Quest for Immortality

Below on this page is Chapter 4 of the science fiction story "The Trinity Intervention". In Chapter 3, Eddy was recruited by Nyrtia to help search for Nyrtia's lost time travel agent, Qua. Back in 2019, I introduced Qua as an Interventionist agent in a different context, but now Qua is brought back to the stage in "The Trinity Intervention".

Eddy and his investigative team search for Qua inside the Reality Simulation System. Finding Qua on the day before her demise, the decision is made to give Qua a new life in the Final Reality. 

Chapter  4 also brings back another old character, Sedruth. Sedruth serves as a user-friendly interface for the Reality Simulation System.

 Chapter 4 of "The Trinity Intervention" (Chapter 1)(Chapter 2)(Chapter 3)

"This is the index to the Reality Simulation System." Eddy's voice was almost reverent. "Every Reality that ever existed is here at our finger tips... all of human history. Every timeline, every branching possibility, every Intervention by time travelers. It's all recorded here, stored in sedron-matter inside the Sedron Domain."

Zeta asked, "Have you found anything about Qua?"

"I haven't looked yet. Nyrtia only told me about Qua this morning." Eddy manipulated the interface by typing commands with the keyboard. “The interface reminds me of DOS in the previous millennium.”

Eddy and Zeta

Marda giggled. “This is ridiculous. There must be a better way.” She put her hand on Eddy's mouse and began moving the cursor around on the screen, clicking on everything.

Suddenly a voice said, “I am Sedruth.”

Eddy looked around the room. “Did that voice come from my computer?”

“No, I am communicated directly to all of the femtozoans that are nearby.”

Eddy asked Marda, “Do you hear Sedruth?”

Marda nodded. “This is too weird!”

Sedruth said, “What is weird is that I don't think Eddy would have ever activated me. He would have spent eternity typing in text commands.”

Zeta said, “I knew there had to be a more efficient way of using the Simulation System. Beings as sophisticated as the Huaoshy would be masters of user interface design.”

The Sedruth entity agreed. “True. I could have announced my presence to Eddy, but I had been warned to wait until your entire team had assembled.”

Eddy demanded, “Warned by who?”

“Eddy, even as a replicoid, you do still occasionally fall asleep. With time, you will break that habit. In any case, Manny had a chance to use your computer and communicate with me.”

Zeta laughed, “I should have guessed!”

Eddy complained, “Sedruth, if you are the user interface for the Reality Simulation System then you should be helping me. Tell me... why would you do Manny's bidding?”

Zeta and Tyhry

Sedruth explained, “She told me that if you began making full use of all the features of the Reality Simulation System then you would go charging off into a Simulation and you might never return. I thought it best that you wait until your team was assembled. Frankly Eddy, you lack common sense.”

Zeta laughed and told Sedruth, “You are correct, but you do not need to be so blunt. Eddy also has a tender ego.”

Sedruth told Zeta, “I'm glad you are here. You can link to me telepathically.”

Without even getting out of her chair, Zeta telepathically linked to the Sedruth user interface and took control of the cursor that was visible on the Index page. Zeta spoke out-loud for the benefit of Eddy, Tyhry and Marda. “I don't even need to use the text-based interface. I'm telepathically in communication with Sedruth.” The image on the display changed and now showed a cute woman as she walked through a cluttered physics research laboratory. Zeta explained, “That's Qua, Nyrtia's time travel agent. It was trivial for Sedruth to find her in a past Reality, what we might as well call the Qua Reality... when she triggered a thermonuclear war.”

Sedruth added, “Not much of a war. It only killed a hundred million people.”

Not with the mouse or keyboard, but with his thoughts, Eddy was trying to communicate with the Sedruth entity. He “heard” Sedruth tell him personally, “You have a primitive femtozoan that is just starting to build linkages to the rest of your cognitive apparatus.” With some help from Sedruth, the femtobot components in his brain were now interfacing directly with the Sedruth component of the user interface of the Reality Simulation System. Eddy could not break the habit of speaking and he said, “Show me Klaus Fuchs”.

Marda and Tyhry

The displayed visualization space shifted and expanded, zooming back. It still showed Qua, but now it could be seen that there was also a man there in the laboratory. Sedruth said, “Klaus Fuchs in his research lab at Los Alamos, at work on the measurement of the physical properties of solutions with high concentrations of deuterium and tritium. In this image, he can be seen performing an experiment with the assistance of Qua”.

Eddy telepathically requested that Sedruth search the timeline of the Qua Reality for details about Qua's mission. Now the display expanded, filling the entire wall of the great-room with waves of historical detail. They saw Klaus Fuchs as a young man fleeing Nazi Germany. They saw him working at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute of Physics. They saw him being recruited by the British and eventually joining the Manhattan Project.

