Tag: Arts

Before I begin the demonstration, it would help to establish a collective level of understanding: can I assume that you all know what a laser is?

I’m afraid lightsabers are not real, no.

That is a very good impression, yes. A million dollars, indeed. If only this lab could run on so little, am I right?

Perhaps it would be best if I started at the beginning.

Lasers.

OK, so, do you all remember CD and DVD players? Some of you are too young. For those of you who don’t remember CD players, have you seen a Tik Tok of a cat jumping at a red point? Well, that’s a laser.

When a beam of light hits something it can be refracted …

It means split.

Why didn’t I say split? Good question.

When a beam of light hits something it can be split from its white whole into different colours, because the colours are all moving at slightly different speeds. This is how we get rainbows. You saw this in a YouTube science tutorial? Good.

Read more science fiction from Nature Futures

Well, yes, I am aware that rainbows also have a religious connotation but can we agree that the works of the Lord also follow a mundane physical process?

Where were we? Oh yes, a laser is a method scientists invented to use radiation to send a beam of light of one colour.

No, unless you shine them in someone’s eye, they aren’t dangerous, it isn’t that sort of radiation.

Lasers are used everywhere in modern industry, from communications and lighting effects through to industrial cutting and medicinal uses.

Yes, some of those lasers would be dangerous if you took one home. Particularly if you shone it in someone’s eye.

So as time went on, researchers and developers discovered new ways of using lasers.

Different colour light beams were able to be used for different things.

Yes, precisely, that is why Blu-Ray was called Blu-Ray.

No, Bluetooth has nothing to do with lasers.

As I was saying.

Researchers, including some from the great state of Arizona (go Sun Devils), began to explore novel ways to emit lasers in different colours in parallel, and create white lasers that have been of great use in the manufacturing and research space.

Researchers here at Cuneiform DARPA have built on that to go one step further. Not a small step, either — one might say a giant leap.

If I could invite you all to put on the eye protection provided for you in the gift bags.

Well, no, Senator, we don’t insist on it but we very strongly advise it. If you choose not to, would you please sign the waiver on the clipboard being distributed by my colleague?

For insurance purposes.

You may break open the security seals on the envelopes you are being handed, which gives more of the technical details of our breakthrough. The National Security Adviser and the Attorney-General have asked me to remind you all that anything you see or hear from this point forward is covered by legal provisions including, but not limited to, the Espionage Act of 1917, the Securities Act of 1933, and Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution of the United States of America.

Yes, Congressman Shapiro, I am aware that some sections have been redacted. If you have any questions about that, please direct them to the gentleman and ladies who have joined us from Langley.

At Cuneiform all researchers invest a day every week in exploring novel applications of technology with no obvious commercial application. In this way we invent the world of the future. Products we have launched that began their lives this way include Drone and 1613.

Along with my colleagues Dr Johnson and Dr Vaughan we developed Project Perdix.

Using combinations of experimental technology created by Cuneiform DARPA we have achieved something quite unique. Guiding specific pulses of radiation through nanosheets to create certain geometric forms, which are projected onto two interpenetrating face-centred cubic lattices heated to precisely 1074 kelvin, we have been able to do … this.

Can we please get some first aid for the Senator? I think if we act quickly we might be able to save his sight.

We call it ‘The Door’, Deputy-Secretary San Miguel.

It would be fair to say we don’t know where it goes, exactly.

No, the flickering isn’t normal. It has never done that before.

Dr Vaughan, perhaps we should cut the power to the array?

Why is the door still open, then?

Whose voices are those, that sound like trumpets?

“So how was your first day of …”

But she never made it to the end of her sentence.

“Mum! There are Larvacians at our school! Larvacians!”

Vice-Admiral Amelia Shaw looked down at her son’s beaming face, and couldn’t help smiling back. Sure, she saw Larvacians every day, because their ships landed and departed from her base. But the excitement of a six-year-old is irresistible.

