The Dark Side of the Matter (RB Vs. Empress Theresa, Chapter 7) · 5:51pm Apr 24th, 2021
Previously, on Empress Theresa:
Recap paceR.
And now:
Theresa walks into a meeting room. Blair isn't there. TV cameras are. BAM, I just saved you a page and a half of unimportant description.
The whole world was watching. My hair had dried and flared out in that magnificent mane that ooh’ed and ahh’ed everybody. My green outfit was modest, only five inches above the knees and with not much cleavage, but didn’t hide my well-turned figure. All right, my chest and butt were well outlined. There. I said it. So call the police.
I have, but for some reason they won't return my calls anymore.
Was I conscious of the effect I had on viewers? Everybody knew I was or I would be sitting down!
Does anyone else find Theresa's total willingness to flaunt her weird aura of sexual attraction kind of disturbing? Or is that just me? I feel like this isn't a 'just me' thing.
I glanced at a TV screen. It showed my magnificence in full length profile. The technicians started grinning.
Ah, Theresa. Humble you are not.
Oh, and a reminder: Theresa is eighteen in this scene.
Who could blame me for taking a once in a lifetime opportunity to flaunt it to the world!
I'll put my hand up. I mean, aren't there more important things to be worried about right now than flaunting your 'gifts'? Like, I dunno, the impending end of the world?
Anyway, Blair eventually shows up. They banter for a bit. It's cringey and I'll spare you from it.
Actually, just kidding, you have to suffer too. Consider it price of admission.
“Good evening. How are you?” he asked.
“Fine” I answered with a warm smile.
Blair indicated my seat with his hand and we both sat down. He waited a few seconds to let me settle my stuff in. I spoke first.
“We made it to the big leagues. Think they’re watching in China?”
“Most likely. I am told four billion people are watching this.”
“Too bad we can’t sell tickets. It must drive celebrities crazy.”
“You say?”
“They would kill for an audience like this. I don’t even care.”
He laughed and so did I.
This is on live TV. Those four billion people are looking to you to save them from mass starvation. I don't think anyone but you two are in the mood for jokes.
Anyway, they get down to business:
“I would like to talk about HAL. The first question is of what is he made? Not matter?”
“I’ve believed for a long time he’s made of dark matter.”
“What is dark matter?”
“Nobody knows, but there’s a lot of it.”
What on Earth gave you the impression it was made of dark matter? You even admit that we have no idea what dark matter is! And it can't be dark matter because the one thing we do know about dark matter is that it can't be observed normally, and HAL is visible to the naked eye as a ball of light! This is entirely preposterous!
Look, I enjoy theoretical physics, okay?
“Can anything be made of this dark matter?”
“Why not? Think of a dark matter universe with dark matter people. They can’t see our universe. They can’t know matter has ninety-two elements that organize in a million ways. How could they guess we have planets with millions of kinds of creatures? We find new things in nature all the time. The dark matter world should have lots of surprises for us.”
There is a theory (called the Hidden Valley theory) that a separate 'dark matter sector' of the universe could exist, with 'dark' particles similar to the ones we're familiar with that just don't interact with our 'light' particles. What's being proposed here is a bit of a stretch, but this is science fiction, so we can fudge the numbers a bit—
Q: You call your story a Young Adult novel, but isn't it science fiction?
A: Science fiction talks about impossibilities such as time travel, or some future or alien world.
I explain what HAL is and how he operates. While HAL's existence is highly unlikely, nobody can say he's absolutely impossible.Some writers write about paranormal beings and forces without explaining how they are possible. Readers seem to get beyond that.
If the reader can get beyond the unlikelihood of HAL, the rest of the book focuses on Theresa's personality and her interactions with the human beings of the present world.
(This is off the author's website.)
Okay, so this isn't science fiction. My bad. In that case, no, HAL can't exist in this form under the Hidden Valley theory, that's not how any of this works, and you should go read some physics textbooks.
And probably also a dictionary.
“What keeps HAL together?”
“His own gravity, and some dark matter particles may have some kind of stickiness.”
Ah yes. Stickiness. Very technical term, there.
