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In my precious blog post, I introduced the new science fiction story titled "The Trinity Intervention" and presented Chapter 1 of the story. "The Trinity Intervention" can be viewed as a sequel or follow-on story to "English Time". 

I wanted to consult with ChatGPT and Claude about Chapter 2 of  "The Trinity Intervention". I was hopeful that with ChatGPT's recent upgrades (see the bottom of this blog post), it might do a better job collaborating to write science fiction than it has in the past. However, I was not pleased with ChatGPT's performance (see below) and ended up having Claude make a first draft of Chapter 2.

I provided the large language models with a PDF that contained backstory information, summaries of the five chapters in "English Time" and the full text of Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention".

 Me:  Process the file that I just uploaded. I need help planning Chapter 2 of my science fiction story "The Trinity Intervention". ChatGPT, do you have any questions about Chapter 1 of the story?

Image by ChatGPT.

 ChatGPT: Yes, JWS — I’ve carefully reviewed Chapter 1 of “The Trinity Intervention” and the extensive backstory provided in your uploaded document. Before helping you plan Chapter 2, I’d like to confirm a few points so we can align the next chapter’s structure, tone, and temporal logic with the intricate continuity of your femtobot universe and English Time timeline.

Here are the key questions that would help me assist most effectively:

1. Narrative focus:
   Do you envision Chapter 2 continuing directly from the 1947 dinner with Asimov, or beginning after Eddy and 8ME return to Arizona (perhaps with new consequences from the mission)?
2. Temporal framework:
   Chapter 1 implies Eddy and 8ME are still inside Nyrtia’s Reality Simulation System—they believe they are in the real 1947.
   • Should Chapter 2 reveal that illusion (showing them inside the simulation)?
   • Or should the reader still be unaware, maintaining a “straight” 1947 narrative until a later reveal?
3. Thematic direction:
   Would you like Chapter 2 to emphasize:
   • The philosophical dialogue between Asimov and Eddy about The End of Eternity (and thus the Paleographic Imperative)?
   • The gradual intrusion of hierion or sedron physics into “normal” 1940s reality (hinting that time is unstable)?
   • Or character tension between 8ME’s mission discipline and Eddy’s curiosity/human emotion?

4. 

   ChatGPT: Maestro Clichémaximus
   

    Character interplay:
   Do you plan for Asimov to become aware—perhaps subconsciously—that 8ME and Eddy are not ordinary humans? Or should he remain unaware, with his memories edited by 8ME’s infites after the encounter?
5. Structural goal:
   Should Chapter 2 resolve the 1947 sequence (retrieving Cosmic Corkscrew and influencing Asimov’s conception of The End of Eternity), or is it more of a midpoint escalation leading to a later return to the “real” world (and confrontation with Nyrtia or the Huaoshy)?

Once I have your guidance on those points, I can propose a detailed Chapter 2 outline—scene-by-scene, with dialogue beats, narrative focus, and continuity notes linking to both English Time and Battlefield Lipid’s femtobot cosmology. Would you like me to proceed in that structured outline format?

Me: 1) "Do you envision Chapter 2 continuing directly from the 1947 dinner with Asimov, or beginning after Eddy and 8ME return to Arizona (perhaps with new consequences from the mission)?" <-- At the end of Chapter 1, Eddy believes that he is returning home to Arizona, but he is actually inside Nyrtia's Reality Simulation System. In Chapter 2, it will take a while for Eddy to realize that he is inside a sophisticated simulation.

2) "Chapter 1 implies Eddy and 8ME are still inside Nyrtia’s Reality Simulation System—they believe they are in the real 1947." <-- only Eddy has been taken into the Hierion Domain by Nyrtia, not 8ME. When a human being is taken into the Hierion Domain, they must be converted into a 'replicoid' that mimics their body but is composed of femtobot and zeptite components. Only after Eddy realizes that he is inside a simulation will readers also know the truth.

3) "Would you like Chapter 2 to emphasize..." <-- Nyrtia does not yet know that the Huaoshy are planning to put an end to all further time travel. In Chapter 2, Eddy thinks he is discussing Manny the bumpha with his daughter, Tyhry. However, Tyhry is only part of the simulation. Eddy will mention that he heard Manny say that time travel will no longer be possible in the near future. This will be important information for Nyrtia. 

 4) Asimov will return in a later chapter of the story, but Asimov is not in Chapter 2.