“Really? Did you get to meet them today?”

“There are three in my class. Their names are An-shouk and Tashni and Blansht. And Tashni sits right behind me.”

“Did you say hi to them?”

“Well, kind of. Everyone had to stand up and introduce themselves. And I brought my green rock. And I did like we practised. And I told everyone my name and that I like to collect rocks. And …”

She gave him a hug. It was a big step for a very shy boy. But all the silence and shyness of the day evaporated when he was around her, and as they walked home, his day spilled out of him in hundreds of breathless sentences.

Read more science fiction from Nature Futures

It was good news about the Larvacian kids. Yes, everything had changed when contact was established with the Larvacian civilization. But the shock soon gave way to pragmatism. After a few years, the first embassies were built. Then, a few years later, a handful of multinationals started setting up offices off-planet. Before long, whole families started making the long trip to be together.

Now, she thought, interstellar diplomacy would play out in boardrooms and government buildings, and on playgrounds, too.

The playgrounds had been a surprise for everyone. With their tails and claws and segmented carapaces, Larvacians didn’t look like they would love swings and slides.

And they didn’t.

But as long as there was a sandbox, they would contentedly scrape patterns in the sand. And as they grew older, they would start to burrow, driven by the same instincts that led their ancestors to carve out the vast subterranean cities of Larvacia.

*****

Dear Vice-Admiral Shaw,

Thank you for visiting us earlier this week.

We have now scheduled meetings with the parents of all the boys involved and will be closely monitoring the situation. As we explained, we have zero tolerance for this type of behaviour in our school, and we are striving to ensure an environment that makes everyone feel safe and welcome.

We will be updating you on the situation as things progress, and our staff are available at all times if you have any questions.

With best regards,

Rector Windrop

*****

“I’m not hungry.”

Shaw sat down on the bed next to her son, and looked out the window at the rain steadily falling on the azaleas. The silence stretched, and he continued with his book. On the cover, a man in a spacesuit was crouching behind a rock, with a look of determination on his face, laser gun in hand, and an aesthetic scratch on his upper cheek.

But laser guns don’t look anything like that! Shaw thought, but she kept it to herself.

Instead, she put her hand on his knee, searching for a topic. “I heard today that Larvacia will be sending a royal delegation next month. The Crown Regent will be coming.”

He put down the book, and she saw that he had been tightly clasping the green rock in his hand the whole time.

“So, will you be going? Is Uncle Sam going to come take care of me?”

“Actually, I’m going to check if you can join me this time. Let me see what I can do.”

Finally, some energy started to come back to his face, and a smile spread across his face.

“Really?! Do you think I can?”

“I’m going to try, but I can’t promise anything. Now let’s go have some food and get you to school.”

The smile evaporated and his voice went flat. Too fast, she thought.

“I don’t want to go to school.”

“But your teachers miss you. And everything is going to be different now.”

No answer.

“Do the boys pick on the Larvacians too?”

“No. They used to, but the Larvacians didn’t seem to even understand what was happening.”

“Tashni’s parents got in touch with me last week. They were asking about you too. Everyone’s worried about you.”

More silence. More rain.

*****

After his mother left, he put the book down and went to look out the window. He placed his cheek against the cool glass, and listened to the raindrops.

But then, at the base of the azalea bush, he saw something that hadn’t been there before. The opening of a small Larvacian tunnel and, just in front of its entrance, a blue rock. A beautiful one. Maybe an agate? Or a lazurite?

He opened the window, leaned out into the rain and retrieved the rock. It was cool and wet from being outdoors, and it felt good in his hand.

He lay back on the bed, and realized he was crying. Later, he walked to the doorway, then up the stairs, and called out to his mother.

“Mum? I think I’m hungry after all.”

