Anna Maria
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Summary
Prologue - Letters from Anna Maria and the Duke of
Genesis – God lives in Chiswick
The Marginals –
Psi-Star – Victorian Ignorance is Bliss
Déjà Vu - Oxford’s Reality
Multiplication
Dead
Girl’s Song – York’s Resident
Ghost
Save
Devon from this Filth – Righteous
Citizens of Sidmouth
Kill That
Prime Minister –
London’s Library from the Future
Ham
III Time Paradox - The Uncertainty of King George Varney
The
Box on the Seven Dials –
Scale
Universes - The
Anna
Maria in 300 Words
In God lives in Chiswick,
Anna Maria and the Duke of Connaught meet Ms Barnsworth, a mentally ill patient
who claims she’s from another universe in which she is sent to a space station
around Jupiter. She is also apparently capable of creating human beings out of
the vacuum of space.
In The Marginals, our heroes
meet two scientists who are studying statistical probabilities, predictions of
the future and people’s behaviours. When they meet they realise that they are a
perfect match but don't dare admit to it in order to avoid being the victim of
this predestination.
In Psi-Star we find out
about how Anna Maria at 18 learned to cope with being the most psychic woman
alive whilst developing quantum computers in
In Déjà Vu they get to fear
a Professor from
In Dead Girl’s Song, we meet
a special ghost from
In Righteous Citizens of Sidmouth,
our characters have to fight against a small group of people who denounce
online inhabitants who do not conform to their beliefs.
In London’s Library from the Future,
it is not easy to distinguish the reality from what books from the future are describing.
Should they destroy the career of the Prime Minister or not?
In The Uncertainty of King
George Varney, the existence of some of our descendants is due to a temporal paradox,
and the survival of humanity after two world wars depends on Anna Maria
finishing the work she started years ago.
In The Box on the Seven Dials,
the Duke of Connaught experiences for himself what mind powers can do to his
own personal existence.
Finally, in Shrinking
Universe, we visit other scale universes.
Letter from Anna Maria to the Duke of
Humanity does
not yet understand many things on this Earth. I am proof of that, no one has
been able to explain to me who I am, and I am still trying to figure it out
myself. For a long time I thought I was alone in this world, a lone and lost
woman. I thought I met people like me, I know now that I am unique.
Arthur, do
you believe that you know me? Would you recognise me if I were to meet you somewhere
on the street? I know you would not, but I see through you, I know everything
there is about you. I know what you think, I know your past, I would guess your
most probable futures. I could even tell you where you were and who you were
before you were even born. I could also tell you when you will be.
Nothing
unusual I guess, there are many psychic mediums on this planet capable of such
things, and for a while I accepted that, I was just another one of those crazy
clairvoyants who could predict the future, even though I never did open for
business. I never needed to, I was born very rich from parents who, just like
my friend Bertrand Russell, died when I was still a child. However, my parents
are still present in my life, so I’m never alone.
This whole adventure started with a scientific
mind. I was a young and promising scientist working in a variety of fields, as
I was fascinated by any mystery underlying this world. Who are we, what is this
universe we are living in, and what is our role or purpose, if any, in that
universe? How’s everything working? What is the science underlying all this
that could explain any phenomenon?
So I
studied on my own philosophy, psychology, the mind, my mind, which for some
reason never appeared to work the same way as everyone else. I was also highly
interested in theoretical physics, perhaps I thought I could find there some
answers to explain scientifically what was happening to me. Bertrand has been
my mentor all those years, even though he is but a ghost.
I could try to explain my life, I could never
be certain that I was right. I then looked into many New Age movements, their
beliefs, which led to reading a lot about religion and mystic philosophies.
This was another dead end, because I could not picture the universe the way
they did. Perhaps it was just a barrier of language or vocabulary and we’re all
ultimately talking about the same concepts. But I continued on my own,
understanding that no answer would come from any other human being or school of
thought.
For a
while I was considered like a genius mind, I made many discoveries in so many
different fields, even though I had not carefully studied any of them. In fact,
I don’t even have a degree, I just had many interests, and my strange abilities
gave me the chance to work in these fields.
