Objectively Speaking
© 2012 by Adam F. Wall
“Would another year hurt?” asked Gary.
Joseph Moreau rubbed the bridge of his nose and stifled the sigh that tried to escape his lips. “Yes, it would. In another year I won’t have the balls to do this.” He returned to tossing his rolled up socks into the green duffel bag. It seemed silly really: he didn’t need them. But somehow leaving without packing just didn’t feel right.
Gary Mitch leaned against the door frame, his arms crossed, watching the hasty packing. “The world will still be out there in another year, Joe. You’re throwing this away, and why? For stability? Mediocrity? Whatever happened to ‘living while we’re still alive’?”
“It’s not about those things,” said Joseph, his words a little louder than he meant.
“Well, talk to me then: what is it about?”
Joseph gestured to the room around him: the transparent walls that throbbed with millions of pinpricks of light and strobes of vibrant color. “Gary, we’ve been here for almost five years. Five! It was supposed to be a six month excursion, tops!”
“Well, the data we’ve been getting from this was too valuable. How else are we supposed to prove that this method works without pushing the outer limits?”
Joseph pressed his knuckles into his eyes, fighting for self-control. That was getting progressively harder as well. “Gary, listen to yourself: this was an experiment. A test! Even if we successfully market it, no one is supposed to stay in for more than eighteen months. Five years, Gary. This has turned into some kind of weird addiction. I want out while my head is still clear.”
Gary shifted, looking uncomfortable, and stared up at the myriad of light motes dancing overhead. “This isn’t an addiction, Joe.”
“No? Then come with me. They can reinsert you in a couple of days.”
“If we both leave the whole spectrum will change beyond recognition. Hell, it‘ll change if you leave.”
“You don’t know that for a fact: it’s the one part of the test we haven’t actually confirmed. Prove to me that you can leave.”
“I don’t have to prove anything: I can leave whenever I want.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it.” Joseph turned his back on Gary and tossed the last rolled up pair of socks from the pyramid on his bunk into the duffel. “How old was Bella when you were inserted?” he asked without turning around.
“Six,” said Gary after a moment’s hesitation.
The streams of luminescence painted a rainbow over the room, one color after the next in a Vegas-like display. The silence dragged on and became so deep Joseph could almost hear the motes beyond the transparent barriers humming in their respective frequencies.
“How old is she now?” asked Joseph, not turning around.
More silence. Gary was a mathematician and Joseph knew Gary had the answer before the question had even been asked.
“Our families knew the risk when we were inserted,” Gary said softly.
Joseph zipped up the duffel, once again reflecting how silly going through the motions of packing truly was. “They didn’t expect us to be here this long.”
“We could have died. Instead we made it in and it’s been better than anything we thought might happen!” Gary’s voice became pleading as Joseph lifted the bag from his bunk. “Joe, c’mon! This experience might never come along again.”
“The whole idea was to make sure it worked, Gary. It does. Now let’s go home, hmm? I can do the math too: I want to see Katy before she dies.”
“She might already be dead!”
“And so that’s a reason to stay? Gary, listen to yourself!”
“No!” Gary screamed. His hands were curled into fists at his sides and his jaw was clenched, posture rigid and unyielding as he stood in the doorway that led to the rest of the complex. “You can’t do this, Joe. Stop being so selfish!”
“Me? I’m the one being selfish?” Joseph threw down the duffel bag in disbelief; it clunked against the opaque floor reflecting the light of the million strobes and particles beyond the construct. “I have the right to call this off if I want to: the test is over. It’s time to go!”
“No!” Gary’s hands flew out and smacked Joseph in the chest in a hard shove. “No! You can’t leave me alone in here and I am not going!”
Joseph reeled back from the blow. Before he was conscious of the decision his fists had come up and he launched one into Gary’s face, barely feeling the connection before he fired another into his partner’s abdomen and they collapsed to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Joseph seized the winded Gary by the hair and slammed his head against the floor. Then he did it again. And then again for good measure, although by this point Gary’s flailing had ceased.
Breathing hard, he struggled to his feet looked around. Outside, the ever-present streams had changed into throbbing shades of crimson and burgundy, the motes of light into dancing cells of rosy hue. Joseph seized the duffel’s handle but it slid through his fingers, slick and difficult to grasp. After a moment’s struggle he had a firm grip on it and carried it out of the room, stepping over Gary’s inert form.
The complex was huge, objectively hundreds of kilometers wide, but every wing had been designed with an interface to transmit the collected data back home: the interface also served as an exit portal for when the time came, although they had never used one as such. He went to the nearest one now, walking through meters of transparent hallways and arching ceilings that reminded him of a cathedral, displaying the magnificent light show beyond. The interface was an alcove shaped like a drum cut open on one side. Joseph stepped in and turned to face the aperture, setting his bag on the floor by his feet. The walls of the alcove were encrusted with different kinds of projectors to visually display the various means of interpreting the data punched into the server: the simple act of keying in a paragraph would cause all fifteen different displays to project a unique interpretation of the words, and coordinating all of them could take hours to make sure the outgoing messages weren’t garbled.
Alone, on Joseph’s right, was a numerical keypad, illuminated with blue lights that stood out starkly against the red background that had overcome the complex. The keys felt slick and smooth under his touch as he punched in the EXIT code, a long string of numbers designated so that it would never be confused with something else or punched in accidentally.
The drum shut with a soft whir, enclosing him in darkness lit only by the blue numbers on the pad as the projectors faded away. A smell of ozone hit his nostrils, followed by a sensation of falling, forcing his stomach into his throat. The bag at his feet disappeared, as did the keypad and the surface of the drum, leaving only the darkness behind.
Hours later – or at least, what felt like hours later – a hint of gray came into his vision. It began as a soft glow, then became a blinding whiteness. Shapes began to appear, voices took on form. Joseph blinked his eyes at masked technicians standing over him.
“Welcome back, Doctor Moreau,” said one in a vaguely Germanic accent. She removed her mask and hat, releasing a thatch of blonde hair. “I am Doctor Heinrich. Are you feeling all right?”
Joseph nodded. The muscles in his neck felt stiff.
“Can you speak?”
“Yes,” he croaked. His mouth and tongue felt coated with glue.
“We are still bringing your body back up to speed. Do not worry if things feel odd right now, you were under a long time. Do you remember what year you were inserted?”
“2023.”
“Do you know what year it is now?”
It took a moment for Moreau to remember the objective difference. “It should be…2041. Subjective difference in time passing. ”
Heinrich glanced at another technician. “Actually, the year is 2146.”
Joseph stared at her. “Impossible. The subjective span was only five years.”
“An unintended side-effect of the data you and Doctor Mitch were sending out to us.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It is the age-old principle of observation: the system is changed by the very act of observing it. Your experiment was a success: your consciousness was artificially locked into the quantum sub-level and the information you sent out has revolutionized the whole world. But by the act of observing reality at that level, time ceased to have meaning for you.”
Joseph suddenly found it hard to breathe. Katy… “Then why weren’t we extracted?”
“Because as I just said, time ceased to have meaning. Extracting you without your input was impossible. Furthermore, you could have returned seconds after insertion, or you might not have come out for another million years, objectively speaking: in fact, a commission was made to monitor you for the next five hundred years in hopes you might recover. A few decades ago, technicians found ways to attempt communication, but no difference was ever perceived to indicate you had received the messages.”
Joseph tried to sit up. “What about Gary?”
“Doctor Mitch?” Another exchanged glance. “Doctor Moreau…Doctor Gary Mitch died in stasis.”