The Allure of the Multiverse

Paul Halpern Basic (2024)

The term ‘multiverse’ was coined in the 1890s by philosopher and psychologist William James, to describe a cosmos without distinction between right and wrong. Decades later, the word entered physics, owing to the 1950s many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Today, it is a source of controversy, says US physicist Paul Halpern. The multiverse, “with realms beyond direct detection”, seems “antithetical to the goal of testability”. But whether right or wrong, debating it is scientifically productive, Halpern maintains.

Unshrinking

Kate Manne Crown (2024)

Researchers at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, studied the prevalence of six forms of implicit bias, and found that, from 2007 to 2016, fatphobia was the only one to worsen. As philosopher Kate Manne notes, fatphobia regards fatter bodies as being inferior to thinner bodies, “in terms of not only our health but also our moral, sexual and intellectual status”. She spent most of her life trying to lose weight, until finally deciding to live as she wanted to. Her personal, unshrinking call to action should be widely read.

Not the End of the World

Hannah Ritchie Little Brown Spark (2024)

During her environmental-geoscience degree, data scientist Hannah Ritchie learnt about an endless series of depressing trends in global warming, ocean acidification and more. But now, as deputy editor of the online publication Our World in Data, she finds reasons for hope, as she explains in this fundamentally optimistic book on increasing sustainability. For example, global deforestation has been declining since the 1980s. She calls herself a “misfit scientist” because her team, rather than “zooming into a problem”, learns by “zooming out”.

2020

Eric Klinenberg Bodley Head (2024)

In 2020, New York City had the highest incidence of COVID-19 cases and fatalities of all cities. A “terrible misfortune”, comments sociologist Eric Klinenberg, but a “blessing” for his research. His analytical yet moving account of the pandemic centres on the city but interweaves global evidence, drawing on virology, economics, sociology and the personal stories of seven individuals from five New York City boroughs. Its conclusion is disturbing: COVID-19 did not help the United States to “rediscover its better, more collective self”.

The Weirdness of the World

Eric Schwitzgebel Princeton Univ. Press (2024)

“The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose,” remarked biologist J. B. S. Haldane. Philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel, paraphrasing Haldane, agrees. He opens: “The world is weird — deeply, pervasively so, weird to its core”. His entertaining book of philosophy and science considers three topics: the cosmos’s fundamental structure, the place of human consciousness in it and what humans should value. But he does not claim to offer definite answers.

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

My shift had ended at seven, but Luna was calling about her Mozart-420.

“Not an emergency, Zan,” she said. “But I’d like you to see him. He’s changed.”

‘He’? The service records showed that her Mozart was way overdue. Even if they hadn’t, I would have driven to her house. It was Luna.

The Mozart, dressed in tuxedo, sat on the cube seat and played Für Elise on her grand piano, a Fazioli. Ancient, circa early 2000s, with its sky-blue finish and deep resonant sound, it floated a few feet above the floor.

“I just wanted you to hear how he’s sounding.” Pillows and a blanket were scattered on her couch, and the floor had a carpet of sheet music.

The Mozart’s silver fingers should have been flying over the keys, especially on this simple piece, but the notes landed heavily, and instead of the signature melancholy, it played with an upbeat flair.

“You’re lucky to have such an exquisite model. But the Mozart’s so unravelled … so cliché, playing that.” I told her.

“Thank you for the critique.” The Mozart’s voice was stiff and metallic. More than just tinkering would be needed here.

“But isn’t he more interesting like this?” Luna’s hair lay unbrushed, eyes hopeful.

“No.” The playing was way outside the parameters of good music.

“Some people’s tastes aren’t quite like yours, m’lady,” the Mozart said.

“The sarcasm needs adjusting too,” I said.

“Really.” The Mozart pushed its bench back with a screech. “He should turn me off. After playing like that —”

“It sounded lovely.” That was Luna, always indulgent.

“You have been a kind and constant admirer,” the Mozart said.

Disaster. It was displaying feelings towards her. “I’m sorry, Luna. There are responsibilities of ownership.”

