SlickRiptide

My villains are caricatures. I can't really get seriously into the villain mindset. There's nothing ambiguous about them. They are unabashedly evil and self-serving and marginally insane or at least sociopathic.

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<grin>

Life really got in the way at the weekend and I only managed to write about 2,500 words across the two days. Monday was a lot better and by the end of today I’m hoping to be close to the 15,000 mark.


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Wowzers! If that's what turning Brit does for you then I'm going to have to run out to my local Anglo bakery, the British Pantry, and pick up a couple of pasties for inspiration!

So, how are we doing? I'm off to a slow start. Publishing my robot story here, so close to NaNoWriMo turns out to have been a bad idea. Now I'm splitting my attention and getting nowhere fast on either of them. *bleah*

I'm going to have to make a decision and prioritize a bit.

I don't know of this Ms. Primm of whom you speak, but, if I may borrow a line from one of my own characters, "There are no coincidences."

Cute picture.

It sucks, but the reason that friends tend to be the source of this kind of problem is that strangers don't usually get their foot in the door far enough to get the opportunity.

Simple way to handle it - Send him a message to the effect that "Friends come to each other when they have a problem and work out how to solve them. I thought that we were friends."

He may come around and open a dialogue despite being ashamed of his financial straits, or you may find out that he thinks of you strictly as a bunch of pixels on the screen that speaks to him occasionally and isn't actually your friend at all. *shrug*

I'm off to a late start due to my son coming home from college for the weekend and blithely inviting a school friend along with him; a girl (but not a girlfriend) no less.

Needless to say, the priorities for today are housecleaning and spritzing up.

I guess I'll have to figure on double the word-count tomorrow.

Leigh appears to be an ex-patriat who's going native.

Good story. I have to say that I called it, though you successfully misdirected me momentarily with the watching the birds bit.

I can just imagine trying to find the previous owner! Ha ha!

I'd hate to be the burglar that decided to break-in to that apartment!

I was hoping someone would say that. It's one of my favorite scenes.

Thanks for the comments.

I guess I never learned another way to designate something like
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"Geronimo!" thought Alex as he leaped from the globe atop Atlas' shoulders.

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How would you format that?

BTW, I really appreciate that comment. I did a google search on "fiction how to designate thoughts" and got a whole education on writing that I'd never thought about before!

Eddi paused in his work to point a claw at a box balanced somewhat precariously on top of a rack of computers. “That box was delivered here an hour ago, Detective Brogan. It is addressed to you.”

I could swear that he sounds curious about it! thought Brogan with some surprise.

“Thanks, Eddi,” he said aloud. He walked over and examined the box. It was three feet long and six inches square. It might have held anything from a telescope to a baseball bat. The label showed it originating from the local D.A.T.A. office. A hand-scrawled message written across the front of the box read, Let me know how this works out. Horatio.

A pocketknife made quick work of the packing tape. As he had expected, the box was mostly packing materials. The item inside was only half the size of the container. Brogan read over some included documentation and made a satisfied noise. He closed the box and carried it to a table near the command console. The scientist and his electronic assistant were openly curious. He offered no explanation, however, and they were soon absorbed in their work again.

Brogan let them be. He went outside and made some calls to check up on details regarding some other open cases. After twenty minutes, Armitage emerged, stretched wide, and motioned to Brogan.

“We are ready whenever you are, Detective.” His excitement was palpable, and a bit infectious.

Brogan smiled in response, then reminded himself of the serious nature of their undertaking. Armitage took him on a tour of the cave setup, and described everything in detail.

As they returned to the command console, Armitage proudly said, “As you can see, we’ve taken all possible precautions.”

“All but one,” muttered Brogan, watching Eddi. That earned him an annoyed look from Armitage.

“Detective, surely you aren’t still mistrustful of Eddi?”

Brogan turned on him with a sour glare. “I don’t trust either of you farther than I can throw you.” Armitage actually looked hurt at that, and Brogan chuckled dryly. “Are you ready to begin the operation?”