I live in
Also that
anyone who got too close to me, with a genuine interest in what could be called
paranormal phenomena, would have liked nothing better than imprison me into a
lab and dissect my brain for posterity, hoping somehow to get some answers
about my abilities. Unfortunately my brain scans showed nothing unusual, maybe
it is at an esoteric level that something could be witnessed. And I’ve gone
through so many tests in my life which did not bring any answer, that there’s
no way I would like to be a lab rat again. You have been warned.
I lived
in the closet long enough. Before I die, I need someone to write all these
extraordinary events which have marked my existence. Don’t ask me why, I know
that someone is you, even though the thought has not yet entered your mind. It
would be more to help anyone who may have been born like me, with the gift. I
know damn well that it is not a gift, it is a curse, but I will let you be the
judge of that.
If I can
help people like me, then it is my duty to do so before it’s too late. However,
the way it is going, I might never die. I would not be surprised, I am
healthier than anyone I know. I take huge risks while people tell me that I’m
crazy and that I could die. I laugh all heartily, I know that I have yet many
years to live in front of me. I know when I will die with certainty. I could go
into ice water right now, naked, and I would survive. And I did it many times
in the last few years.
Because
of my gift, I never stayed anywhere for too long. I lived in
Every
time I moved to another city or country, I thought it would be different,
meeting new people who had no clue about my secret abilities. I was wrong, it
kept growing like if I was a shining light, a beacon attracting the weirdest
events, and often, the weirdest people. I had nothing like a normal life, and
when you hear it all first hand, you will say: she’s mad, she belongs into an asylum.
I nearly ended up there many times, believe me.
I know
things I should not know. I feel I am not real and that all the reality
surrounding me is an illusion. At night I can slow time down, and then, a whole
new universe opens up to me. In there I can meet ghosts, other weird souls from
other worlds, and I can acquire knowledge that will never be known to the world
for hundreds of years.
My
experiences have brought me to the brink of insanity. For a while my family and
I thought I had a serious mental illness. My brain would switch on, it could
last for weeks and months. In these periods, I was completely dysfunctional,
but I reasoned like a genius mind. I could suddenly play piano like a virtuoso,
I could tell you more about how to unite Relativity and Quantum Mechanics than
any other theoretical physicists. By slowing time, it gives me the chance to see
the world differently, to switch timelines, to change my reality. This is only
the tip of the iceberg.
My quest
is to find out how I acquire this knowledge which seems to appear out of
nowhere. I am looking for the one person in the world who can understand and
help me. I will find that in you, Arthur, but it is not everything I will
expect. A friendship will form, where the established reality will be
questioned to its limits. Can we travel in time? Can we acquire a knowledge
known to no one without having done any research about it? Can we meet weird
entities from other worlds? Can we build our own fantasy world, from which we
can acquire knowledge? This is a fantastic journey, dealing with real issues.
As long as I can prove that I am not a mental case. It is a story about the
means to get there. It is not a perfect science, there are drawbacks, and the
source of the knowledge needs to be identified.
I am far
from having all the answers, despite what many people think. With your help,
Arthur, we may get closer to the truth.
Anna Maria
Answer from the Duke of
Madam, I
acknowledge reception of your letter and that you are my neighbour when I’m in
Prince
Arthur of
Duke of
MI5, Director General
Sidmouth,
God lives in Chiswick
My name
is Prince Arthur of
I am the Director
General of MI5, the British Security Service. There is little I could actually
write which concerns my employment at MI5, however there is a part of my work
which is not classified, though we would not advertise it anywhere from fear of
ridicule. I have been often accused of spending more time investigating those
paranormal and unexplained phenomena than being worried about terrorism. And
this is how I got to know my best friend yet, Anna Maria.
Anna Maria has been described by our service to
be the most psychic woman alive, and she sure helped me out on many cases in
the past which have never attracted any attention from the media. These little short
stories I intend to write about our experiences are for the purpose of
documenting these strange events in case some other investigators might
eventually be confronted with similar puzzling situations.
I apologise
for my writing style, I’m afraid you will not find here fanciful descriptions
or poetry. I am no Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, an author both Anna Maria and I
admire very much. Her because she identifies with his character Sherlock Holmes,
following our little investigations, me because Sherlock Holmes stories were required
reading for any agent working at MI5 or New Scotland Yard, where I was posted
for many years in the past.