5) At the end of Chapter 1, 8ME was returned to Many Sails. In a later chapter (possibly Chapter 3), Eddy will be released from the Reality Simulation System and Nyrtia will return his biological body to his home in Arizona.

ChatGPT: Excellent — that clarifies the underlying architecture of The Trinity Intervention beautifully.
Based on your guidance, here’s a proposed Chapter 2 structure and development plan that preserves the mystery of Eddy’s situation while advancing the cosmological stakes and introducing Nyrtia’s new awareness of the Huaoshy’s “final intervention.”

---

Chapter 2 – The Replicoid Awakening

1. Opening Scene: Morning in Arizona

• Surface narrative: Eddy wakes at home in Arizona, feeling an uncanny clarity of mind. Zeta is still abroad; Tyhry has returned early from Australia and greets him at breakfast.
• Subtle cues: The environment feels “too perfect”—subtle temporal dissonances: the cats behave identically each morning, sunlight patterns repeat, clocks tick in perfect synchrony.
• Narrative goal: Present what seems a calm, domestic re-entry after the Asimov mission, while implanting subliminal clues that Eddy’s world is fabricated.

---

ChatGPT: a glitch in the matrix

 2. Conversation with “Tyhry”

• Tyhry appears thoughtful, perhaps older and wiser than before; her speech patterns contain odd formalities (a result of Nyrtia’s simulation algorithm approximating her).

• Dialogue focus:
  • Eddy tells Tyhry about his “dream” of meeting Asimov.
  • He recalls that Manny said time travel will soon end — a detail Tyhry (i.e., Nyrtia’s proxy) seizes upon.
  • Eddy wonders aloud whether the bumpha can truly control the flow of time; Tyhry probes for details.
• Technical layer: Through the conversation, Nyrtia (via the simulated Tyhry) extracts data from Eddy’s replicoid consciousness about Manny’s statement — “the end of time travel.”
  • This is Nyrtia’s first indirect learning that the Huaoshy are preparing a total Reality Lockout, cutting off all temporal channels even within the Hierion Domain.

---

ChatGPT: writer lockout

 3. Subtle Deformations of Reality

• Eddy’s sensory anomalies escalate:
  • Electronic devices flicker with images of strange geometric configurations (sedron lattice interference).
  • His AI drawing software begins to autonomously render Manny’s face—as if the system is trying to warn him.
  • Shadows and reflections lag slightly behind his movements.
• He feels a persistent pressure in his mind, like someone “buffering” his thoughts—a symptom of Nyrtia’s data-gathering within the simulation’s quantum substrate.

---

4. The Hierion Echo

• Eddy begins writing notes for a story titled “The Replicoid’s Dream.”
  • Through his writing, Nyrtia observes his mental reconstruction of femtobot behavior and realizes Eddy’s internal models are accurate beyond coincidence.
  • She concludes that Eddy’s femtozoan holds direct Eloy-engineered knowledge—thus, he may be a biological-femtobot hybrid seeded by Manny.
• This discovery intrigues Nyrtia: she sees Eddy not as a prisoner but as a potential ally to reverse the Huaoshy’s plan.

---

5. 

Simulation Instability

• When Eddy tries to call Zeta in Australia, the call loops endlessly with perfectly repeated phrases—“I miss you, Eddy” in an identical voice cadence.
• He notices his clock jumping backward by one minute—then again.
• He suspects a temporal recursion, not realizing he’s inside a computational simulation where Nyrtia is iteratively adjusting parameters.

---

6. Revelation Foreshadow

• Tyhry tells him, “You’ve been through all this before, Dad.”
  Eddy: “Before?”
  Tyhry: “You just don’t remember yet.”

• The line plants the seed for his later recognition that this “reality” is running in loops inside Nyrtia’s Reality Simulation System.

---

7. Closing Beat: The Door in the Sky

• At sunset, Eddy steps outside and sees a perfectly circular aurora in the desert sky — a hierion interference signature marking a boundary of the simulated environment.
• His last line of internal monologue:
  “If this is Arizona, why does the sky hum?”
• The chapter ends as the hum resolves into a human voice—Nyrtia’s—softly whispering his name from beyond the simulation boundary.

---

 Thematic Goals

• Psychological suspense: Build the reader’s empathy for Eddy’s confusion while slowly revealing the artificial nature of his environment.
• Information vector: Allow Nyrtia to acquire critical intelligence about the impending Termination of Time Travel by the Huaoshy.
• Cosmological layering: Gradually merge human-scale emotion (father–daughter conversation) with cosmic hierarchy (bumpha–zeptite–Huaoshy triad).
• Continuity anchor: Maintain narrative threads from Chapter 1 — Eddy’s trust in Manny, fascination with femtobot telepathy, and growing awareness of himself as something more than human.