A resigned Armitage nodded and said, “We are ready, as soon as you give permission.” He indicated a large red button that had been set into the upper-right corner of the command console. “This is the emergency retrieval switch that you asked for. Pressing this will abort the operation and retrieve Eddi immediately.”

His eyes crinkled and he grinned large. “We perfected that feature just this morning. I suppose I should thank you. To make it work, we had to invent a whole new system for it in just a few hours. I felt like I was in college again, flying by the seat of my pants!”

Brogan nodded, his own mood was somber in comparison to the enthusiasm of Armitage. He turned to Eddi and grimaced.

“Is something bothering you, Detective Brogan?” asked Eddi with real concern in his voice.

Brogan got to the point. “YOU are bothering me, Eddi.” He waved at Armitage. “I need to know that your allegiance lies with the truth and not with some agenda of Doctor Armitage.”

“How can I reassure you, Detective Brogan?”

Brogan let out a disgruntled sigh, and then reached into his pocket. “Do you understand what an oath is, Eddi?”

The robot flashed its lights briefly, and said, “An oath is a binding promise, one that transcends a normal promise because it guarantees that the oath-taker will suffer a severe, sometimes spiritual or metaphysical punishment for breaking his promise.”

Brogan twitched his mustache back and forth a bit. He said, “Yes, that’s essentially it. Mainly, it’s considered an unbreakable promise. Are you capable of taking an oath?”

Eddi flashed a bit more and answered, “If you mean to ask whether I understand the concept of a binding promise and am capable of living up to it, then I would say the answer is ‘yes’.”

“Alright then,” said Brogan, and he thought to himself, Here goes nothing!

He reached into a pocket and removed a pen and a sticker that he had taken from the school education unit that morning. The sticker had a picture of an old-West sherrif’s star, with the words “________ is hereby named an official Deputy of the Paragon City Police Department. Signed by ___________”.

He wrote “Eddi” in the first blank and signed “Detective Jose Brogan” in the second blank.

He looked at Eddi, whose eye lenses were fixed curiously on him. “Hold up your right hand, Eddi, and repeat after me:”

Eddi swiveled his head towards Armitage, who shrugged and nodded. He held up his right claw.

“I do solemnly swear,” said Brogan, “that I will support, protect, and defend the Constitution and Government of the United States and of the State of Rhode Island; that I am duly qualified to hold office under the Constitution of the state; and that I will well and faithfully perform the duties of Deputy Police Officer on which I am now about to enter. So help me God.”

Eddi repeated the words, and Brogan almost thought he detected a certain amount of pride in Eddi’s recitation.

Brogan continued - "I further solemnly swear that during my term of office as deputy, I will study the act prescribing my duties, will be alert and vigilant to enforce the criminal laws of the State and to detect and bring to punishment every violator of them, will conduct myself at all times with due consideration to all persons and will not be influenced in any matter on account of personal bias or prejudice. So help me, God."

Eddi repeated the words again. I must be imagining things, thought Brogan. It seemed impossible that the ungainly metal creature could stand straighter than he normally did, but to Brogan’s eyes he was somehow standing taller and prouder than he had a moment before.

He nodded to himself, then, and said “I hereby appoint you Deputy Police Officer of the City of Paragon City, and the state of Rhode Island.” He peeled the backing from the sticker and, with no trace of amusement, he placed it on Eddi’s chest.

“You are now a deputy of the Paragon City Police Department,” he said to Eddi. “Your first duty, even above your loyalty to Doctor Armitage, is to uphold the law and to see that any criminals are brought to justice. Do you understand this, Eddi?”

“Yes, Detective Brogan. I will endeavor to be worthy of your trust.” Eddi raised a claw to the top of his half-dome head, and Brogan realized that he was being saluted. With a half-smile, he returned the salute.

Armitage became all business. “Take your place, Eddi, and we’ll make the final preparations.” He took Brogan aside and asked, “Are you satisfied now, Detective?”

“No!” replied Brogan with a backward glance to where Eddi was setting up. “But it will have to do.”

