Strings: something big is about to happen...

  Strings

  something big is about to happen...

  by

  B. A. Spicer

  Copyright 2012 B. A. Spicer

  All rights reserved. This material may not be duplicated, in any form, without express, written permission from the author.

  Strings

  The night sky was littered with bright points of light. In the countryside, if you stopped to look, there was a whole different universe above your head. Most people didn’t stop, or look. Madeleine Happer tapped out a cigarette and, taking a long drag on it, shook her head, blowing the smoke out between her teeth. Only now could she feel her muscles soften and the knot in her brain loosen. She was thirty, exceptionally clever, and in her element out here, leaning against the bonnet of her car, watching the imperceptible progress of the constellations, identifying stars with a familiarity that would impress any amateur astronomer. But Madeleine was no amateur.

  She groaned and put her head back, feeling the stretch in her throat, the crackling in her neck, squeezing her eyes shut.

  “Where are you? What are you! What the hell is going on?”

  She knew that no one was listening. That her questions would go unanswered. For now, at least. The silent night closed in around her and eventually she shivered, pushing off the car to feel the earth balance beneath her feet. She made one last circular sweep of the sky before sighing deeply and climbing back inside the car. Her body felt heavy and her mind was exhausted from going round and round, chasing an idea that would not come to her.

  She checked her watch - 1.00am. Hugh would be waiting up. He would ring soon. She looked at herself in the rear view mirror. Was she losing it? The engine coughed into life and the lights of the dashboard flashed on, making Madeleine stare and frown for a moment longer. In the pit of her stomach was a feeling she could not explain. It was as though everything around her had suddenly become more precious.

  “God damn it!”

  As she drove, the shadows changed from lumpy ground and strangely lit undergrowth to the grey-black sheen of pleasant country roads lined with tangled trees and the mysterious spaces between. Still she struggled to bring her thoughts out into the light.

  She took the next turn to the right and, two minutes from home, the telephone rang. There was no point in answering. Hugh was waiting, a slight, comical figure in the open doorway, his dressing gown tied loosely, his feet bare on the pale step. Madeleine killed the engine and saw him wave.

  “Hugh, you have to believe me!” she murmured to herself.

  And then he opened the driver’s door. Hugh would never believe her.

  *****

  “Ratch nor dwl! Ratch!”

  “Maddy. Wake up.”

  Madeleine opened her eyes and burst into tears. It wasn’t like her. It wasn’t like her at all.

  Hugh put his arms around her. “It’s all right. Come here.”

  Madeleine sobbed uncontrollably, not because she was upset, but from sheer frustration. She knew that, if she looked into her husband’s face, all she would see would be fear and concern. Fear and concern for her state of mind, when there was something so much bigger, so much more important for him to worry about.

  “We’re going to see the doc tomorrow. I’ve got the morning off. Best get this sorted out. Come on, I’ll make the coffee. Come on.”

  With a final deeply felt shudder and a strange, low growl, Madeleine allowed her husband to help her up and put a dressing gown around her. Hugh was having a hard time believing her. Hell, she was having a hard time believing herself!

  Outside, the sky was white. Cloud cover was complete. She scanned for breaks, unable to resist, in spite of the fact she knew that Hugh was watching. She craned her neck and thought about going out into the garden to see the clues she was missing. It was foolish not to be looking out. Looking out for signs of… what? What exactly was she expecting to see? Still she searched the sky, but found nothing.

  “Christ!” She felt as though she were the only person in the world who knew something was happening.

  Hugh lit the stove and set the kettle on the hob.

  “Soon have some heat.”

  The banality of his comment made her wince and she sat down reluctantly in the chair he had pulled out, tapping her fingers on the table while he sliced bread for toast, found the butter and jam in the pantry and set two cups next to the kettle. Spooning coffee into the pot, he stared out at the Shropshire countryside, rolling hills and forests. Maddy knew what he was thinking: beautiful.

  He didn’t speak again until the coffee had been poured. “There. Drink some of this. The toast’ll be along in a sec.”

  She looked at him with the expression that she knew he dreaded. She could see him thinking: If only she would not say anything. If only this morning, she could keep quiet.

  But how could she ignore this certainty inside her? “It won’t be long, now. You’ll see.”

  Hugh nodded, pulling out a second chair and sitting close. Too close. He took her hand and she shook it off.

  “Are you working again today? You could go back to bed and rest for a while.” Maddy’s jaw tightened. He knew she wouldn’t reply, but he always asked, anyway. He knew that she hated him to interfere, so why did he do it?

  “I won’t be back until seven tonight. Got a meeting.” He told her this as though he were speaking to a child.

  Madeleine Happer, astrophysicist and, apparently, as mad as a March hare, waited until she could no longer hear her husband’s car and then she started to laugh. She needed to explode, now that there was space to do so. To let herself go.