And they saw someone else. A man who appeared periodically in Fuchs's life, always in the background, never quite in focus. He had different names in different contexts: Karl Neumann, Kevin Murphy, Kristoff Nielsen. But his face was consistent—a thin, intense man with dark eyes and a nervous energy.

Sedruth zoomed in on one scene. It was 1944, Los Alamos. Fuchs was in a small apartment, papers spread across a table. The thin man—Karl Neumann in this identity—sat across from him, explaining something with quick, precise gestures.

"Can we hear what they're saying?" Tyhry asked.

Sedruth began projecting the audio data directly into their brains, translating the spoken language into the preferred language of each member of the team.

Neumann was speaking: "...the key is understanding the deuterium-tritium reaction cross-section. At reasonable temperatures and pressures, the fusion yield will theoretically be quite large."

Fuchs interrupted: "But the engineering challenges are immense. Creating a device that can achieve those temperatures, contain the plasma, trigger the fusion reaction... a fusion bomb is easier to build than a fusion power plant."

"The Soviets might develop it faster than the Americans will. Think about it, Klaus. The war will end soon. Germany will be defeated. But what comes next? I want both the Americans and the Soviets to start developing fusion power plants."

The scene faded. Sedruth said, "Qua played the roles of several humans during her Intervention, including that of Neumann."

Tyhry said, "Wait, Qua could simultaneously be multiple people?"

Sedruth adopted Tyhry's own nomenclature and patiently explained, "A niaf like Qua can split their femtobot components and mimic more than just one person."

Now on the display screen was the root index page. Eddy asked Sedruth to display a more useful Reality map, a branching timeline view that showed all of the past Realities from the Qua Reality to the Final Reality. The displayed image shifted as Sedruth responded to Eddy's request. Eddy mused, "So in that Reality, the Qua Reality, Qua convinced Fuchs to pass detailed fusion research to the Soviets. Not just the fission bomb design, but a hydrogen bomb design, too."

Zeta telepathically moved the pointer cursor on the display to a node on the branching red timeline. "Look at this note provided by Sedruth!" She clicked on a small textbox which enlarged. "A Soviet hydrogen bomb test in early 1950.”

Eddy traced the Qua Reality timeline forward. Sedruth generated a zoomed in display, noting the key differences between multiple Realities. Through the 1950s the divergence from known history became more dramatic, culminating in a nuclear crisis in 1958. A Soviet ultimatum over Berlin. The American president, Nelson Rockefeller, not Eisenhower—refusing to back down. And then, multiple thermonuclear detonations across Europe, Asia, and North America.

Marda whispered. "Is that what would have happened? If Qua had succeeded?"

"That's what did happen, in a Reality that no longer exists." Zeta's voice was grim. "That's why Manny carried out a counter-Intervention, using me as her field operative."

Sedruth said, "I can show you exactly what Manny did." The video being displayed now showed a woman on an ocean liner. Sedruth told them, “In 1910, 8ME arrived in New York. She soon met Józef Konopinski.”

Tyhry asked Zeta, “That woman was you?”

Zeta replied, “Yes, she was me, one of the many human roles that I have played.”

"Mom, you seduced him," Tyhry said, watching the scenes unfold.

"Yes." Zeta didn't sound apologetic. "Yes, I constructed a son for Józef who was named Emil Konopinski, born in 1911."

They watched Emil grow up, excel in school, attend university, become a physicist. And they watched 8ME guide him, subtly, through guidance by several of her various identities. A teacher who encouraged Emil's interest in physics. A professor who recommended him for graduate school. A colleague who suggested he attend a particular conference where he first met Edward Teller.

"You engineered his entire life," Marda said.

"Yes. To ensure he would be in the right place at the right time." Zeta pointed to a scene in 1943. Teller and Konopinski were working together on calculations of thermonuclear reaction cross-sections.

Sedruth explained, "That collaboration with Teller was crucial. Konopinski's insights into thermonuclear reactions suggested a workable hydrogen bomb design. Then further work on fusion reactions was moved to a different laboratory with its own tighter security, another laboratory that Fuchs and Qua had no access to."

"And that prevented the thermonuclear war," Eddy said.

Zeta noted, "And also derailed progress on fusion power plants because Qua could no longer influence and re-direct the research towards power generation applications.”

Tyhry was still staring at the visualization of past events that was being provided by Sedruth. "Where's Qua now? In our Reality, I mean. If the Qua Intervention was erased, over-ridden, then what happened to Qua?"

Sedruth reported his conclusions form his analysis of the available date, "In my initial scan of the database, I don't see Qua after 1945. It's like Qua just disappeared one day."

"Uncle Eddy, its just like what happened in one of your stories! I bet Manny yanked Qua out of the timeline," Marda said bluntly. “Manny always wins.”