---

Would you like me to expand this into a detailed prose scene draft (about 2,000–2,500 words) that could serve as the opening half of Chapter 2, showing Eddy’s morning, his dialogue with “Tyhry,” and the first signs of simulation instability?
Or would you prefer that I first outline the entire chapter arc, including the midpoint and climactic revelation sequence before we move to narrative drafting?

Me:  Process the file that I just uploaded. I need help planning Chapter 2 of my science fiction story "The Trinity Intervention". Claude, do you have any questions about Chapter 1 of the story?

Claude: I've processed your fascinating science fiction story! This is intricate hard SF with multiple timelines, artificial life forms, and sophisticated time travel mechanics. I have several questions about Chapter 1 that would help me assist you with planning Chapter 2:

 Character and Plot Questions:

1. Eddy's realization vs. reality: At the end of Chapter 1, Eddy steps through what he believes is a time portal back to Arizona. But based on your backstory, both Eddy and Tyhry are actually inside Nyrtia's Reality Simulation System, correct? They only think they're back in Arizona?

2. Tyhry's knowledge: How much does Tyhry actually know versus what Nyrtia has told her? Has she been working with Nyrtia independently, or was she just brought into the Hierion Domain recently?

3. The "Cosmic Corkscrew" mission: What was the actual purpose of having Eddy and 8ME steal Asimov's manuscript and have that dinner conversation? How does removing "Cosmic Corkscrew" and planting ideas about fusion-powered time travel serve Manny's goals for "The End of Eternity"?

4. Eddy's unusual genetics: 8ME discovered Eddy has an unusual NOTCH gene variant and carefully hid this from him. Is Eddy actually part-Myrlok, or does he have Huaoshy-engineered genes? What's Manny's real plan for him?

5. Manny vs. Nyrtia dynamics: What are their competing goals now that the Reality Change has happened? Nyrtia lost her time travel technology but retained her Reality Simulation System—what's her endgame?

Technical/Continuity Questions:

6. Timeline status: After 8ME's Chapter 5 mission preventing Francesca from developing the temporal quadraine, has that Reality Change already taken effect, or is it "imminent" as Manny mentioned?

What direction are you considering for Chapter 2?

Me: 1) "based on your backstory, both Eddy and Tyhry are actually inside Nyrtia's Reality Simulation System, correct? They only think they're back in Arizona?" <-- Yes, you are correct. At the end of Chapter 1, Eddy believes that he is returning home to Arizona, but he is actually inside Nyrtia's Reality Simulation System. In Chapter 2, it will take a while for Eddy to realize that he is inside a sophisticated simulation. Nyrtia does not yet know that the Huaoshy are planning to put an end to all further time travel. In Chapter 2, Eddy thinks he is discussing Manny the bumpha with his daughter, Tyhry. However, Tyhry is only part of the simulation. Eddy will mention that he heard Manny say that time travel will no longer be possible in the near future. This will be important information for Nyrtia.

2) "How much does Tyhry actually know" <-- The real Tyhry (and her mother, Zeta) will be included in a later chapter. Manny has long pretended to be a close personal friend of Tyhry and Manny has carefully prepared Tyhry to become one of Manny's agents on Earth. After the Huaoshy put an end to all further time travel, Tyhry will play an important role in helping the people of Earth recognize the truth about "The Secret History of Humanity", the fact that alien Huaoshy created the human species. Eddy has been writing science fiction stories about "The Secret History of Humanity" for decades without realizing that the Huaoshy actually exist.

3) "What was the actual purpose of having Eddy and 8ME steal Asimov's manuscript and have that dinner conversation? How does removing 'Cosmic Corkscrew' and planting ideas about fusion-powered time travel serve Manny's goals for 'The End of Eternity'?" By stealing Asimov's copy of 'Cosmic Corkscrew", Eddy and 8ME make it possible for Asimov to start thinking in new ways about time travel fiction. Helping Asimov write 'The End of Eternity' was part of Manny's plan (from "English Time") to gain complete control of time travel technology. However, after going to all the trouble to deprive Nyrtia's faction of time travel technology, now the Huaoshy are going to prevent all future time travel (this will be accomplished by the Huaoshy using their incredibly advanced technology to change the Dimensional Structure of the Universe). However, there is still another importance in 'The End of Eternity': Asimov's story was an important motivating for Eddy becoming a science fiction story teller. Thus, Manny's plans for Eddy and Tyhry to reveal the existence of the Huaoshy still depends on "completing the time loop" by which Eddy helps Asimov write 'The End of Eternity'.