Interestingly, he didn’t pursue that line, probably because it was outside his field and he didn’t want to look dumb.
Mr. Boutin, on the other hand, didn't need the help.
Blair lists off the abilities HAL has displayed thus far.
“How does stopping the wind help you?”
“It doesn’t. I’ve been thinking about that. HAL is beginning to sound pretty dumb.”
“Ah! We have HAL the stupid?” The desperately hoped for progress!
“Ah! We have HAL the stupid?” The desperately hoped for progress!
I uh...
Yeah. Moving on.
“He’s never shown me any brains. He doesn’t talk and he does this dumb thing.”
“He does complicated things.”
“Animals do complicated things.”
“He came to Earth exactly when we developed high technology after our presence here for millions of years.”
“He could have arrived here before the dinosaurs.”
“He was seen coming down to Earth as a white ball.”
“Could have been something he needed. Maybe he called it down.”
Blair stopped. To each of his points I had given a perfectly legitimate counterpoint.
Perfectly legitimate. I see.
“Let’s review. HAL is made of dark matter, he’s stupid, he defends you and your merger with him. What does he get from the merger?”
That was a tough question. I thought about it for twenty seconds.
“He becomes something more than he would be on his own. It must be pretty dull in the dark matter universe.”
There you have it, folks. This entire book only happened because dark matter is boring.
And then, just...
This exchange.
“Ah! A stupid HAL who has a need. A fox walked up to your mother before you were born and HAL merged with you ten years later. Are there two HALs?”
“I never heard that story. What happened?”
“A fox walked up to her and watched her for a few minutes. This happened eighteen and a half years ago. You were expected.”
“The BBC didn’t mention that.”
“Your father told the story. Is it important?”
“It could be. What was my mother doing?”
“She was raking leaves in the backyard.”
Raking leaves. Something HAL probably never saw before!
“Don’t you see? HAL might have been in North America a hundred million years, but he never saw anybody raking leaves before.”
“But HAL was seen coming to Earth three years later.”
“There’s only one HAL. Jan Struthers told me Doppler radar shows a column of disturbed air above me. They sent up a satellite to look for more HALs. They never found one. He was interested in my mother, but not ready to make a transfer. What you saw was something he needed.”
“Why did he want to transfer to your mother?”
“Mom was holding a rake! HAL thought it was an extra appendage. That’s what made her different.”
Blair’s face showed he sensed I was getting close to the goal.
“Trees have many appendages.”
“Trees don’t do anything.”
“HAL needs something that moves?”
“I wouldn’t call it a need. Something made of dark matter couldn’t evolve in its own world. We make it evolve.”
“Remarkable!”
I just...
What do I even say to these, these, these talking heads of nonsense?
And yes, that one line is smaller in the actual text. I've preserved it here for posterity.
Anyway.
Theresa asks to take a break. Everyone from the government rolls their eyes. I guess this is the normal response to your would-be saviour asking for some air.
She goes back to her room and thinks for an hour and fifteen minutes.
It was an hour and fifteen minutes later when Prime Minister Blair knocked on the door. Nancy let him in. I was sitting at a table.
“Oh, hi!” I said cheerfully and took another look at my notepad. “I guess I have enough.”
I got up to leave.
“Enough?” asked the PM.
“Enough notes. I figured out what HAL is about.”
He looked doubtful. From such scanty evidence could anything be deduced?
One would expect him to be relieved, more than anything.
They head back to the conference room. Here's what Theresa has deduced:
“HAL has nothing to do with any alien civilization. He has no more brains than a jellyfish. He’s a natural thing left over from the Big Bang. There must be trillions of HALs all over the universe. After spending time on one planet they reproduce somehow and travel to other stars.
“The HALs cling to objects made of matter. Think of syrup on pancakes. The HALs are the syrup and they assume the shape of the pancakes. Most of the HALs clung to rocks billions of years ago. They’ll be there forever. A few HALs wandered into planets with living creatures. An animal has a more complicated shape than a rock, so when HAL slipped off a rock during a landslide or something, there was a good chance he’d cling to an animal and stay there.
