A Collision In Time

We must stop regarding unpleasant or unexpected things as interruptions of real life. The truth is that interruptions are real life.

– C.S. Lewis

AD 2810 / 234 Pachamama Era (PE) d128, Pachamama, city of New Washahikan

“It doesn’t make sense, doesn’t make sense.” Dov Sabastien glanced at Uriel, waiting for him to react while she finished the last spoonful of her oatmeal. Together they sat at the kitchen table next to the window overlooking the bio-preserve. Cool, forest-scented air from outside mixed with the aroma of fresh tea and cooked ancient-Earth oats. Dov shivered and adjusted her shawl. As she did each morning, she studied the horizon to judge the day’s weather and admired the purple dawn sky over New Washahikan.

“You better explain what you mean,” Uriel said with a modest smile.

She had his attention. “When I say it doesn’t make sense, it implies that a thought or idea is nonsensical, but the phrase has nothing to do with how a concept tastes or smells or feels. Instead, you are verbalizing an idea that is abstract and not physical. So why do we say it doesn’t make sense when we don’t use our senses to evaluate the concept?”

“Interesting. What made you think of that?”

“I don’t know, it popped into my head.” Dov tapped on her temple, then brushed the hair from her face. She decided this morning to alter her hair color to match her new darker skin tones. Boredom at work and inspiration from her new crop of students led to Dov experimenting with her genetics, albeit much less frequently than those she was teaching.

Uriel had yet to respond. “Go ahead, search for it,” Dov prompted. “See what the etymology is. I suspect the expression is from Old Earth.”

Uriel nodded and focused on the task. Dov appreciated his indulgence. It took milliseconds for Uriel to retrieve the results and a few more seconds to prepare the verbal report. Dov enjoyed the expression on Uriel’s face as he simulated human concentration. It was a characteristic the AI interface developers had never fully mastered.

“Seventeenth century, in Great Britain. You are right.” Uriel laughed. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

“Unless, of course, they meant a sense that’s not physical, more like an instinctual sense perhaps. Like a sensation in your stomach?”

“I wouldn’t know.” Uriel winked at her.

Dov enjoyed pushing the limits of Uriel’s programming. “It’s a human quality we don’t replicate in you. Like when I become nervous or anxious and butterflies flap in my stomach.”

“The developers chose not to program those ancient simulations of human physical response. We are coded with a simple reaction, unencumbered by evolution. More efficient that way.”

“You aren’t romantic, are you, Uriel. Imperfections and evolutionary baggage are exactly what makes humans so entertaining. On the other hand, they are probably why I’m still a single reclusive academic.”

“You will find your soulmate one day Dov, I promise. By every objective measure, you are someone’s perfect partner. You are kind, intelligent, humorous and objectively attractive. Your facial proportions are at the highest percentiles—”

“I’m a perfectionist,” interrupted Dov,” I think about physics all day and night, have a strong temper, and I am—”

“Too hard on yourself, Dov.” Uriel’s AI twin walked into the room and joined them.

“Thank you, Ariel; what would I ever do without you?”

Dov admired her two AI partners. She had named each inspired by angels from the Old Testament of Earth. They provided companionship, expertise, and raw computing power when her research demanded it. They were good to her, listened intimately, and though she didn’t like to admit it, over the years they had become the parents she had never understood and bonded with.

Ariel interrupted. “Dov, sorry to change the subject, but you are needed. Our time-wave sensors are detecting strange data anomalies. They show unknown perturbations in past-time. Maybe the sensors are malfunctioning?”

“That doesn’t make sense.” Dov glanced up at Uriel, and he returned her look with a smirk. “Let’s take a look. Perhaps it will be a fun case for my engineering students.”

* * *

By the next morning, the nature of the anomalies was no longer simply a fun exercise for her students. Dov sat in her home office and stretched to work the stiffness from her muscles. She stood, reached to touch her toes, then stretched upward in a yoga sun salutation.

Ariel approached Dov with a curious look on his face. “You haven’t performed yoga in a while, Dov.”

“You can tell by how stiff and out of shape I am.”

“Perhaps stiff muscles, but you are most certainly not out of shape. Once you are done stretching, you need to see what I found.” Ariel gestured and fed the data reports to Dov’s holographic device. She projected the images to float above her desk.

Dov relaxed her pose and adjusted the brightness of the room to study the results. Her jaw tensed. “Do you know what this means, Ariel? Call Uriel, please.”

When Uriel and Ariel joined Dov she gestured to enlarge the holographic visual. The windows darkened and Dov approached the holograph. Four glowing dots pulsed within a chart in the image. “Look at the size of this,” Dov traced the lines that radiated out from the red dots. “The anomalies are much more significant than the normal ripples we see when we time-travel; the disturbance has much bigger amplification. This data must be wrong. Time just can’t change.”

