149 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
149 lines
7.9 KiB
Plaintext
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Underground eXperts United
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Presents...
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[ Malfunction ] [ By The GNN ]
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____________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________
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"MALFUNCTION"
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by THE GNN/DualCrew-Shining/uXu
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"Hey John, it's Nick..."
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Nick worked down at the TeleCenter. I had known him for several years. He
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was a skilled engineer. Everything he designed, built and put to use worked
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smoothly. Almost everything that is. It seemed like things had changed. No
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one called me unless something did not work properly.
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"What's the problem Nicky?"
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"Well, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I must report a malfunction in one of
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my products."
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"Which one?"
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"The teleporter."
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My database revealed that Nick had only designed one teleporter. It was
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the Porter 2000, the most common human sender-receiver in the world. All
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countries around the world had at least a dozen of these little devices in
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action.
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"What's wrong with it?"
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"I don't know."
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Actually, this was the answer I had expected. If Nick had known what was
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wrong with the teleporter, he would not have called me. He would have fixed
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whatever needed be fixed.
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"Describe the problem."
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"Person enters the sender. Selects destination. Pushes a button. Humming
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sound. Transportation. Person steps out of the receiver - and here comes the
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problem - lacking a billionth of a kilo of his weight. That's all. No other
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drawbacks. I can neither localize what kind of matter it is that disappears,
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nor where it goes. It's just gone."
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"Funny. So if a person, theoretically speaking, enters the machine around
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seventy billion times he will vanish?"
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"Er, actually no. Because this happens only the first time a person uses
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a teleporter. If he does it again, he will not lose any weight. From a
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strictly practical point of view it's no big deal. Because the user doesn't
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notice it, and it has no known effects on his further life. We discovered
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this strange effect by coincidence, I won't bore you with the details.
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Anyway, if someone is interested, we have 'lost' around seven kekro-kilo of
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matter during the years the teleporter been around. Not much indeed, but
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still troublesome. It would be nice if someone knew where it has gone."
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I typed down everything he had said.
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"Sounds like a bizarre little feature to me. Well, I'll put this info
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into the database. I'll let you know if someone has a theory or solution to
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the 'problem'."
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And that was it. That was my job. If someone had a problem they could not
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solve, they called me. I put all relevant information into a database,
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which scientists from all over the world could access when they had nothing
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better to do.
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Two days later, the phone rang again. It was Doctor Johnson, reputable
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astrophysician from a local university.
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"Greetings, John. I am calling concerning the little problem Mr Nick
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seems to experience with his teleporters. He claimed that seven kekro-kilo
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had disappeared. I think we've found them."
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New world record. No one had ever made an attempt to solve any of the
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problems in the data base in two days.
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"Really?" I said and laid my hands on the keyboard. "Explain."
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My fingers started to type the moment he began to talk.
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"Nick's teleporter went into action forty twenty-two, five years ago that
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is. We have happened to observe a certain part of the universe during this
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period. The area around nine-nine-nine-D-N, using the Einstein Pointer
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System, to be precise. And you know what? Slowly, slowly, substance from
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nowhere have clustered itself on a spot in this part. We have had no clue
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from where it came, or what kind of material it was. But I guess we know
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now."
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"That would be around seven kekro I believe?"
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"No, no. Only around two. The rest is to be found somewhere else. And, in
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fact, I know where it is. My colleague at the GeoCenter have discovered the
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same phenomenon, but at a very different place of the universe."
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"Where?"
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"Under the surface of the Earth. Exactly in the centre of the Earth,
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around five kekro have shown up without any apparent reason. None of our
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instruments can detect the causal chain related to this matter. The same
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goes for the thing at nine-nine-nine. Therefore, I believe it must be the
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'lost' matter from Nick's teleporters."
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"Do you have any theory why, and how, it shows up at these particular
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places?"
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Doctor Johnson whispered, as if he did not want anyone to hear him.
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"Maybe I do."
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I opened up another file on the base. This one was for theories. Few
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people ever looked at them. Usually because the theories in question often
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were nothing more than extremely loose speculations.
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"Shoot" I said.
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"The function of Nick's Porter is well-known. At least to scientists. The
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sender device creates a blueprint over the user, sends this print to the
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receiver where another machine builds the person together again. Do you know
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what happens with the person that's inside the sender? Of course you do,
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it's no secret. When the blueprint has been properly saved, the body is
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annihilated. If it wasn't, we would get two separate individuals which
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would be qualitatively identical. This is forbidden by law, as we all know.
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Individuals are only allowed to be numerically identical, i.e. identical
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with themselves. 'Something' is lost in this copying process. I think I know
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what that is. It is something we all possess. Something we have forgotten to
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take care of. Something we maybe even ought to take care of, but don't do in
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these days of fast technological progress. Something that cannot be copied
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with the teleporters we have today. I don't know if it will ever be
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possible."
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I coughed. "Unfortunately, I believe these metaphysical speculations are
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just a little bit too abstract, so to say, for the common scientist to
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comprehend."
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Doctor Johnson sighed.
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"Ah, well, maybe they are. I'm just brainstorming."
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I closed the file and stashed it at a place no one would ever bother to
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look. I was about to end my conversation with Doctor Johnson when he added
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his final remarks. I never cared to put them into the file. It was too much
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work for nothing.
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"Do you know how I came to this theory?" said Dr Johnson and chuckled, as
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if he was on his way to tell a joke. "Actually, due to numbers. Three nines
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at DN points to a place in the sky where some of the matter in question
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clusters. If we use the same pointer system for the other place, even though
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that's a quite unusual procedure, we get three sixes at KN. Funny, don't
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you say? I believe we have discovered a couple of places mankind have been
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searching for, and pondered about, for ages. The last resorts for our
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Cartesian egos. Due to the teleporter we end up there long before it was
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meant to be according to the traditional schedule. Maybe, but just maybe,
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we've finally managed to actually localize Heaven and Hell."
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---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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uXu #422 Underground eXperts United 1998 uXu #422
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Call KASTLEROCK -> +1-412-527-3749
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