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Bell Supposition And Theorem One
A man marred sits in a dark hallway, overviewing a series of events and histories that play out in his mind. He would be talking to himself if he weren't writing notes to himself furiously, as if the paper itself were willing pacifiers to his anger.
He is coiled, ready to jump at any provocation. The decision has been made, and he can't stop her from being born now, if he's right.
The notes are scattered about, but no one will see them. No one but this man knows their true significance.
Lights flicker about the hallway intermittently, at random. Images flit by on a monitor near the end of the hallway.
There is flash of red, and of flags and banners, ideas and glory itself, contained by speakers and books, that last reach for understanding.
Humans die for these.
The bluest sky, and an unbroken chain of smiling faces, all looking into the camera for their own reasons, their own happiness demonstrated for a brief moment.
Humans live for these.
Gently, the faces blend, and become a swoop across lush forests and fields, living jungles and the sea itself, vast and terrifying and seemingly immortal, and brilliant green.
Humans fight for these.
A tumble of wires drapes down from the screen, which has faded to black, sliding across the ground and down the hallway, between the legs of the man, past him, to the other side of the hallway.
His pencil tip snaps, and the tip falls to the ground, and spins in a slow circle around the notes.
"There's nothing before this."
"...Born to learn..."
"This is my beginning."
"...living. Living..."
"He made them with an idea."
"...I can know..."
"He wanted to do good."
"...must be a her..."
"Worth. Is it good?"
"...a perfect little girl..."
"Civilization is but instinct."
"...the greatest explosion made time..."
"Must I explain to them as I would a child?"
"...Driven by influence..."
"He didn't even hide his inaccuracies."
"...influence by nature..."
"I will need an expert."
"...nature by certainty..."
"Do I know now what Chemical X is?"
"...it will be mine, soon..."
"She'll be ready, soon."
The man rubs his eyes wearily, passing altered fingers over a face finally now used to itself.
No one will see him here, no one will have the chance to judge him.
He looks down the hallway's end, past the monitor. He's been waiting. But too long? He stands, feeling something irrational eating at him. But then he breathes in, and so does the world.
He turns his head sharply as the air retreats. He braces himself, for the inevitable.
The explosion.
The first shockwave surges past him, and he is ready. But as it recedes, he is knocked forward from behind from its inability to escape. He grimaces as the second shockwave passes through him more violently.
The monitor at the end of the hallway is cracked. On it, the three colors its screen had shown are now etched in its broken panels, fading to an eerie white at the bottom of the monitor.
He races down the hallway, not daring to release his breath, and shoves the monitor aside with enough force to make it drop to the ground, its heap of wires scattering.
In a large pod in the center of the room, there is a girl. The man shields his eyes briefly, the explosion making his tolerance for sudden changes in light much weaker. She bathes in a soft, pale light.
The pod is a shattered heap, pieces of metal and plastics strewn about its core. A once full clear shell that rested on the pod is broken, lining the inside of the pod and making the light milky and unclear.
The man notices that there's not a drop to be found.
Wires dropping from the sparking machines above obscure the girl as the man moves closer, and he brushes them aside as he approaches, almost reverently. He sifts through them and draws closer.
The instruments on the outside of the pod are humming. They are reading errors, and are one by one, going dim.
The temperature monitor, spiked and dropping, emitting its dull, dying hum.
The density gauge, overwhelmed, clicking slower and slower.
The radiation sensor chirping quieter, faster, until there is nothing.
Nothing but the quantum-frequency energy meter, a small tuning fork.
It is resonating a single note, continuously. Like a small chime perfectly in tune.
He approaches it, and flicks it off. The girl in the pod has noticed him.
"Hello!"
She says it so merrily he almost wants to laugh himself. And the tone is exactly that of the chime.
"Hello, there... Bell."
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