“There has to be an error,” Uriel said.

“I really hope so. It’s concerning. The math is wrong.”

* * *

Five days later, little insight had materialized. Dov wandered to the window and stood perfectly still. She steadied her breathing, looked outside, and let herself be lost in nature. The three visible moons had faded with the morning dawn but still punctured the daylight sky. This morning, however, something new caught her attention. The rising sun colored the tips of the trees a deep crimson, the same tone of red that the holograph software had used to depict the anomaly. She noticed her face reflected in the window.

“There must be an error,” whispered Dov to her image, as she might to one of her students having difficulty with a problem. “Look at it from a different angle, Dov.” The detachment helped to calm her.

“Masala?” Uriel called from the kitchen.

“Please, but extra spicy.” Dov shifted her focus back to the floating figures and charts in front of her. She gestured, retrieving the new information that replaced what she had been studying. “Ariel,” she called, “bring up the two calculations we worked on yesterday. I want to compare the results.”

“Here you go.” Ariel waved his arms. “And also, here is the visual comparison, with new data, as of four seconds ago.”

“Thanks, Ariel,” Dov said, and paused. “I still don’t understand this.”

Uriel entered the room, tea in hand.

“What do you think?” Dov asked, looking at the oscillating wave in front of her.

Ariel leaned forward, examining the visuals and numbers flashing in front of Dov. Uriel joined them to investigate the new data.

“I have checked and double-checked the math. There is nothing wrong,” Dov said, frustration seeping into her tone. She took a sip of the spicy masala, tasting cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, and ginger, imported from Earth and blended with spice local to New Washahikan. The tea brought her warmth and a mild intoxication.

A chime sounded. Dov snapped her fingers and accepted the incoming call. An older man with gray hair, a full peppered beard, and a serious expression floated on her device.

“Professor…hello,” Dov said.

“You don’t remember me?” the man scolded, grinning. “Dr. Yavel?”

“Yes, of course, Dr. Yavel. What can I do for you?” She glanced at Uriel with a look of defeat.

“Tell me about these anomalies for a start, Dr. Sabastien.”

Dov cleared her throat. “They are most curious. At first I thought they were a simple programmatic oversight, a bug, or malfunctioning equipment, but I have had to rule that out.”

“And…”

“And I am working on it.”

“These were identified seven days ago, Dr. Sabastien. There is no one with a more preeminent voice than you to address this issue. When I file a complex time jump, it’s your checklists we follow. You are the voice that politicians and journalists turn to.”

“I am frustrated, but confident, Dr. Yavel. As we eliminate each possibility we get closer—”

“Might it be the underlying math, Professor?”

“The math is sound,” Dov shot back.

“You sound defensive.”

“Listen, I have to get back to work. I’ll contact you when I have figured this out. It shouldn’t take me that much longer. I hate to be rude, but I have to go now.”

The professor paused, unsure of his next step.

“Goodbye, Dr. Yavel.” Dov tapped the red Terminate button and the holograph displayed black.

“The opportunist,” she said to the black screen.

Dov redirected her attention to Uriel and Ariel. “We’ve run out of options and must increase our confidence score. We need more data—like, a lot more data.”

“Agreed,” said Ariel. “I will begin the analysis tonight and have a data plan submitted to the committee by morning.”

“Thanks so much.” Dov smiled. “You’ve both been amazing this week. I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”

“Very little, actually,” Uriel joked. “But remember, Dov, the theory, mathematics, and physics—this is your work. We work as a team.”

“I appreciate your help. I know it’s what you’ve both been programmed to do, but I feel you each have performed above and beyond the institute’s ethics standards.”

Uriel walked over and hugged Dov. “Thanks, but we do enjoy the work. Please think nothing of it.”

From a distance, it would be easy to confuse Ariel and Uriel. To differentiate their appearance Uriel modified himself to be slightly balding, with gray-blue eyes and glasses. He kept his skin pale and his stature slight. His appearance contradicted his demeanor. Uriel was programmed for creativity rather than that of a stereotypical academic scientist, wrapped “in cold facts,” as he described Ariel. If he had attended school he would have excelled in English literature, drama, and the arts. Ariel had darkened his skin and eyes and represented himself as “outdoor rugged.” He was the more serious of the two and approached problems in a more linear style. Had Ariel been a student, he would have studied engineering and philosophy. Despite their differences, they worked effectively together, so much so that acquaintances of Dov usually assumed they were human brothers. The one thing all agreed on was that they adored Dov. And she adored them.

Dov refilled her drink. The scent of masala reminded her of when, as a graduate student, she’d first discovered the joys of the Old Earth spices and the hours spent at the tea house studying Advanced Time Physics, written by Cara Zitkala-Za. Dov’s fascination with time had begun much before graduate school when she imagined possibilities. If chroniclers and archeologists were able to send software back in time, why not use similar principles to send people? She devoted her full time and attention to solving the problem, giving up friendships in return for remarkable success and a strong academic reputation. Her stature grew, she was invited to speak at prestigious conferences and received honorary recognition, even at her young age.

