Nature Futures 2 (27 page)

I had changed in those weeks. Although I cursed myself for my stupidity, I held the experience in the mountains as the most important thing that had ever happened to me. I wanted to keep it and shape my life with it as part of me. I'd spent long nights seething with jealousy at the imposter taking over my life. Then I had a plan, and the very next day I spent the last yen of my pension on a full up-to-the-minute memory backup at a professional storage agency.

I blinked back into the present. The new me snatched across the table and tried to grab the plastic bag but I caught his wrist and in a moment we were both on our feet and struggling. In the confusion I pulled the gun from my rear pocket. This is where my preparations paid off, my risky burglary of what had once been my own home to retrieve this very weapon.

The gun was between us now (it was an evenly matched fight, I observed wryly) and I sensed a crowd gathering. I twisted backwards, keeping my hold on him, and we fell to the ground, and the gun was pointed at my own temple, my finger around the trigger. I didn't think I'd have the courage, but now in the moment it was all too easy.

“Murderers don't come back,” I said. I saw his eyes widen as he recognized his pistol, the realization he'd been out-played. He knew what I knew, the death penalty was sure and a criminal would not be resurrected. It would be the
real
me, who had lived through the mountain cold, who would live again. He tried to withdraw his hands from the pistol but it was too late. The muzzle tight against the side of my head, I pulled the trigger.

By day Clayton Locke is an Australian research physicist, and by night writes fiction and loses himself in imaginary worlds. Find him at
claylocke.weebly.com
.

Succussion

Steve Longworth

We have just finished our retraining and now it's time to redeploy. Whoever would have thought it would come to this? We all started out with such high ideals. Well, except me of course. If I'm really honest, I only went into medicine because I thought it would be a great way for a rather ordinary looking bloke like me to meet lots of unattached, sexy young nurses who would then be sufficiently impressed by the title ‘doctor' to form an orderly queue outside my bedroom door (and so it proved, I'm delighted to report). I guess that's why I've taken to this so easily. Ethics was never my strong suit. I'm really a rather cynical opportunist behind the carefully cultivated, charming, professional veneer.

Still, I'm apprehensive about our new role. I've never killed anyone before. Well, not intentionally (there was that rather unfortunate series of prescribing errors that the Trust swept under the carpet before hastily moving me on, but that's another story). Up to now, whenever I have stuck a knife into someone it was with their consent and under anaesthesia. This new role is going to take some getting used to, but I've always been open-minded. That's also why, despite the fierce scepticism and at times downright hostility of many of my colleagues, I was willing to use homeopathy. Let's face it, few other people were doing it and the general public are so gullible it meant that I could open up a nice little private practice and charge silly money for silly remedies with little competition.

You know the theory behind homeo-pathy? ‘Like fights like'. So if you are treating a fever you give the patient something that causes a fever, but (and this is the important bit) you dilute it over and over again, and each time you dilute it the treatment gets stronger. With each dilution the solution is vigorously shaken, a process known as ‘succussion'. There are those who speculate that succussion causes the water molecules to ‘remember' the active ingredient even when Avogadro says there is not a trace of it left. Dilution makes it stronger. That's the part conventional science has the most trouble with, but there are studies that show that homeopathic remedies do work, even in animals, so it can't all be the placebo effect despite the shaky theory. On the other hand I think that my bedside manner contributed just as much to the cures enjoyed by my pliant clientele as the elaborately prepared bottles of expensive water that I used to succuss. Success, suckers!

Perhaps we should have noticed sooner that something remarkable was happening. As life expectancy gradually rose throughout the early twentieth century we gave the credit to public-health reforms: clean water, efficient sewerage systems, the ending of unsanitary overcrowding and so on. When life expectancy continued to climb we pointed to our increasingly powerful pharmacopoeia so that by the start of the third millennium just about everyone over 60 was taking a statin to lower their cholesterol and often a bagful of other prescribed drugs as well. But when we all became, to all intents and purposes, immortal, there had to be a radical new explanation.

