DR. WIACEK'S
MUTUAL REGENERATION MACHINE
Nik Morton
Wikipedia commons
‘Vaclav, do you
seriously expect me to believe we're surrounded by another, invisible universe
where time goes backwards?’ Austin Kramer shook his head in amazement, scanning
the huge laboratory replete with equipment of seemingly infinite variety and
chemical concoctions of constant reaction and surprisingly colourful effect.
Wiacek had really gone overboard on this one!
‘That's it, yes, more or less,’ Doctor Wiacek said, tenderly eyeing his
creation. ‘I'm on the threshold. So near, in fact, that I wanted you to be the
first to see what odd effects can be achieved once inter-universe transfer
occurs...’
‘So, that's why you got me here, is it?’ Kramer walked
over to a chain of coils and cathodes and diffuse coloured chemicals bubbling
and hissing rainbows, wires zinging and singing redly with their own peculiar
currents seething through ... If he remembered correctly, Wiacek had
plagiarised this theory from a London physicist three or four years ago. He’d
enlarged upon it, run his own experiments, developed his own tests ... But the
idea wasn't new ...
‘Vaclav, I know this theory has some very honourable fellows speaking
for it, but, really, you can't imagine such a universe actually existing
outside of pulp science fiction! It's comic book stuff!’
Wiacek just sighed.
‘Anyhow, how'd you manage to convince the University to part with funds
to finance such a project?’
Vaclav Wiacek smiled
artfully, bowed. ‘My computers here don't just assist in the number-crunching
legwork of this revolutionary theory - they accurately determine the odds and
back winners in all the big races ... I need never work again - ever...’
‘You're incorrigible, you really are! Whatever next!’
The machinery's whirring grew louder.
‘Is it - supposed to do that, Vaclav?’ Kramer enquired falteringly.
Wiacek grunted. ‘How do I know that? It's only a prototype - but I
expect it's all right...’
Flipping some ponderous toggle switches, Wiacek levelled his gaze on
Kramer. ‘I don't wish to be pedantic, but do you understand what I'm doing? Really?’
Kramer simply shrugged. ‘Only that you postulate - at second-hand, I
might add -that our present-day one-way experience of time is illusory, that
really the lopsidedness is balanced in this other universe of yours ... That's
all...’
Wiacek sighed again. ‘I want you to understand it, Austin.’ His
accented voice was slow and deliberate, patience personified: it irked Kramer
considerably. ‘You have been a close, if rather over-critical, associate of
mine for many years - yes, we've had our differences, but hasn't everybody? I
wanted to show you I'm not a crank theorising the impossible, day-dreaming with
idle speculation. Tonight I hope to have the proof... No, tonight I will have the proof!’
The creation coughed and gurgled: some liquid gushed, sounding almost
like applause.
‘That's very kind of
you, Vaclav. I don't believe in this universe of yours, but I'll stick around.’
Kramer smiled condescendingly. ‘Maybe I can
be convinced, eh?’
'You will, Austin,’ Wiacek promised, ‘you will...’
After a moment's pause, he added: ‘I'll try keeping
the background short. You're obviously aware I, er, “borrowed” this theory from
an eminent fellow in London. That was evident by your cutting aside earlier. Be
that as it may, the concept has been substantially advanced by me.
‘As you know, Nature tends to be very symmetrical -
except where this time concept comes into it. The second law of thermodynamics
is quite clear: it's a one-way, lop-sided process. We can dive out of an
airplane, but can't rise back up to the aircraft again; we grow older, not
younger. Radioactive atoms disintegrate into atomic particles; the particles
don't reassemble to form a new atom. So! But other other laws tend to confuse
the issue. Take luxon particles: a light particle travels from a stationary
position to the speed of light without
any acceleration at all! Yet
it's not conceivable, surely? But that's what light does ... Or the tunnel
diode, where electrons pass from one side of an electrical barrier to the other
without
going through it!
‘Why, indeed, should some aspects of our universe
seem asymmetrical in relation to time, then?’