  A few minutes later, still smiling, she left her toast and carried the coffee to her office. Her expression, when she surveyed the clutter of papers on her desk, became less frivolous. There was so much to do and yet, what was the point, when no one would believe a word she said? But study and research had been her life. She didn’t know whether she could imagine not going on with it. No matter what.

  String theory. It wasn’t a new idea by any means. Matter smaller than the smallest microscopically visible quanta, unproven and yet irresistible, essential, if a theory of everything were to be possible. A unification of all the laws of physics. An explanation that held true for the visible world, with its laws of cause and effect, and also for the world of the quantum universe, where matter could appear and disappear seemingly at random. String theory was the answer.

  And so, as she had done every morning for the past six weeks, she went over the equations that had led her to the vision which had brought clarity and yet could not be recorded in any meaningful form. Ha! Vision! An eminently simple model, and yet, after getting so far on paper, impossible to tie down, like the laws of the quantum universe, in fact, constantly contradicting themselves. If she presented such a paper to the department, she would be laughed at. Especially now that her husband had actually made her an appointment to see the local quack!

  She pulled out her chair and put her head in her hands. Every great discovery in science went back to basics. The most elegant laws were the simplest. And so… from the very large, to the very small there must be a bridge, a connection… For years, physicists had tried, with varying degrees of success, to divide particles into their component parts. Splitting the atom had just been the beginning! So, she took up her pen. If the final divisions were beyond the capabilities of current instrumentation, how could any scientific investigation be continued? Once the particle accelerators had done all that could be done and the tanks buried deep underground had detected evidence of quanta so tiny that they could pass through the earth in a flash, what next? More experiments? More use of the massive to detect
the practically massless? No. The human brain was the only instrument for the job. Madeleine had seen the answer, and that meant others had too. The fact that it had come and gone so quickly, that it was impossible to describe, was a hurdle that would have to be overcome. But, above all this, there was the terrifying knowledge that it was too late. Something was coming. Of this, she was certain. Something that the planet, even the solar system, would not survive.

  What had she got? Strings. Coils of elementary particles (as yet, unseen, unproven) lit (yes, that was the right word), lit with apertures, infinite in number, which led (led – was there a pathway?) to an infinite number of universes. From the unimaginably tiny, right back to the unimaginably large. Coil upon coil. Apertures. Portals to worlds so different from the one human beings were familiar with. Unimaginably different.

  Even in the known universe there were objects so miraculous as to be beyond belief. There were suns hundreds of times bigger than the earth’s star, some so massive they could contain the solar system and all that was in it, from the centre to as far as Jupiter or beyond.

  Maddy thought about her dream. Of the strange shapes of one kind or another, which travelled at impossible speeds and filled the sky in a final flash that woke her. If, in known universes, scales could vary so much, who knew what could happen in so-called parallel universes? The possibilities were limitless. Maddy shuddered.

  *****

  They didn’t exactly run, it was more of a freefall, curling and zipping like birds, chasing after each other. The boosters they used to change direction left trails, so they wrote messages across the sky to each other.

  In space there is no sound, but inside their protective forcefields, music played. They had no need of radios, as thoughts passed between them more easily than words. Ti selected a hologram and played her favourite game. La bombed into it and a new chase began. Rim and Lon laughed and joined the battle, until Sim alerted them, with important news.

  “System choice update. Approaching small collection. One hot, four solid, four gas. All require enhanced magnification.”

  The players viewed the screen that Sim had illuminated, zooming in and out at various magnifications, to reveal the next solar system along their route.

  “The blue one is pretty,” Ti communicated.

  “Granted,” the others agreed. “But you’ll never catch it.”

  “Why not? Are you forgetting we have the new equipment, numbskulls?”

  “How many hots do we need?” asked Rim.

  Sim put up the targets: one hot, two gas, one solid.

  “Distance to system?”

  “Nine blips.”

  The players checked their nets and made their choices.

  *****

  “Tell me about your visions,” said Doctor Fielding.

  Madeleine had only agreed to the visit to satisfy Hugh. Perhaps, if she went along with the consultation, he would leave her to finish her work in peace. If there were time.

  “What do you want to know, doctor?”

  “You could tell me when they started.” He crossed his legs and took off his glasses.

  “Around a month ago.”

  “I see.” He waited.

  Madeleine saw what was happening. If she didn’t speak up, they would be there all day.

  “I’m a physicist. My research has been focused on string theory. My vision, if you want to call it that, provides a glimpse of the things that science cannot yet reveal.”

  “What would you call it, if not a vision?”

  Maddy thought for a moment, wondering why this mattered, and hoping that the doctor would not pick on every detail, arguing semantics, to extend the visit.

  “I have thought of it in many ways: an insight, a recognition, a truth. Surely it happens in your area of expertise, Doctor Fielding?”

  “Certainly.”

  “And what would you call it?”

  The doctor smiled.