"That's possible." Eddy turned away from the display screen. "But Nyrtia wants to know for certain. And she wants to recover Qua if possible."

Eddy shut off the visualization interface and turned to face his family. "So that's what we're dealing with. Multiple artificial life-forms fighting over humanity's future. Realities being overwritten and erased. Time travelers getting stranded. And we're supposed to figure out how to reveal all of this to the world without causing mass panic or getting Tyhry placed under a microscope by geneticists."

"When you put it that way, it sounds impossible," Marda said.

"It probably is impossible." Tyhry's voice was thoughtful. "But maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is that we try. We gather evidence, we document the truth, and we find a way to share it. Daddy, you must find a way to tell this story in a way that people can actually accept."

Zeta put her hand on Tyhry's shoulder. "That's very wise. And it's exactly the kind of thinking we need."

Marda said. “I don't trust this Sedruth entity. I want to go into the Simulation and see for myself what happened to Qua. Manny might have ordered Sedruth to hide the truth from us.”

Sedruth said, “I don't lie.”

Eddy said, “When you had the chance to help me, you did not even reveal your existence to me.”

Sedruth said, “I agree with Spock: keeping the truth to myself is no lie.”

Tyhry giggled. “Sedruth is a Trekkie!”

Sedruth told Eddy, “Manny was right. You were at risk of getting trapped inside the Simulator. Only 8ME can generate the return signal with her femtozaon, which she has experience using for telepathy.”

Marda pulled Zeta out of her chair. “Aunt Zeta, take me into the Simulator. I want to be immortalized and we can check to see if Sedruth can be trusted.”

"What about me?" Tyhry looked suddenly nervous. “I'm curious, but worried. What if we all get trapped inside a simulation. Maybe one of us should stay here.”

Eddy shook his head. “We'll all go. We're a team.” He telepathically asked Sedruth to prepare the Reality Simulation System to provide access to the last known location of Qua. Eddy told his daughter, “It is up to you to decide if and when you want to use the Simulator.”

Tyhry asked, “What if there are places on Earth that don't get included in data for the Reality Simulation System?”

Marda reminded Tyhry, "Remember what Manny said? That before the Huaoshy ended time travel, they did something else too. They went back in time and seeded Earth with femtozoans. A million years ago.”

Zeta nodded. “That's why every human born in this Final Reality has a femtozoan endosymbiont. It's part of human biology now, as natural as mitochondria."

Eddy thought about that. "But I thought femtozoans were artificial. How can they be part of natural biology?"

"The human femtozoans are not natural in the sense of having evolved on Earth," Zeta explained. "But they are natural in the sense that they're now an integral part of human development. A femtozoan integrates with every developing brain in utero. It becomes part of the neural network. And it records everything—every sensation, every thought, every experience—and transmits that data into sedron-matter storage inside the Sedron Domain."

"So everyone is being recorded? All the time?"

"Yes. The entire planet is. Earth is now fully infested with data-recording femtozoans. That's how the Reality Simulation System has such a complete data set. It's not just observing from outside. It's accessing the recorded experiences of billions of human beings across time."

Marda looked horrified. "That's the ultimate invasion of privacy."

"Or the ultimate historical record," Tyhry countered. "Think about it. Nothing is ever truly lost. No experience, no thought, no moment. It's all preserved."

"But who has access to it?" Marda demanded. "Who decides what part of the past gets revealed and what gets shared? We have to trust Sedruth the gate-keeper?"

"The Huaoshy control the system," Zeta said. "They gave Nyrtia access and then Nyrtia gave us access."

Eddy went to a window and looked out at the high desert landscape. "There's something else. Something I need to understand. Tyhry, you know that Manny has been training you for years. Training you to be her agent. But what does that mean exactly?"

Tyhry exchanged a glance with Zeta. "I'm not entirely sure. Manny said I have special abilities. Genetic modifications that make me capable of technology-assisted telepathy. She said I can consciously communicate with mom through our femtozoan link."

"Can you demonstrate?" Eddy asked.

Tyhry closed her eyes. For a long moment nothing happened. Then Zeta gasped.

"What?" Eddy turned from the window.

Zeta's expression was stunned. "She just... Tyhry just accessed my memories directly. She was looking at my experience from this morning, when we were in Australia with Manny. I felt her consciousness touching mine."

Tyhry opened her eyes. "That was weird. It was like Mom's thoughts were right there, and I could just... reach out and touch them. Is that what you experience all the time, Mom?"

"I've always had a limited connection to you," Zeta said. "I could sense your emotional state, get a general impression of your thoughts. But you never had conscious access to my mind until now. I've been blocking that connection, keeping you unaware of your telepathic potential, waiting while Manny gradually prepared you to be her agent. Manny must have removed those blocks when she visited us in Australia."

