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PHido PHreaks PResent...Back In TimeBy the Silver Ghost Vince Donsoon stirred, twitched, and slapped his alarm clock to "off" fourmicroseconds before it was going to ring. He moaned and rolled over in bed. Listen: Vince Donsoon has come unstuck in time. By about four-fifths of a second. He climbed out of bed, opened the door, and blinked his eyes at the painfulblaze of light entering his pupils. About seven-tenths of a second later, heturned the light on. He stepped into the shower, and he jumped when he felt the cold water stinghis chest. About six-tenths of a second later, the water stung his chest. He never was a good driver, but his reflexes were excellent driving to workthat day. A station wagon pulled out in front of him, but it didn't matter;he was doing fifty, but he had had the brake on for almost a half-secondbefore the wagon began to move. An officer of the law waggled a finger at himat he began to accelerate through an intersection shortly before the lightturned green, but he didn't see the officer. Vince Donsoon was a child psychologist. Normally he was quiet and under-standing, but today he began to get on everyone's nerves. He would interruptpeople before they were through talking, which irritated children no end,because he did it constantly. Soon the children felt rejected, worthless, andVince kept answering their questions and commenting on their statements beforethey were through asking them and making them. Vince didn't notice. Hewondered why the children grew tired and irritated so quickly. He thoughtthat he was responding as he always was. Vince's co-worker came up to him. "Fine," said Vince. "How do you feel?" asked Linda before she realized what he had said. Listen: It was getting worse. Vince was one and twelve-hundredths of a second aheadof everything else. "Two," said Vince. "How many fingers am I holding up?" smiled Linda, and the smile faded as sherealized what he had said. She tried again, and then she remembered hearing Vince say "Three." Shetried again, many times. "One," said Vince. "Five," said Vince. He was neverwrong, and somehow Linda only remembered what he had said about one andthirteen hundredths of a second later. It was still getting worse. Vince was starting to realize that something was wrong. Listen: Here is the problem with Vince: Most people's nerves transmit information at about 30 MPH. If you were agiant thirty miles tall, and you impaled your foot on a mountain, it would bean hour before you felt the pain. Since you're only about one-nine hundredthof a mile tall, it takes about 0.000037 hours, or 0.15 seconds, for pain to gofrom your foot to your brain, and you can safely ignore this. If you happento put your foot into a raging hot fire, and the round-trip time of three-tenths of a second would be too long to prevent serious injury, you haveshorter nerves that route the "pain" signal directly into your muscles,without touching your brain first. Vince Donsoon was a freak of nature, an evolutionary mutant. By somebizarre and highly improbable coincidence, his nerves that transmitted infor-mation to his brain were beginning to work not at 30 MPH but at the illogicalspeed of four times the speed of light. The signals actually went back intime as they travelled to Vince's brain, and Vince received sensory inputabout 1.2 seconds before it was given to him. Vince drove back home. On the way, he slammed on the brakes to avoid asquirrel that was easily a hundred feet ahead of him. He then was slammedinto his seat 1.28 seconds before the car behind him slammed into his rearfender, causing about $150 of damage. Vince drove on, shaken. Vince called his place of work the next day and, through falteringconversation, quit. Linda asked if anything was wrong before she realizedthat he had already said no. It was getting much worse. Vince practiced burning his fingers with amatch while looking at his watch. He was about 3 1/2 seconds ahead. Hisnerves were conducting electricity at over seven times the speed of light. Vince walked cautiously to the grocery store. He was aware of every foot-step before he put it down. He put his foot down about twice every second.Seven paces before he stopped walking, his feet went numb. "Here you go," he said to the lady at the checkout counter. "That'll be$65.60," she said, and waited for him to finish filling out the check. Hedidn't have to. He handed it to her with "Sixty-five and sixty--------------"written neatly in the blank. She frowned, puzzled, and rang it up. Vince walked home with four bags of groceries in his arms. He laboriouslymoved his small refrigerator into his TV room, unpacked the groceries, and satdown in his easy chair. He turned on the TV and began to watch. -:- Two weeks later, his nerves worked at seventy times the speed of light. Hewas exactly twelve minutes and fourteen point six two seconds ahead. He hadrecently set up his answering machine, because almost half an hour ago thephone had rang. Twenty-four minutes and twenty-eight seconds before the phone rang, Vinceheard an annoying dial tone and his own voice talking into his left ear. Hecouldn't make out exactly what he was saying. A short time later, his voicesaid "goodbye" to a dead-phone silence. Twelve minutes and fourteen secondsbefore the phone rang, Vince heard the phone ring. He picked it up. "Hello,"he said, to the dial tone that he had heard twelve minutes before. He couldn'thear the dial tone, because to him it was in his past. He heard Linda's voicesay "Hello, Vince. Are you feeling OK?" "Yes," said Vince. "Hello?" saidLinda, as Vince realized that she was in his future. He didn't entirelyunderstand. "I'm here!" he shouted, as if what blocked their communicationwas merely a bad connection instead of a warp in the space-time continuum."Hello! Linda!" he said. "Oh damn," said Linda. "Vince--if you're there--Ican't hear you. I think your problem's getting worse. I'm going to call backin an hour. Try setting up your answering machine." Vince nodded. "If Idon't get an answer from you, I'll come over right away. Let me know how far--oh, you know. And take care of yourself!" "I'm right here!" said Vince asshe hung up. "Damn," he muttered. He couldn't hear himself swear, or