Two hours later, Brogan pulled up at the corner of Twin Pines Road and Hill Valley Avenue. The excavation, as Armitage had called it, was the ruins of an old parking garage near the Argosy Industrial Park. It was one of the few remaining relics of the war in Atlas Park and had been slated for demolition and removal for some time.
Demolition workers had dug a kind of cave into the debris, cordoned off now by the yellow tape of a police line. A large semi-truck, of the sort that Brogan normally saw covered in a grocery store logo and hauling groceries, stood parked thirty yards away. Thick cables ran from the truck to the cave and Brogan heard the unmistakable whine of gas-powered generators coming from somewhere inside of it.

Stepping over the police line, he walked up to the cave entrance. Floodlights lit the cave and he saw four figures inside. Two were standing near the entrance. The silhouettes inside were clearly Eddi and a man that Brogan assumed must be Armitage. Both were busily unpacking and moving things around while the other two watched and kibitzed.

A fresh breeze caused Brogan to momentarily straighten his collar. He looked up, at the overcast sky and sniffed. The smell of dust and age was strong, but the heavy, damp scent of approaching rain was stronger. I’m going to wish I’d brought my rain slicker, he thought. His eyes ran along the cables, and he sent up a silent prayer that Armitage had done a good job of grounding all of the electrical connections.

The two police officers standing silhouetted at the cave entrance reminded Brogan of an old Abbot and Costello movie. The impression was reinforced when “Abbot” looked at the sky, winked at “Costello” and asked, “Whatcha doing Doc? Weather experiments?”

Clueless about the teasing, Armitage replied from inside the cave, “No, officer, I’m taking part in a temporal criminal investigation.”

“Costello” chuckled and nudged “Abbot”. “You got a permit for that, Doc?” he asked Armitage.

A startled Armitage said, “Ah, no, not with me. That is, Detective Brogan is the supervising officer…”

Brogan cleared his throat as he approached and the two officers turned welcoming grins on him. “Jose!” said “Abbot”. “I didn’t realize you were on Oppenheimer duty this week!”

The two officers laughed and Brogan rolled his eyes. He greeted each of them in turn and tried not to sound exasperated.

“Phillips. Newman. What are you two jokers doing here? I thought you were assigned to the King’s Row beat?”

Phillips, the taller officer, spoke as Officer Newman looked on knowingly. “It was that gang battle last week in Atlas Park between the Hellions and those guys that had some kind of demon or monster leading them.” He shook his head and Newman’s face took on a serious expression.

“They switched a lot of us over to Atlas Park temporarily, just to beef up the patrols for a while and cut down on the violence.”

Brogan waved absently at the scientist and robot. They appeared to be close to finishing their work.

“I’ll take it from here. You guys can get back to whatever comedy you normally occupy yourselves with when you should be working.”

Phillips feigned hurt feelings, and mostly failed. “Aw, c’mon, Jose! We were just having a little fun!” He winked at Newman and they each grinned at the other.

“Alright, alright,” said Brogan with a sigh. “Go on, get outta here. I’ve got this covered now.”


“Whatever you say, Jose. Just make sure your buddy here doesn’t bring back any dinosaurs!”

Newman and Phillips walked off laughing as if they had executed the funniest joke ever, while Brogan shook his head.

The construction lighting inside the cave shone brighter than the outside light, thanks to the lowering clouds. Once Brogan’s eyes adjusted, he saw that the “floodlights” from the lab had been hung from the ceiling and that several pieces of lab equipment had been wheeled inside the cave and hooked up to the cables running down to the semi-truck.

Brogan looked out at the approaching storm clouds and prayed fervently that they would finish without lightning striking the bundle of cables and electrocuting them all! To his layman’s eye, there appeared to be only scant surge protection placed inside the of the cave.

Give it a week, for the lag. You've arrived during the Halloween festivities, that include a Zombie Apocalypse this year. The lag doesn't affect everyone, but there seems to be a significant number that have mentioned it.

Given that Halloween ends this weekend, I'd say your first order of business is to get all of the badges while you can and do some trick or treating. The "costumes" are fun, but temporary. They evaporate after two weeks or thereabouts. If you get the Apocalypse Survivor badge, you unlock a Jack'O'Lantern helmet as a costume piece.

