scilence

a short story
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.
- Albert Einstein
Im a scientist. That means that Im rational, and I dont trust something unless theres
evidence.
Thats why I dont expect you to believe my story.
In all honesty, if you had told me two days ago that I would travel to the future, I wouldnt
have believed you. If youd told me that I would be having a conversation with the greatest
scientists in history, I would have thought you were crazy. And if youd told me that my
discoveries would change the world, I would have laughed in your face.
Im a scientist. I need evidence. But I dont laugh now.
Those thoughts give me nightmares instead.
***
The day was normal: a disappointing and fruitless day at the lab. After a full twelve hours of
running numbers through the processors, I found an error in a datasheet which rendered
my past months work pointless. I thought that I was on the brink of finding a way to finally
overcome electrostatic force with lasers. But what I actually found was a typo on page three.
I slouched home after work and tried to think about anything except nuclear fusion. It was
surprisingly difficult. Images of a world with unlimited, clean energy played in my mind. I
curled under the covers and tried to quiet my restless mind.
My sleep was normal. A dim, misty nothingness. I didnt dream.
But in an instant, the night became the most un-normal night of my life. In a jarring
moment, my consciousness was shattered by a sharp beeping noise, and my eyelids were
flooded by whiteness. My eyes snapped open to a room that I had never seen before in my
life; miles and years and worlds away from the room I had fallen asleep in.
I sat upright in the bed, my nails digging crescents in the sheets. My heart pounded fiercely
as my mind whirled to make sense of my surroundings. Grey walls with peeling paint, grey
tiles, grey steel-framed bed with yellowed sheets. Goosebumps rippled across my skin. I was
cold, wearing what appeared to be a hospital gown.
There were metal cuffs locked on my wrists, with wires running to a huge silver machine
beside the bed. It buzzed ominously. I thought at first that it was a haemodialyser, like one I
had seen my grandfather connected to once. But no, I wasnt in a hospital, and I didnt have
a kidney condition.
I fumbled at the cuffs with trembling hands. They were locked tight. I recognized them as
the same locks we used at the labs. Magnetic-coded, and very difficult to break. To unlock
them, you need to align the keys teeth, the magnetic pins and the magnetic poles. But as an
undergrad I had discovered that if you had a strong enough voltage source, you could
disrupt the magnetic field enough to weaken the lock.
I swung my legs out from under the sheets and dropped to the floor. There were cuffs on
my ankles too; the wires trailed on the jagged tiles. I was surprised to find no power cord;
the machine was battery powered. I broke open a latch and fumbled through its internal
parts. I was surprised to recognise a CPU, a calorimeter and what looked like a miniature
oscilloscope. There was also a glass chamber filled with a strange amber liquid, and what
appeared to be a tesla coil; a tightly wound spiral of wire thats used to produce a powerful
electric voltage.
Then I found what appeared to be the battery, but it looked more like a capacitor. No, it
looked like a graphene supercapacitor. But that was impossible. The technology behind
supercapacitors was still unworkable.
But when I connected the supercapacitor to the tesla coil, a painful kick of electricity jarred
my whole body and sent me jerking backwards. I recoiled in shock and threw the battery to
the ground. I hadnt expected such a powerful force. But it worked; when I pulled at the
cuffs on my wrists and ankles, they just fell away.
I stood up and walked to the door. It groaned open when I gave a hefty shove, and I stepped
out into a dark corridor, where more fluorescent lights stuttered to life.
There were no windows and no natural light. Along the corridor were lines of doors
identical to the one I had just passed through. The corridor extended into shadows in both
directions. It was eerily silent.
I crossed the corridor and tried the door directly opposite. It was locked tight. I tried
several more doors, with similar luck. Finally I pushed against one that swung open to a
room the same size as the one I had woken to. But the far wall simply wasnt there. Instead,
half the room was filled with huge rocks, and pale white dirt. I bent down and picked up a
stone at my feet. I recognised it as batholith, a volcanic stone. With as start, I suddenly
realized that this building was underground. Deep underground. My rational mind was
beginning to flounder.
Suddenly there was a noise behind me and I spun around. What I saw far outweighed any
surprise I had already faced; it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.