Throughout university, Dov remained obsessed with the math and physics of time travel and devoted her studies to that. From an outsider’s perspective and amongst her colleagues, she was seen as superior, almost untouchable in her level of knowledge. But not all was what it seemed. Her vibrancy when in the public eye contradicted her feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Dov was well aware of how fragile the construction of her public image was, which motivated her to work harder and isolate further so she wouldn’t spoil the illusion. Friendships were risky; they took time and energy, and were often fleeting. Uriel and Ariel became her safe friends. Their comradery enabled her to focus almost exclusively on her work, and their relationship was built on her terms. From her perspective, that allowed her to solve critical mathematical problems and maintain companionship, even if it was “artificial.”

* * *

“We have booked permission from the data standards committee,” Dov said later that morning to Ariel and Uriel over a snack of flatbread and fruit. She poured herself a second cup of masala. “We’ll need the algorithm to compile trillions of datasets. That will be tricky, but I think we can maximize the run by limiting the significant digits. We have permission to begin at nine-thirty—in four minutes. Will you be ready?”

“Yes, we have access to the data now,” responded Ariel. “I was surprised to hear they permitted us. I was sure we would be rejected, or delayed at best.”

“I still have important connections.” Dov smiled. She sipped her tea. “I’m nervous about what we might find, but even more, nervous about what to do if the results are unexplainable.” She finished the tea and put down the mug. “While you two run the simulation, I am going to take a break and go for my walk. I need to think. After six days, if we can’t rule out the anomalies, this could be ridiculous.”

Dov put on her hiking shoes and a light jacket. At the door, she turned around and smiled. “See you both in a little while. Good luck.” She headed outside.

“What did she mean by ridiculous?” Uriel asked Ariel as they watched her disappear on her favorite path into the dense red forest.

The two-hundred-year-old forest had been Dov’s sanctuary as far back as she could recall. The trees were a blend of species from the boreal forests of northern Canada on Old Earth and a coniferous variant native to the local ecosystem. The emergent hybrids resulted in forests that grew many times taller than those in their original homes on Earth. The trees had been planted as a tribute to the namesake of the new city and dedicated by its founding citizens to recognize Pachamama’s Agreement on Harmony and Sustainability as the defining culture and legal foundation for all nations.

The park offered a place of meditation, where Dov could think, learn, and believe. When Dov’s parents chose to relocate and leave their daughter, Dov had elected to stay behind under the protection of the forest. To Dov, the trees reinforced confidence in her true passion, mathematics and physics. With each walk and visit to the forest, her imagination and logic thrived.

She followed the bio-pathway as it twisted and turned, hovering centimeters above the ground amongst the pine trees’ roots. At night the path shone in bioluminescence, but today in the bright sunlight it refracted as a dull yellow-green, gentle on her eyes. It rose gradually and floated upward until she hiked along the forest ceiling, and occasionally, far above the tree canopy, with a view of the entire town of New Washahikan.

The city of 5500 residents assimilated naturally into the topography of hills, lakes, and streams that defined its civic borders. From a distance, it would be difficult to discern the difference between an office building on a hillside from a grove of trees. No human residence, office, or social complex could rise above or dominate its surroundings. In the community, nature provided the basis for shelter and supplied energy, data, and communication transmission. This infrastructure created an ecosystem that allowed wilderness and humans to coexist peacefully.

Dov paused at the apex of the path, well above the forest canopy, and studied the horizon. By now, Ariel and Uriel would probably have completed the analysis. She already suspected what those results might be, but decided that now was neither the time nor the place to consider the stress of what was next. This was not the point of her walk. Still, she could not help feeling more anxious than usual.

Dov turned around. She intentionally sauntered slowly back. This time her goals were not defined by exercise metrics, and a few minutes longer would not change anything.

She arrived home knowing the analysis of the new datasets would be complete and either they had found an explanation, or she would have to rethink years of study. Beside her desk, Uriel and Ariel engaged in discussion, engrossed in the details of the results. She let them continue but grew impatient. She studied the dynamic visuals floating about her desk, a red line displaying prominently.

“Well?” Dov asked with a sense of resignation, “What did you find?”

Uriel hesitated, processing.

Dov recognized the hesitancy. She knew the data simulation run had yielded troubling outcomes. Uriel had been programmed to deliver bad news softly.

Uriel finally spoke. “The data simulation presented some challenges. Yet it is conclusive in its findings; we may be forced to refine our mathematical models.”

Dov felt her cheeks flush. “Okay.” She shook her head. “I guess I was ready for this, since nothing adds up. I’m ready—just tell me.”