When I am in
Anna
lives in the house next door, which is how we met. Her house is like one of these
old English cottages, located just beside where the philosopher Bertrand
Russell used to live while he was alive. Russell’s ghost is apparently a daily
companion of Anna Maria, which might explained why she loves the area so much.
There is something
striking once you get inside her little house with a roof made of thatched
straw. Inside it is more like a bunker not even touching the walls of the
house, and which could resist a nuclear attack. In time I will get to explain in
detail why this is so, but it will not be in this present case.
I will
however state here that I noted a lift which appeared to be indicating many floors
down, though I was only aware of one staircase going to the second floor. This
is where we meet most of the time, in a sort of conservatory with a circular
skylight window all around, with unfinished paintings everywhere and a huge
telescope in the middle.
Anna is a
very talented painter, although she would never admit to it, as she continues
to maintain that she is not the one painting them, others do it through her. That
statement would be impossible to believe if her paintings did not show so many
different styles. One would have a hard time proving they were all made by the
same artist. And I know something about this, having worked with New Scotland
Yard on fake art for a long time.
The first time I have met Anna Maria, it is not
I who enticed her help, but her who would not leave me alone until I finally
sat down and listened to what she had to say. She was my neighbour after all,
and I noticed her stunning beauty over and over again. I would have never dared
looking at her for too long, or even talk to her, unless it was an emergency.
There was
a terrorist attack being planned that we knew about, and we were getting ready
to make our move, however Anna was convinced that we would miss our shot and
many people, including innocent citizens, would die. That alone would not have
warranted my attention, she did though know so much about what we were doing,
and completed so well the poor intelligence we had, in the end I either had to
imprison her for being a terrorist, or some sort of spy, or believe her claims
that she was a psychic medium and take her advice.
Today I’m
glad I did exactly what she told me to do, because we averted a crisis which
would have certainly resulted in many deaths. I could start by telling you that
story, but it is so less fantastic than the others I will tell you now, that I
feel it can wait for another time. Once this terrorism case was over, I
intended to use her for other cases, but she had something else in mind:
“Now that
I’ve helped you, let me explain the reason I really wanted to contact you.”
“What,” I
said, “was it not to save so many people from these terrorists that you decided
to attract my attention?”
She
laughed and said: “It is not my job to play spy and do the work of the good
people at MI5, it would be a double full time job. Beside, I am interested in
something completely different and more rewarding than ‘little desperate
terrorists’. I am on a mission to unravel the unexplained.”
She was
in fact very much into anything related to the paranormal, which could
eventually lead, I was guessing, to proving that perhaps she was not so weird
after all, and maybe, just maybe, one day we could understand these phenomena
and explain them from a science’s perspective.
Anna
Maria described to me at the time that there was a woman in a military mental
institute who needed our help, as she was not crazy after all and she could
prove it somehow, as she had seen what that lunatic was claiming to have gone
through.
I could
not refuse her anything after what she had done for us, so one day I picked her
up at her house in
Phew! What’s
the head of MI5 doing here? If my subordinates or the press got wind of this, I
thought, my rivals would have a field day.
Without
me Anna Maria could have never talked to Ms Alice Barnsworth. I was equally
surprised by the security at that military base, where even the head of MI5 had
to pull many strings to get access to. I remember asking the soldier at the
entrance at the time: “Are you keeping UFOs and dead alien bodies here or
what?” Which he only answered with a sarcastic smile which, to this day, I’m
still trying to interpret.
Once we
were introduced inside the building, we found Ms Barnsworth in a cathartic
state, she was unconscious in her room. As soon as Anna Maria posed her hand on
“Oh, Ms
Anna Maria, so nice of you to come and help, so you have received my call?”
“Oh yes,”
Anna answered.
“How
could she, I’ve been told you were not given the opportunity to contact anyone
on the outside,” I promptly added.
“There
are other means to contact me,” smiled Anna. And she quickly went to the point:
“Though I have a good idea of what you went through, Ms Barnsworth, I would be
grateful if you could tell us now in presence of a witness, the Duke of Connaught
here”.
“Pray,
tell me why my presence is required as a witness?” I wondered out loud.
“Simple
Arthur,” (Anna always called me Arthur from the start), “we need an official
account in Britain’s archive from a reliable source that Ms Alice Barnsworth is
in fact the God of her own universe she created recently.”
