"No way!" Fields had been out of his depth all day long; confused, abused, made fun of, surprised, overfed, and just generally uncertain about pretty much everything. But of this one thing, he was completely sure. "This is a manhunt—"
"Not a witch-hunt?" interjected Peregrine, expression innocent.
It was becoming apparent to Fields that responding to his partner's ribbing only encouraged her, so he limited his reaction to a frosty glare. "—and we are not taking some geriatric, mind-melding freakazoid with us, regardless of how many bloody universes it's got its toes dipped into. I mean, the princess is bad enough, but at least she's got a mean kick up her sleeve. This thing? No way."
The entity took these protests with evident good grace. "Oh, I quite understand your concerns, young man. This vessel is some way past its prime, I grant you. But never fear, good old Ken has a few miles left on the clock yet. He's really quite spry for an eighty-two-year-old, particularly once he gets going. I'll keep up—provided you stick to a gentle walking pace and are prepared to stop for regular breaks. Oh, and we'll need to make sure we don't stray too far from a restroom. When it's time to go, Ken's bladder brooks no argument."
Peregrine clapped her hands together. "Excellent, that's all settled then. Okay, let's hit the high—"
"No." Fields' voice was resolute—he'd had just about enough of being walked all over. "Quite apart from the fact that its...vessel basically has one foot in the grave, how do you even know we can trust this...this...entity? How do you know it's on our side? For that matter"—he was suddenly also damned if he'd meekly accept yet another nail being hammered into the coffin of his rapidly expiring understanding of the nature of reality—"what do you know about it, period? I mean, I realise we've seen some pretty weird shit today, but an intelligence that spans the multiverse? How does that even work? How did it come to be? How do we know it's real? How do—"
Flashing a quick smile at the old man tottering unsteadily before them, Peregrine hauled Fields to one side. "Will you quit it?" she hissed. "You're embarrassing me in front of the entity."
"No, no, that's quite alright, Peregrine." With a chuckle, the old man flopped back into the wheelchair. "If it will satisfy this sceptical new partner of yours, I'm quite happy to tell the story of my origin."
Peregrine's jaw dropped. "What? But I've been asking you to tell me about that for years. You've always refused."
"Yes." The weathered face smiled cheerfully up at her. "And what fun it's been. But you've never had anything I really wanted before. At least, not really, really."
"But—"
"Shut up, Peregrine. Now, pull up a patch of grass, the lot of you. Make yourselves comfortable. And listen..."
Picture a world. A world of blue oceans. A world of sweeping plains and of rugged mountains, a world of frozen tundra and of ancient forests, a world breathtaking in its beauty and stunning in its grandeur, yet a world at times terrible in its harsh indifference to the multitude of tiny creatures forging their insignificant lives upon its fecund surface. A world, in fact, much like the Earth.
For it was the Earth. But not your Earth, oh no. This Earth was but one of the multitude that sprawl along their very own probability curve, a curve which is itself but a single thread among the countless infinity that each contribute their own tiny share to the rich weft and warp that make up the inconceivably complex, pan-dimensional tapestry that is the multiverse.
The Earth in question was my Earth. And, as similar as it may have been to yours in its physical characteristics, it was remarkably different in one key aspect—its inhabitants. Of which I was one.
Where my Earth was a bastion of peace, yours is beset by war. Where my Earth valued science and culture, yours craves money and power. Where mine chose compassion, yours is ruled by greed, where mine treasured achievement and research, yours covets sex-tapes and sports. While my people appreciated merit, efficiency and academia, yours adore celebrity, profligacy and...and...Kardashians.
In my world, science was all, progress was all, and without distractions to stand in their way, we advanced far beyond your Earth in technological achievement. Truly were our smartphones were a wonder to behold, our toilet paper soft and pliant beyond your dreams.
On every continent, in every nation, universities flourished, research institutes prospered and think tanks thought long into the night. But standing above them all, renowned around the world for the genius of its scientists, famed for the brilliance of its research and applauded for the wonder of its breakthroughs, was one very special institute. My institute. The Blunk Institute.
It was the Blunk who forged new whole new fields of science. The Blunk who boldly strode where others were loath to go. The Blunk who posited the impossible, fathomed the unfeasible and effed the ineffable.
