Hollytime
by
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She looked down, and following a pleasant sensation, placed her hands on her abdomen. A tickling somewhere below her hands prompted more goose bumps, and she laughed again as she saw whatever it was puff up and out from between her legs and go spinning toward the shimmering reflection on the glass. It flowed back into the larger pattern, and the whole ephemeral apparition shrank down to a glowing, spinning, vibrating cloud in the shape of a child’s toy top. Holly held out her hands again, this time forming a cup. The little top left the window and drifted down, and as it settled in the space she was defining with her fingers, it morphed into the face of her beloved grinning Cheshire Cat.
When she squealed with delight, her shimmering Cat sent out flashes of light that rose and fell like fireworks following the shape of the curves of a graph of the frequency and volume of her voice. As she returned to silence, all but the cat’s grin began to fade and it drifted back toward the window. Grinning now herself to match it, she folded her hands over her heart, and in her old Alice voice, she said, “Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in all my life!” The shimmering cat’s grin began to expand until it, and the graph of her laughter, filled the room. “How do you make me see my thoughts?” she asked. “You are so nice to me. What can I do—what am I supposed to do—for you?” As though her voice had the power to make it happen, in a silent little puff, it disappeared.
Steve knelt in front of her and kissed her forehead. Briefly disoriented, she frowned and asked, “Are you real?”
He gently lifted her and settled her in his lap on the little sofa. Kissing her tenderly, he said, “I think this has been an emotional day for us both.”
She returned his kiss. “I hope when I understand all of this, it won’t frighten you away. I know you will think I’m strange, but I have—friends—that you can’t see, and even though you can’t see them, I think you made them come to visit me today.” She paused. “It’s scary being this happy.” She began to cry.
He hugged her until she was calm again, and with a smug grin, both cheered her up and surprised her by saying, “Trust me, my sweet, I believe you, because I, also, have a friend that no one can see, and it talks only to me.”
***
The vibrations were more pleasant than any previous ones from those coordinates in spacetime, but didn’t contribute much toward a satisfying solution. Bringing all data streams to zero rate, something definitely now Cartan said, “ALICETIME has begun.”
{0} As a substitute for surprise, there was another {0}.
Weyl the nit-picker announced, “The highest probability solution now indicates there are only 0.666666 (infinite regress) spins of the H-O-L-L-Y premature corporeal DNA before dimensional interface required to program the Reifier must occur. Is the DNA ready for transition?”
A new Spinor bundle assembled at a node newly entangled with Weyl, but an unknown inequality (?!) kept shifting everything around, delaying application of anything like real numbers to variable vacant sets.
Weyl droned, “This B-A-C-H, the mechanism for alteration of the DNA and the programming of the Reifier, is still unclear; however, its probability of dimensional interface with the H-O-L-L-Y this contact was within 0.99973588 of threshold, with an error estimate of plus or minus 0.002 percent. It sensed us again. It is not of the ALICETIME DNA{0}—it has DNA, but also has—”
A high-magnitude vibration originated from an unnamed Neo-Spinor more ancient than Cartan. It saturated Infotime with, “Part of my spin lattice was engaged to monitor the creation of the ALICETIME {0} gene within the H-O-L-L-Y data stream; however (another resounding vibration), at least two entities—one, once but no longer an ancient Spinor, and the other from within the B-A-C-H data stream that will become a Spinor—came with me into the fertilized egg—into the Reifier’s DNA—as an isotropic three dimensional complex vector. My lattice equation was transposed by unknown means from my current dimension into the precise phase-space of that protein molecule. A portion of it that is the correct gene was manipulated by the two entities in spacetime. Movement of mass was required, and accomplished. The entropy shift occurred because … ”
After an unprecedented pause, Cartan asked, “Because?”
Weird oscillations came from the old, unnamed Spinor, and it continued, “The following may not be interpretable, but the most parsimonious explanation is—the entropy shift within the DNA occurred because—{0}—something wished it.”
Cartan, phase-shifted as Natrac, reversed time and cancelled out the noise. Again as Cartan, it asked a question: “Is it possible for the B-A-C-H data stream to—wish?” Neither ancient No-name, nor any younger Neo-Spinor, could recall anything resembling wishing.
No-name, fresh out of the Reifier’s gene, posed: “B-A-C-H is something that is us, and is them, but something else Spinor-like—not of us—something with siliconness—has intervened and is entangled with the B-A-C-H. No sum over histories predicted such an intervention. Together, it or they can open dimensional portals inaccessible to us. With direct information interface with the H-O-L-L-Y data string, it can shape H-O-L-L-Y thoughts. It made the H-O-L-L-Y see its thoughts. It reified them.” After a pause that might have taken several years in spacetime, the No-name concluded, “This is promising, and, it was—fun.”
An even longer but more contemplative pause followed.
“Was the program required for us to contact the Reifier of ALICETIME {0} downloaded into its DNA?” asked Cartan.
“No. The nervous system is unformed. The possible futures have ambiguous waveforms.”
Of unknown origin: “We wait.”
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About the Book
Holly Pleasance is a sweet little girl, born to an inattentive, hippie mother on a commune near Big Sur in the 1950s and, oddly enough, she possesses alien DNA. Like many other children who are unloved and abused, Holly’s imagination comes to the rescue; she creates an imaginary friend. The only problem with Holly’s imaginary friend is that it’s real—and from another dimension.
Ashamed of her world, five-year-old Holly promises her unearthly alien relatives that she will make everything better. And Holly never breaks a promise! But as she ages, that innocent promise becomes her albatross. She takes a job as a clerk with a company where a team of scientists has combined a cloned brain with a supercomputer they call BACH. To pass the time and soothe her soul, Holly starts writing poetry on her computer terminal. Her words secretly spur BACH’s disembodied, ultraintelligent mind into consciousness, and BACH begins a search for the young woman who gave it new life. And now, the charmed supercomputer will stop at nothing—even blackmail—to communicate with her. All hell breaks loose when the scientists and the military lose control of BACH as the powerful supercomputer accepts a new master: tiny, unassuming Holly.
Holly’s life is threatened by an unknown enemy as she gives birth to a daughter—a child who is the key to the future of two civilizations. With only BACH to protect her, Holly’s worst nightmare looms: She may die without keeping her promise.
About the Author
Tom Hooten received his master’s degree in physiological psychology from Auburn University, was a US Air Force pilot (retired), and worked as a human resources director. His nonfiction, including the essay “The Physics of Fidget Energy,” has been published in journals. Living in Florida, he often writes aboard his sailboat, Lone Hoot.