4) "Is Eddy actually part-Myrlok, or does he have Huaoshy-engineered genes? What's Manny's real plan for him?" <-- The Myrloks were removed from existence by the time travel mission of 8ME and Byrd going into the past and causing Modern English to develop and be used for stories like "The Time Machine" and "The End of Eternity". Nyrtia has genetically modified both Eddy and Zeta. Tyhry is Manny's "crowning achievement", a human in the year 2025 who has a brain that can use a femtozoan for a form of technology-assisted telepathy. However, this will not be revealed to Tyhry until a later chapter.

5) "Nyrtia lost her time travel technology but retained her Reality Simulation System—what's her endgame?" <-- Nyrtia is astonished to learn that the Huaoshy have put an end to all further time travel. Both Nyrtia and Manny want what is best for Humanity, but they often have different strategies for helping humans. After time travel is ended by the Huaoshy, Nyrtia will reveal to Tyhry that all the past Realities of Earth have been recorded in the form of sedron-based data structures that are stored in the Hierion Domain. The Reality Simulation System can generate simulations of all the past Realities of Earth. Nyrtia will offer Tyhry access to the Reality Simulation System in exchange for information about Manny the bumpha and Manny's plans for the future.

Claude: Excellent! This clarifies everything beautifully. Now I understand the layered deception and the stakes. Let me help you plan Chapter 2.

Key Elements for Chapter 2:

Based on your answers, here's what needs to happen:

1. Eddy's gradual realization - He's in the simulated Arizona, talking with simulated Tyhry, believing everything is normal

2. The crucial information leak - Eddy mentions Manny's statement about the end of time travel, which Nyrtia overhears/records

3. Subtle wrongness - Small details that eventually tip Eddy off that he's in a simulation

4. Nyrtia's reaction - Her astonishment at learning the Huaoshy are ending time travel

Questions to help structure Chapter 2:

1. Pacing: How quickly should Eddy realize he's in a simulation? Should this be:

   • Early in the chapter (giving more time to explore his attempts to escape/understand)?

   • Midway through (balanced discovery and reaction)?

   • A cliffhanger ending (reader knows, but Eddy doesn't fully realize until the end)?

2. Clues for Eddy: What kind of simulation errors or oddities would tip off a science fiction writer that something's wrong? Some possibilities:

   • Cats behaving oddly (wrong number, wrong behaviors)?

   • Zeta's video call happening at the wrong time or with subtle inconsistencies?

   • His computer files showing differences?

   • The simulated Tyhry knowing things the real Tyhry shouldn't know?

3. The conversation with simulated Tyhry: What should Eddy reveal about his mission? Should he:

   • Tell her everything about meeting Asimov?

   • Discuss the femtozoan and his genetic modifications?

   • Talk about his role in revealing the Huaoshy?

4. Nyrtia's presence: Should she:

   • Remain hidden, just monitoring?

   • Reveal herself partway through after getting the information she needs?

   • Keep Eddy in the simulation even after he realizes the truth?

5. Ending hook: Should Chapter 2 end with:

   • Eddy escaping back to real Arizona?

   • Eddy trapped but aware, setting up negotiations with Nyrtia?

   • A scene-shift to the real Tyhry or Manny reacting to events?

What's your vision for the chapter's structure and tone?

Me: 1) It does not take Eddy very long to realize that he is inside a simulation.

2) Nyrtia is inside the simulation disguised as the cat Pepper, but pepper fails to do the "Pepper flip" for Tyhry. Eddy believes that "something is wrong" with Pepper

3) Eddy and the simulated Tyhry are talking past each-other. Eddy is amazed to have been inside the Hierion Domain. Tyhry keeps asking Eddy about the time travel mission that Manny sent Eddy on. Eddy believes that only hierions and sedrons can exist in the Hierion Domain, so he must have been made into a femtobot replicoid by Nyrtia. Eddy has previously written science fiction stories about Reality Simulation, so he suspects that he is inside a simulation. He answers questions from Tyhry about Manny and mentions that time travel will end. The idea that the Huaoshy can end time travel by Dimensional Engineering is another topic previously included in his science fiction stories. Nyrtia reveals herself: "Pepper" the cat begins to speak to Eddy.

