Episode 59: Beneath the Glare of Ice, Where Time Fades to White II of III

0:00The distance障碼

0:14The End

0:40For 42 years, you've been here alone? Oh, dude, that's harsh. Mr. Waters, Emory, if we had known, I would have tried to... Are you land-doing us right now, Em? Is that... is that Christopher I hear? These old eyes can't... can't invoke. What, pray tell, is Lando-ing? Lando Calrissian? The Empire Strikes Back? It's Emery's favorite movie. Han, Leia, and Chewie travel to Cloud City, and Lando pretends he's mad at Han when in reality... You son of a bitch! I almost had you all! I almost had you! I'm furious. It's so great to see you all again. What's the date? April 12th, 2023. Yep, as I suspected.

1:45Time moves inside the brain the same as in our dimension. It's only been a year. Sorry, sorry everybody for land-oing. I mean, how often does this situation present itself? Get over here, you big nerf herder! Oh, I missed you so much, Em. Oh, I'm fine, Chrissy. Really, really, I'm fine. Oh, jeez.

2:13Who brought the items with us? Getting all chalked up over here. Good. I didn't want to think Kenan and I were the only ones.

2:24Touching is all this is. We're on the clock, people. Have a job to do and all that. Mr. Drexler, if you are done with your emotional reaction, do please begin offloading the materials we brought with us. Uh, Dr. Darber, do you mind giving Kenan a hand? Then the two of you can bring the stuff we brought with as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Ugh, you needed a good cry nonetheless. Let's go, Kenan. Man, I love rom-coms. Um, Mr. Waters and Mr. Todd, why don't the two of you go get reacquainted? We have another hour before Kylie gets the station back to full power. Wait, they know? Yeah, Emery. We all know.

3:12I mean, Chris told us you two were an item a few months back, yeah. Actually, I think everybody on station knew it. Not that it matters in the slightest. Gentlemen, please just go join your union, okay? Well, don't worry, deputy. An hour won't be necessary. Chris only needs about ten minutes. Oh, hey. Now, I haven't seen you in a year, so I'm going to let that one slide this time. That's part of the problem. Get over here. While we await for power restoration, why don't you, Agent Fowler, and I have a much-needed conversation, Deputy Marshal? You, artificial intelligence little girl. Yes, how wonderful.

4:05Show us the closest conference room we can use. I am sorry, Dr. Lawrence Emerson Wainwright, but you do not have authorization. Access is denied. Not this trite again. Hey, uh, Kylie? Yes, U.S. Marshal Bass Wyatt Marlowe? Can you please direct us to a conference room? See, that's why we vibe, U.S. Marshal Bass Wyatt Marlowe. You are such a gentleman with such great manners. Of course I can. Please follow the lights as they turn on. I'll direct you to the conference room. Ground 018. I can already tell I'm going to be getting a cavity for how sweet and chipper this little bird is. Thank you, Kylie.

4:51Doctor. She-devil, shall we? Oh, go fuck yourself, Marshmallow. The rest of you get whatever gear you need and we'll start after Wainwright and I get back. Recording has concluded. Indeed. Before we get started here, I'll politely ask that if you two Vulgarians intend to engage in gunplay, that you warn me beforehand. I have no issue with you busting a nut in one another, but keep me out of the line of fire. Uh, what? A cap, Doctor. The term is busting a cap, not busting... I don't care what the proper term is. Kill one another if you so desire, but keep me out of it. Although your cap busting might actually save me from several headaches with one ill time.

5:40Okay, can we please get on with it? Come on already. Patience and decorum, Agent Fowler. Now, Deputy Marshal, please do explain how you and your colleagues managed to be out here just as the station returned. Oh, and please, do dispense with the absurd falsification of Dr. Hunt making such a request. All right, let's put all the cards on the table, Doctor. You're happy to check the research requisitions which were submitted several weeks ago to the NSF. You'll note our update to them with Dr. Topper Hunt's request and our intention to head out. They agreed and left a location and distance from the station up to our judgment.

6:23Weakest cover story I've ever heard. Don't you have a Senate confirmation hearing coming up shortly, Marlow? Breaching national security, breaking non-disclosure agreements. Not good for the old CV now, is it? Hmm. I doubt Bolo nor the DOD are going to take any action over me being here. Oh, then, not to wager, I'd be willing to make what I you. No, Doctor? Please, let them make an issue all this and threaten my career. Have them put me on the stand before Congress, and I'll testify all about this station. About Project Atlas and activities observed at Amundsen Scott. I'm sure the American people, hell, the world, would love detailed specifics about the Indonesian flight we discovered and subsequent cover-ups.

