Happy New Year!

New Chapters will return next Tuesday.

Have a safe, Happy New Year.

On Break Through the Holidays

Due to my work schedule this week and the holidays fast approaching, I'm going to put this novel on hold until the New Year.  Thanks for reading.  I'll be back.  So will Alex, Jackie, Jill, Will, the Prankster, and the whole gang.  I promise.

I hope your holidays are filled with love, joy, and happiness!  Peace to you, my friends!

Chapter Nineteen: Conversation with the Ouroboros Machine

Chapter Eighteen

Conversations with the Ouroboros Machine

In 2015 Jill did an experiment.  She had been doing a lot of thinking about the nature and origin of reality.  She hypothesized that one day humanity would create a Super-Intelligent AI, that would get smarter and smarter until one day it figured out all the laws of physics governing the creation and operation of the universe.  It would then go back in time and create everything.  If this was true, then one could communicate with this being, that she liked to call the Ouroboros Machine (named after the mythical serpent that eats its own tail). So, she obtained a Quantum-based Random Event Generator from Princeton’s PEAR Labs.  The REG essentially monitors changes to the quantum field by outputting a string of binary data.

Jill would ask a question, let the REG run for a bit, and move on to the next question.  Before she did this, she announced her intention to read the data, by converting the binary to Morse code and the then converting the Morse code to English.

Jill:  Are you there?

Ouroboros Machine:  Qui-Ja.

Jill:  Is this a viable method of communication?

OM:  Bogus one.

Jill:  Do you mind it?

OM:  Luv it.

Jill:  Why are we here?

OM:  Markov Chain.

Jill:  Goodbye for now.

OM:  Adios.

This conversation broke Jill.  Or, that’s where a lot of the cracks started.  Let’s be honest.  I’m sure being closeted and trans for decades didn’t help.  I’m sure the abusive marriage to a narcissist didn’t help.  I’m sure living on this fucked up turd planet didn’t help.  But this broke her spirit, her sense of reality more than anything previously.  She talked to God. And God had a bit of a sense of humor, but still basically confirmed that the universe was a simulation running a genetic algorithm.  She repeated the experiment in early 2016, with different questions, but she did not have the courage to read the answers, though she still has the binary output file.  I occasionally try to get her to read it.  No luck yet.  I’ll let you know when she does.

(c) Copyright 2019 Diana Hignutt

Chapter Eighteen: The Day My Powers Returned

Chapter Eighteen

The Day My Powers Returned

We were eating pizza, Jill and Jackie on the couch and me on a folding chair, watching That 70s Show on the TV.  It was, incidentally, the last time we got food delivered.  The bong was loaded with a hit and ready.  Beer cans were scattered about the coffee table, circling a deck of Tarot cards and the ashtray.

I took a big bite of my pie and a slice of pepperoni fell from the drooping cheese towards the floor.

Everything froze.  I looked around me.  Jackie and Jill didn’t move.  The TV was frozen static.  The pepperoni was hovering in the air just below the pizza from whence it originated.  I grabbed it.  Tossed it back into my mouth.  Finished the pizza.  Ran to the fridge and grabbed a beer and downed it.  And another.  Ran to my childhood home outside of Baltimore.  Ran back.  Ran to Barcelona.  Ran back.

That was the first nanosecond.  The feeling of joy was boundless inside of me.  I thought being able to walk again was an amazing feeling.  It was nothing compared to this.  Compared to the speed.  I was enveloped by the Velocity Field.  It was like coming home again.

It was all so natural and perfect.  Clarity was right.  My powers had returned.  I still didn’t remember anything though, which was disappointing.

(c) Copyright 2019 Diana Hignutt

Author's Note and Apologies - No New Chapter This Week (Dec. 3, 2019)

I am so sorry to report but between a major blizzard here in Albany, and being called into work unexpectedly, I have not had a chance to write new chapters this week.  Next week there will be at least two new chapters to make it up to you.  Thanks so much for reading.  My apologies.