And where are we going to find that at this hour?"
A slow smile spreads across Leary's face. "I have an idea."
Ten minutes later, the three of them are doing a little B&E in the nuclear physics department. One of the physicists, a Prof. Tim E. Keeper, has a pet project of his own. It isn't anything new; in fact, scientists have been working on such a thing for years. It's called a supercollider -- or, in more vulgar terms, an atom smasher. Sitting right on Prof. Keeper's desk is a miniature model of the thing, complete with a manual on how it should, theoretically, work. The problem, of course, is that in order to achieve the necessary velocity to break atoms apart, you need a track of almost unimaginable size. It would rival the space taken up by the earliest supercomputers. Then there's the issue of containment, not to mention the actual harnessing of the energy.
Even so, our intrepid science heroes are tripping balls, so none of these problems seem insurmountable. Gathering up the model and paperwork, the three steal away into the night, giggling like schoolchildren.
=========================================
Jesus de Guadalupe adds a finishing weld to one final spot, then removes his helmet, smiling with satisfaction.
"That should do it. I hope Professor K doesn't get too upset when he finds out we took his thing," he says.
"Upset? He should thank us for making it work. At that size, too. This is going to revolutionize the energy industry!" Dr. Leary tells him. "Think about it -- free, unlimited power for everybody! Do you realize what this means?"
But William of Ockham isn't quite so enthusiastic. "Didn't you say everything runs on oil?"
Leary nods. "Mostly. Oil or coal. Nuclear power is much cleaner, and very promising, but so far it hasn't been implemented as widely as we might like. There are some concerns..."
"But do you really think people who make as much money as they do from oil and coal would sit idly by while you promote free, unlimited energy?"
"Stop harshing our buzz," Chuy tells him. "I mean, you're probably right. Then again, we just built a time machine in a single night. So ...anything is possible."
"I think it might not be wise to tell anyone you've done this," Father William opines. "You know, historically, the Church has turned its back on new discoveries. So might your Establishment. Particularly as it points to the dissolution of an entire industry from which a very few, very powerful people gain a vast amount of wealth. Personally, I think everyone ought to try poverty...at least once."
Reluctantly, Jesus nods in agreement. "The world may not be ready for this development. On the other hand, we are. Might as well start her up and see how she runs."
============================================
Somewhere in Bavaria, 1344
The morning sun creeps over the horizon to find the little band of Franciscans at prayer. A loud, deep-throated growl from outside breaks the oppressive silence and startles the brothers from their respective reveries. One rushes to the nearest window.
"It's the beast! The monster has returned!" he cries fearfully. "It comes to swallow the rest of us! God forgive us poor sinners and deliver us from this evil!"
"No, look!" says another, joining the first at the window. "Father William has tamed the demon, see?"
The brothers, as one, rush outside in a manner most unbecoming of monks, all chattering excitedly. Ockham slips from the passenger seat and waves goodbye as the Ford Ranchero drives off into Eternity once more.
(NOT) THE END