Think about this. Homeopathy has been around for 200 years, and over that period every homeopathic remedy that has ever been formulated has been taken on countless occasions by millions of people. The potency increases with each dilution. So when you drink a homeopathic medicine it gets diluted in your total body water, then you pee it out and flush the toilet, so it gets diluted in the sewerage system. The sewage is treated in a sewage farm and pumped offshore where it is diluted in the sea. The sea water evaporates to form clouds, with the water returning to earth as rain and collecting in reservoirs. We drink the water and the cycle starts all over again. Each step in the process involves a form of natural succussion. You see where this is going. With each dilution the original medicine gets stronger. Over 200 years every homeopathic remedy ever formulated has been diluted and blended over and over and over again, millions, maybe billions of times. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century a critical dilution threshold was reached. Now any glass of water from any tap anywhere in the world is the most powerful all-purpose drug ever created. No more cancer, infection, inflammation, degeneration; everyone will now live for ever in perfect health, unless they are unlucky enough to suffer a sudden overwhelming physical injury. Immortality! What a disaster.

The world is rapidly overpopulating. There are simply not enough resources to go around. We may be immune to all known diseases and resistant to ageing but we still have to eat. House prices are stratospheric as every available space fills up. Water is the universal panacea and now universal panic's here. The world has been thoroughly shaken.

In India and the Far East, where population growth is the fastest, vast suicidal religious cults have emerged and are massively popular among the young and naive. Euthanasia for the Youth in Asia!

Here we have a solution based on our own massively popular mystical belief system — the National Lottery. Everyone has been allocated a unique set of numbers and the draw takes place twice weekly. It means we have been able to find important new work for all us unemployed doctors. We used to bring succour. Now no one wants a house call, but it's vital we force our way in, scalpel at the ready as we point the finger and proclaim the new Hypocritical Oath.

It's you!

Trust me, I'm a doctor.

Steve Longworth lives in Leicester, which in 2007 was voted curry capital of Great Britain.

After Experiment Seven

Michael W. Lucht

‘Experiment 6. Apparatus: Smith & Wesson Model 13.' Having written thus, Professor Hillabin began searching for the gun among the piles of books, papers and assignments. His students believed him to be disorganized — Hah! — little realizing that the mess afforded perfect concealment. Besides the gun, it presently occluded vials of cyanide, assorted knives, a parrot and even an electric chair. If the vice-chancellor found out, she would throw a fit — especially about the parrot. Faculty policy strictly prohibited pets in academic offices.

Eventually, Hillabin unearthed the weapon from beneath a pile of decaying term papers. After meticulously filling the chambers with bullets, he faced a problem. His methodology required him to test it, but a gunshot might be noticed, even in the philosophy department. He glanced at his watch; it was past 11 p.m.. Deciding to risk it, he pointed the gun at the wall, aiming between a soaring stack of old journals and an even taller tower of unmarked exam papers.

Missing the gap, the thunderous bang was accompanied by a cloud of confetti. Oh well, only exam papers …

Hillabin had barely replaced the spent shell when Professor Forthington stormed in. “Hillabin! What the hell are you up to now? You've ruined my desk!”

Hillabin reflected on his bad luck that his neighbour, famous for heading home on the dot ever since the great philosophers' strike of '00, had selected this of all nights to work late.

He carefully recorded ‘Apparatus working' in his notebook before glancing up. “Sorry old
chum
. I'm conducting a series of quantum suicide experiments.”

“Sounds positively ghastly! Why don't you do some real work on Kierkegaard's spiritual angst?”

Hillabin sighed. It was hell for an experimental metaphysicist to have an existentialist as a neighbour. “I am probing,” he said, trying not to sound excessively pompous, “the nature of reality!”

“Yeah, I'm sure people will find that enormously helpful when dealing with the general meaninglessness of life.” Bug-eyed, Forthington stared at the gun. “So, you're trying to kill yourself then?”