I looked
at Maria straight in the eye, thinking she was about to laugh at this joke,
then I looked at Alice, afraid she might be upset by this claim, and then I
could no longer contain myself, I laughed so hard, I feel the whole base heard
me. I only stopped once I realised that I was upsetting them both. And then I
rationalised that it must have been a figure of style, an allegory or
something, and I was about to understand what she meant by such a preposterous
claim.
“No doubt
there must be a banal explanation for this statement, I have to admit that you
have piqued my curiosity. Let’s sit down and hear it all,” I said embarrassed,
and we sat down and
“As you
know, Ms Maria, I was posted until recently on the Saturn Space Station where
some unusual event happened in my life. I was a good soldier with a strong
imagination. I never thought it could lead to the creation of a new universe.”
“Wait a
minute,” I said, “you need to realise that you have been judged instable
mentally, you were obviously dreaming whatever you are saying to us.”
“Please,
Arthur, listen to her,” said Anna.
“No,” I
added quickly, “nothing could be served from entertaining the idea that Ms
Barnsworth, no disrespect intended, is all right. Her path to recovery must
first pass by us telling her the truth. There is no space station around
Saturn, Ms Barnsworth. I am the head of MI5, if we had such a space station, no
matter how secret this project would be, I would know about it.”
Anna
Maria looked at me and smiled. “Arthur, you need to understand that Ms
Barnsworth is not from our reality, she’s from another universe, if you wish.”
“You
expect me to believe this? What proof can you offer me?” I bluntly said.
“For a
start, here is Ms Barnsworth’s folder which I obtained under your own authority
from the investigation the doctor on the base did a few weeks ago. You will
find that Ms Barnsworth was a soldier with a magnificent record, who died
during the Gulf War in 1991. She is buried in a military cemetery around here. You
will also find that Ms Barnsworth here present has the exact same DNA that was taken
from the corpse at the autopsy. They dug out her body as they could not believe
it, and it is verified that she is dead. How do you explain it?”
I snatched
the folder from her hands and read it aloud:
“We
cannot explain how there appear to be a second Alice Barnsworth, a soldier
attached to this base in 1991, as she died in Iraq 15 years ago. It has been surmised
that she is her identical twin, as they share the same DNA. No proof has been
found that Ms Barnsworth ever had a twin. If she had, her twin would have had
to be in the military as well, as demonstrated by the aptitudes and knowledge
of Ms Barnsworth. It is improbable that this knowledge could have been
transmitted by her twin sister before she died, since Ms Barnsworth is aware of
many other top secret dossiers which only occurred after 1991. It is
interesting to note that despite her knowledge of these top secret files, she
still sometimes have it wrong, and have no knowledge of other files which we
would assume her to also be aware of. She claims that she was part of the ‘Time
Project,’ a top military secret about a machine capable of transporting her to
parallel universes, but to the best of our knowledge there is no such project
on this base or anywhere else in the United Kingdom.”
“This is
science fiction,” I finally said while this was sinking in. “It is more likely
that you have a vivid imagination. Anna, do you have any idea how busy I am?
That terrorist cell you helped us with, it is one out of dozens… all ready to
explode at a moment’s notice.”
“How do
you explain my death? I never died in 1991, I never went to
“A chip?
Like dogs and cats have?” I asked. “Any veterinarian could have given you one.
No need for a parallel universe for that.”
“With
that much data about me on it, including my life story up to my financial
details? And what’s more, you can read it in your report, the chip confirms that
I am an astronaut attached to a space station around Saturn.”
I read
through the report, and it did confirm that part of her story. So I had to say:
“It’s an elaborate hoax, nothing more. Your veterinarian had a good joke at
your expense, I suggest he hypnotised you. Congratulations for having fooled a
few militaries willing to believe anything.”
At that
moment
“What do
you mean?” I answered.
“I have
this ability to transfer images to other people’s mind. I can show you what I
have seen.”
“Really?
You do realise that if you can achieve such a feat, I will keep you under
observation at MI5 for years to come?”
She
smiled and said: “I know you will want to do so, I know you will not do so. Unlike
you I am aware of the probabilities of all my possible futures.”
