Giddeon (Silver Strand Series) (32 page)

By the time I got a phone call from Ray asking me to do an experiment with Giddeon, it had already been done.
 
He and Mia had been sampling events in the immediate future to see if they could predict results.
 
Mainly, they worked with different sporting events around the world… football, golf and horse races.
 
Soccer was too easy.
 
So was hockey.
 
Cricket and lacrosse were more challenging.
 

By himself, Giddeon was fairly accurate with the scores.
 
But, with Mia’s help, they could catapult themselves into about a 90% accuracy range.
 
Every now and then they would get everything correct, but, it was rare.
 
I Fed-
Exed
a paper to Raymond in
Texas
with a list of numbers and teams.
 
It arrived on a Friday morning.

*****

Raymond watched with great interest some of the college games that Saturday.
 
He kept up with the scores of the others on his computer as they became available.
 
When the day was over, he went to his sheet and checked all 25 games.

The winner was picked on 24 out of 25 matchups.

The exact score was posted on 21 of the 25 games.

Generally, the miscalls were either a field goal or a touchdown off.
 
Usually, there was an iffy call by a referee that could have gone either way that influenced the outcome.
 
Ray ran the numbers on a computer program and was fairly certain that the odds of such accurate forecasting were off the charts.
 
He gave me a call, and asked me to have Giddeon do the exact same thing for the next week’s games, but, only to give the top twenty most likely results… the ones he felt most sure of… along with one other sequence of numbers.

*****

Raymond flew into Washington D.C late the next Friday afternoon.
 
He had the last appointment with the President, and he sat out in the waiting area before being ushered into the Oval Office by an efficient-looking secretary through a door flanked by two secret-service men with watchful eyes and dark suits.

*****

Inside the Oval Office, Raymond Bradford took a seat across from the President at a large desk known as
The Resolute Desk
.
 
It was named that because it was made from timbers of the British Frigate, the HMS Resolute.
 
The ship was once frozen in Arctic sea ice and abandoned, but it was later found and released by American sailors, whereupon it was refurbished and presented as a gift from the
U.S.
to Queen
Victoria
in 1856.
 
The frigate was decommissioned in 1879, and the queen ordered twin desks made from its wood… one was kept by
Britain
, and the other was given as a gift to Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.
 

*****

Raymond slid his paper across the polished surface of the antique wood to the President of the
United States of America
.
 
On it were 40 names of colleges, grouped into pairs, with numbers beside them.
 
The Commander in Chief took the paper in his manicured hands and looked it over.
 
Finally,

“If you wanted to get in on the White House football pool, you could have just phoned in your picks to me.”

Ray grinned.
 
“I want you to hang on to that until tomorrow, and then we need to get together after the games and talk about probabilities and the asteroid.
 
Believe me… there’s a method to my madness.”

The President looked over the sheet, again.
 
“You’re pretty specific with your scores… okay if I make some bets using the last digits?”

“I’m afraid not… it’s a matter of national security.”

The man across from
Bradford
chuckled.
 
“That’s usually my line.”

“Not tonight.
 
I tell you what… just keep those very close to your vest, and tomorrow, I’ll explain why we need to stop the Russians and Indians from attempting to mess with FYI-616-B.”
 

“Well… why don’t you come by around seven, and we’ll watch the BYU Hawaii game… that one is on your list.”

Raymond stood up and the two men shook hands.
 
“I know how to get there… been by to see the last two men that lived there before you.”

“See you, then.”

*****

The President invited Raymond into
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
with a somewhat perplexed look upon his face.
 
They watched the game and checked and re-checked games on other channels as scores came in over the airwaves.
 
They had pizza from a local take-out delivered, and
Bradford
found the leader of the free world to be most likable after getting to know him a little better.
 
Nothing was discussed about the numbers on the paper as the President checked off, one by one, the correct predictions as they became available.

Finally, a field goal bounced off the goal posts and was good, which resulted in overtime.
 
The 20
^th
game on the list, although accurately listing the winner, was off by 6 points as another field goal was scored putting the winner up by 23 to 20 instead of 20 to 17.
 
Raymond shrugged his shoulders at the discrepancy.
 

The President turned off the television with the remote and looked at
Bradford
.

“Not even you could rig that many games… and, even if you could, there’s no way you could call 19 of the scores exactly.
 
I mean 48 to 22 on that one… come on.
 
How did you do it?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Why the one miss?”

“It’s not a perfect system.”

“Close enough for government work,” said the Commander in Chief, smiling and shaking his head in disbelief.
 
“You could make a fortune in Vegas.”

“I’ve got enough, without that.
 