“I was curious what he was like with different settings —”

“A fine-tuned Mozart-420 is a thing of beauty. Not a hurdy-gurdy spilling his guts. If one emotion gets thrown off-level, all the other emotions unravel, too. It’s dangerous and unattractive.” I told her.

Read more science fiction from Nature Futures

“What do you mean, dangerous?”

“Not like the Mozart would kill you, but — maybe a better word is … strange. No one wants to listen to this.”

“It’s not me, is it? Throwing him off?” Luna rested her hand on the Mozart’s shoulder, and it turned its head down towards her.

“They built the electric-anterior insular cortex, the empathy part of their brain, too big on these models. And empathy does quite a number on the fine-tuning and consequent musicality,” I said.

“Is everything alright?” The Mozart held eye contact with her for too long. Embarrassingly so.

“Yes. Zan’s trustworthy,” she said.

I searched for the e-6 and e-12 drivers in the upgrade folder of the control tablet. Three taps: Alt, Enter, *420!

Luna averted her eyes as the Mozart sank to the floor.

I examined the settings. “This Mozart will be ready for the Opera House when I’m done.”

The audio input and output in the hypothalamic-12 region of the brain-β board were first. Next, the physical adjustments to the fingers and joints. Then, the ten-scale emotion levels. Anger, to two — otherwise it would be a useless lump. Shame, required to keep it sharp and learning from its mistakes, level seven. Sadness, eight, its soulful music needed that — higher, and the Mozart would become needy. Fear was at a six. Good for respect. Happiness also six. Finally, love. It was set to …

“Luna?”

“Yes.”

“Love is never set to ten!”

“Please don’t change that.”

“It’s going to walk around spouting sappy poems all day. Playing songs about you …”

Distress was splotched all over her face. “Zan, please don’t.”

“Love’s going down to one.”

And sadness, fear and shame were getting jacked up to a ten. Für Elise, deleted from the memory. REBOOT.

The Mozart opened its eyes, raising itself. “Good afternoon, Sir and Miss Luna. I’m afraid my playing won’t be adequate today.” It shuffled to the bench, raising its arms, before letting them fall dramatically for the opening of Requiem.

Serious. Heavy, perfectly timed. But Luna looked sad. Way too sad.

“Please turn him back.” Her voice broke.

The Mozart’s hands hovered over the keys. “I’ve disappointed you. I’m sorry.” It began banging the keys like a jackhammer.

“Please,” Luna said. “He’ll break.”

“I’m worthless …” The Mozart’s words slowed as I powered off, and it slumped down again.

“There’s beauty in unravelling, Zan. Maybe you should turn down my loneliness to one.”

This was my in. Possibly. “It wouldn’t be my place to make suggestions. Only …”

A flash of brightness crossed her eyes. “Make a suggestion. Go ahead.”

“You could try tidying up,” I said, glancing around. “Always a start to feeling better.”

“Just set him back.” She slipped me a thousand-dollar bill. “It’s how I need him to be.”

I didn’t take her money. “Against my better judgement …” I clicked RESUME PREVIOUS SETTINGS.

“He’ll be a useless machine.” A clunky, love-drunk sort of sound came from the piano. Für Elise was back.

Luna let out a sigh. “My place is kind of messy, I suppose.”

“And your hair —”

“My hair?”

She wove her finger absently around a strand.

It would look so nice brushed.

From the piano bench, the Mozart’s voice rasped: “Hair like wind-tousled honey grass in autumn.”

Her eyes softened.

“I can say that stuff, too,” I said.

“What would you say, then?”

“Just something off the top of my head — autumn and leaves and colours — and all that beautiful jazz. There.”

“Inspirational, Sir.” The Mozart added a bit of melodic improv before beginning a spirited Vivaldi’s Autumn.

“Luna? What do you say about us?” I asked.

“Maybe … if we could adjust some settings.”