Standing just a metre from me was a creature that seemed to be part human, part ape. It
stared with deep-set eyes beneath a heavy brow. Sharp canines protruded from its wide-set
mouth. It stood about a foot shorter than me, with long arms hanging to both sides. A
ragged t-shirt covered its torso, oddly juxtaposed by the black hair covered its entire body.
There was a strange silver contraption strapped to its throat.
I started to stumble backwards, when a croaky, mechanical voice emanated from the device
at the creatures throat.
Avalon Paske. You will follow me. I will take you to the others. You are not to dispute this
instruction.
I froze in terror.
Wh-where am I? I stammered.
You are in the western wing of the central bunker. Please follow me.
The creature then lurched forward and grabbed my arm. I recoiled violently and gasped in
protest as I was pulled through the doorway and out into the corridor. I struggled in futility
against the strong grip.
What am I doing here? I demanded, gasping.
The creature didnt respond. The deep-set, black eyes were unreadable.
I tried again. What are you?
My name is Lucy. I am Australopithecus afarensis. I belong to Maria.
Hang on, I said, my mind reeling. Lucy? The missing link?
That is correct. I am AL 288-1.
But... Australopithecus afarensis was an early hominid that went extinct 3.2 million years
ago. The very first Australopithecus skeleton was found in Ethiopia in 1974. Its founders had
nicknamed her Lucy.
Thats impossible. I said, hardly above a whisper.
Lucy didnt reply. She continued to drag me down the corridor. I looked again at the
strange device strapped to her throat. No, not strapped to, strapped into. The skin bulged
around the edges; it was a prosthesis.
Someone had attached a robotic voice-box to her. Neuroprosthetics. A mechanical organ
replacement with circuitry that connects directly to synapses. The brain thinks that the
computerized organ is part of the body.
I had heard of neuroprosthesis, but neuroprosthetic voice-boxes were a hypothetical
development. Like graphene supercapacitors, they were a technology that didnt exist yet.
Yet suddenly I had evidence to the contrary.
Do not step in the water. Lucy said, and I looked down. It is radioactive.
I had to leap around a murky puddle of water that had spread from beneath a door.
Then suddenly Lucy turned sharply to the right, and pushed at a door identical to the
others. I saw her press a magnetic key to the lock. The door swung open, and she shoved
me inside.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw.
The small grey room was filled with chairs and people. But not just any people; every single
face in the room was as familiar as an old friend. I knew them all. I had known these faces
my whole life. They were the black-and-white images from the pages of my textbooks. They
were the posters peeling from the laboratory walls. They were the great minds that had
built the stepping stones of my career. Gathered in the one room, dressed in hospital gowns
with hair rumpled from interrupted sleep, were some of the greatest physicists in history.
Maxwell. Pauli. Rutherford. Chadwick. Oliphant. Bethe. Fermi. Hahn. Sakharov. Teller.
Good god, even Einstein.
Holy shit. I gasped, and sunk into the closest chair.
And who are you? Enrico Fermi asked, gesturing rudely at me. I do not know who you
are. I assume you are also from the future?
Fermi. I was being addressed by Enrico Fermi. The designer of Chicago Pile-1, the first
nuclear reactor.
Im Avalon. I said weakly. Avalon Paske. Do you have any idea whats going on?
Fermi threw his hands in the air. Bah! He said, This is either madness, a dream or a very
elaborate joke.
Or perhaps, Albert Einstein spoke, and my breath caught in my chest. Perhaps this is
real, and someone from the future has decided to bring us together.
But I dont understand. Edward Teller said, Why am I here? I recognize some of you as
great scientists. But I have no greatness to my name.
Everyone suddenly spoke up in protest.
Im just an amateur-
-you are one of the greatest of the century!
-are certainly mistaken -
I dont know why Im here. I said, adding to the chaos.
Suddenly we fell silent as realization dawned on us. Simultaneously, everyone in the room
realized that each of the scientists here hadnt made their breakthroughs yet.
Did that mean that I too was destined for greatness?
Well. Wolfgang Pauli said, breaking the silence. This is a strange situation.
I dunnot understand. James Maxwell spoke in a thick Scottish accent. I dunnot
recognoize a single faice here.
