“You want me to what?”
“It’s a very important mission,” insisted CERN’s head of Implied Physics. “And things will go very badly for you unless you play ball.”
As if to drive the point home, Dr Sieux waggled an eyebrow in the direction of the aggressively suited agent standing guard at the door to the office.
Despite himself, Rupert almost laughed as he considered the absurdity of this apparent threat.
A Fink-Nottle playing ball? Ridiculous. His family prided itself on its in its unrivalled collection of obscure amphibians, not football.
The only skill relating to a ball this latest scion of the Fink-Nottle dynasty could claim was the ability to work out four thirds multiplied by Pi times the bloody thing’s radius, cubed, in his head.
But even volume deserted him now, as the gravity of the situation lent its weight to the realisation that he was well and truly quarked.
“This is crazy,” he whispered. “Time travel? It’s not possible.”
His superior smirked.
“Oh, but Rupert, dear Rupert ? it most certainly is.”
Here at the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest particle accelerator, it did seem that anything was possible.
For example, not only was it possible that such a thing could be designed and built in the first place — by over 10000 scientists and engineers from more than 100 countries, at a cost approaching R50-billion — but it seemed it was even possible that such an enormous enterprise could yield no results whatsoever. Of any kind.
The stress of having nothing to show for their work was taking its toll on the scientists working on the project; Rupert himself was having enormous trouble sleeping, and suffered from fainting spells and prolonged blackouts.
To be fair, the problem with the LHC was not because the theory behind it was unsound; merely that it was quite, quite broken, and had been broken since it was first switched on in September 2008. Errant proton beams had drilled holes into the walls, prompting the joke that the beast should be renamed the Large Hadron Colander.
But this was not the entire truth, Dr Sieux explained to Rupert.
“You have heard the rumours,” he asked. “Of sabotage?”
Fink-Nottle nodded, warily.
“They are true. But the saboteurs are not terrorists. They are you.”
Rupert sprang from his seat in alarm. “That’s a damn lie! I’ve done nothing of the sort!”
“Calm down, Rupert, calm down. When we switched the Colander on last year, do you know what happened?”
“Yes. It broke.”
“But before it broke, it worked. It worked, Rupert. And we found a Higgs Boson. And after we found it, we found more — phenomenal insights into the nature of reality and the very fabric of space-time. In fact, you led the discoveries.”
“I’m pretty sure I would have remembered discovering the very fabric of space-time,” muttered
Rupert, checking again for any exits he might have missed, preferably one not guarded by a suited thug.
“And it was you who discovered that, through the very act of discovering, we had caused the universe to begin to... unravel.”
“Unravel. Good.” Not even any windows to jump through. We just had to build this thing underground, didn’t we?
“So it was you who used the knowledge we gained to design and build the projector — a device to send the quantum state of a human mind back along its own timeline. A quantum leap!”
“Right, right. So I’m Scott Bakula and you’re Dean Stockwell — loved your work in Battlestar Galactica, by the way.”
“Do you remember when your blackouts started? We — or “future we” — sent you back to two days after the first switch-on. You came to us, then, and explained what would happen — we thought you had finally lost it, of course. But after you helped us make rather a lot of money on the stock market and sports betting sites, we eventually came around.”
“Ah, splendid, I’m glad it all worked out for you. Good golly, is that the time? Hate to run but?”
“And then you gave us all the results from the experiments in your future — including the threat of the universe’s destruction.”
“Was I drinking whisky? It does make me a bit gloomy.”
“And so we switched it off, saving us all from utter doom!”
“Wouldn’t half mind one right now, though, if you’re offering.”
“But we’d like to build on all of that knowledge you gave us, Rupert. We’re switching it back on.”
“Interesting, so — even according to your own internal logic — you’re entirely mental.”
“Not us, Rupert. ”
“Let me guess, it was all Future Me’s idea?”
Dr Sieux nodded, pleased.
“And after you press the self-destruct button, only I can save mankind? Again?”
“Not just mankind ?the world — the entire universe.”
Rupert sat back again, and stroked his chin.
“Will there, by any chance, be a cheerleader involved?”
“Bizarrely, yes.”
“All right, I’m in. Whatever. Say, Do you have any whisky?”
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StarGazer-KnowledgeSeeker