“Quantum
suicide
— duh!” Hillabin replied, using the vernacular of his students.

Forthington raised an eyebrow. “May I watch?”

“Why not?” Hillabin shrugged, placing the barrel in his mouth.

“Wait!”

“What?” Hillabin asked, gagging.

“Any last words?”

Rather than dignifying the question with an answer, Hillabin pulled the trigger. The hammer clicked — and that was about it.

“See?” Hillabin asked triumphantly.

“I don't know.” Forthington pinched his lower lip. “Could be a fluke.”

“That's the whole point!” However, to strengthen the result, Hillabin pulled the trigger five more times, producing five more clicks. He turned the gun around. When he again aimed at the wall, the gun emptied without a hitch.

Forthington's initial reaction was to scream: “My poor office!” followed in rapid succession by: “That's amazing.”

“It sure is,” Hillabin agreed, recording ‘Success' in his notebook.

Flipping to the next page, he wrote: ‘Experiment 7. Apparatus: Cyanide.' Hillabin uncorked one of the small vials, poured a drop into a tiny bowl and offered it to his parrot. A pity, really, but Hillabin had to eliminate the possibility that the chemistry department had appeased him with some harmless liquid. It had been known to happen.

But not this time. The parrot, stressed by the loud bangs, badly needed a drink. Ten seconds later, it keeled over.

“It's dead,” Hillabin muttered.

“No, it's not!” Forthington retorted instantly.

As much as he enjoyed gratuitous Monty Python references, Hillabin was beginning to suspect that his colleague was not treating his work with the gravity it deserved. As there was not much to be done about that right now, he downed the poison in one gulp and leaned back on his chair. After five minutes, he wrote ‘Success. Probably survived due to some peculiar immunity. Must remember to ask a biologist.'

“So, you really can't commit suicide?” Forthington asked.

“Not just me. Nobody!”

“Really? Wow!” For once, Forthington looked impressed. “You know, this is so remarkable. Who would have thought? I almost wish that I could give it a try.”

Hillabin reloaded the revolver and held it out. “Be my guest.”

“Oh, I don't know.”

Hillabin once more tried shooting himself, with the same result as before. “This is exactly what you will observe. I guarantee it.” He again held out the gun.

“Well, in that case…” With his arm shaking, Forthington finally took the weapon and aimed it at his head. “Should I really?” he asked, sweating.

“Don't be such a logical positivist!”

The shot killed Forthington instantly, making the huge mess in Hillabin's office significantly less palatable.

Despite this, Hillabin was pleased with the progress achieved that day. He had successfully established that the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics was correct. Each time he had tried killing himself, the universe forked into many. In the bulk of them he died. However, as it stood to reason that he could not observe universes in which he did not exist, his consciousness — his point of view, if you will — would always find itself in a universe in which he had survived, no matter how unlikely the odds.

Looking down on Forthington's body, Professor Hillabin felt an unanticipated tinge of guilt. Should he have told him that in the vast majority of universes he would die? Surely, even he must have known?

Then again, did it matter? In at least one parallel universe, Forthington was no doubt already annoying another version of Hillabin by going on and on about how amazing it was that he still lived.

But not in this universe, thank God. Shrugging, Hillabin dialled security.

Michael W. Lucht is an Australian/German/Singaporean writer. (Long story.) He hopes either to create artificial life or to publish a novel — whichever is easier. See
luchtonline.com
.

Escapism

Nick Mamatas

Piotr was in prison for life for a crime he could not help but commit. He was a scientist, and his theories were borne out by the evidence. The Universe is holographic, two dimensions inscribed across the cosmological horizon.

The Politburo thugs, and they were all thugs to a man, could not tolerate the idea of presiding over a Universe where things were not what they seemed — where they could not stand at least a tiny bit taller than the rest. This wasn't what Piotr meant, but that is what the government heard. Piotr could not recant. He would not. A boot on the back of one's neck
was
not data, threats were not evidence, torture not proof.