7:14You recall the most famous aviation mystery since, Earhart? Oh, with that kind of threat, I wouldn't expect that you'd make it to the stand to testify. Try me. Which leads me to my second point. You have no leverage here. Oh, I'll quote the great Archimedes. Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place... And I'll use it to bust your kneecaps. No leverage at all. How quickly you forget that only two people on this station have access to Kylie. Emery Waters, and me. Isn't that correct, Kylie?

7:59Truth it up, U.S. Marshall, that's the way at Marlow. Take it hard, minimal. Yup, yup. Okay, I don't understand the slang, but sounds like our little Kylie is going through her pre-teen phase. I'll admit, I have no idea what your specific mission is this year, other than retrieving the station, of course. What I do know is we don't intend to stand by and idly watch as you attempt to revert the situation to benefit Beauregard Lowing and only them. Oh, my dear giddy aunt. Always the boy scout, always the moral compass, never strays from the path, is a good lad and eats all his greens. I'm so sick of listening to this holier-than-thou rubbish marshmallow.

8:42How about we go back to pointing guns at one another? This is pure tosh. As much as it pains me to state such, the Deputy Marshal is quite correct. Shooting him only serves to make our task here more difficult. Although I agree with Agent Fowler on an evaluation of your antiquated sense of values, I have to admit this is something of a stalemate. Ugh, my head hurts with all this talk, talk, talk. What is it you're proposing, Marshmallow? I assume, just like last year, you have sensors or whatever detectors you'll be gathering and replacing with new ones. Correct. So long as they don't interfere or attempt to modify station systems, I don't see any reason not to allow you to deploy and collect them.

9:39Allow? Next. Nobody will make any attempt to access any station's scientific or critical systems without myself or preferably Emery Waters present. You state that as if there were an alternative. As you yourself just said, we don't have authorization rights. Agreed. You finished laying your cards on the table yet? Oh, I'm done, Jocelyn. Don't even look at mine, because I'm confident that whatever cards I'm dealt will be the winning hand. Oh. Cavities, headache, now nausea. I've hit the trifecta. Restoration E3A now revised to 15 minutes. Recommending shifting resources to... Uh-oh. Uh-oh? Scans at the exterior station show enhanced and accelerating structural damage of the metal alloys.

10:38I need to conduct additional and enhanced diagnostics, but structural collapse is a statistical likelihood when I next travel back through the bulk. Well that blows! I should alert father.

10:55When he's alone. Oh, I'm so embarrassed. Old people were at it. Oh, I can't erase my own memory files. U.S. Marshal Bass Marlow, can you do me a huge solid, please? I got you, Kylie. Please tell the others to meet us up in the operations when power is restored. Fifteen minutes. Hold off on notifying your father for a bit longer. Duh. Well, looks like our vacation plans will be changing. Recording stopped. No, no, no, no. This is so much more advanced than our operations room. This is like Star Trek Enterprise bridge type stuff. Wow. Shh! Don't say that! Especially around Father. I had to remind him for almost three months not to refer to the Op Center as the bridge and that I am not a starship.

11:52Father kept calling me the USS Roberta Bondar. He's so embarrassing me. I hate that. Um, okay, yeah, right. I'm so not used to having my laptop talk to me. Okay, I'm gonna need Jemmy's stuff. When we get back to the station. Saved it, nice. This really is a truly sophisticated artificial intelligence. Simulated emotions, unique personality, interpersonal subroutines. I'd love to get my hands on our operating software. Oh, okay, who's the pedo? Why isn't he hanging outside high school cheerleader trials with a trench coat on? Her of anyone? Truly remarkable. Right, right, I forgot. Last year she needed to be informed who everybody was, make sure they had authorization.

12:44Hey, Kylie? You of course remember Dr. Wainwright and Lorenz. Of course. Hi again. Hi again, Kylie. Charmed, as always. And this is the head of our electrical and botanical research, Dr. Patrick Dauber. What's up, computer duder? This is Dr. Shepard Delham, astrophysicist with the South Pole Telescope Lab. Over there looking sternly is Agent Jocelyn Fowler, United States Defense Intelligence Agency. And down in the VMF is our, well, I mean, he's the acting chief of engineering, really, Mr. Kenan Drexler. Wow, he's cute! Oh no! What happened to Chief of Engineering Ezekiel Francis Bustamante? Oh please tell me he's okay!

13:34Oh no no no no no no no no no Zeke is fine. Doing better than ever as a matter of fact. He's been promoted. Yeah, he's actually running. I'm at the Scott station now. Oh good, I liked him. He was nice as well. And finally, there is our head of station internet technologies, Mr. Christopher Todd. The individual with your father, his boyfriend. Ew. I don't need to know about father's love life. So, Kenan, does he have... is he seeing anybody on your station? Would somebody please remind me why I agreed to jump into this teen romance nonsense? Why? Why? Enough! Where are Mr. Todd and Waters? Don't they understand?