Hey guys! Welcome to Cosmic Rentals. Endless Entertainment for the Endless. First time here? Awesome. We’ll get you registered for a new account when you’re ready to check out, but first, I’m gonna go ahead and give you a tour of the store, explain the rental process, show you the genre selection, all that.

So, we currently have more than 8,000 universes in stock, with new releases coming all the time from all the major Creation studios. All the universes you see in the store are for rent only, though we occasionally sell off some of the older ones, and you can sign up for our newsletter to be alerted when those sales happen.

What else? Oh yeah! Know that we have a ‘don’t rewind’ policy with our rentals. What that means for you is, when you take home a universe, you can choose to start it over at the beginning, or else pick it up where the previous customer left off. I think it can be fun both ways. Resetting it for a fresh start is cool. Unravelling what the previous renter has done can be interesting. It gives you some choice.

Same goes with how much influence you want to have within your experience of a universe. Some customers really just want to sit back and watch, others get hands-on in the cosmic planning, or like to fast forward to find intelligent life or civilizations and get involved in all of that. Play god for a species or two. Get creative with it. It’s totally up to you.

Right then. Let’s take a look around the store. We’ll start with the outer shelves and work our way around to the middle.

Read more science fiction from Nature Futures

So first off, here to my left, you’ll see our Classics section. All these universes have cosmological constraints in the typical ranges, so standard or near-standard gravitational constants, speed of light in a vacuum, that stuff. You’ll find lots of galaxies, lots of lifeforms, and a nice big story arc. Most of the universes here last about 50 trillion years, and you can always check the back of the box for the exact runtime. Personally, I find these to be a bit predictable, but a lot of customers really love the comfort factor. Nostalgia and whatnot.

Moving on, we have some Zen universes on this next shelf. Again, these aren’t really to my taste. I guess I don’t really get them. Nothing really happens. Everything aligns at the start so there’s no matter/antimatter war, no fusion, no heavy elements. It’s just a lot of pretty plasma and ethereal humming for billions of years. There’s not really anything for you to do, other than observe. But I guess some customers find it really relaxing or meditative or something. So if you’re into that, these are cool.

Next we have Comedies! Some of these are really fun. Lots of especially silly lifeforms, galactic shenanigans, really unpredictable endings. I’m a big fan. This one here is … well, I guess it’s a bit raunchy at times. Cover your ears for a minute, kids. There’s a lot of interplanetary … gene-mixing, if you know what I mean. But it’s just wild and pretty hilarious. To me, anyway.

Then we have Tragedies over here, if you’re in the mood for a real tearjerker. You’ll find your stillborn universes, intergalactic xenocides, Big Rips. All the serious stuff. For some reason, my mum really likes these, and then she gets all depressed, and then I ask why she didn’t get a Comedy, then she yells at me, and … Anyway, Tragedies. Oh! Fun fact. Kind of a spoiler I guess, but that universe up in the corner actually has like this weird, like, easter egg. If you fast-forward to the right spot, you’ll find a lifeform who is actually reading a story about … well, us. This store. This tour. This moment. Kind of a fun coincidence. Pretty interesting.

Coming around, on this last shelf we have a selection of Avant Garde universes. Real artsy stuff. Some are kind of slow and monochromatic and stuff, but some are actually pretty cool. You’ll find, like, conscious particles, stars that sing, or a golden dragon that breathes nebulas. All the trippy, experimental stuff. They screw with your mind but can be a really cool experience.

Finally, there’s the middle of the store. This is where you’ll find a bunch of stuff for the kids. We have some really fun beginner universes for short attention spans. Educational cosmologies, simple adventures, lots of pretty characters and cute lifeforms. Most have a runtime of just a couple trillion years. We do ask that you rewind these universes before returning them. That’s the one exception to our rule. I guess kids tend to get confused if they’re dropped into the middle of things.

So yeah. That’s the store, guys. Let me know if you have any questions or are looking for a particular universe. I’ll do my best to help. For now, look around, and when you’re ready, we’ll get you registered and on your way. Oh, and don’t forget to grab a snack with your rental. There’s a 2 for 1 deal right now.