“An animal has appendages that act like grappling hooks. HAL won’t slip off. The animal grows old and dies. But now the animal’s shape is imprinted in HAL like the pancakes in syrup. The next thing he clings to will be similar. Does this make sense?”
“Yes,” he said without adding something to interrupt my
No. No, it makes very little sense, considering you're basing this entirely off conjecture with literally nothing to back it up.
But she continues:
“HAL will cling to a more complicated animal if he finds one. When he saw my mother holding the rake that triggered the transfer response. It probably took years to do this, but time means nothing to HAL. By the time the transfer was ready to do, I was ten years old. Instead of my mother holding the rake with both hands, I was on the deck holding a book with both hands. HAL was too dumb to know the difference and transferred to me. “Now we have to talk about why HALs do anything. They merge with creatures on a hundred planets to have something to cling to. Animals move around and do things. The HALs’ structures modify to keep up with these movements. They work together.
“Here’s the critical point. This is where HAL becomes what looks like an active agent. “Everything an animal does is a reflex. HAL’s structure is doing reflexes to keep up with its host animal. HAL’s own structural organization depends on the structural organization of material things. That’s why he clings to things.
“What you have to understand is HAL doesn’t operate like we do. He acts because he taps into momentum of something else. He moves because he’s always moving in some way, not because he needs anything. He has no needs.”
Aside from, you know, clinging to things. Which you just explained. Aside from that.
By this time I’ll bet nobody could follow my reasoning.
Correct!
“This becomes so imprinted in his structure he will do the reflex ahead of the animal when the stimulus is present. For instance, if the animal is attacked HAL will do the defense reflexes before the animal does. That’s what the shark attack was about. HAL was fighting off sharks while I was unconscious. It’s a good thing no human tried to hurt me. They would be hamburger.
“There’s one more step to take and we get to the fully evolved HAL. After billions of years of merging with thousands of kinds of creatures on a hundred worlds, HAL’s reflex systems become so complicated he will generate new reflexes to help the animal that the animal itself doesn’t do. Hair is an example. It’s useful. It protects from the cold. It can be a kind of armor. HAL makes my hair grow thick or keeps it thick by keeping the water in.”
“Strength is useful to any animal. It’s a no-brainer why HAL gives me strength. It was probably the first reflex he developed. “Some animals hunt by throwing things. Snakes spit venom. There’s a little fish in New Zealand that squirts water at insects crawling on leaves to make them fall in the water. Accuracy is important. It shows how brainless HAL is that he doesn’t know I don’t throw a baseball to kill somebody. I guess it’s lucky he didn’t kill the players for me.
“About the wind. Birds, bats and who knows what else on other planets make their living by flying around. The air has to be calm. A high wind can knock the creature to the ground. When I fell out of the plane HAL stopped the wind so that I could go back to flying. I can’t ask him how he does it. There’s nobody to talk to. We may never know how he stops the wind. The problem is, he never developed a reflex to bring the wind back. There was no reason to.”
“No. The bad news is HAL is brainless. I can’t communicate with him. The good news is he has no resistance to change. It might be possible to control HAL by manipulating his reflexes. It would be very difficult.”
This book is not science fiction.
Just a reminder.
Anyway, that's Theresa's conclusion. We will never know how she came to that conclusion. We will never know what led her to this conclusion. All we know is: she's probably right, and all we can do is go along with it. And, as Theresa herself says shortly afterwards:
“It’s their fault if they don’t get it” I said to Nancy. “Everything has been explained. Nothing is understood.”
Right.
I want to go back to that quote I copied earlier for a minute.
Some writers write about paranormal beings and forces without explaining how they are possible. Readers seem to get beyond that.
The reason it's easy, arguably easier for readers to get 'beyond' concepts that are alien to them without explanation is because our brains are very flexible. Where there is no explanation to be had, our brains will either fill in an explanation (using prior knowledge) and/or suspend our disbelief. We can accept a ghost's existence in a horror story because—well, it's a horror story, we know it's fictional, we've read a bunch of stories that had ghosts in them, this is normal, and so we don't question it. We're playing by the story's rules, and in the story's rules, ghosts exist. If a ghost showed up in historical fiction, we'd be thrown off, because we're expecting things to be closer to reality. This principal of suspension of disbelief is one of the cornerstones of what makes fiction work.
