This is a short bit of fiction by Brody Kendal.
Enjoy…
Message from Nowhen
This is a work of fiction. Names, and events are nothing more than the result of an overactive imagination and reading too many science fiction books as a child.
Copyright 2014
Scientists at the large hadron collider had to shut down operations today due to a computer error — Delhi Times
Message from the year 2045 via Quantum transmission. Please don’t delete this data %$%%&#*($
System overload
Disk Full…
Memory full…
** Halt **
“It’s gotta be a very expensive joke. The same message appeared on every computer at the same time?”
“Yeah Bill, all the servers too. Obviously the halt and crash addresses are all different, but the first line is always the same.”
“What about the data? You said the data flooded in, is it all the same?”
“Umm that’s what is really weird. At first the IT guys thought it was some kind of randomizer virus that got in and corrupted everything. One of the IT guys got home after a 18 hour shift and caught hell from his wife because he wasn’t answering his phone. The poor guy realized that in all the confusion his phone hadn’t rung once after the event. That’s when he put it together that the effect wasn’t limited to just the lab computers. So like the curious geek he is, he started poking around at the data on his phone.”
“Yeah? what did he find?”
“Like all the other systems, it looked like randomized bits. However, this particular geek had worked with data compression specializing in video in the very early days of video conferencing. Something looked familiar, so he dug up old specifications then hacked together a quick & dirty decoder program.”
“And?”
Bill Haverstrom was getting impatient. As a technology specialist, he hated being called to investigate every remotely odd government computer crash. The only reason he was here now was the government funding that touched some of the LHC experiments. He was glad to see his old friend Glenn and hoped that this mess could be dealt with fast so the could catch up over a good dinner and better booze.
“That’s where it gets really strange Bill. The decoder program ran, and the guys smartphone addressed him by name. The voice on the phone asked specifically for you. Then went into standby. Each time someone tries to access the phone the voice says ‘You are not Bill Haverstrom,’ then goes back to sleep.”
“Glenn, you and I both know this has to be some kind of joke or hoax.”
“That’s exactly what I thought. So I dug up a picture of you from college. I held the photo in front of the phone and tried to wake it.”
“What happened?”
“Bill, it told me ’That is a photograph of Bill Haverstrom, Please get this device to the living being,’ then it went back to sleep. That’s when I called you.”
“Well then, obviously the owner of the phone, what’s his name…” Bill checked his notes; “ahh, Gunter wants to get my attention. Let’s go find out what he wants to talk about.”
“Mr. Johansen is being detained, and no doubt throughly questioned, by the Swiss authorities. But we do have the phone.”
“Ok Glenn, lets go make a phone call. I’m assuming it’s been checked for explosives and other signs of tampering?”
“Yep, it’s completely clean.”
They entered a small conference room. Inside the room, there were cameras of all types. Technicians busied themselves with final focus and sound checks as the two men walked in. Siting on a nondescript table was a very average looking smart phone. Bill sat down in a chair nearest the device and Glenn took an empty seat to the right.
“Go ahead Bill, wake it up.”
Bill touched a button on the face of the machine. At the touch, the display lit with a bluish white light.
“Well? Glenn, you said it talked.”
A face appeared on the display.
“Hello Grandpa, my name is Sean and we haven’t met yet. This is a recording Grandpa, I wish it was interactive but neither of us have the technology to accomplish that. I don’t think people in my time will ever be able to do it. Things are going very bad here.”
Bill Haverstrom studied the young man’s face. It was disconcertingly like looking at a family photo. Sean bore a striking resemblance to Bill’s Great Grandfather. Bill realized the young man wasn’t talking. Instead, the recording had paused.
That wasn’t quite true either, the young man on the screen appeared to be waiting patiently. He was looking into the camera and blinking with a wry smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. When Bill focused on the detail of the young man’s face, the young man started talking again.
“Grandpa, it’s a little software trick. I’m really not able to see or hear you. The camera on the phone is watching you and there’s a very tiny bit of AI software that’s able to determine you’re not focused on what I’m saying. I’d guess you were struck by how much I look like your Great Great Grandfather. Oh, by the way, When I’m eight, playing in your office at the lake house, I really didn’t mean to knock his picture off your desk. I’m sorry about the frame, I know it was something Grandma gave you shortly before she died. I don’t know if I ever apologized for that. So for what it’s worth here’s a long overdue, I’m Sorry. From your perspective though, I guess we’ll have to call it an apology on-account.”
Bill looked up at Glenn, “What the hell?”
The image on the phone once again “Paused” the illusion this time was as if Sean was waiting politely for a conversation that he wasn’t part of to conclude.
Glenn was visibly pale, “I have no idea Bill. If this is a hoax it’s a damn scary one.”
“Glenn, I’m not even married. I sure as hell don’t have children much less grandchildren. This can’t be real.”
“Bill, I’m not saying its real but how many people outside your very small circle of friends know about the lake house? What, two, maybe four people in the entire world?”
Bill considered for a moment, “Exactly three people Glenn. You’re one of them and so I have to ask. Are you in on this?”
Glenn’s eyes told the story.
“I’m sorry Glenn, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but I can’t trust that,” Bill said gesturing at the image waiting patiently on the little screen.
“Grandpa, I hope your friend Glenn is there. You once told me he was your most trusted friend and that he was the single smartest man on the planet. You guys are going to have a lot to talk about. For now I have two things to ask. First, please let Gunter Johansen go. He needs to be a father to the child his wife is carrying. Gunter had nothing to do with this, we targeted him because he most likely to recognize the data as compressed video. Second, all the computers are loaded with history from our perspective, and the future from yours. Don’t let them start reformatting systems. Now pay attention, I have something you need to see.”