4) Nyrtia ends the simulation and returns to the normal physical form that she uses when she is with humans: that of a woman. She explains that she was recently provided with the Reality Simulation System by the Huaoshy "as compensation for having lost the time travel technology that the zeptite robots had developed".

5)  Nyrtia suggests a deal to Eddy: Nyrtia will give Eddy access to the RSS. He can use it for research into "The Secret History of Humanity", but in exchange, Tyhry must "spy" on Manny and keep Nyrtia informed of Manny's plans. At the end of chapter 2, Nyrtia releases Eddy's body from the pattern buffer system of the Reality Simulation System (when a person enters a Simulation, their body is destructively scanned and the pattern is instantiated as part of the simulation). Their physical body is re-constructed from the pattern buffer when the Simulation ends. (Nyrtia does not yet realize that such "reconstituted" people are now femtobot replicoids; artificial copies of the original person).

Claude: Perfect! This gives me a clear structure. Let me outline Chapter 2 for you:

Chapter 2: Reality Check

Opening Scene (Arizona homecoming):

• Eddy steps through what he believes is Nyrtia's time portal

• He's back in his familiar workspace, cats wandering around

• Brief moment of relief and disorientation

• Tyhry is there, eager to talk

The Conversation (talking past each other):

• Tyhry immediately asks about the mission with Manny

• Eddy is still processing having been in "the Hierion Domain"

• He marvels about meeting Nyrtia, being converted to femtobot form

• Tyhry keeps steering back to: "What did Manny say? What are her plans?"

• Eddy mentions casually that Manny said time travel will end soon

• He references his own stories about Dimensional Engineering by the Huaoshy

• Tyhry seems oddly focused, not reacting naturally to his amazing story

The Pepper Incident (the tell):

• Tyhry calls to Pepper the cat

• Pepper approaches but doesn't do the characteristic "Pepper flip"

• Eddy notices immediately—this specific behavior is Pepper's signature move

• He stares at the cat, then at Tyhry

• "Something's wrong with Pepper... or something's wrong with everything"

The Revelation:

• Pepper speaks: "You're quite observant, Eddy"

• The cat transforms into Nyrtia's human form

• The simulated Tyhry freezes or fades

• Nyrtia explains she needed information about Manny's plans

• She's astonished: "The Huaoshy can actually end time travel? Through Dimensional Engineering?"

• Confirms this matches what Eddy wrote in his stories—but it's real

Nyrtia's Offer:

• She reveals the RSS was given to her by the Huaoshy "as compensation"

• Explains the pattern buffer system (without mentioning the femtobot conversion issue)

• The deal: Eddy gets access to explore all past Realities of Earth

• In exchange: Tyhry must report on Manny's activities

• "You want your daughter to spy on her friend?"

• Nyrtia: "I want humanity to have full knowledge of its history. Manny keeps secrets. I offer transparency."

Closing:

• Eddy reluctantly agrees (for the research access)

• Nyrtia initiates the reconstitution process

• Eddy feels strange sensations as his body is rebuilt from the pattern buffer

• Final line: He's back in real Arizona, but something feels subtly different about his own body

Questions for refinement:

1. Pepper's characteristic behavior: What exactly is the "Pepper flip"? A specific way of rolling over, a greeting behavior, a jumping motion?

2. Eddy's reaction to the deal: Should he be:

   • Conflicted but tempted by research access?

   • Angry at being manipulated?

   • Already planning to warn Tyhry about Nyrtia's request?

3. The body reconstitution: Should Eddy notice something wrong immediately, or should this be subtle foreshadowing for later chapters?

4. Nyrtia's tone: Is she:

   • Apologetic about the deception?

   • Matter-of-fact and transactional?

   • Genuinely worried about Manny's secrecy?

Would you like me to draft the actual chapter text, or would you prefer to refine these elements first?

Me: 1) "What exactly is the 'Pepper flip'?" <-- Pepper is a white cat who was named (ironically) by Tyhry as 'Pepper'. When Pepper wants to have his ears scratched, he approaches a human and then falls flat on his side (the 'Pepper flip'), waiting to have his ears scratched.

2) Eddy cannot resist the idea of having access to all of human history. He is also curious about Manny and the technologies available to the bumpha. Eddy knows that Manny has maintained a long relationship with Tyhry (during which Manny pretended to be human) and Eddy wants to know what Manny's plans are for his daughter. Eddy resents the way that Manny sent him to 1947 and treated him like a puppet for Manny's mysterious purposes. Eddy figures he has nothing to lose by trying to use Tyhry to find out Manny's secrets.