Get out there and stomp on some zombies!

Oh, and you'll probably achieve better results by re-posting this to the Virtue forum. That's where the sorts of people who might invite you to a Virtue-based supergroup will be hanging out.

Smoke me a kipper!

[u]June 21, 2007[u]

The station house clock claimed that the hour was 11:15am by the time that Brogan had cleared the last of the hurdles placed in front of the investigation. Brogan knew as well as any police officer that appearances were often misleading, but the people running the Titor Institute had insisted that they supported Armitage absolutely.

Professor Connor had likewise insisted on his good character. Brogan had phoned her the day before. “Holsten?” she had asked, unbelievingly. “You must be mistaken!” She’d laughed and added, “He’s perfectly harmless! His work is his world, and his obsession, but he’s never been obsessed with fame or money. In fact, I’ve published two papers in which his research and tutelage was instrumental, but he insisted that I take full credit for them. If there was ever a man less concerned with fame or notoriety, I haven’t met him!”

That had at least weakened the idea of fame as a motive for murder. After Brogan had spent some time convincing the Captain and the Prosecutor’s office to take the idea of a ‘temporal crime scene investigation’ seriously, they had outlined a series of requirements and then given their tentative approval.

Captain Brown stopped by Brogan’s desk just as Brogan hung up a call to Armitage, giving him clearance to proceed with the setup of his equipment. Coffee in hand, he said, “Listen, Jose. This isn’t quite the most hare-brained scheme I’ve ever heard about during my career in Homicide, but it’s right up there in the ‘top ten’.”

The older police officer shook his head in perplexity. “This all sounds almost too safe. You keep an eye on this Armitage and if anything feels the least bit funny, you shut it down right then.” He looked Brogan in the eyes meaningfully, leaned forward and said, quietly, “No matter what it takes.”

Brogan looked right and left, and then nodded imperceptibly. “Don’t worry, Captain. I intend to make damned sure that nobody goes tampering with evidence or with the ‘Cosmic Equilibrium’.”

Captain Brown nodded, rapped distractedly on Brogan’s desk with his knuckles and turned away. He took two steps, and then looked back over his shoulder. “I have a feeling,” he said, “that this is going to be one of those investigations that we put into the special file and pull out once in a while to read over accompanied by a bottle or two of Johnny Walker.” He chuckled mirthlessly, lifted his cup to Brogan, and walked into his office, shutting the door behind him.

May 23, 2002

Jonas Clark gasped as the crushing weight lifted from his chest and he could breathe again. The excruciating pounding in his head overrode the screams and explosions in the distance. The monsters were far away, in the light, while he lay in the darkness, unmoving.

“Rats!” he thought, panic-stricken, as a rustling occurred in the darkness. Images of every horror movie he'd ever seen played across the film screen of his imagination. The sound stopped, though, to be replaced by voices speaking near him. “Hello?” he called.

There was no response. Moving experimentally, he discovered that he couldn’t feel his legs or move his body below his waist. He dared to lift his head and the agony of his injured spine lanced through his entire being. He fainted.

Some indeterminable time later, he heard voices again, but he saw only the fevered visions of pain-filled delirium. Sam Weizak sat across the table from him. “Is this why you summoned me here, Jonas? To ask me this question?” Weizak held a pistol in his hands and caressed it lovingly.

Clark tried to reply and only succeeded in licking dry lips. “Of course, I would kill him, Jonas.” Wiezak pointed the pistol at Jonas’ head. “Skol!” he said.

“Skol!” agreed Jonas. There was a thunderous crash, followed by sweet oblivion.

If you have an hour with nothing to do, I highly recommend having a look at the NaNoWriMo Character and Plot Realism Q&A Forum.

It's purpose is to be a place where people who want to make sure their story details are authentic (or at least authentic sounding) can ask questions about their plot points and get answers from people who know about them.

The cross-section of information that people ask about and that others answer about is a weird kind of entertainment all on its own. Plus, you might have some input that will help someone else with their story!