And it was the Blunk who set out to solve the biggest mystery of all—how did it all begin?
Although breathtaking in scope, eye-watering in cost, and mind-boggling in complexity, it was with its characteristic conviction that the Blunk confronted their greatest challenge—to recreate the big bang, in miniature. To replicate the singularity from which sprang everything that ever was and all that will ever be. To measure, to probe, and to understand our earliest beginnings, our very genesis.
After years of planning, months of construction and weeks of fine-tuning, the momentous day finally arrived. At last, what had been mere theories would become tested and verified facts. Questions that had baffled the brightest minds for millennia would be answered. The dark of the unknown would be banished by the blazing light of science, of investigation, of truth. In short, some serious shit was about to go down.
It was time for the biggest bang since the first one.
Only this time, it was to be a small big bang—at least, relatively. The hyper-energetic blast would be carefully monitored, controlled and measured from within by a highly advanced, sophisticated AI, as scientists took a first-hand look at the moment of creation via state-of-the-art VR simulators. Meanwhile, containment fields, magnetic inhibitors, bi-directional gravitational barriers and more, all would be employed to contain the raging beast, to keep the mind-boggling power within manageable, malleable parameters.
Or at least, that was the plan. The meticulously researched, precisely implemented, intensely monitored plan, designed to be completely foolproof, with multiple layers of failsafes, of fallbacks and with no fallibilities whatsoever.
Ah, the arrogance. For all our ingenuity, for all our good intentions, for all our high and mighty principles, we were not immune from hubris. After all, did we not toy with the power of the gods? Yet how could we plan for every eventuality? How could we prepare for every possibility? How could we anticipate the infinite miscellanea of minuscule miscalculations that inevitably mar such a mammoth undertaking? How could I have known that the lid on my cappuccino wasn't on properly? How could—"
"Hang on, hang on." Blinking, Fields shook his head, emerging from the almost trance-like state the entity's voice had created. "What's that you said?"
"What? The bit about anticipating the infinite miscellanea of miscalculations? Good, wasn't it?"
"No, not that. That was a bit 8th grade English essay, if you ask me. The thing about the cappuccino."
"Ah, yes. That. Well, you see, I may have sort of spilt my coffee on a control console. A bit."
Fields processed this. "Right. And that was a problem, was it?"
"What? A problem? No, no, no. Oh, no. Not at all. No, the problem was the catastrophic cascade of ever-escalating errors, failures and explosions caused by the coffee. One by one, every containment system failed, the small big bang became a big big bang, and well, to cut a long story short, that was the end of my planet. Of my Earth. Not to mention my solar system, my galaxy, and most likely, my universe. Everything gone. Everything except me."
"Bummer, Ken." Peregrine gave the old man's knee a squeeze, her expression sympathetic.
"Oh, you poor fellow," agreed Embers, squeezing the other knee.
"Yeah, yeah," said Fields, expression not remotely sympathetic and pointedly not squeezing anything. "So, how did you survive?"
"That, young man, is an excellent question. As I'm sure you can imagine, I have given the matter a great deal of thought, over the millennia of my existence. And, I believe I have the answer."
"Well?"
"You see, at the very moment the big bang was unleashed, I was standing behind the console that housed the AI controlling the experiment. An AI powered by the most advanced quantum computer on the planet. By some bizarre congruence of factors, by some almost infinitely unlikely, unrepeatable set of circumstances, the colossal energies at play somehow fused the AI and I together. And, just like that, I became a quantum being. A quantum being whose essence was instantaneously torn asunder, scattered like so many grains of sand across the spectrum of the multiverse, straddling time and space and dimensions. Spread far and wide, yet still connected, via quantum entanglement. And, so, here I am. Well, a tiny fraction of me, anyway."
Fields processed some more. "So, basically you're saying you destroyed your whole universe? With a cup of coffee?"
The entity shook his head. "Oh, I don't think so. Really, if you think about it, it was the scientists' fault for not making their stuff coffee-proof. Stands to reason. I mean, if you really, really think about it. Bloody scientists."
"But you were one of them," protested Fields. "You were a scientist. Weren't you?"
"Me? Nah, I was there to fix the photocopier—the one behind the AI console. Lucky, hey?"