She
closed her eyes and instantly a flow of images came into my mind. I could see
myself in some sort of space shuttle docking at a space station near the rings
of Saturn. It was amazing, a vivid dream like nothing I had experienced before.
I could see real images like if they were coming from a television set, but
directly into my mind. That alone ought to be more fantastic than the story of
Ms
Barnsworth continued her narrative, and as she did so, the images of her story
came to my mind via Anna. We found ourselves in a huge room on this actual
base, with what resembled what I could only describe as a Z Machine like the
one they have built in
“That
machine was initially supposed to help us travel in time, however after that
huge burst of energy I found myself in what I believe to be a parallel universe,”
I felt
the need at this point to get out of this vision and get back to reality. I
grasp the arm of Anna Maria and suddenly everything was back to normal. “How do
you know these visions are real? Maybe you’re capable of seeing images of her
own imagination?”
“I would
know the difference. Besides, there are things about me you don’t know yet. This
phenomenon is not new to me, I do live in many parallel universes at the same
time, many different timelines all at once, in as many time periods as there
are,” she said.
“This does not make any sense,” I mumbled.
“What about me, then? Do I exist in all those parallel universes?”
“Oh yeah, you do in many of them,” she added.
“It might surprise you that we are linked in many timelines, though you’re not
always the head of MI5, which does not make it easier in all those universes
where we are investigating our cases. From my point of view, our friendship and
working relationship is not new, it is as old as time itself. Most of my powers
at predicting the future come from my foreknowledge of other parallel
universes. I am not always right because there is no way for me to know exactly
what will happen in this actual timeline, I only know the probability of an
event occurring, based of what happened in other worlds where time is running
faster than here. Timelines are not all running in parallel at the exact same
time, some of them are years in front of us, others years late compared to our
own time.”
“So you say I will eventually believe you, and
work with you on a regular basis?” I said a bit more alarmed than I would have
liked to.
“Oh yes, you are my long time helpful
companion, and don’t worry, we do not marry in most timelines,” she added
almost as a joke, which I was unsure of how to take.
At that
point Alice Barnsworth became impatient: “Right you two, perhaps you can sort
your problems out later, I have a feeling our time here is limited. Do you want
to hear my story or not?”
To which
I answered: “Right, for what’s it’s worth…” And she continued.
“I knew I
was part of a special project, I knew I was supposed to have travelled in time,
and somehow ended up in a weird sort of reality on Saturn. It made no sense to
me, and instead of shutting my big mouth, I went straight to the doctor on the
station and told him everything. You can guess the results…”
“You were
declared there as you were declared here: a lunatic,” I said.
“More or
less. They were not as barbaric, at the very least,” she added. “I was confirmed
unfit for duty. Little I knew that soon I would totally agree with them.”
“How so?”
Anna Maria felt the need to ask.
“Because
nothing can explain what happened next,” she answered.
To which
I replied: “How can you even begin to explain what happened before?” She looked
at me with hard eyes, so I stopped and she continued.
“Soon I
woke up suddenly floating in space, without even a space suit, and I could breathe!
I could see Saturn in the background, the space station, it was wonderful! I
was thinking I would never want to leave such a place. I could live here
forever, that was my thought.”
“Can I…
Anna, would you let me see this?” I said out of curiosity. And she answered:
“Of course.”
I have to
say, this was incredible. I instantly realised the impact that words alone
could never achieve. I saw that planet in all its colours, those rings made of
smaller parts, that great space station we, humans, had succeeded in building
in some parallel universe. I almost cried, as it seemed so real! At that point
I wanted to believe, this had to be real! Or else, I would have wanted to
remain connected to such a mind that could recreate something even our probes
and huge space telescopes could not even report back. A photograph will never
do justice to the real thing.
“Soon I
began to think I was very much alone in my time spent in space. I started to
understand this universe, this primordial soup of electrons appearing in a blank
space, galaxies forming, and finally I dreamed up in my mind one man, the
perfect man, the man of my dreams. He appeared there, out of nowhere, and I was
ecstatic. I was happy beyond belief. The only problem was that I created some
sort of monster, or half human, or perhaps he was too human after all. He could
not simply accept this reality. He was wondering, questioning, trying to understand.
“‘What am
I doing here?’ he would often say. ‘What is this place? What is the purpose of
this world? What am I supposed to do?’