14:25Well, we kept jumping back to that same morning, and Fred called it Halen Jumping. We had to figure out a way to get him out of the - Of the causality loop! Oh, wow! I wish I could have been there for that. So, out of morbid curiosity, where were his boxers after all? Don't know. Even the final jump, he said he was going commando. To my knowledge, he has no opinion. Seriously, Marlow, you have my permission to put one through me brain pen. Put me out of me misery. Oh, 100 % rain check on that one, Jocelyn. Count on it. And this must be Agent Fowler. You know, Chris says that you're a bad mother.

15:12We have more pressing issues, Mr. Waters. Just talking about Jocelyn. I can dig it. Anyway, Kylie said there was an uh-oh, and I don't like uh-ohs on my starship. Father! Station! Station! I meant station. What's the full story, sweetie?

15:34He's talking to me. Oh. Okay. So, like, I'm finishing up diagnostics after leaving protective standby, and I noticed a 42 % reduction in the exterior fiber carbon-enforced panels. The self-healing polymers in the aerogel insulation and vacuum insulation panels have also been compromised. Assuming this was only an isolated issue, I conducted an additional and more intense diagnostic on the station and adjacent buildings nearby. It is not isolated. The printed carbon nanotube composite shows similar wear and damage. I can repair these damaged spots, but the appearance of them is growing exponentially.

16:07Soon the ability to stay ahead with repairs will be even greater than I can keep up with. Massive suck, I know. Uh, so that's bad. I get that. But how do we... Can somebody unscience this for me, please? Of course. Now this ship... Father! Seriously! Station. Station. This station was built with technology and construction methods, only now being conceptually drawn up in our time. Roberta Bondar is able to take extreme temperatures, more wind damage, and for longer durations, and still come out smelling like a rose. Kylie, do we know what is causing the damage? All evidence points to electromagnetic and gravitational fluctuations due to the multiple entrances and egress through the bulk, from one brain to another.

16:56Dude, no way! Cousin Jimmy called this like years ago! We're all part of an imagination in someone else's brain! No, no, brain. B-R-A-N-E. It's short for membrane. It's a fundamental object in string theory and M-theory that generalized the concept of a particle to higher dimensions. Oh my god, yes, that's exactly what Jimmy said when we were high. We're in another brain dimension, right? Uh, how many times have you traversed the bowl? Father? Hey, go ahead, sweetie. You can answer their questions while we're all present. Nine trips from this brain to the other. Huh. Okay, so one entry and exit points per trip.

17:4418 exposures to intense electrogravimetric energies. I'm surprised the station lasts as long as it has. Go Canadian engineering, I guess. Kylie, what happens if you head back through the bulk? The station will suffer significant damage when it returns through the aperture of the bulk in 138 hours, 53 minutes. Significant, but you said you could keep up with it for a time, no? So it's not entirely unrepairable? How many more of these bulks can you go through before it's not fixable? Yes. Special Agent Jocelyn Eleanor Fowler, you are correct. Assuming we were able to shield this facility from electro-gravimetry damage, I can assist in the repairs to the station.

18:30It will take five weeks. However, subsequent trips will simply return us to the same point, but deterioration rates will accelerate with more instances of unprotected exposure. Why are her systems and memory core not being impacted by the same... Well, it's due to the protected shutdown she initiated seven years back. Keeps her higher functions and critical drives safe throughout the transitions. Obviously, the loss of this complex is not an acceptable outcome. However, given this new information... We're not leaving, Wainwright. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Jocelyn. We'll do whatever we can to come up with a solution right until we have no more time.

19:11And should that happen, we'll all head back and try to come up with a permanent fix. I'm sure Bolo will divert all necessary resources in the case... I can't leave. Emi, we know how much you love the station, your starship, and how much you love your AI. She's lovely, by the way. This isn't your time, though, sweetie. You belong to our time. No, no, Chris, you don't understand. I physically can't leave a mile radius around the station. What do you mean? His internal entropic decay signature, of course. Oh, yes. After prolonged exposure to the localized entropic environment, his own internal signature would adjust to correct for the imbalance.

19:59Uh, okay, so can somebody now unscience this for me? I gotcha. Because I've been here for a year, my internal entropy signature, my fingerprint in time, if you will, is now adjusted to the 2060s versus the 2020s. It's like, you know, taking a fish from one tank to another. You slowly have to introduce it to reduce the chance of shock or changes to ammonia, nitrates and nitrites in the water. For the first three weeks, I was sick as a dog on the other side. Heck, this last trip, I got woozy during the crossover and had to nap. Well, so, if the station gets damaged more, you'd be stuck? Yep, yep, pretty much that.