seehimself hang up the phone. Vince's temporal (time-distorted, as opposed to "temporary," or time-dependant) insanity was a strange one. After he set down the phone, he beganto see strange, dim sights--visions of himself, arms stretched out in front ofhim, running headlong into walls, and feeling around for something. Vincegrabbed the arms of his chair and sat bolt upright in fear. Here is what washappening: The image was dim because Vince wasn't necessarily seeing twelve minutesand fourteen--fifteen, by now--seconds into the future. He was seeing twelveminutes and fifteen seconds into what MIGHT HAVE WILL BE. Because his senseswere so mis-timed with his actions, he had the power to change what he mighthave will be doing, that is, to change his future actions and create what iscommonly called the "grandfather paradox." In Vince's case this would be theact of doing something based on something he saw or heard, and then havingthis something that he did make it entirely impossible for the something hesaw or heard to occur, which makes it impossible for the something that he didto occur. Vince was, at the moment (whichever moment you choose to call it)indulging in an orgy of similarly self-denying somethings. The dim and blurrysights that Vince sees are himself, 12:15 in the future, stumbling aroundtrying to find his answering machine. The reason that he's stumbling around,instead of walking like anyone else would do, is that the Vince 12:15 in thefuture isn't able to see anything except a hazy image of what he is doingANOTHER 12:15 in the future. And so on, and so on. But as this goes on, andas Vince's nerves trace themselves further into the future, the images growdistorted, because Vince, the Vince now, the present-time Vince, the Vincethat sees life not from a 4:56 in the afternoon, but from 5:08 that sameafternoon, that Vince is actually able to change what he does in those twelveminutes. To ease your fears about what happens to poor afflicted Vince: Vince found the answering machine, after bruising his knuckles twice,barking his shin three times, and painfully sitting down on a nonexistantchair once. He installed it successfully--don't ask how--and recorded hisvoice onto the tape. He found his way back downstairs, settled into hiscomfy chair, and set quite a large number of beers out on the table. Hethen proceeded to watch channel 2, the news, weather, and sports update. Hesmiled at what was written under the moving stock ticker--"NYSE QUOTESDELAYED 15 MIN." "Not for me," Vince thought, and smiled for the first timein a while. He then sucked down another beer. Here is how deaf, dumb, and blind Vince plugged the answering-machine in,and found his way down the stairs without breaking his neck: He put the phoneplug from the upstairs extension into the machine very slowly, and he movedabout two feet every twelve minutes. He found that when he did that, theclarity of his sight brightened up remarkably, and by moving slowly enough,the effects of his nerves were reduced proportionally. Vince was in a badcondition, but he was intelligent. At one point, Vince (when very near the stairs) actually saw himself, andheard himself, and felt himself, go tumbling headlong down the stairs. Heheard his screams. He felt it as his arm broke, and he felt it when his headgot twisted under his body and when his neck snapped. He felt the breathgurgle out of him as his limp body flopped down the stairs, coming to resthead-down, and he felt himself, paralyzed, strangle to death. He felt himselfdead, and he felt death as a lot of darkness, and a low buzz in his ears. When he felt this, he stopped where he was and sat down and didn't move forabout twenty minutes. After the first five minutes, the darkness and buzzbegan to fade into what was the more probable reality, that of him sittingat the head of his stairs, which in fact he would be doing twelve minuteslater. But Vince didn't move for a long time, because feeling himself die hadscared him. He was very very glad that his reality was not immutable. He worked his way downstairs backwards, on hands and knees. While he didthat, the phone rang. He had heard it ring, twelve minutes and sixteenseconds earlier. -:- Linda arrived soon after she heard his answering machine. He had recordedthis: "Hello. Linda. As far as I can tell, I'm about twelve minutes in thepast. I hope you get this. Come over soon." Linda entered, and found the house to be deserted. She found him down-stairs, watching TV. She sat down next to him, and was suprised to see himturn and look at her. "Here's how I figure it," he said. "I saw you walk in and sit there, abouttwelve minutes ago. So I figure you're there now. I see you sitting on topof the TV set, now, which means you're going to be there in twelve minutes.I want you to decide to move somewhere else. Decide that in twelve minutesyou'll get up and walk over...there." He pointed. "I want to see whathappens." She closed her eyes and thought. He sat bolt upright. "You're...fadingout. And fading in over there. I thought so. Try it again. Think ofsomewhere else you'd like to be." She did so. "Hey--Jesus!" he shouted. "Youcould put some clothes on!" Linda figured that in twelve minutes she'd strip.Apparently Vince really could see into the future, she decided. It hadn'treally hit her. "Okay," said Vince out of the blue. "All right. Good." She sat still for twelve minutes, watching him watch TV. Then she said,"I think I'd like to stay here, with you, for a while. Okay?" She knew whatthe answer would be. -:- She and Vince had sex that night that could only be described as utterlyfascinating. -:- Linda left for work worried. She had timed him. He was approximatelythirteen minutes and forty-three seconds ahead, with minor errors due to theflexibility of time. She wondered if she really could change her future asshe left. Vince, after she left, decided life wasn't worth living. He felt acrushing pain, and then blackness and a hum. Fourteen minutes later, he walked down his driveway and into the path of atruck.------------------------------------------------------------------------------<)=||=(> <\ /> || \\/\// ...and if you enjoyed this Text File... || \/\/ ...call Thieves' World FIDO: [616]<344>(2718)... ...where all men are created people...