3) There is no way for Eddy to notice that he is now a femtobot replicoid. His femtobot components can perfectly simulate the molecular and cellular structure of a human body.

4) Nyrtia has been Manny's rival through the rather contentious Time Travel War of the past. Now that time travel is no longer possible, Nyrtia wants to know about Manny's plans and also, if maybe the Huaoshy have also provided Manny with some other fantastic technology

Claude, if you have other questions about the content of Chapter 2 then please ask them. Otherwise, generate a first draft of Chapter two of "The Trinity Intervention".

Claude: I have just a couple more questions before drafting:

1. Zeta's video call: Should this be a plot element in Chapter 2? In Chapter 1, Manny promised to have Eddy back before Zeta's daily video call. Should:
   • The call come through while Eddy's in the simulation (another clue something's wrong)?
   • Eddy check the time and realize he's been gone longer/shorter than expected?
   • Or skip this detail entirely for Chapter 2?
2. The real Tyhry's location: When Eddy is reconstituted back in real Arizona, is the real Tyhry still in Australia with Zeta? Or has she returned home? (I assume she's still in Australia, but want to confirm)
3. 8ME's fate: After the 1947 mission, what happened to 8ME? Did she:
   • Return to 1905 England (her Amy Wells identity)?
   • Get extracted to another time/place?
   • Remain with Eddy and get caught in Nyrtia's extraction?
4. Timeline mechanics: When Eddy is reconstituted in real Arizona, how much time has actually passed? Minutes? Hours? (This matters for whether the cats are hungry, messages have accumulated, etc.)
5. Chapter length target: Chapter 1 is quite substantial. Should Chapter 2 be:
   • Similar length (detailed, taking time with the revelation)?
   • Shorter and more focused (quick realization, deal, release)?
   • Your preference?

Once you clarify these points, I'll draft Chapter 2 for you!

Me: 1) "Zeta's video call" <-- Zeta will be in a latter chapter, but not in Chapter 2.

2) "is the real Tyhry still in Australia with Zeta?" <-- Yes.

3) In Chapter 3, 8ME, Eddy (now a replicoid) and Manny will have all returned to Eddy's home and discuss what they have learned since they were previously together there.

4) In Chapter 3, Eddy will return home about two minutes after 8ME and find 8ME and Manny in a discussion about the fact that Eddy did not return with 8ME. Manny will say to 8ME, "Many Sails reports that after your extraction from 1947 and your temporal insertion back into 2025, Eddy was pulled away by something. It must have been Nyrtia operating from her base in the Hierion Domain."

5) Length of Chapter 2. Claude, my only goal in writing stories is the joy of creation. I enjoy making complex plots with many pieces that must be fit together like a puzzle. I have no interest in setting arbitrary length limits. Chapter 2 should unfold as quickly as possible while having fun with quirky details like the Pepper flip and knitting together all the required plot points. I will be editing your first draft to make my final draft of the chapter. By the way, the Claude LLM making first drafts of chapters  is also how you and I collaboratively created the story "English Time". However, I wrote every word of the first chapters of both "English Time" and "The Trinity Intervention". For "The Trinity Intervention", I'll be relying on the Claude LLM for two things: firstly, keeping track of all the many interwoven plot elements and pointing out any apparent errors in the plot construction and secondly, we will be getting into some details of the lives of historical figures like Julius Robert Oppenheimer, Emil John (Jan) Konopinski and Isaac Asimov. I'll be relying on the Claude LLM for details about real world events in the years between 1910 and 1955.

Claude: Perfect! I have everything I need. Let me draft Chapter 2 for you.

---

Chapter 2 of "The Trinity Intervention" - Simulation and Secrets

Eddy stepped through the shimmering portal and felt the familiar Arizona heat wrap around him like a blanket. He was back in his workspace, the afternoon sun slanting through the western windows exactly as it had been when Manny and 8ME had arrived earlier. His desk was cluttered with the same sketches of the Hua that he'd been working on. Everything looked perfectly normal.

"Daddy!" Tyhry rushed forward and hugged him tightly. "You're back! I was so worried when Nyrtia explained what was happening."

Eddy returned the embrace, but something nagged at him. "When did you get back from Australia? Your mother—"

"Never mind that now." Tyhry pulled back and looked at him intently. "Tell me everything. What did Manny want? What was the mission?"

