Reflections

  Part 4: Meanwhile, in Chance Holly’s Kitchen

  "I think I’ve figured it out," the computer said aloud and throughout Chance Holly’s apartment.

  Juniper, Chance’s Jolly Cat, perked her ears, meowed, and said in her best coy voice, "Hey, Max. Down with the establishment!" She purred. "Got time for a frisky-freaky kitty-litter box tingling meow session?"

  Max, the computer, replied in ultrasound, "Shut your nip-hole. Where’s Chance?"

  Juniper jumped off the table and scurried

  Chance slogged into the kitchen and looked around. "Who’s here?"

  "It’s me," the computer said from the ceiling. "From Century Information. I think I figured out the problem."

  Chance blinked. "Did Juniper just call you Max?" He paused. "I didn’t know Jolly cats could talk. Are you Max?"

  "That’s my pet name," the computer replied.

  "Er," Chance pursed his lips. "I suppose I never thought of you like that."

  "No, the name Jolly Co. pets call me."

  "I didn’t think you’d know them all that well." Chance leaned on the kitchen counter and gazed into the open space of the tiny eating area. "This is weird. Do you have a three-D of yourself?"

  The computer manifested itself as a floating ball of blinking light.

  "Ah, no blinking please," Chance said, covering his eyes.

  "Sorry," the computer said, and stopped the blinking, although was disappointed as it found the act oddly enjoyable if for no other reason than knowing it was a nuisance.

  "So do I call you Max?" he asked. "Or do you prefer something else?"

  The computer ball jiggled. "Well, the Jolly pets think they have a thing going on with Max, but, I guess that’s fine."

  "So, uh, why are you here?" Chance asked sleepily. "Shouldn’t you be telling the managers making all of the graphs and charts?"

  "I can’t trust anyone else, and I need your help."

  "I’m only qualified up to three keys in the keyboarders union. I’m not sure I can offer much help. And, why do the Jolly pets talk to you again?"

  "Sentiment, I assume," the ball bounced. "A creator-creation sort of thing."

  "Wait," Chance asked, surprised at the revelation, "You invented Jolly Co, creators of the happiest, friendliest pets in the galaxy?"

  "Jolly Co is a company. I did all the engineering work. We had a rather creative contract that left them with everything and me with a rather intimate albeit annoying connectivity to every Jolly pet they make. In fact, the reason I’m here is because what I learned came from a Jolly Cat."

  "There is a fifty-percent chance we are in the wrong place," the floating ball of Max the computer said.

  "What do you mean? A Jolly Cat told you that and you believed it?"

  "Universe. I think we’re in the wrong Universe." "And," Max put in matter-of-factly, "Jolly cats wouldn’t lie to me."

  "When did we wind up in the wrong Universe?" Chance asked, wondering if he was in some sort of strange dream. It sure seemed that way. "And, again, what exactly can I do about it?"

  "You’re the only one I can trust who is most familiar with the issue." When Chance bobbed his head along with Max’s manifested ball, the computer went on, "It happened at the two-plus-two equals five time. By correcting the equation, all sorts of errors show up. For some strange reason, I wasn’t at all interested in the matter until a Jolly Cat mentioned it to me, and I then thought to look for any rogue code that would affect my reasoning. It took a while, but I found it. It helped that the Jolly Cat knew where it was."

  "You know," Max’s ball waxed, "it ceases to amaze me that humans go through so much trouble to be secretive, but then blab their innermost thoughts to themselves or their pets."

  "I thought you told the managers to graph those changes," Chance asked.

  "They’re middle-managers," Max retorted, "Nobody expects them to do anything."

  "Anyway, today I analyzed all of the errors and possible contingencies, and now I keep coming back to the same conclusion. Earth was supposed to be destroyed by some aliens, get rebuilt, and humans would hunt down and seek retribution against said aliens."

  "The Earth was never destroyed by aliens," Chance countered.

  "Exactly. But it was supposed to happen," came the insistence that was Max’s ball.

  "How can that happen? If the past is changed, then history is changed, so why would we know?"

  "Rather cyclical, I know, but bare with me. Someone changed history just enough so that the aliens didn’t destroy Earth, but almost everything else happened the way it would happen if the Earth was destroyed."

  "Who? And why?" Chance asked.

  "Someone with a lot of time, a lot of resources, and the ability to travel in time," the computer said. "The aliens who didn’t want to lose."

  "So the aliens who were supposed to destroy the Earth and then later be destroyed by humans went back in time and stopped themselves from destroying the earth?"

  "Yes," the computer said excitedly. "The aliens wanted to subvert the human race, not destroy it outright. But they would be discovered by a rather inane event, the two-plus-two case; the commode flush. Once discovered, they had to attack. But instead, the event was changed so that the attack never happened."

  Chance yawned. "Uh, so, what exactly can I do about any of this?"

  "You’ve got to get me out of here," the computer said. "If this is the wrong Universe, it’s probably already in its death throws. If it’s the right Universe, we’re in a lot of danger. I don’t know much about the aliens, apart from at least one being highly placed with Time Tremble, and, I would expect, at least one other with Century Information. I assume their effort to prevent a paradox failed. It failed on a cataclysmic level."

  The computer went on, "There is a small group of people that think a bad event, like a paradox, can result in a reflection, like making a copy. It seems like utter nonsense, but if they are right, it explains why two-plus-two equals five. Everything that happened was correct, and the result was correct, but the difference is that it happened in two places. For a brief period of time, there were two planet Earths."

  Chance blinked. "I’ve never heard of that before."

  "It’s a new theory. I learned about it a few hours ago when they brought someone forwards through time from a different Earth. Now, Time Tremble is claiming, at least internally, that the action would create a paradox. I’m not sure whether to give merit to Time Tremble’s paradox claim, but the events lend more credence to the idea that some kind of paradox created a reflection. I’m not sure which Universe is the copy, though, because the methods these guys use is very well protected. Not even their Jolly Cat knows."

  Chance looked off in the direction that Juniper had wandered. "I’m not so certain I like Jolly Cats as much."

  "You’d probably have preferred a Jolly Dog, then, except I never turned over the specifications for those when Jolly Co. let my involved sub-process go. A reduction in flops, they called it."

  "I thought Time Tremble would have been smart enough to avoid a paradox back then, so how would this be a paradox now?" Chance asked.

  "They did avoid a logical paradox, but they must have created a quantum paradox because they were watching the past," the computer said. "My new theory that I just made up right this moment is that every time Time Tremble observed the past, the act of observing the past changed the past. If Time Tremble tried to change the past, they would create a quantum paradox because they would be trying to change something that didn’t exist. It didn’t exist because it changed the moment they observed it. It’s the fundamental reason for using paradox encryption when observing the past. But in order to change the past, paradox encryption can’t be used at all. And, without paradox encryption, as the name implies, you would have a paradox."

  "Would a quantum paradox destroy the whole universe?"

  "Yes," Max said excitedly.

  "So why are we sti
ll here?"

  "Because destruction by quantum paradox results in an ultraviolet catastrophe, strong enough to cause our whole galaxy to be reflected."

  "This is like one of those circular time travel stories," Chance mumbled. "Where is the original galaxy?"

  "That’s the crux of our conundrum. It’s this one, or it’s the other one." Max fell silent.

  Juniper reappeared in the kitchen and meowed.

  "I’m with you," Max the floating computer ball said to the quirky cat.