“At which
point I panicked and went back to the station. The only problem though was that
every time I came back from a little trip in space, I found myself in a dire
situation where people thought I was in a coma. I could also not just wish
myself to be in space. Going there to meet my new friend I created required a
lot of focussed mental energy, or something similar, I can’t really explain it.
Can you?”
I looked
at Anna Maria, to whom the question was directed. I could not stop from
pointing out that no one in their right mind could explain any of this.
She
simply smiled: “Pray, continue your fascinating adventure.”
“It didn’t
help that I was definitely suffering from hallucinations. Rapidly I was
declared schizophrenic, someone who could have a cataleptic fit at anytime.
They were trying to link this to a new sickness related to space travel, while
I was trying to explain that it must be the result of travelling to a parallel
world, at which point it was clear I was delusional to everyone. They let me
walked freely on the station anyway, figuring that I was not very dangerous and
it was like a prison that no one could escape at any rate. Or so they thought,
because it was not long before my next episode. In my mind I had recurring
dreams, one with a weird disconnected universe with a single human in it,
living in space without any need for a spacesuit. The second time around I
found him there alone, looking at the stars, pensive. I wondered how long he
had been like that contemplating the universe, in a vegetative state, like a
tree lost in space. He answered:
“‘Why,
since I last saw you of course. You took a long time to come back. I seem to be
aware of the universe, capable of mathematical equations in my head about how
it works. I can see there is much awareness out there as well. I need to know
more, you need to tell me.’
“I was so
astonished that he had not simply disappeared when I did, I felt deep pity for
him. For days he remained there thinking. That’s not a life!”
“I know
some philosophers who could not dream of a better existence,” Anna Maria said.
But Ms Barnsworth did not think so.
“Anyway,
I decided to create a house for him, with a bedroom so he could sleep in at
night, though for him there was no such concept in his mind.
“‘What
are those nights and days you are talking about? Why do I need a house or even
why would I sleep? You’re not making any sense. And what do you do on that
space station of yours when you’re not here with me? I have so many questions
to ask, please don’t ever leave me again.’
“So I
built the house in the background, and some plates of marble on which he could
walk in space to his house. At the end of the path I put a well filled with
water, even though I’m not even certain if I thought as far as to wonder where
would the water would come from. It was just there, and I instructed him to
take some and drink on a regular basis, or he would die. And then I thought
about food, but decided that this could wait, as I did not want to simply
create a machine making food appear out of nowhere, I would never hear the end
of his questions about where that food came from in the first place. Thankfully
he didn’t question the well, or where the water came from. He did ask where the
house came from, and I had to tell him I just wished it and there it was. He
wondered why he did not have these abilities, and so I gave it to him. I said
from now on you can dream and create whatever you want. So we waited, for him
to create something, but nothing appeared. I asked:
“‘Don’t
you want to try your new powers? Don’t you want to create something?’
“He
looked at me blandly, he was like a blank storage device, and I told him so.
And I understood: how could he create stuff out of nothing if he had no clue
about what else existed in this world? So we talked some more about my world,
he asked endlessly those questions that I would imagine only a child who still
knows nothing about this universe would ask:
“‘Are
there others like you on that space station? Do you have houses like that
inside that station? What is that planet below, could we go for a visit? Could
I live there? What is a blank storage device? What is a dog, you mentioned
before that you found them annoying.’
“It went
on and on and I got tired, exceedingly so. In the end I think I just collapsed
and found myself back on the station. Once again, I had everyone surrounding me
as if I was an alien. I had obviously fainted, or had a fit. Once I felt good
again, I realise that my new man could communicate with me in the real world, I
was now hearing voices, my insanity was complete. He could see through my eyes
everything I observed, and somehow managed to control my every move. I started
to act oddly to everyone on the station, while he was learning everything he
could about the world. I was a hostage in my own body. By the time I broke out
of this servitude, I found myself in space once again with many houses, plates
of marble and wells in front of each house, and many new people everywhere,
deformed dogs and cats existing as I sort of described them to him initially,
floating in space doing nothing, not even barking or meowing. There was
something weird which was totally out of control, a bird crying and whinging on
his shoulder, of beautiful colours though, blue, yellow, green, and a huge
beak.
