"Gamma transient phenomena spiking, sir."
The Station chief exhales a lungful of cigarette smoke, coalescing in the air before him like the crystallised soul of dying man.
"Probability?"
"Sixty-five and rising."
He examines the ember of his cigarette, turning the odds over in his head. Finally:
"Send out the message. All observers, standby for recall."
"Sir--"
"I know, lass." He draws deep on his cigarette again. "I know."
Are there multiple universes? Is there one universe, following a pilot wave down a nondeterministic stagger from event to event and an uncertain future? Are all probabilities lies, damned statistics obscuring the predestined path?
Or was Everett right?
The Alpha waveform gave the first hint.
The first observers were streaming in now, flitting in through the gates in brief flashes of light and noise from the world outside. Marijuana smoke and stale alcohol wafted in from at least one gate; a nightclub.
"...effin' show was just gettin' to the good part man..."
".Yeah? Cause I don't think she were that into you...."
Fragments of conversations from the observers heading back, shedding the last parts of the world outside as they took their posts.
"People." He lights a fresh cigarette, buying time, burying the sudden taste of blood and bile in his mouth in a tsunami of nicotine addlement. "We have a probable. Half life three. Monitor programs estimate it at," he glances at his screen, "eight percent. I place it about five percent above that."
Groans from around the room.
"Just as it was getting interesting around here--" one wit opines, before turning back to his console and booting it up.
He raises his voice.
"I know, we all have stuff we're not going to be able to finish out there. Take it as given you never will now. You know what you have to do."
Energy has to be conserved; momentum likewise, at least within the broad observational limits of Heisenberg. But bend space and time just so, and that rule ceases to be true. So either Heisenberg and Noether were wrong...
Or there is more in heaven and earth than can be encompassed by mere physicality.
Machines built into the wall are beginning to whine, generating a local spacefold around the Station, reaching anchoring roots beyond the universe that is and into the world of all the universes in the adjacent now.
He rubs at his temples. It aches there, an ache that began after his third or forth such incident and has come back each time since.
Guilty conscience is a terrible thing
The alpha distortion generates a ripple in spacetime, a specific gravitational wave signature. The beta distortion generates another one. similar but different, and brings with it energy and momentum that should not exist. One-way portals to and from worlds of it, transient, ephemeral events that decay in nanoseconds.
But there is a third waveform, the Gamma. It doesn't create; it doesn't destroy. It doesn't violate any rules.
It stabilises.
And with stability comes a portal to other worlds. And with the ability to flit between worlds comes other powers.
Take one world, world Alpha. Send a scout there; he comes back with retrovirals a subjective century ahead of his worlds.
World Bravo has Von Neumann machines, all under control.
World Charlie has thermophilic superconductors. World Delta has wireless, implanted networking.
And so on, a cornucopia and smorgasbord available to World Prime and its dimension folding, along with perfect cold sinks of universes after the Big Rip and absolute power sources from universes still undergoing inflation.
And if you came from Prime... you'd be a god, above and beyond the trials and tribulations of mere mortals who know only one world.
"Gamma function probability at 99% and rising."
"Asymptoptically?"
"Not any more."
He sighs and takes the key from its chain around his neck.
Flips up the armoured cover and slots the key into the slot beneath.
"Control, this is Station Zulu Alpha Whiskey. Half life three confirmed."
There is a pause, as the message is relayed. Then the reply comes:
"Understood, Zulu Alpha Whiskey."
"Do I proceed?"
"Cast in the name of God, Zulu Alpha Whiskey..."
He closes his eyes and speaks along as the order completes the ritual, timing and cadence perfected through long exposure and practice..
"...ye not guilty."
He stubs out his cigarette with finality and turns the key.
"Planet Breaker activated."
The gods do not share with mere mortals.
For Samuel Chew, who asked. Trigger words: Half life 3 confirmed. Sorry it's taken this long
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