The young man faded from the screen to be replaced by a picture of The President. Sean’s voice continued, “You know who this person is. You’ve gotta stop him. He’s the reason it all goes bad.”
The audio switched over to what appeared to be a press conference where the President was speaking. The image quality was varying, as if the press conference was from a damaged tape.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we are in a time of serious crisis.
Our country is being attacked from within and without. Put simply our way of life is threatened by forces and acts that were until recently beyond our ability to imagine.
With many sure and certain threats to our country looming in the distance, I hereby suspend the electoral process and declare martial law until this crisis is past. There will be no elections for any national office and your government is recommending that all local elections be suspended as well. Now is simply not the right time to have a change of leadership. I believe that attempting a change at this time places our country at unacceptable risk.
The government is reclaiming control of the communication system effective immediately. For news and information I direct you to your local television and radio stations. Within a few short weeks, the federal postal service will be fully operational. Contrary to any rumors you might have heard, the federal post is not a branch of internal security and they are not reading all your mail.
I must remind you that smart phones will be unusable when the cell network is turned off. Every citizen should have installed by this time, a hardline phone. You are reminded to turn in all wireless communication devices by the end of this month. This includes all walkie talkies, HAM Radio sets, WiFi routers, cell phones and any other transmitters.
Exempt from this list are receive only radios. You are reminded to have the WiFi radios removed or disabled from your computers as well. Every computer must have a security seal which certifies that the computer is safe. Cell phones or GPS devices built into newer vehicles are to be removed where ever possible, If such a device cannot be removed from the vehicle or disabled, the vehicle must be turned over to the nearest government official.
Regrettably this will leave some folks without vehicles. We call upon all local municipalities to increase the number of busses or other forms of mass transit to enable folks to keep working.
Failure to comply with any of these rules will, under marshal law result in immediate imprisonment and confiscation of your property and possessions. Property is defined as your home, vehicle or vehicles, or anything else deemed to have material value.
Travel restrictions are in effect immediately. All air traffic is grounded. If you are more than 30 miles from you home you must have a government issued identification.
Folks, we’re trying to root out the evil in our midst, to do that we must deny that evil the ability to communicate in any secure way. We must prevent our enemies from freely moving about the country. I remind you all what happened at several shopping centers recently. Our experts have determined that the bombs were triggered with cell phones and other communication devices.
I know this sounds worse than the disease. These are harsh measures, but we are a resilient people, were are strong and we will prevail.
Thank you.
Bill and Glenn were staring dumbfounded at the screen. The date shown on the video was 3 years in the future.
The image of Sean re-appeared, “See Grandpa, part of this you’ve lived and I’ve lived it all. You’re at a place, and more importantly at a time where you can change history. Growing up, I remember you telling me that you wished you had been able to make a better world for me. Now you can. We used a quantum gateway the LHC created. It acted like a wire between my time and yours. The hard part was sending you all the data about how history unfolded. Grandpa, you should know, the data probably won’t last. Get one of the big brains at the LHC to explain causality and you’ll understand why. We think that your brain will hang onto enough that you might be able to sense the danger and change things even if you don’t know why you’re doing it. Oh, one more thing, I want you to know I love you, we never said that enough. Paps, you were the smartest man in my world. I love you old man.”
The phone emitted a puff of acrid smoke, the screen went dark and Sean was gone.
For some inexplicable reason Bill was emotional when it became obvious the phone was slag.
Around the lab, various screens came back to life. Several servers and most laptops didn’t escape unscathed.
All the clocks in computers that returned to normal operation, were 32 and one half hours slow. The exact amount of time that had elapsed since the system event, Bill’s arrival, and the end of the message. This detail went largely unnoticed.
“Glenn, save the dead laptops and any other dead systems, I’d like to have them sent to the forensic data teams. Hopefully the analysts can figure out what kind of virus we’re looking at. I’m guessing it’s something from Syria or Iran. I just can’t figure out why they’d target the LHC.”
“Sure thing Bill. Uhh Bill is everything alright?” Glenn said quietly, “it looks like you’ve been crying man.”
“Yeah, I’m fine Glenn, guess I got something in my eyes. Do you smell burning circuits?”
“Bill, it looks like this is a wild goose chase, I don’t know why they sent you to check it out. Hey, when we’re done here, I found a great new restaurant. I’m not taking no for an answer they have 100 year old Scotch.”
“Sure Glenn, you’re buying!”
Casually, Haverstrom slipped the charred ruin of a smartphone into his jacket pocket.
In the coming years he’d look at it often, wondering why it was important to him.
Three years later, Bill Haverstrom walked to a podium during a press conference and very clearly said, “Not on my watch” then put a single bullet squarely in the chest of a man who aspired to become a King. Haverstrom’s action touched off a civil war that historians agree, resulted in the reboot of the republic.
Haverstrom himself suffered a head wound during the assassination and spent the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair. In 2032 President Glenn Johnson extended executive clemency to Haverstrom. Following Haverstrom’s release from federal custody he retired from the public eye to a lake house he owned. Haverstrom never married.
An old man sat in his office watching the spring sun rise over a glassy lake. Occasional concentric rings marked the passage of fish catching their breakfast.
Life support equipment in his wheelchair beeped plaintively. The old man’s shaking hand silenced the alarms. The man’s alert eyes began to dim, his breath became ragged and eventually stopped.
Falling forward, his head bumped an aged picture off the desk shattering the frame on the floor. A moment later, a burnt bit of plastic and glass about the size of an old smartphone fell from limp fingers landing next to the handsome man smiling in the photo.
Written on the burnt plastic was “Sean”