Happy renting!

Dogwhistles and Figleaves

Jennifer Mather Saul Oxford Univ. Press (2024)

This timely book on racist and conspiratorial language in politics draws on Donald Trump’s election as US president in 2016 and his continued popularity. Philosopher Jennifer Saul examines “dogwhistles” — coded terms such as ‘88’, used by white supremacists to mean ‘Heil Hitler’ — and “figleaves” such as ‘I’m not a racist, but …’ to disguise a racist remark. Most commentators on the Trump era focus either “on the racism, or on the spread of obvious falsehoods”, she notes, whereas she analyses the parallels between the two.

Look Again

Tali Sharot & Cass R. Sunstein Bridge Street/Little, Brown (2024)

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot and behavioural economist Cass Sunstein accept that habituation — getting used to things — “is crucial for survival: it helps us adapt quickly to our environment”. However, dishabituation is crucial to new experiences. Their wide-ranging book covers both. A chapter about the German people’s incremental habituation to Nazism in the 1930s considers the 1961 experiments of psychologist Stanley Milgram, in which a participant complied when told to apply incremental electric shocks to a human subject.

How the World Made the West

Josephine Quinn Bloomsbury (2024)

As a historian of the ancient world, Josephine Quinn receives many applications from students wishing to study ancient Greece and Rome as the supposed roots of Western civilization. Her book dismantles this outdated view by showing the involvement of many other cultures. Greece and Rome openly adapted Mesopotamian law codes and literature, Egyptian stone sculpture, Assyrian irrigation techniques and a Levantine alphabet. “It is not peoples that make history, but people” and their interconnections, she argues.

Mysteries of the Deep

James Lawrence Powell MIT Press (2024)

In 1881, “Charles Darwin was the first to propose drilling” of the sea floor — specifically coral reefs — for scientific purposes, notes geologist James Powell. In 1912, Alfred Wegener published his theory of continental drift; it was controversial at the time, but received support from a series of scientific programmes beginning in 1968 with the Deep Sea Drilling Project. The current iteration, the International Ocean Discovery Program, can drill into Earth’s mantle. Powell skilfully brings this probing history of sea-floor drilling to life.

The New Documents in Mycenaean Greek

Ed. John Killen Cambridge Univ. Press (2024)

Linear B, dating from around 1450 to 1200 bc, is the earliest European script that can be read today. Rediscovered in Crete in 1900 and dubbed Minoan, it was later found in mainland Greece, at sites including Mycenae. In 1952, the script was deciphered and found to be early Greek by architect Michael Ventris. He and classicist John Chadwick analysed it in Documents in Mycenaean Greek (1956). This has now been updated as two volumes edited by classicist John Killen, with expert essays on Mycenaean society.

Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

I’d told Dad to wait to do his biweekly Saturday mowing because I was coming over, so of course, he was a quarter of the way through the job as my car parked itself. I sighed. He was so predictable.

I waited for him by the open hatch of my car. He stopped mowing and approached, his dark skin sheened by sweat, his silver hair drenched beneath his cap.

“The hat looks good,” I said. I’d suggested gifting him one that would send me biometric readings, but he’d insisted on basic cloth.

He grunted. “My favourite daughter bought it for me. Couldn’t let it go to waste.”

I was his only child. “I brought you something for your birthday. Not a hat,” I added, seeing the question posed on his lips. I threw back the towel that covered the object on the floor. “Ta-da!”

He regarded the gift with a blank face. “What is it?”

I set the small, wheeled black box on the pavement. “An automatic mower, the newest model! See, I already —”

“There’s nowhere for the clippings to go.”