Kramer's
brows lowered. ‘Go on, I'm following you so far.’ A little self-consciously,
he studied the burping and hiccupping machinery behind them; it seemed louder
now...
‘Well, if there were a second, time-reversed
universe, this symmetry of nature could actually be upheld, preserved, couldn't
it?’
‘Life would end at birth. Parents would outlive
their children ... Their future would be our past. Our whole set of beliefs
would be turned on its head! It just isn't possible, Vaclav. You can't have the
egg before the chicken ... it isn't rational!’
‘Would you say that if I provided proof of
detection, I wonder...?’
‘Proof? What proof?’
‘I injected that black rat you see over there in
his cage. The solution advances the ageing process. He was ageing rapidly; I
then exposed him to this machine's ray treatment - just like a sunlamp really -
and he vanished from sight.... He must have done some kind of 'time-flip' into
this other universe. For, an hour later, when the ray-treatment must have
weakened, back appeared the rat, younger than when he vanished. The answer is
obvious. In the other universe, he grew younger not older; of course, once back
in our universe he began ageing again. I keep him alive by time-flipping him
when he looks like ageing too much... Mind you, I don't know how long he will
stand up to it...’
Kramer approached the remarkable rat, its pointed
snout twitching as it munched on food. A lot of its hairs were grey now... ‘Can
you 'time-flip' him now, while I'm watching, Vaclav?’ Scepticism shaded
Kramer's request.
‘Certainly - but aren't you first going to enquire
as to why I've built this machine?’
‘I never really thought about it. You mean, you
have some application in mind?’
‘Certainly. One of the most important aspects would
obviously be if we could exchange matter, even people, between our universe and
this retrograde one. We would then have the nearest thing to immortality - a
perpetual state of mutual regeneration... Nobody need ever get old!’
Kramer
was dumfounded. ‘Why, that's fantastic - if it works ... But how do you know
when to bring our universe's people back?’
‘It could prove awkward - in the early stages,
mind. My indispensable computer has produced some fairly interesting figures,
estimates of the time it takes to age a year, and so on... I haven't proved
them, yet.’
‘Well, if I could see the machine working, and it did actually produce the effects you're
postulating, then I would certainly change my opinion, Vaclav. We'll be rich,
famous - it would be a marvellous contraption - in circumspect hands, of
course...’
‘That's why I brought you round, Austin,’ Wiacek
said. ‘I wanted you to see, first-hand what this “contraption”
is capable of.’
‘First... hand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ridiculous is this But.’
Kramer tried attacking Wiacek, suddenly aware that
the ray-beam had been bathing him all the while. But Wiacek simply floated
through him like a ghost. Within minutes, Wiacek dwarfed him then disappeared
completely.
He was shrinking. He looked at his hands: the
calluses, the lines, all had gone ... He was getting younger! This was
incredible. He forgave Wiacek the trick he'd played; he couldn't wait to be
returned to the time of his own universe, to congratulate him...
He wondered how much of a ray-dosage he'd
undergone... Indeed, how did Wiacek know what the right dosage would be?
He was small now. Thoughts fogged. He felt afraid.
He wanted his Mama...
Burp!
SLAP! Scream: gasping his
first lungful of air...
So warm, so secure; he moved slightly, kicked, but
remained in the foetal position...
The single spermatozoon fused with
the ovum... just as Wiacek reached down for them, beneath the microscope. ‘So,
you've returned! That'll teach you to disbelieve me,’ Wiacek chortled and
popped the fertilised egg in a test tube and sealed it.
‘Now, who else thinks I'm mad and harmless,’ he
asked himself, searching his memory for all the critics and detractors in his
career.
***
Previously published
in Dream Magazine in 1989.
Copyright Nik Morton,
2014
At the time of
originally writing this story (the late 1970s, it underwent several rewrites!),
I hadn’t heard of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1921 short story ‘The Curious Case of
Benjamin Button’ published in his collection Tales of the Jazz Age.
If you enjoyed this
story, you might like Spanish Eye,
my
short story collection featuring Leon Cazador, private eye in 22 cases
published
by Crooked Cat Publishing.
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