Thats because you are the first. Hans Bethe said, You unify electricity and magnetism in
1873. Rutherford develops the theory of atomic disintegration in 1902, and conducts the
gold foil experiment in 1908. Einsteins mass-energy equivalency is in 1905-
My what? Albert Einstein asked, a singly bushy eyebrow raised in question.
You know, Bethe replied, E=m-
Shut up! Mark Oliphant snapped in an Aussie accent, raising both hands. Maybe hes not
meant to know! Wont we bugger up history if he knows?
Speak for yourself. Otto Hahn said, What is it that I do?
You discover fission in 1938. I said, surprising myself.
And what about you? Einstein asked, looking straight at me. My insides floundered under
his gaze. What is it you will do?
Well I said, looking around me. I know everyone else here, which means Im the last. I
dont know what Im going to discover. But everyone else here has made some sort of
discovery to do with atomic structure, or nuclear energy. So I assume it is something along
those lines.
Do you think this is to do with You know Sakharov spoke for the first time, looking
suggestively at Einstein and Fermi. His eyes were asking if I was talking about the nuclear
bombs that ended World War Two when they were dropped in Japan.
I shook my head. I dont think this is about fission. I said.
Fission? James Maxwell asked.
If you split large atoms like uranium, you get energy. I said. But you can also get energy
by fusing them together.
Sakharov nodded. Yes. Just like in the sun. But how?
I started to reply. E=m-
Shut up! Mark Oliphant snapped. Dont be stupid! He glared at me. You are saying too
much. We shouldnt be meddling with history!
Then why are we here? I asked, holding his gaze.
At that moment, the door opened again, and Lucy returned with a stunning young woman.
She was about my age, with a delicate frame and a halo of cropped black hair. She had
almost transparently white skin, deep brown eyes and ruby lips. She was dressed in ill-
fitting cargo pants and a loose shirt.
Ah! She said, looking straight at me. Avalon, we found you. Wonderful. I didnt know
where youd run off to, after you hoodwinked the chromocuffs. So, She clasped her hands
and nodded slowly, thats everyone.
Are you in charge here? Enrico Fermi demanded, jumping to his feet.
The woman nodded. My name is Maria. I owe you all an explanation; this must seem so
surreal. But you must understand that I wouldnt have brought you all here if not for the
most desperate of reasons.
Explain then. Enrico Fermi said. Explain this chaos.
Maria nodded. I have brought you all here from the past using quantum chromobiological
transporation. It is currently the year 2074.
What is chromobiological transportation? Einstein asked.
We use the genomic fingerprint of an individual found in fragments of DNA to encode
their physical body and perform quantum teleportation through the time dimension. As
famous historical figures, fragments of your deoxyribonucleic acid has been cryogenically
stored should we ever need to summon you from the past.
Maria looked down sadly and shook her head. We only discovered the potential of
chromobiology a few years ago. And it was too late; at the time, the world was far too
distracted to care. She looked up at us with sadness in her eyes. You see, for the past
twenty two years, the world has been locked in the most devastating war in human history.
Impossible. Andrei Sakharov said. The Second World War was the worst war in human
history.
The what? James Maxwell asked.
Never mind. Andrei Sakharov replied, shaking his head.
You are wrong. Maria said. The Second World War showed us the consequences of one
extremist in control. It was also our first glimpse of nuclear power. But the 20
th
century was
a primitive world; the 21
st
century is a world where every extremist can suddenly connect
with every corner of the globe. This is a world where all extremists become leaders, and
they all scrabble for dwindling energy supplies on our exhausted planet. Imagine nuclear
power in their hands.
There was silence. I saw a raw horror in the faces around me. Some of these scientists had
lived through the great wars. Some of them would in their futures.
This war is almost over. Maria said. The earth has been wiped empty of life. Mankind has
been utterly extinguished, but for a very sparse few; those who have defied chance and thus
far survived the permeation of radiation. But there isnt much time left. I am one of the last.
I hunted down the chromobiological technology. I tested it, she gestured to Lucy, and I
have brought you here as mans last hope.
What are we supposed to do? Enrico Fermi asked.
Maria reached a delicate hand into the pockets of her cargo pants. She removed a wad of
envelopes addressed in neat cursive. She held them up.