Writing around canon is a tough job. I've got a story that I'm going to finish one of these days where I finally just threw up my hands and said to heck with it. If I wanted to tell the story I wanted, I'd have to just deal with mucking about in "fan canon".

I understand the business of asking a question and having the answer generate more questions. I just spent several days building a pseudo-scientific rationale for something in my robot story that I probably ought to have just waved my hands around and pressed a magic button. The problem was that I couldn't just wave my hands about certain plot points without explaining to myself why and how those things could possibly have worked out that way. I don't know if the readers appreciated it but it at least put me in the position of being able to justify the things that follow. If Monica being a footsoldier in a war between angels and devils helps fix the story in your head, more power to you.

Anyway, Stefan's story was another interesting sideways look at the signature characters, regardless of which ending you prefer.

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hir

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That word vexes me somehow... It almost seems to be deliberately used.



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It WAS deliberately used, by me at least. The Envoy in the story is a female. The Envoy in the missions is either male or demonic, which could be indeterminate. (Can YOU tell the difference between a male or female Behemoth?)

The Envoy is whatever gender it chooses to appear as. to confront The Envoy of Light (representative of the Prince of Angels?) it chose to appear female. I chose indeterminate pronouns to reflect its true unknown nature as opposed to its apparent nature.

My problem is not with Monica as the Envoy of Light, though I have my reservations about her dying and ascending to demi-godhood. The story works just fine with the epilogue.

If I may put on my critic's hat...

This is a good story. I say that despite my earlier reservations, because it treated the character of Recluse respectfully and it didn't violate the canon of what we know about him. Indeed, the raving, foaming at the mouth Recluse that some like to depict is, to my mind, the false one.

However, I'd agree with Dark_Respite/Samuraiko - I thought the story concluded perfectly before the Pocket D scene. I suppose I said as much when I complimented what I thought WAS the ending. *heh*

The true ending is more like an epilogue. Actually, it's more like the prologue to an entirely different story. Why the Envoy of Shadow? How did Monica become the Envoy of Light and what agency is at work here?

In short, if you wanted a story about Monica, she should probably have just had her own story.

It shifts the focus from Recluse to some kind of angels vs demons cosmic struggle, that ends before it even really begins. I don't know a lot about the Envoy of Shadow, but I don't think s/he is really some sort of generic Satan surrogate. S/he is pretty intimately involved with the CoT and Mu, which is only peripherally on Recluse's radar. It's a little strange to have hir representing The Powers of Darkness in some sort of struggle against the Power of Light.

I don't want to sound negative - it's a good story. If I was your editor publishing it in a short story anthology, I'd tell you to chop the last "chapter", that's all.

I think it's a bit telling, in fact, that your post describing your thought processes that inspired the story is a description of everything up to Pocket D. Maybe your muse just didn't want to admit that the story of Monica-the-angel would require a whole other story with the attendant blood, sweat, and tears.

With an irritable shrug, Brogan stomped over to where the folder lay open and gathered up the contents. He snapped the folder closed, tossed it into the briefcase, and slammed the case shut. With his back to the scientist and the robot, he took a deep breath, held it for five seconds, and exhaled slowly. When he turned around, he was the picture of calm inscrutability again.

"If I believe all of this then I don't see any alternative than to upgrade you from nutcase to murder suspect."

Armitage paled slightly, but remained resolute. "If you believe what I've told you Detective, then you must also believe that I'm innnocent, or at least that I haven't yet commited this crime that you suspect me of committing. Do you think that you could convince a jury to convict me on the basis that I MIGHT commit this crime at some unknown point in the future?"

"This is Paragon City," said Brogan. "I wouldn't take it for granted just what a panel of jurors would be prepared to accept. After that Madame Futura incident last year concerning the death of Senator Anderton, there's a group of 'concerned citizens' that want a psychic attached to the police force to try and arrest criminals BEFORE they commit their crimes. You'd be surprised at some of the people who think it's a good idea."

With a frustrated growl he began pacing a path a around the lab in a path that was roughly five feet square. He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his hair as he considered how to handle a situation that wasn't covered in any training manual he'd ever read.