Read more science fiction from Nature Futures

“It has a concealed balloon that fills up as it works,” I said with practised patience. “The bot senses when the biodegradable bag is full and will automatically eject it at a set location and load a new one. I’ve already input an entire map of the whole yard, Dad. It’ll start at the usual time you mow in the summer.” Which was right now. Dad had probably begun early, despite my plea, because he wanted the yard to look ‘nice’ for me. He’d never cared much about how the interior of the house looked — nor had Mom, when she was alive — but the yard was his point of pride, his domain. That’s why I knew he’d resist this change with every ounce of his being.

It’s also why I knew that if I didn’t buy an automatic mower for him, I’d come over one day and find him collapsed in the yard. Again. And this time they might not be able to save him at the hospital.

“This thing is too expensive.” He shook his head. “I don’t even want to think of what it cost. You need to take it back.”

“No, I want you to try it out first. Watch.” Before he could argue further, I used my watch to initiate the mower. Lights flickered on across the carapace.

“Greetings! I’m ready to get to work,” said the bot. I thought its voice was chipper without being annoying, but Dad’s glower showed he was not won over. “I detect that some mowing has already been completed. I’ll continue.” With a happy chime, it set off.

At Dad’s raised eyebrow, I answered, “Its sensors look for partial mowing work, obstacles, all that stuff. If the weather turns bad mid-job, it’ll go back to base and ask to reschedule the remaining duty later.”

“I see.” We watched the mower for a few minutes. It cut with fast efficiency. “I like mowing.” The soft words would’ve been lost beneath the roar of an older mower like the one parked nearby; that thing was practically twentieth-century and required a lot of physical exertion on his part. I’d remembered it being in the garage almost my entire life.

I released a long breath. “I know you do, Dad. But you’re getting older. You already had one scare while mowing. You know how long and hot these summers are now — climate change is no joke. It’s killing a lot of people. I don’t want you to join those statistics.”

Dad said nothing for a few minutes. “It’s mowing in straight lines like I do.”

“Yeah. I told it to.” That earned me a sidelong glance and a quirk of a smile. “How was your book club this week?”

We continued to talk about our lives in recent days as the mower finished up. Dad frowned as the bot parked itself in the garage, adjacent to where the old mower would go. “It did an OK job,” he said, somewhat grudgingly.

“The bot’s AI will learn to operate better. We can provide feedback to help.” I tried not to look at the old mower, and I sure didn’t mention it. I didn’t want Dad to become defensive again. “I’ll send you the manual so you can get the app set up, too, and take things from here. I’ll keep monitoring, as well, though.” I wanted him to know I’d make sure the bot was filling those clipping bags. “I gotta go now.”

“I still think you spent too much money,” he muttered, giving me a sweaty hug.

“I love you, too, Dad,” I said, laughing as I got into my car.

I let it drive just past the hedges then forced a manual stop. I got out to stand concealed in the shade.

Just as I expected, Dad revved up his old mower and went back to where he left off. He moved quickly since the machine didn’t really need to cut much grass — it was a touch-up, more like he was taking the mower on a walk. That meant he’d be done fast and wouldn’t exert himself nearly as much.

Oh, I’d ask Dad soon if he’d tweaked the AI on the bot to improve its work, but that could wait. Dad loved his biweekly Saturday summer mowing. Now he could still feel like he was doing it, but in a much milder form.

I waited until he was done before I left. In my last glance back, he was fanning himself with the hat that’d been given to him by his favourite daughter.

Neil stared at the scrolling numbers on the screen. It should have worked, but it hadn’t.

“Damn,” he said. He spun on his chair to consult his whiteboard again, even though he knew it all by heart.

But now there was something new. In the middle of his equations and arrows and doodles, there was a hole. A big one. It started at the floor and rose up most of the way to the top of the board, all eerie purple light and jagged edges, something from a cheap B movie.

“Um. Damn?” Neil tried again.

Another Neil walked through the hole. It was Neil, Neil could tell. It was just one of those things, like recognizing your own handwriting, or your own laugh. Not that he was laughing now.

“Don’t waste time with being surprised,” the other Neil said. “Your proof that observer effects increase quantum stability is almost done.”