I have brought you here to give you a choice. Yours are the minds that will lead us to this
war. Inside these envelopes are the details of what your futures hold what your discoveries
will be, what you will be famous for. Then you will return to the chromobiological machines
that brought you here and return home as simply as you were brought here. By letting you
know your futures, I am giving you a choice to change history.
And what do we do once weve returned? Enrico Fermi asked. Are you asking us to quit
our sciences? End our careers?
Yes. Maria said, over angry gasps of protest and derision. I am asking you to forget your
science. Become musicians and poets and architects. But forget the physics and let history
take a different path.
And if we choose not to do this? Mark Oliphant asked, What if we choose to remain on
our fated paths? Wont our very knowing of our futures alter them?
No, Maria said, there is an alternative. Have you heard of the botulinum toxin? The
neurotoxin found in the Clostridium botulinum bacterium? There is a similar neurotoxin that
grows from a bacteria on irradiated fructose. Like botulinum, its a two-chain polypeptide
with a protease enzyme that attacks the neuromuscular junctions of the brain. It can
permanently disrupt the synaptic pathways of the prefrontal cortex and parietal lobes.
Quite simply, it is a drug that can eradicate memories. The war has made it quite popular
in recent years. In controlled dosages, we can wipe the memory to precision within the
hour. Colloquially, it is known as Scilence.
If you take this drug, you will not remember anything that has happened tonight. You will
wake in the morning as if from a dreamless sleep. You will continue your lives as if nothing
unusual has happened.
And its safe? Enrico Fermi asked.
Maria nodded. Completely. I have used it myself. I would have lost my mind a long time
ago if not for Scilence.
The room fell quite as we all processed the information. It was all so surreal.
Im afraid we dont have much time left. Maria said, Reversible chromobiological
entanglement is only temporary, and in order for you to return safely you must be
connected to the teleporting unit again very soon.
I wish that in that moment I had taken the opportunity to have a nice chat with each of the
other great scientists there. I wish Id asked all of the questions Id wondered since I first
marvelled at the mysteries of the atom.
But like every scientist there, I took my envelope with shaking hands and walked out into
the corridor. This envelope held the secrets of my future. Everything I could dream of
knowing. Was I really destined to be among the ranks of Einstein? Would my research be
successful? What did my future hold?
Lucy stood in the corridor, waiting to direct each of us back to our rooms. Without even a
backwards glance, I walked away from the others, dizzy with anticipation. It didnt matter
that I was in the company of my heroes; my whole life was written on the paper I held in my
hands. My curiosity was a powerful physical pain in my chest.
I returned to my room, closed the door and sat on the bed. With shaking hands, I tore open
the envelope and peered inside.
It was empty.
I froze. Was this a mistake? My breathing became shallow and my spirits plummeted.
Of course it was a mistake. I wasnt meant to be here. I wasnt destined to be great after all.
My experiments would fail, my research would come to nothing, and my work would fade
to obsolescence.
I had been brought here by accident because Maria was crazy. She had to be crazy. That
was the only explanation. Why else would you bring an extinct hominid from the past to
keep you company?
At that moment, the door swung open and Maria herself entered. She smiled at me. Hello
Avalon.
I held up the empty envelope. Why am I here?
Maria walked over and sat beside me on the bed. I wanted to talk to you in person. Youre
more important than anyone else here.
Why? What is it that I do?
I think you can guess. Maria said. In the future youre known as Solaris. Youre the
woman who gave us the power of the sun.
My heart leapt with joy. Really? Cold fusion works? Its viable?
Maria nodded. Yes, it is your great achievement. Your fusion method is so elegant, so
simple You fuse elements together without mimicking the pressure of the suns core, or
raising plasmas temperature to millions of degrees Your method is even more elegant
than the suns. You find a simple way to overcome the repulsion between hydrogen atoms
and bind them together, harnessing their energy in a way that can be used by the whole
world.
Because of you, we finally a way to bring electricity to every city and factory and tiny
village on earth, using nothing more than the hydrogen in the sea. We can raise global
living standards. We can reach equality. We can embrace our potential as humans.
I stared at Maria with dumbfounded delight. But thats all good, right?
Her shoulders slumped, and Maria shook her head. Im sorry Avalon. Your dream was
beautiful but the utopia is broken. This is where fusion gets us. Not to global unity, but to a
power war that ends with nothing. Instead of embracing our potential as a human race,
everyone dies.