Eddi raised a claw and flashed his eye lenses in preparation to saying something, but Armitage placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Together, they waited to see what the detective would decide.

Brogan spoke as he paced. "The machine can only move through time, not space. Why did you choose that particular place for your 'experiment'?"

Armitage shrugged helplessly. "It's not my choice, Detective. That is the place where the balance is in question." He indicated the cluster glowing at the center of the time map. This is a map of the events leading up to the Rikti invasion of 2025." He touched the extraordinarily bright "firefly" that connected to the dimmer one that represented the point in time about one hour previous.

The fires of certainty burned nearly as brightly in Armitage's face as the "galaxy" in the time map. "This point in time is a fulcrum point. Somehow, it's possible to influence the cosmic balance and perhaps eliminate the invasion entirely!"

"You're certain of that?" asked Brogan, skeptically.

"No, of course not," said Armitage holding his hands up in a gesture of supplication. "Some events seem to have a kind of inevitability about them, as if Reality requires a certain kind of event at a certain place and time. My hope is that it can be stopped. My fear is that it can only be changed into some other catastrophe, or changed only in ways that are unimportant in the context of preserving the existence of humanity."

Pausing by the control console, Brogan put his right hand to his forehead. Looking at the floor, he asked, "What date does that blip correspond to?"

Armitage looked away, and his hands dropped to his side.

"May 23, 2002," he replied.

"Of course it does!", thought Brogan. He resumed his pacing and spoke as he walked.

"That's the day that Clark died. There are no coincidences. You told me that, Armitage."

The scientist shrugged helplessly, but made no comment.

"You're correct about the evidence," said Brogan as he paced. "I could arrest you and hold you for 72 hours." He waved his hands to indicate the building they stood in. "This institute has some high-priced lawyers, I'd guess, and you'd be free on bail in a day, two at most. If it went to court, any decent attorney would pick it apart." He scowled at the floor as if it might open up and reveal the answers he sought if he could only intimidate it enough.

"There IS another option, Detective."

Brogan snorted derisively. "I'd be a fool to let you anywhere near that excavation, knowing what I know!"

"Hear me out," said Armitage. "Each of us wants to know what happened in that cavern. The best way to clear my name is show you the actual events." He placed his hand on Eddi's shoulder. "I wouldn't be the one investigating. You already know that I'm unable to make the transition to the past, and you wouldn't trust me in any case. Eddi, however, is both capable and trustworthy. Clark was his creator. His interests, if any, would be to rescue Clark, not to harm him!"

Brogan stopped in front of Eddi and looked at him penetratingly. He was skilled at "reading" people. It was one of the traits that made him a successful investigator. "I never thought I'd be trying to read the lie in the eyes of a machine!", he grumbled to himself.

He looked into Eddi's eyes and steeled himself to ignore the evil, Jack'o'Lantern grin that was permanently pasted across his face. "Eddi, what is your relationship to Doctor Armitage?"

Eddi's eyes flashed disturbingly fast as he answered, "I'm not sure I understand the question, Detective Brogan. Doctor Armitage is my friend and associate. He rescued me when I'd been lost in storage for years."

"Do you have free will? Does he own you?"

Eddi paused for a few seconds, then asked in a puzzled voice, "Are you asking whether I am a slave?"

Brogan sighed in exasperation. "Eddi, from my admittedly uninformed point of view, you are a machine, like a toaster or a desktop computer. You clearly think of yourself as an individual, but do you actually exercise the rights of an individual? Can you leave here whenever you want? Are you free to behave in any manner you wish, regardless of the wishes of Doctor Armitage?"

Eddi twisted his head left and right. "I believe I understand now." He lifted a claw towards Armitage. "Doctor Armitage is my employer, if you like. He supplies me with power and some basic maintenance that I require, and I assist him with his work. Particularly, the work related to Professor Clark's computer designs, which I understand on a level that he is not equipped to understand."

"Doctor Armitage has never attempted to coerce me into taking any action against my will. As I mentioned earlier, he does not possess the skills to modify my programming in order to do so without my knowledge."