I’m more concerned about keeping Vegas from being wiped out by an asteroid.”
 
A few seconds of silence followed his remark.

The President nodded.
 
“So… you’re saying your ‘system’ is how you know that the rock up there,” he pointed upwards, “is going to hit us unless your vehicle is allowed to operate unimpeded?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“
Humpfh
.
 
Without going into details… how does your system work?”

“It’s something I’ve been working on for… a while.
 
Have you ever heard of the ‘collective sub-consciousness’?”

“Rings a bell.”

“Well… one of my computer programmers may have unwittingly found a way to tap into it.
 
And, by it… I mean Mankind’s awareness of the probability of future events occurring.
 
Time and space are connected in ways we’re just beginning to understand.
 
A lot of the success of the system depends on the way you ask the questions and run the program, but, I think we’re on the right track.”

“Apparently.”

“You understand why I needed to speak with you, alone… no representatives from the Defense side of things?”

“I do.”

“This… capability… could be abused.
 
By any government...”

“It’s most impressive… but, I just don’t know if calling football games is proof enough to try and interfere with the Russians and…”

Raymond interrupted.
 
“That reminds me!”
 
He dug into his pocket and pulled out a ticket and handed it to the President, who looked it over with interest.
 
They both leaned over the laptop computer on the coffee table before them and did a search.
 
In a minute, they had found what they were looking for…

Raymond Bradford had won the Powerball Lottery.

475 million dollars.

*****

I sometimes check in on Alternate Dad to see if by some chance I can peek ahead in his writings.
 
No such luck.
 
They always are pretty much aligned with our events as they happen… neither Giddeon nor I can jump ahead into his future, which is actually parallel with our past from a few years back.
 
I know that, normally, lots of realities are spun off each and every moment from a timeline, but we have no access to any of those, either… just the one silver strand from his world, that’s it.

Every now and then, I hang out with Greg’s dad as he writes or reads or plays his guitar… I don’t know why.
 
I guess I just kind of feel like he should have some company, even if the company is transparent and silent.
 
Periodically, I can swear he looks up in my direction, almost as if he detects me, but, invariably he turns back to his guitar or his computer or his paperback.
 

I find it odd that he’s almost as fascinated with physics as Giddeon.
 
He spends a lot of time delving into the subject on both his computer and in any number of books scattered around his place.
 
Other than my husband, he’s one of the few people I know of that actually writes songs incorporating the subject into lyrics.

*****
.

I remember Gid telling me about a famous thought experiment dealing with quantum physics as it was understood in the 1930’s… the experiment was called Schrodinger’s Cat.

This is it in a nutshell:

The physicist Erwin Schrodinger had presented a scenario in which a cat was in a box, and the cat might be alive or dead depending on an earlier random event produced by quantum fluctuations… an event such as the decay of a small amount of radioactive substance.
 
If the event had occurred, it would have caused another event that would have been lethal to the feline.
 
Since there was no way of determining, without opening the box, if the radioactive decay had happened, the cat might have been thought of as both alive and dead at the same time.
 
Unless checked upon by looking inside the box, the animal would exist in a superposition of states.
 
The cat would have a field of probabilities, like an electron around an atom.

 
Observation is essential to determine reality.

Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, either, but the scenario was a huge bone of contention to scientists back in the day.
 
Anyway, I had to smile a sad smile when I heard Alternate Dad sing this song one night:

I feel like Schrodinger’s Cat,

And, I don’t know where I’m at.

I’m in a box, I’m all alone…

Looking for my telephone.

And, I should call a girl I knew

When my life was green and her eyes were blue.

And, everything was always true…

We felt so strong,

It couldn’t go wrong,

Like things do.

And, you never do forget your first love.

Even though it hurts to say her name.

And, you try not to think about what you’re thinking of.

But you think about it just the same.

Love… what a losing game.

Love… what a losing game.

And, look at me, now.

Look at me, then.

I’m looking through the looking glass…

Where’s my
Cheshire
grin?

And, look at me, here.

Look at me, there.

I’m a jumbled up quantum equation…

I ain’t anywhere… I ain’t anywhere.

And, you never do forget your first love.

Even though it hurts to say her name.

And, you try not to think about what you’re thinking of.

But you think about her just the same.

I feel like Schrodinger’s Cat,

And, I don’t know where I’m at.

I’m in a box, I’m all alone.

Looking for my telephone.

And, I should call a girl I knew,

When my life was green and her eyes were blue.

And, everything was always true…

We felt so strong,

It couldn’t go wrong,

Like things do.

*****

I couldn’t help but wonder if he somehow knew that he had missed out on happiness in other dimensions.

*****