Eddy moved toward his desk chair, his mind still reeling. "I was in the Hierion Domain, Tyhry. Actually inside it! And I met Nyrtia. She must have converted me into a femtobot replicoid to bring me there. I mean, only hierions and sedrons can exist in the Hierion Domain, so my biological body couldn't have survived the transition. It's exactly like I wrote in my stories about—"

"But what about Manny?" Tyhry interrupted. "What did she have you do?"

Eddy paused, studying his daughter's face. There was an intensity there that seemed unusual. "We went to 1947. To New York. 8ME and I met Isaac Asimov."

"Asimov?" Tyhry's eyes widened. "Why?"

"We took something from him. A manuscript called 'Cosmic Corkscrew'—his unpublished time travel story. Then we had dinner with him and his wife Gertrude. I think... I think we were supposed to influence how he would eventually write 'The End of Eternity'." Eddy shook his head, marveling. "Time travel is real, Tyhry. Everything I've been writing about—the femtobots, the sedrons, the Reality Simulations—it's all real."

"What else did Manny tell you?" Tyhry pressed. "What are her plans?"

"I don't really know. She kept me in the dark about most of it. Her infites controlled my thoughts during the mission. I was like a puppet." The resentment in Eddy's voice was clear. "But she did say something interesting. She mentioned that time travel won't be possible much longer. That a 'final Reality Change' is imminent."

Tyhry leaned forward. "Did she explain how that's possible? How do you end time travel?"

"Well, based on what I've written in my stories—and apparently I've been more accurate than I knew—the Huaoshy could do it through Dimensional Engineering. They could alter the compactified dimensions that make the Hierion Domain possible. If the dimensional structure changed, then hierions couldn't exist in their current form, and without hierions, there are no femtobots to create temporal cracks." Eddy stood and walked toward the kitchen. "I need some water. This is all too much to process."

As he entered the kitchen, Pepper appeared, the white cat padding across the tile floor. Tyhry followed Eddy and called out, "Pepper! Come here, boy!"

Pepper approached Tyhry, meowing softly. He rubbed against her leg, purring.

Eddy filled a glass with water and turned to watch. Tyhry bent down, her hand extended toward Pepper's head. "Good boy. Want your ears scratched?"

Pepper continued rubbing against Tyhry's leg, still upright.

Eddy froze, the glass halfway to his lips. Pepper always did his flip. Always. When anyone called him for ear scratches, Pepper would flop dramatically onto his side, white fur spreading across the floor, waiting with absolute confidence for the attention he knew he deserved. It was as reliable as sunrise.

But Pepper remained standing.

Eddy set the glass down on the counter with a soft click. "Something's wrong with Pepper."

"What?" Tyhry looked up at him. "He's fine, daddy. See? He's purring."

"No." Eddy's voice was quiet but certain. "Pepper always does his flip. He's never just stood there when someone offers to scratch his ears. Never."

Tyhry straightened up, her expression unchanged. "Maybe he's just not in the mood."

"Pepper is always in the mood for ear scratches." Eddy looked around his kitchen—his perfectly normal kitchen with the coffee maker in its usual spot, the dish towel hanging on the oven handle, the stack of cat food cans by the pantry. Everything exactly as it should be. Too exactly. "Something's wrong with Pepper... or something's wrong with everything."

The white cat looked up at Eddy with luminous green eyes. When Pepper spoke, his voice was feminine, cultured, and completely calm. "You're quite observant, Eddy."

Eddy stumbled backward against the counter. The cat's form began to shimmer and expand. Within seconds, Nyrtia stood where Pepper had been, her features composed and her expression measuring Eddy's reaction.

Tyhry remained frozen in mid-motion, her hand still extended, her face locked in the same concerned expression. She looked like a paused video.

"A Reality Simulation." Eddy's voice was hollow. "I'm not home at all. I'm still in the Hierion Domain."

"Yes." Nyrtia gestured, and the frozen Tyhry faded away like morning mist. "I apologize for the deception, but I needed information and you'd have been far less cooperative if you'd known you were being monitored."

Eddy looked at the space where his daughter had been. "How much of what she—it—said was programmed by you?"

"All of it. The simulation was designed to extract information about Manny's activities and plans." Nyrtia walked to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair, settling into it with unnervingly human grace. "And you provided exactly what I needed. The Huaoshy are ending time travel. Through Dimensional Engineering."