“‘What is
that?’ I found myself say, with a smile. ‘Is it a parrot? How can it even fly
in space?’
“‘I don’t
know, I saw one on your space station. Is it cute or what? It certainly brings
life in this dead space. He’s my best friend.’
“‘What do
you mean you saw that on my space station?’
“They had
the time together to develop their own philosophies, religion, theoretical
physics, and somehow found a way to contact their god, me, a mentally ill
patient. And though he was now constantly in communication with me, it started
to impede seriously on my life while I was awake on the station. They held me
hostage, had unreasonable demands, they wanted me to create new stuff for them,
new technology, new ways to explore the rest of the universe. And since nothing
more had been thought of in my mind apart from their world, they now wanted a
real creation, like the one we have right now, a planet Earth, so they could
also explore and get out of where they are. I looked at them, blinking:
“‘Considering
what you have just achieved, why don’t you create yourself a planet and move
there?’
“My
friend answered that they did not know enough, they had not witnessed any of
it, they only had a vague idea of what Earth represented. They realised by then
that we did not usually lived around in space stations surrounding weird
planets which could not support life, and especially, we did not float in space
in houses with wells. None of it made any sense anymore to any of them. They
blamed me for having created something which was unfathomable to them. I had to
shout back:
“‘Do you
really think that my God was any better in creating the universe I come from?
Do you think any of this makes any sense to any of us? Planets, stars,
galaxies, oxygen, trees, birds and what else? The difference is that we have
stopped a long time ago to question everything, we just accepted it and we
moved on with our lives! So you should! Just invent the world of sales, become
marketing addicts, create industries, space programmes… I don’t know, anything
to quickly forget to think about where you are and why.’
“Somehow
it was not enough. When I woke up, I found that this whole thing was destroying
my fragile mind, and after a major cataleptic fit or stroke, their world ceased
to exist for a while. Fortunately, since many people on board the station were
now reporting having seen houses in space with people floating all around. My
doctor thought that my illness was contagious.
“I soon
got back to normal. No more visions, no more crazy imagination running wild, I
was even forgetting that I should not even be on a space station which did not
exist in the first place. I even secretly thought that I was not completely
cured until I actually woke up back on Earth in
“That settles it, then,” I finally said. “You
have woken up in
“It is not that simple, I’m afraid,” said Anna
Maria. “There are many parallel universes where we do have a space station
around Saturn and many other planets. And Ms Barnsworth’s existence is well
documented on those worlds, I remember hearing about people having visions of
houses and people in space, it is a fact. A strange one, but one all the same.
Ms Barnsworth contacted me in parallel universes once she came back to Earth
from the station, this is how I came to know about all this. I quickly realised
that in this particular timeline of ours here, there was an anomaly. There was
a Ms Barnsworth who said she lived on a space station in the solar system, but
no space station other than the International one in orbit around Earth. It is
why I contacted you Arthur about Ms Barnsworth as soon as I found out about the
anomaly from other parallel universes.”
“Then if what you say is true,” I felt the need
to ask, “there are many Anna Maria out there helping many Alice Barnsworth in
many universes? Some of them simply to understand what happened to them, others
completely out of their original timeline, not once but twice over? How did Ms
Barnsworth end up here, where we don’t have a Z machine capable of creating a
huge burst of energy, so she did not leave from here? And we don’t have a space
station, so she did not end up here either as a result of their attempt to send
her in time. So why is she here at all?”
Anna Maria thought about it for a moment. Then
said: “I can only think of one thing. Ms Barnsworth, perhaps as a consequence of
her experience through this ‘Time Project,’ has gained some paranormal powers.
She can now create worlds at will, and therefore should be able to throw
herself out of a universe to jump into another. She must have wished to get out
of that schizophrenic world altogether, but was somehow incapable of going back
to her original timeline, and so ended up here.”
“I wanted to come here,” said
You can imagine I was deeply hurt and insulted:
“What? How dare you say we are retards when it comes to technology and science
in general? How dare you! Could we build space station everywhere in the solar
system? Sure we could, but why spend so much money? What about the rest which
makes you so advanced compared to us? In any case, surely it is only a question
of time before we can achieve the same results? What do you think Anna?”