Brogan frowned, but continued to listen. So far, his instincts were telling him that the robot was being truthful as far as he saw things.

"If I decided to leave the Institute, Doctor Armitage would not prevent me, nor could he." His eyes flashed and he made the 'uh-uh-uh' noise. "In fact," he said, "I believe that, far from discouraging me, he would arrange to track my progress and publish a book about his findings!"

Armitage blushed and Brogan allowed himself the ghost of a smile.

He came to a decision. Turning to Armitage, he pulled a card from a case in his jacket pocket and handed it to him. "I'm not going to arrest you. Yet." He emphasized the word "yet". "This is my contact information. I want you to email me everything you know about Eddi. I'll be doing a background check on you as well."

He looked at the time machine and shook his head. "I don't know how I'm going to sell this to Captain Brown, but I'll see to it that you're allowed to set up your equipment." Armitage practically squirmed with excitement, much to Brogan's amusement. "I'll have officers there to make sure that nothing funny happens while you're setting up your rig, and I'll be personally supervising the investigation."

"Thank you, Detective Brogan!" cried Armitage, joyfully.

"Don't thank me, yet," replied Brogan. "If Eddi finds that your fingerprints are on that gun because you pulled the trigger, I'll have you in handcuffs so fast that you won't have time to wonder whether it's a 'future version' of you or something that the Universal Cosmic Reaction created out of the quantum soup!"

"Quantum foam!" corrected Armitage, distractedly. He was already mentally making a list of the equipment he would need. He winked at Brogan, his prior worries forgotten. "We're going to make scientific history, Detective!"

Brogan shook his head and picked up his briefcase. "It's going to be a helluva story the next time I'm in Philly!" he said as he excused himself and returned to the station house.

Thanks for the spotlight, Mr. G. I suppose I better get the story rolling along. *heh* All the hand-waving is just about out of the way now, anyway.

That was an interesting conclusion. I'd say you managed to thread the needle. Nice work!

“I’m not sure that I buy all this,” said Brogan. “I really dislike the idea that there was some sort of fate involved and that YOU were the one who determined that fate.”

Armitage murmured sympathetically. “I suppose I might feel the same way. It’s rather like being told that someone else is controlling the threads of your existence.”

With a wave towards the open briefcase, he said, “Giving you the note from the future may have been more important than I realized. Perhaps, if you had never received the note, you would have dismissed the ideas we’ve been discussing and either arrested me or left here convinced that that I am delusional.” He sighed and his shoulders drooped. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

Brogan allowed himself a grain of sympathy for the scientist as he considered his next step. “If I had known how this day was going to shake out, I’d have just stayed in bed,” he thought sourly to himself. “I wonder if Armitage can point his machine at my bedroom and send someone back to turn off the alarm clock?”

Aloud, he said, “The point of all this is to change past events, correct?” At Armitage’s confirmatory nod, he continued, “There’s still the issue of paradox. How can you change events and avoid it?”

“You don’t avoid it,” replied the scientist. “Indeed, you embrace it!”

“I don’t understand. Suppose I jump into your time door and shoot my father before he can conceive me. I’ll cease to exist because I was never born, and then my father won’t die because I wasn’t conceived to threaten him. Paradox.”

Armitage raised both hands in a semi-circular motion that encompassed the room. “Everything you think of as ‘Real’ is a result of a quantum reaction at equilibrium. That equilibrium establishes itself according to the same laws that govern the physical world. Entropy still works its magic on the Universe, even at the micro-cosmic levels. The Universal reaction tends towards the lowest viable quantum energy state.”

“A consequence is that when the reaction shifts, it shifts just enough to accommodate the new state of affairs. If a ‘paradox’ results, then the Universe simply incorporates it into the new equilibrium by generating just enough supporting reality to stabilize the new quantum energy levels.”

“In your example, your father would die and you would cease to exist, but that is where it would end. Your father would stay dead because the new equilibrium would essentially create you out of nothing for the ten seconds required to kill your father, and then dissolve you back into nothing afterwards.”

“That’s outlandish!” shouted Brogan vehemently.

