"The Machine" drabbles by Jeff Taylor
Oh Dear
The Machine #6
They looked at the machine.
"Ooh. That doesn't look good, does it?"
"Nope. That is well and truly fucked."
"Where's the old guy? Oh. Wait. Is that...?"
They looked at the leg poking out of the granite wall. A dirty, but still fluffy, slipper hung from the foot.
"I don't think we'll be giving the old prof what for. Things must've gotten pretty hairy in here after we left."
"Is the rest..."
"Yeah. Probably atomically shifted just enough for his atoms to slip inside the space of the granite atoms."
"Is he?"
"I don't think he's breathing through solid rock..."
So where's the kitchen?
The Machine #5
They walked down to the ex Cold-War nuclear bunker, where the machine was held.
"Still not getting the difference with the parallel Universe thingy..."
"Hmmm... Well, think of it this way. Our reality is a room in a house. Other, alternate, realities are other rooms; but in the same house."
"So what about the Parallel Universe?"
"That's the house next door."
"So they have lots of rooms that are alternate realities, like ours?"
"Yeah. You gettin' it?"
"I think so... So all the parallel Universe stuff where the Nazi's won is wrong?"
"Yep."
"Bcheeu!! That's mind blowing man!"
"Yep."
Not leaking
The Machine #4
"So we're not leaking?"
"Yep. We're not leaking, and neither are they. So we just need to turn the machine off now."
"And that'll close it?"
"Er, no. That idiot has stuck a hole in the Universe. Hopefully it'll heal in a few million years..."
"Million years?"
"Yeah. It's not going away soon. Come on. We need to get inside. If only to stop getting irradiated."
"Oh, yeah. Forgot about that. Are we gonna die?"
"Nah, I think we'll be fine. Equivalent of a nasty, all-the-way-through, sunburn. Might need to take some Iodine just as a precaution."
Bucket's' O'water
The Machine #3
They looked up at the split sky.
"Looks like we might've been lucky."
"How so?"
"The energy state of the Universe next door looks like it's the same as ours."
"What, like an alternative reality?"
"No, no, no. Our Universe contains all its own alternates. In a multiverse, each one is unique. If the one next door had a different energy state, then we would have been really screwed."
"Eh? Why?"
"Think of it like poking a hole in a bucket full of water. If the bucket is in water, nothing comes out. If it's not, all the water leaves."
Rupture
The Machine #2
"Oh Jesus H. Christ! What did he do!?"
"Is that a breach?
"Dude. That's not a fucking breach. That's a god damned, fucking rupture!"
"What do we do?"
"What do you mean what do we do? He's stuck a hole in space-time! Who do you think I am? Doctor Who or something?"
"Man, there's no need to go off the deep end."
"You're kidding right?" He pointed at the tear in the sky. "We're standing in front of an inter-dimensional rupture. You see that blue glow around the edge?"
"Yeah."
"Cherenkov radiation. Hope you weren't planning on Children."
Don't do it!
The Machine #1
“You don’t understand. The Universe has a skin. It’s expanding like a giant rubber balloon. If you activate that machine, it’s going to be like someone sticking a pin in it! Your entry point has to be strengthened. If you don’t do that, the whole thing will blow up!”
“Rubbish! The generator can't produce enough energy to do that. It’s only able to produce 2 Gev, Cern’s large Hadron Collider can do six times that!”
“Look... This is really simple. The device may be low powered, but it’s continuous. Your attempt to open a wormhole is going to kill everyone.”