My heart sunk. So it all depends on me?
Maria shook her head. If all the others make the wrong decisions, then it will depend on
you. It will only take one to change history, but I am giving you all the choice because Im
trying to be a good person.
I was suddenly overwhelmed by how young and alone Maria was. Young, alone, clever and
insane. Alone with her empty memories at the end of all things.
She stood up. Please make the right decision. She said, brushing dark hair from her
glistening eyes. She gestured at the silver machine. I fixed up the wires you pulled. When
youre ready, just reattach the cuffs and lie down. The entanglement will begin when your
heartbeat is stable.
She turned to leave. Oh! She cried, and swung back around. I almost forgot. She drew a
small vial from her pocket and passed it to me.
Scilence. She said. Just in case you choose otherwise. Good luck.
Then she turned, walked through the doorway and closed the door behind her.
I was left in the small grey room with the Scilence.
I looked down at the vial. Inside was an iridescent green liquid, glistening in the light.
Solaris. I thought, testing the sound of the word in my mind. The woman who gave us the
energy of the sun.
Maybe, if I returned, my life would be different anyway. Maybe one of the others would
make the decision to change history. Maybe Einstein never wrote E=mc
2
. Maybe Hahn
never verified the fission chain reaction. Maybe Sakharov never proposed the idea of a
tokomak controlled nuclear fusion reactor.
But there was a strong chance that, if I took the Scilence, I would return to a world where I
would someday become the most famous nuclear physicist in history. I would be powerful. I
would be rich. I would change the world. I would never remember this night, and my life
would continue as it was destined to.
I picked up the cuffs and I clipped them to my ankles and wrists. They whirred as the
magnetic locks slid into place, binding me to the chromobiological machine. The Scilence
was held tight in my fingertips.
It would be so easy. Just one sip from the little green vial, and I would wake to my normal
life with no guilt, no memory, no pain. I couldnt regret a decision I couldnt remember
making.
I reached out and let the vial of Scilence balance between my fingertips. Then I let it drop to
the floor. The glass shattered on the tiles, and the green liquid spilled out into the cracks in
the grout.
I lay back and closed my eyes. I breathed in and out, in and out.
Then suddenly I felt my surroundings change, and I opened my eyes to my familiar room
and my familiar bed and my familiar pajamas against my skin. I sat up. My whole body was
shaking.
The first thing I did when the I steadied myself was to get up, cross the room to my
bookcase and open an encyclopedia. I flicked it open to the relevant pages. Fermi. Teller.
Oliphant. Thompson.
I let out a shaky breath. History was unchanged.
That meant that I was the only one who had chosen not to forget. Einstein, Bethe,
Sakharov Everyone else had taken the Scilence. They had chosen not to change historys
terrible course. They had chosen to have their lives back instead.
And of course theyd made that decision, I thought. It could have been madness. It could have been a
dream. There were no control variables. There was no way to check validity. There was no
testable evidence.
How could I even be sure that it had been real?
I closed the encyclopedia and rubbed my eyes.
If it had been a dream then I could just continue my life as normal. I could continue with my
research and achieve cold fusion. I could give the world the power of the sun.
But could I? Could I continue with my work, even with this heavy weight inside me? Could
I continue my work knowing what it could lead to? Could I continue, knowing that the fate
of the future was all up to me?
When the sun rose that morning, my alarm went off as usual. I made my tea and poured my
cereal. I washed my face, got changed and did my makeup. I fed the fish, packed my bags,
grabbed my keys and my handbag. It was all ridiculously normal. I got in the car and drove
to work.
Im a scientist. That means that Im rational, and I dont trust something unless theres
evidence.
The only evidence I have is a memory, a heaviness in my gut and an unsteadiness in my
hands that makes my work more difficult with each passing day. But despite the lack of
evidence, I know that my experience was real.
So I know that I should stop my research, but I tell myself that one more day wont hurt.
Theres no guarantee that Ill get there. I just want to know what comes next. And anyway,
I can leave the project at any time. And maybe I can ignore the heavy weight of guilt. And
maybe I can change the future and create fusion anyway. Maybe it wont lead to the
apocalypse after all.
And Solaris rolls rather nicely off the tongue, dont you think?