20:45What? No, no, no, no, no, screw that! We have got to do something. I may have an idea. Rather, Dr. Jovak may have inadvertently found a solution for this problem. We have a two-way connection using a repeater. We'll have to drive outside of the event horizon surrounding the complex. One mile out to transmit, radio, and... Oh, I see where you're going, Dr. Delham. Not a bad suggestion. I would have deduced it myself if it had not been so distracted. You and I can head out and consult with Dr. Jovac. I'm sure you won't mind if Gemma and I come along. Call there may help with this bleeding headache.

21:23If you feel you must. I'll head down there with you guys. I want to fill in Kenan in on what's going on, and then he and I will get a little bite to eat. Oh, Kenan's here too? Now I feel even worse for you than I do about the problems with station damage. You had to sit in the naughty with him for eight hours? Actually, hold on, Doug Wainwright. Here's what I'm not getting with the whole entropy, Emery time travel-y thingy. Oh, goody.

22:01Ground level. So, Emery and the station have, like, come back to the past. Must I reiterate the fundamentals of temporal mechanics yet again? No, you insufferable simpleton, for the last time, we traveled through a spatial anomaly which only exists for a short window. Right now, we are in the future. 2061 to be precise. Right, let's come back to that one in a few. But anyways, so the station never really came back in time. Yes, that's correct. We traveled to it, it didn't travel to us. This is an elementary distinction, yet you continue to flounder in conceptual quicksand. So then, just like my favorite movie, Back to the Future, we could find out who wins.

22:55Like every single Super Bowl from 2023 to 2061 and then get like stupid rich, right? Wrong. But we're in the future. Every Super Bowl has already happened. we know the results. Yes, but only while we are here. The moment we go back to 2023, games haven't happened yet. But we know they will happen. Ugh, the hubris of the uninformed. The first wager that you place. Sure, you would win. But after that, look, time is like a straight line. Right now, we're outside of it. The moment you act on the information from this timeline, you change it. Once we return to 2023, it won't be the same timeline anymore.

23:43Okay, run that by me again. Ugh. See if you can follow along.

23:52You win the first year. It allows you to purchase, say, an exotic automobile. That automobile, coincidentally, was intended for another buyer. Because he no longer obtains it, his plans shift. He misses a crucial business meeting. As a result, a key player trade in professional sports never occurs. That alters the roster, which alters the game strategies, which alters the outcomes. Congratulations, your infallible knowledge is now completely worthless. Ah-ha! But if we went to the future, got the information, came back, and made that bet, then it would have already happened and would be a part of that future where we got the winners and the scores.

24:40This is the future, yes, but not for us. We're in what should be the future, but since we're here, now it is our present. However, if we go back, everything we do here may not hold. It won't be the future until we go back to the past, which then also becomes our continuing present. If you make that bet, you have altered the older timeline, creating a new, unprecedented, and non-finite one. Retrieving the information and acting on it exists in separate timelines, meaning the act of bringing back the info itself disrupts causality. But, like, how would we know the timeline was messed up? If what was going to happen happens when we got to the future, this future we're in right now.

25:30Ugh! You were thinking of time like it was a fixed recording. It is not. The moment we interact with the past differently, the recording changes. It's quantum uncertainty, multiple possible outcomes, instead of one inevitable future. Why am I constantly burdened with dullards? Jeez, sorry I only have one doctorate. But I do think I have a beat on this. Okay, so, this right now is our present, right? Yes. But it is also the future. Correct. Depending on the observer, it can be either. But not for Emery. What do you mean? Okay, you said the past or the future is dependent on the observer, right?

26:19So, for all of us, including Emery, it's really our present. Yes. But Emery, and you guys said that he isn't able to go back. His quantum gravity thingy is melted with the future... future-ness. Entropic signature, that's what he said, right? So, he can't go to the past. He has no future after leaving April 12th, 2022, until he got stuck here one year. Yes, obviously. What is your point? Well then, how does he program and create the world's leading artificial intelligence in the 2050s? Huh. I... I never considered that. Huh, indeed. You know, this is the kind of stuff that me and my cousin Jimmy would talk about like all the time while we were getting our doctorates.

27:20And let me tell you, doctor, these conversations are a gazillion times better when both parties are a little toasty. I much prefer to keep my lips unsullied, doctor. Well then, suit yourself. But hey, if you ever need to have an insufferable dullard to help you consider alternative quantum whatevers, Pat's easy man.

28:01Kenan. Kenan, Patrick is heading down to see you while the others head up and make a call back to base. Yep, already down here, Deputy Dutters, sir. I have Kenan with me and we're heading up to the galley to get our grub on. Emery said you guys would meet us up on level two. Oh, hey, Kenan says there was a bag of food and some... stuff that's missing. I swear he remembers packing it. You guys wouldn't happen to have taken anything up with you? No. As far as we know, everything is still staged on the VMF deck. Okay, okay. Not a thing that could be doing it. We're coming up soon. Don't worry, I always gave a small amount with me strictly for emergency purposes, like this.