20. Flash Fiction by Andrés Eloy Martínez Rojas
Quantic Universes
Erwin looked away from the computer that showed him images captured by his telescope, while peering anxiously among the stars with his eyes the constellations visible at that time, looking into Orion with his characteristic shape outlined by his belt and the bright stars Betelgeuse, Bellatrix and Rigel and his faint sword.
Absorbed in the contemplation of the night sky from a region free of light pollution, he had ignored the signal on his phone that had been blinking and vibrating incessantly for at least 10 minutes.
The sensation of joy and intellectual ecstasy accentuated by the notes of Vangelis’s music had almost disconnected him from the universe, when the fall of the phone from an improvised table as a desk brought him back to reality.
“I’m sorry to interrupt your Erwin retreat, but the time has come,” a soft female voice told him from the other end of the phone.
“I know Susan,” Erwin replied in a melancholic tone.
Tens of thousands of kilometers away from there, on the dark side of the moon, the Quantum Universes project was about to carry out one of humanity’s most amazing experiments, transporting the first human being to another universe. The idea was to use dark matter, formed by particles similar to the Higgs Boson called axons that some scientists suspected, formed the quintessence of the multiverse.
Discovering the nature of dark matter had been a great triumph in itself, but being able to use it to teleport a human being to other universes was an idea that even many scientists thought far-fetched.
But there was Erwin, as a volunteer for the greatest journey in history in what would surely be an infinite border. The trip he would undertake would be the culmination of all the trips for humanity trapped until then, in a single universe towards the Universums Incognitos.
Upon entering the teleportation center, Erwin was received by Susan, his assistant, who nervously helped him put on a suit specially designed to face his odyssey, while she was saying to him, “Things used to be so simple before you insisted on testing your theory about trips to multiverses.”
“Things have never really been easy for any scientist,” Erwin replied as he brought his face close to Susan’s to kiss her cheek.
The idea behind Erwin’s journey was to use dark matter as a bridge to another universe, intertwining not only Erwin’s particles but the axons that, according to Erwin’s theory, should exist in a large number of universes.
“You are still in time to cancel this trip,” Susan said, “and maybe we could try to send a robot or probe.”
“It would not be the same,” Erwin interrupted with a marked gesture of annoyance. “Look at it like this,” he said, “if I disappear and they don’t know anything about me, I will be like a live and dead cat in many universes at once,” and he let out a great laugh.
This made the rest of the team of the project that tuned the last Teleporter details to look at him.
Teleporter of Dark Matter of Quantum Entanglement, was the name of the small translucent capsule in which only a single man just the size of Erwin fit, ready to be occupied by the first multidimensional traveler.
“First interlacing sequence activated,” was heard through speakers.
“The time has come,” Erwin said, giving Susan a goodbye hug and entering the capsule quickly.
Without further ado, a 10-second countdown began: “9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . .”
Infinite lives in the multiverse – that would be the best description for Erwin’s experience whose physical structure had suddenly been divided into all possible realities, a consciousness divided into a multi-cosmos with its joys and sufferings, goodness and evil in simultaneous events each with its own physical laws but within the parameters to allow life and consciousness.
Finding a way out of this multidimensional labyrinth and returning to the origin of this odyssey would test all of Erwin’s, or every Erwin of every reality’s, abilities; time and space would undoubtedly spare him.
Andrés Eloy Martínez Rojas
Andrés Eloy Martínez Rojas lives in Mexico, where he enjoys the observation and study of the universe as a citizen scientist. He made the adaptation and transmission on the radio in Mexico of The War of the Worlds in tribute to Orson Welles, causing panic among their radio listeners. The asteroid 6159 Andréseloy bears this name in his honor.