Neil regarded his new self. He wore a pair of cargo pants and the green shirt that was one of his favourites. He looked tired.

“We don’t have much time,” the new Neil said. “I know. It’s a cliché, but lots of things are.”

Part of the closest wall dissolved into a hole much like the first, but glowing green rather than purple. Another Neil stepped out. This one wore a lab coat and his head was shaved, but he was definitely a Neil. He grinned, and the first Neil, the tired one, groaned.

“The trick,” bald Neil said, “is to not think about the problem. Not directly. Try looking at it from a new angle.”

“No,” tired Neil said. “You have to knuckle down. You have to remember what Frost said.”

“The only way out is through?” Neil asked. He often thought of that poem when he was stuck on a problem.

“Yes!”

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“No!” shouted a new voice, as yet another Neil appeared. This one had at least opened the lab door and walked through, although the corridor outside was glowing a bright yellow. This next version of himself wore a leather jacket and walked with a definite swagger.

“Take the other road! Go back to Frost! Or maybe go for a cup of coffee. Don’t look for the answer, let it find you! All the best breakthroughs are like that.”

“I’ve broken something, haven’t I?” Neil asked, meaning his brain.

“No,” all three of himself said.

“But,” the tired version of himself continued, “you are close to a breakthrough. We’re your quantum possibilities.”

“That’s not how quantum mechanics works,” Neil told himself. All three of him.

“You aren’t possible. The three of you. Me, I mean.”

“Oh?” cool Neil asked.

“We aren’t?” bald Neil asked.

“Come on, use your head,” tired Neil said. “You’re close to working it out. Observer effects. If you could observe possible wavefunctions, what would happen to them?”

“They would collapse, I suppose.”

“OK, good.” Tired Neil looked like having to explain himself to himself was taxing. “And what are those wavefunctions? The ones before they collapse? Just possibilities, really.”

“Really? You’re telling me you are three abstract concepts come to give me a hand?”

“Yes, and no,” said Neil in the jacket, the one that Neil could only ever pull off as a possibility.

“When you have your breakthrough, the local wavefunctions must collapse to one — the one instance of reality in which you figured out your calculations. One of us will be you, actualized. The others …”

“Where does an abstract concept go when it isn’t a possibility anymore?” Neil asked himself. All three of him nodded.

“Hard work! That’s how you will sort it,” tired Neil said.

“Turn your whiteboard upside down!” said bald Neil. “Look at things differently!”

“No, no. Take a break. Go to the movies. Maybe get a coffee. You could ask out that barista we keep smiling at,” said cool Neil.

Tired Neil pushed cool Neil aside. “That’s just putting off the work that needs to be done!” he snapped.

Bald Neil took the chance to lean in. “Come on!” he said. “I don’t want to collapse. You’ve got to make a decision here. Just flip the whiteboard for a start. Look at things from a different perspective!”

The two other Neils grabbed bald Neil and dragged him away from the bench. He struggled with them, and they struggled with him, and Neil struggled with what he was seeing. And then the whiteboard got bumped and it tipped forward, hitting the power board the computer tower was plugged into. There was a fizzling, a few sparks and the smell of burnt plastic. The screen blinked off, and the scrolling simulations collapsed into nothingness.

Kind of like a wavefunction, Neil supposed.

Neil righted the whiteboard and looked around the empty lab. Of course it was empty — why did he feel like it would be anything else? It wasn’t like he wanted anyone to have witnessed … whatever it was he had just done. Knocking over the whiteboard and blowing up his own work, apparently.

Maybe he had been working too hard. He ran a hand through his thin hair. He should just shave it all off. Sometimes he thought about it. But then again, if he was going to do something drastic to his appearance, he’d rather it be something cool. Like a leather jacket.

But right now he wanted a break from all his hard work. Maybe a cup of coffee. That would take his mind off everything for a bit. Then he could get back to it.

He had a feeling he was close to the answer.