“Well, my poor Arthur, I tend to agree with Ms
Barnsworth. Compared with other timelines we are really lagging behind. The
whole paranormal science here is just that, paranormal instead of science. And
if you say you are studying time travel in this day and age, you might as well
state that you are studying the fantastic. There are not that many universes
out there still talking in terms of quantum physics and relativity. How many
times have I told Bertrand Russell that this universe would have been much
better off without Albert Einstein, as he threw us off course for a very long
time. This is very difficult for Russell to accept, as he was such good friend
with Albert.”
“What!” I shouted, “do you really want me to
believe that without Einstein, we would be much more advanced in physics
today?”
“Not only without Einstein, eliminate
“All right then,” I said, still unconvinced. So
I turned to
Ms Barnsworth looked defeated, she admitted: “I
confess this was stupid, but they found me on the base, they declared me dead a
long time ago. I let slipped a few top secret things which were no secrets in
my timeline, and hence I found myself in deep trouble. I guess I had not
thought about it that far. My only defence was to tell the truth, but then it
got me into more trouble. Until I realised that Ms Maria must exist in this
timeline, and as I remembered in my timeline
that she was the most psychic woman alive, and that is no small claim
for a science which is not called paranormal in my world, I thought she could
verify what I’m saying here, and free me from this situation. I’m glad she
found me, as I didn’t believe in my telepathic powers! I feel I have none.”
“And how do you propose she goes about it?” I
answered, “I don’t believe you, I don’t believe her, despite this trick of
putting images in my mind, I’m afraid it won’t be enough. You see, we’re not
that gullible. And if we are so backwards to you, then perhaps it is because we
are more cerebral, intelligent, moving slowly without jumping to conclusions. I
would not have it any other way. Let me tell you what awaits you, whatever it
is you feel Ms Maria can do for you. You will finish your days in an asylum
here on the base, where they will probe and try to understand how you know so
much about their little secrets, whilst somehow you either faked your death, or
are simply an identical twin. I hope for you they don’t start to believe you
could be a clone, because then it could be more serious than you can imagine.”
Ms Barnsworth looked at me completely
horrified. She closed her eyes and for a second there I thought she was about
to disappear into thin air, as to my astonishment she became a bit invisible,
and at the same time I also felt myself moving somewhere else. Anna posed her
hand on her and
“Never
mind what Arthur is saying, this is not what’s going to happen. We will get you
out of here, and you will live happily forever after somewhere else in this
world, never to think too much about all this. Because my friend here, is
powerful. More powerful than anyone on this base. And once he will decide to
get you out of here, he will. And it won’t be for you to be probed by other
people, it will be to free you from all that you have gone through. He doesn’t
look very receptive now, but he will by the time we’ll leave this base. He
doesn’t understand yet who you are, and how important you are to humanity. I
bet you don’t even know that yourself, but it is not to me to tell you that. It
is best if you don’t know.”
“Know what?” both Ms Barnsworth and I asked at
the same time. But Anna simply bowed her head and signal to Ms Barnsworth to
finish her story:
“Somehow I thought I had destroyed them all, my
new humanity, killed them all in my mind. That no one else on the station could
see them was proof enough that it was so. At the same time, unfortunately, it
was also becoming clear to me that I could not have imagined it. I had real
people in what seems a real world to me, telling me that my visions had become
real! Or that they were real to begin with. My doctor did not know what to say,
it was like decades of studies and beliefs had just gone out the window. He was
even afraid of me, well, not until he saw on the satellite images from Earth,
no less, that my visions were real and there were people living in houses in
space, breathing, going along with their meaningless lives, and I was
photographed right in the middle, having an argument with a man, the one we
thought I created out of nothing. And so, since I was unable to shake the
thought that it was all my imagination, it was not long before I started to
hear voices again.
“So once
more I ended up in space, meeting my new creation. My friend was standing in
front of me, hiding something behind him. When he moved away, there was there
the most beautiful little girl I had ever seen in my life. I knew her, I
remembered having thought of her before that time, it was not like he created
her like he appeared to have done with the others. Or at the very least we both
thought of her before that time.
“What he
said to me then was astounding to say the least: ‘I present to you our
daughter, she is our creation, she is ours. And if that does not convince you
to remain here with us forever, then I don’t know what will.’
“I