  “I am aware that these, truths, appear to you mainly at night. Would you ever refer to them as dreams, Professor Happer?”

  She was sure that the doctor knew that both she and Hugh had already done so. “Not deliberately, no.”

  “What exactly do you mean when you say, ‘not deliberately’?”

  Maddy sighed.

  *****

  “How was it?” asked Hugh, when they were sitting in the car.

  She wanted to be flippant, but she decided to box clever. “Helpful. He’s a good listener.” She tried a smile, but it came out as a grimace. Hugh would not be fooled.

  “Did you make another appointment?”

  “Next week.” If there were a next week!

  “Good. I thought we might go to the park. Get some picnic stuff from Marks?”

  “Don’t you have to get back?”

  “Not until two. What do you say?”

  “All right.”

  The park was busy, but they found a bench and opened their sandwiches.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” She hadn’t actually asked him directly.

  He stopped chewing and looked at her, and in the smallest measurement of time, before he had arranged the expression on his face, she saw that he did.

  “No. Of course I don’t think you’re crazy. Christ, Maddy. I just want you to be… more like you used to be, that’s all. I think this research you’re doing is getting to you.” He took her hand.

  She resisted the urge to pull it free. “It’s just work, Hugh. I’m really onto something. Something important.”

  Some kids were playing marbles on the path, but the surface was too rough, affecting their trajectory. They launched them fast and hard, and were surprisingly accurate, scattering the coloured glass and falling about hysterically when they won, cheering loudly. The very big and the very small.

  “You have to try to trust me, Hugh.”

  “I know, I know. It’s just that… you talk in your sleep, Maddy.” He blurted out this last comment, looking at her with something like terror in his eyes. “You say things that don’t make sense.”

  “What things?” She wanted to know. Why hadn’t he mentioned this before?

  “It sounds like another language. And it’s always the same thing. It’s… weird.”

  “What do I say, Hugh?”

  “I can’t. I can’t say it. It doesn’t mean anything. It’s not English, Maddy. It’s not any kind of language that I can recognise.”

  That night, she set up the recorder and microphone next to her bed. Six hours. Hopefully, that would be long enough.

  *****

  Sim sent out a signal that they should rest. There were eight blips to go and they would need their strength. “Sweet dreams,” he said. The players became still and continued falling through the vast emptiness of space. Their long, long quest nearing its conclusion. Their victory practically in the bag.

  *****

  “Ratch nor dwl! Ratch!” Maddy listened over and over again to the recording.

  “When did I start saying this?”

  “About three weeks ago. It was after you’d been out. You came back so late and you were pale, so pale, Maddy. I was worried.”

  “God damn it, Hugh! Why didn’t you say anything!”

  “I… I thought it was just a dream. I thought it would stop.”

  “Ratch nor dwl! Ratch!” It sounded aggressive, or at least forceful. There was stress on the word ‘ratch’.

  “What does it sound like to you?” she asked him.

  “Like an order,” he replied, “or like a celebration.”

  “A celebration. Yes.”

  Maddy worked all day on her paper. ‘Strings and Wormholes. A Study of the Very Big and the Very Small.’ The department was keen on papers that could be presented to the interested public. It brought notoriety to the university, which sparked curiosity from further afield, which, in turn, generated income. You never knew who might be listening.

  As she worked, she was constantly aware of a thought, deep-rooted and, for the moment
, still hidden. It was a state of mind she recognised. Sooner or later, the thought would surface and become an insight. That was a good word for it. But so was ‘truth’ or ‘recognition’ or even ‘understanding’. There were so many words that very nearly explained the moment when everything clicked into place, when a hunch became a deeply felt perception. To Maddy, it was a moment she lived for, it was her own kind of ecstasy. If only she could catch this one and tie it down. She laughed. It would be like catching quanta in a butterfly net. Impossible. The image stayed with her. There she was, running around, able to sense the microscopic universe, and attempting to trap some of it in a contraption obviously inadequate for the task. She would need a special kind of net, and an enhanced perception to be able to ‘see’ what was normally invisible. She worked with a smile on her face, always aware of the thought that was doing its best to emerge. When it did, she would grab it.

  *****

  “Awake, team-members!” Sim sent out a signal and the players stirred.

  “Uh?” thought Rim.

  Li poked Rom with a joke and he turned somersaults.

  “Two blips,” announced Sim. “Illuminating screen. Confirm your choices.”

  “Shall we take the hot one?”

  “Does it support life?” asked, Ti.

  “Affirmative,” replied Sim. “Third solid from the hot. At sub quanta levels. Observe.”

  On the screen, strange granular objects appeared, made of various identifiable elements. Some characteristic of animate, some of inanimate forms.

  “There is evidence of organisation and, in previous studies, this has been proven to assume some level of intelligence.”

  The players passed their thoughts around.

  “We need a hot. One last one, to have victory. We can use the discretionary rule.” Rim waited for a response.