David Farewell - Fall Guys

"Listen, Terry. I get that you're worried, but I think your absence is just making it worse." This traffic was relentless. I had been stuck here for nearly ten minutes already. So much for a quick commute between home and work.

"You said it yourself, if Mister Magic even suspects that I had anything to do with that hologram, boom! There goes my Grey Hat membership. Not even addressing my general cavern status. Black Hats are not well regarded!

" Don't tell me you used your own access point for the lattice?"

"Of course not. I might as well have sent the ResEngs a big letter saying 'It was me!', signed Terry Suguino! We've both been in this cavern long enough to know how to cover our footprints. It's one of the reasons we get pulled into these messes in the first place. But that's the problem isn't it? Too many people know we can do it." I usually made it a point not to argue with Terry. Largely because he had an annoying habit of always being right.

I bit my tongue and thought carefully about what I would say next. A blue sedan cut in front of me. I blew my horn and fired my mouth.

"What?!"

"Sorry, some jerk just cut me off." I closed my eyes for a moment. A quick turn to the right and I would be home in five minutes. I thought about my apartment and the lady next door, and how I really didn't want to hear her complain about how my cooking aggravated her cats. " So, what are you suggesting? A fall guy?"

"I dont know." Terry was silent for a moment. "Seems like we're paying an awful lot for something we don't really understand."

" So, does that make us the fall guys?"

"I'll tell you what, tomorrow we both head to Pahratehs and get a straight answer out of Jessie Pollick. It was his plan anyway. At the very least we should know why we went to all the effort."

"Cool, I'll see you there." I hung up the phone. The cars ahead of me began to crawl forward. I looked at the intersection. My stomach growled. My thoughts returned to the cat-lady next door. Maybe it's a pizza night. I put my foot on the gas and hung a left.

Jeremy Reinold -

I closed the door and collected my thoughts.  If I was lucky I could get out of this building without running into any of the two hundred students from this morning.  I should take the back stairwell.  Doctor Foust should have plenty of time now that practice exams were finished.  That said, I don't think I could stomach another question about eigenvalues or about the real meaning behind the Schrödinger wave equation.  As far as I could tell,  it is math.  I hurried down the hallway and into the stairwell.

There were students hurrying below and out the door.  Almost free.  I caught a glimpse of a curly head of hair from above.  This was a girl who seemed to enroll merely to verify her own world view.  It doesn't matter if we're dealing with the Copenhagen interpretation or Many Worlds interpretation.  The waveform collapses, and the result is what we see.  The universe may not be deterministic, but that is far from saying that our thoughts and disposition can influence reality by virtue of their being.  Too many philosophy majors dabbling in the quantum.  I hurried down the stairs and out the door.

I got back to my apartment, grabbed a drink from the fridge, and sat at my desk.  I had my own work as well.  My paper outlining an experiment to test the many worlds interpretation stared at me.  Calling it a paper gave it too much credit.  As of yet, my plans to utilize a macroscopic quantum state and quantum erasure fall flat in the absence of a quantum computer.  So far this seems to be little more than a reiteration of David Deutch's thought experiments from 1985.

I dug through my desk in search of my notepad.  I eyed my flashing KI inside and paused.  Too many thoughts.  How many messages?  Was it David Farwell?  D'veeta?  Jessie Pollick?  How did this thing work?  Was it quantum?  It must be.  Where was the power source?  I think too much.

Many-worlds is too silly.  Too many problems, both theoretical and practical; and yet, this device could communicate across ages.  My relto could transport me to those ages.  Surely there must be a solution.  If there is, I won't find it here.  I grabbed my KI.

Glancing through is saw a bulletin from the Cavern Criers; a statement from Mister Magic; a dozen messages from D'veeta...  The list went on and on.  I opened the most recent from D'veeta.

Contact me.

I sighed.  There's no escaping the grind.  Surface or cavern, always work to be done.

I rolled over to my bookshelf and pulled down a small book with a green leather cover.  Guess I can't avoid this any more, I thought.  I opened the cover and linked.

Mark Loren - The Student Speaks

“.Recortahn mesen”

“.recUrtan mEsen” Flora corrected me.

”?Recurtan Meesen”

“.mEsen  Like peas, or a really really forced toothy smile.”

“I’m never going to get this.”  I sighed.  Phonetics were the least of my concerns.

“Oh, come on.  It’s not all that different from other languages when you really sit down and look at it.”

“Grammar isn't my problem.  I get that much.  The problem is that none of these words stick in my head.  Or they all stick together.”

“You've been in that book far too long.”  I looked up to see Hannah studying a large map  “Books are one thing, but for any language to stick you need apply it.”

“And you have something in mind?” I said, looking at her over the bridge of my glasses.  She glanced up, straightened herself and gestured to the map before her.  I got up and walked toward the desk.  “Don’t we have translations of this map floating around?”

“Yeah, but that takes all the fun outta this.”

“When’s the expedition?”

“Right now, in just a minute.”

Artus entered with a backpack and climbing gear in toe.  “Just in time.”  Hannah beckond Artus closer.  “Help me convince Mark to come with us.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea!  You too Flora.  It’s no garden age, but there’s much to be seen.”

“I know when my arm is being twisted,” I said, looking to Flora for support.

“How long?”  Hannah gave a blank stare back to Flora.  “How long will we be gone?”

“Oh, well the tunnel was designed to require a journey of three days, but surely there have been cave-ins and such…”  The look on Flora’s face was priceless.  “But that’s not to say we’ll be there for so long.  We have Relto.  Remember?” Hannah added quickly.  “We can return any time we want.”

Three days climbing through structurally questionable tunnels was not how I had planned to spend my weekend.  “How do we even start?”

Hannah grinned.  “We’ll start by making our way toward the Industrial area: Nehw’eril District.  From there we’ll follow the road to the South Gate and see where we can get from there.”

I sighed and looked over the map.  The figures and words were unfamiliar to me; all but a small portion of the cavern was not.  I looked to Flora.  “I’ll go if you go.”

“.recUrtan mEsen”