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