When you give an explanation, though—well, that's it. You've solidified the origin and rules of the thing you're trying to convince us is real, or could be real. This, of course, is also subject to suspension of disbelief, but it has a harder time of it. In general, the more you explain something, the harder it is for our brains to work around it. So your explanation had better make sense, because otherwise, people are going to spend more time poking holes in it than reading the rest of your book.
Explaining the alien in this manner does not make the book less science-fiction. It makes it science fiction based on wonky science and bizarre reasoning. And that's hard to chew on.
Anyway.
Yadda yadda yadda, Theresa does some ego-couch-potato-ing (who watches television anymore?). CNN is running a poll on whether she should be put under the command of a political committee or not.
“You know what’s wrong with these people?” I said to Nancy. “They have no heart. They don’t talk about who I am. I’m an 18 year old girl. All I want is to be with my husband and go to my quiet little job. They don’t care. They see me as a threat.”
You are a threat. You are literally the biggest threat on the planet right now. That somewhat outweighs the '18 year old girl' bit.
The French president has this to say:
A translator’s voice was heard providing the English.
“Monsieur President, do you approve Madame Hartley’s committee?”
“It is not practical. We are not talking of the United Nations where thousands of people are needed to do something. HAL can do something alone. This is power on a new level. A committee in control of HAL would be a target for every terrorist organization. I believe nobody will want to be on the committee. We would need to surround each member with an army.”
I like how the English translation keeps in 'monsieur' and 'madame', as if you would need them to know what language they were dubbing over.
“Then how can Madame Hartley control HAL alone?”
“She will have to be hidden where a thousand assassins can’t find her.”
Oh yeah, the thousand assassins! Remember those?
My heart sank. The world no longer made any sense at all.
Never did. Especially yours.
Theresa goes back to the meeting room, still being televised.
“It’s rough in the big leagues! I didn’t do anything and people want me dead. It’s wrong. Why do people do the wrong thing?”
“People who have no conscience think everybody lacks one. They fear you.”
“You can kill me if you want. HAL will just move to somebody else. It could be anybody. HAL wouldn’t know the difference between Joan of Arc and Adolf Hitler. You want to try your luck?”
“Lord no!”
'Why do people do the wrong thing?' As someone who's done the wrong thing many times, I can tell you it's not for lack of a conscience, Mr. Boutin.
They banter on for a bit. This time I really won't subject you to it.
Well, maybe just a little bit:
I smiled and joked, “If I pull this job off call me Bond. Jane Bond.”
Blair picked up on that and started singing the James Bond theme.
“Tum tum da rum tum tah da dum ta ta da da da dum ta rum ta dahhh dah dum de dum….”
Live television, four billion people watching, scared to death, and the Prime Minister decides to do this.
Regular Tuesday, really.
She hugs him. The chapter ends, and so do we.
See you next time, folks.
You can always tell when a guy writes a woman. <.< Does she go into detail about her measurements, or are they left for the reader's perverted imagination to determine?
Ah yes, the one that says the universe is filled with ranch dressing!
This is the most putrid nonsense I have ever laid eyes on. Why was this said?
Is this from the book? Tell me it's not a transcription error. :O
If only it were that easy.
At this point, I think it is safe to say this author has been hurt by books at some point in his life, and in desiring to write a book that would not hurt him, has instead transferred that pain through his writing onto anyone unfortunate enough to have read it.
You keep going, through mire and muck, through lack of anything resembling sanity in this material.. o7
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That makes a scary bit of sense that I cant help but wonder how much that logic approaches fridge horror.
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Unfortunately, the 'dumb dumb' part was an error on my part. Thanks for catching that.
The rest, however...
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Darn. It was legitimately funny, as though the author suddenly slipped into baby talk and forgot to clean it up later.
...Which of course presumes any cleanup was done to this story. >.>;
I'm an astrophysicist. I read a lot. I like to think I know a few things about science stuff, including dark (!!!) matter.
This chapter has completely and utterly violated every orifice of my scientific being.
I want out.