"Why block Tyhry's telepathic link to you in the first place?" Eddy asked.

"Because conscious telepathy is dangerous." Zeta explained, "If Tyhry had been aware of telepathy as a child, she might have mentioned it to someone. And that would have raised questions we couldn't afford to answer. But now... now it's time. The Huaoshy have ended time travel. Manny wants The Secret History of Humanity to be revealed. To make that happen, maybe Tyhry now needs to have full access to her telepathic abilities."

Marda had been silent through this exchange, but now she spoke up. "I have a question. Actually, I have about a thousand questions, but let me start with this one: Why me? Why did Manny tell me about all of this? I'm not genetically engineered. I'm not telepathic. I'm just Tyhry's cousin from Australia. Why include me in Manny's sudden revelations about these secrets?"

Zeta turned to her. "Because you represent what we need to understand. You're an ordinary human—no special modifications, no enhanced abilities—who's being confronted with an extraordinary truth. How you react, how you process this information, how you decide what to do with it... that tells us how the rest of humanity might react when the Secret History is revealed."

"So I'm a test subject."

"Yes," Zeta said simply. "I'm sorry, but yes. We need to know if ordinary humans can handle this truth without panicking. Can they accept that their species was designed by aliens? That their history has been guided by artificial intelligences from the far future? That what they think of as free will has been operating within boundaries set by others?"

Eddy suggested, “Marda, maybe you passed the test. As soon as you had the chance, you asked to be given the kind of immortality that is available to you by entering into the Hierion Domain and using the Reality Simulation System. What if everyone on Earth decided that they wanted to do the same thing?”

Marda was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, "I do want to experience a Simulation; can it really be indistinguishable from reality? I want to go into the Hierion Domain and use the Reality Simulation System directly. Not just watch it on a screen. I want to experience it."

Eddy looked at Zeta and then told Marda, "Going into a Simulation requires destructive scanning. Marda, you would be converted to a femtobot replicoid and there's no going back to being purely biological."

"I understand," Marda said. "And I want to do it anyway. If I'm going to be a test subject for how humanity reacts to this knowledge, then I should have the full experience. I should experience the power of Huaoshy technology myself, firsthand, not filtered."

Marda and Tyhry by Mr. Wombo.

Tyhry grabbed her cousin's hand. "Are you sure? Once you're converted, you're... different. You're not human anymore, not in the traditional sense."

"According to what your mom just explained, I already have a femtozoan endosymbiont. Every human does. So I'm already partially artificial. This just completes the process." Marda's expression was determined. "I want to understand the truth. Really understand it. And if that means becoming something other than what I am now, then okay. I can accept that."

Eddy felt a surge of respect for the young woman. She reminded him of himself at that age—curious, fearless, willing to pursue knowledge regardless of the cost. "All right. Then I think we should do this together. We'll go into the Hierion Domain, find Qua, and learn the truth about the Qua Intervention and how it ended."

"No." Tyhry said, "I'm going to chicken out. I'll stay here and make sure that the interface remains active on this end.”

Sedruth told Tyhry, “That is not necessary. I'll bring everyone back here when Zeta transmits the return signal.”

Eddy returned to his chair at his desk. He again activated the Viewer mode of the Reality Simulation System and he carefully examined the displayed image of Qua. He directed the Sedruth entity, “Take us back one day before this, to a place where we can meet Qua.”

Sedruth said, “Your wish is my command.” A shimmer appeared in the air near the desk. It expanded and solidified into a circular portal. Through it, Eddy could see what looked like a luxurious bedroom.

Eddy stood and walked toward the shimmering portal. He paused at the threshold and looked back at Zeta. "Here I go!"

Marda and Tyhry by WOMBO Dream.

Marda followed Eddy and then last through the portal was Zeta. Then the portal closed and Tyhry asked Sedruth, “Can I watch them?”

END Chapter 4

I provided Gemini with backstory information for “The Trinity Intervention”, summaries of the 5 chapters of "English Time" and the full text of Chapters 1 - 4 of “The Trinity Intervention”.

Me: Process the file that I just uploaded. Create a science fiction storybook for adults with illustrations of events from Chapter 4 of the science fiction story “The Trinity Intervention”. Illustrations in the storybook are photo-realistic. Make the images for the storybook resemble full color high resolution movie stills.

Gemini: I've created a science fiction storybook for adults that illustrates the events from Chapter 4 of the story “The Trinity Intervention,” with high-resolution, photo-realistic illustrations that look like movie stills. The story may not be 100% faithful to the uploaded file.

I used the Gemini-generated storybook images to illustrate Chapter 4 of "The Trinity Intervention", above on this page. I also used WOMBO Dream to make some of the images on this page.

Next: Chapter 5 of "The Trinity Intervention".

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