“Not at all,” replied an unperturbed Armitage. “It’s a consequence of the model. Essentially, your ghost would have killed your father. In fact, I’ve written a paper recently that seeks to explain a significant number of ‘supernatural’ phenomena, ghosts for example, as being this sort of remnant from a previous shift in the fabric of Reality.”

“I really dislike the idea that someone may have already been mucking about with the past so that they can change the future!”

“It would be foolish to assume that I am the first,” said Armitage. “Any number of people throughout the continuum of time and space may have made the same discoveries as I have. How would you point to any one of them and say ‘He was first!’, when every one may have unintentionally influenced all of the others? "

“In fact, it seems likely that periodic shifts would occur naturally to one extent or another. Timequakes, if you will.”

Brogan’s head was spinning. “You’re saying that Reality can spontaneously alter itself! It sounds completely nonsensical!”

Armitage patted him on the shoulder. “That,” he said, “is because, like most people, you expect the Universe to be a sensible place in which to live.”

[ QUOTE ]
SlickRiptide: Yes, currently British, although not by origin.

[/ QUOTE ]

Clearly, it's rubbed off on you.

I think a book of superhero fairy tales and fables would be a fun idea.

Armitage placed his hand on the device and he took on the tone and carriage that Brogan had learned to associate with lecturing professors back in his college days.

“This quantum analyzer is one of a handful of tools that survived my arrival in this version of Paragon City.” Armitage opened the “laptop”, but instead of positioning the display panel vertically, he laid it out flat on the tabletop. He pressed a button on the side of the device and the display panel lit up.

Brogan had stepped forward in order to read the display panel. He stepped back again in amazement when it began blinking rapidly and a three-dimensional image appeared, hovering some six inches above the display panel. He whistled appreciatively.

“A holographic display?” he asked.

“In essence,” replied Armitage with an amused smile. Brogan reached towards the image and it flickered as his hand passed through it. It appeared to be a cube, roughly twenty-four inches on a side. Within the cube, it seemed as if a swarm of fireflies had been caught and preserved, twinkling in place. Some were larger than others were, and some glowed bright while others were dim. At the center of the cube, a huge cluster of the lights seemed as if they might be merging into a single giant “firefly”.

Brogan examined it, fascinated in spite of himself. “It looks like a picture of a distant galaxy, like the ones taken by the space telescopes.”

“That’s an apt description,” agreed Armitage. He extracted a stylus from a slot in the control pad and traced the tip of the stylus through a series of the lights, beginning from a dim one near the outer edges, to a bright one nearby, and on to the “galactic cluster” in the center of the cube. A red line appeared between each of the lights he touched, tracing a path from the outside to the inside.

"This is a representation of Reality, or a part of it, at least. You could reasonably call it a temporal map." He indicated the cluster burning brightly at the center of the cube. "This is a point in time that we want to affect. The map shows all of the points where the 'cosmic equilibrium' can be shifted."

He pointed at the outermost endpoint of the line he had drawn. The very end was a dim 'firefly', while the next point in line was burning very brightly in comparison.

"The brightness indicates the probability of shifting the balance. The size of the cluster indicates in a rough way the number of events that need to be changed in order to effect a change in the outcome of the target event."

"Why are there fewer lights around the outside, but so many of them are brighter than the inner ones?"

"I suppose," said Armitage, "that you could consider that to be the butterfly effect. A single change can have a greater effect over a period of time than many changes over a short period of time, if that single change is the the correct kind of event."

The professional once more, Brogan shrugged skeptically. "How does this relate to my coincidentally arriving for your first test?"

With a cryptic look at Brogan, Armitage pointed at the dim endpoint of the red line. "This was the target of our initial test of the temporal realignment shield. We chose it for convenience. It was nearby in time and apparently low potential, promising an ability to measure the results reasonably accurately."

"You could say that you arrived just in time because we were aiming for you. There was nothing accidental about it."

Brogan blinked. "You're saying that blip represents my visit to the lab?"

"That is what I believe. YOU are the fulcrum at the base of that temporal shifting opportunity."