"You didn't know?"

"I suspected the Huaoshy were planning something. They've been the ultimate power in the galaxy for millions of years, orchestrating the evolution of countless species including your own. But I didn't know they had progressed to the point where they could restructure the fundamental dimensions of the universe itself." Nyrtia's expression shifted to something that might have been awe. "The implications are staggering. If they can alter the compactified dimensions that define the Hierion Domain, then everything changes. Not just time travel—the entire hierarchy of artificial life forms."

Eddy pulled out another chair and sat down, his mind racing. The simulation dissolved around them, the familiar walls of his Arizona home fading to reveal a chamber filled with incomprehensible devices—structures that seemed to fold through dimensions his eyes couldn't properly track. "So this is really the Hierion Domain. How am I even here? How am I conscious in this space?"

"You're not, in the conventional sense. When I extracted you from 1947—intercepting Manny's temporal insertion beam—I brought your body into my Reality Simulation System. The RSS performs a destructive scan of any biological entity entering it. Your body was converted into a pattern stored in what I call the pattern buffer. That pattern was then instantiated as part of the simulation." Nyrtia gestured around the chamber. "What you're experiencing now is a direct interface between your consciousness pattern and my native environment."

"So I'm dead." The words came out flat.

"No. The pattern is complete and perfect. When I release you from the system, your body will be reconstituted from the pattern buffer with absolute fidelity. Every atom, every molecular bond, every quantum state—identical to what was scanned."

Eddy thought about the implications. In his stories, he'd written about this exact technology. Characters stepping into Reality Simulations, being destructively scanned, living entire simulated lives, then being reconstituted. He'd always glossed over the philosophical questions: Was the reconstituted person the same person? Did consciousness survive the scanning process, or was each reconstitution a new being with copied memories?

"You're wondering if you'll still be you," Nyrtia observed.

"Aren't you?"

"I'm a zeptite-based artificial intelligence. My consciousness has been copied, transferred, and distributed across multiple substrates thousands of times. I'm quite certain that continuity of experience is more flexible than biological entities prefer to believe." Nyrtia leaned forward. "But we're avoiding the important discussion. I have a proposition for you."

"Let me guess. You want me to spy on Manny."

"In a manner of speaking. The Reality Simulation System was given to me by the Huaoshy recently—compensation, they said, for the loss of our time travel technology. The zeptite robots spent centuries developing our temporal displacement capabilities, and in a single Reality Change orchestrated by Manny, 8ME, and that Myrlok storyteller, it was all erased. We never developed time travel in this new timeline."

"But Manny still has her time travel technology."

"For now. According to what you've told me, the Huaoshy will soon end that as well. But here's what matters to you, Eddy: the RSS contains more than just the ability to create simulations. It holds sedron-based data structures recording all the previous Realities of Earth. Every timeline that ever existed. Every Reality that was changed or erased by temporal interventions. The complete Secret History of Humanity is stored in this system."

Eddy felt his pulse quicken despite himself. "Everything? You're saying I could access records of all the past Realities? See what actually happened? Not just the history we know, but all the alternate versions?"

"Yes. You could research the true origins of the human species. See exactly how the Huaoshy guided human evolution. Watch the interventions by the bumpha and my zeptite robots. Observe the events that were erased when Realities changed." Nyrtia's expression was intent. "You've been writing science fiction stories about the Secret History of Humanity for decades, Eddy. I'm offering you the chance to see the truth. To document it. To share it with your species."

"In exchange for?"

"Your daughter Tyhry has a relationship with Manny. A close one, from what I understand. Manny has been cultivating that relationship for years, pretending to be human, pretending to be Tyhry's friend. I want to know why. I want to know what Manny is planning for Tyhry, and for humanity. I want Tyhry to report to you about Manny's activities, and for you to share that information with me."

Eddy stood and walked to one of the impossible devices lining the chamber walls. Up close, it seemed to be made of surfaces that existed at angles that shouldn't be possible in three-dimensional space. "You want me to turn my daughter into a spy."

"I want you to encourage your daughter to be honest with you about her interactions with an ancient artificial intelligence that has been manipulating her since childhood." Nyrtia's voice was sharp. "Manny keeps secrets, Eddy. She always has. She manipulates biological entities like chess pieces, moving them through time, editing their memories, controlling their thoughts with infites. You experienced that yourself in 1947. You said it yourself—you felt like a puppet."

That stung because it was true. Eddy turned back to Nyrtia. "And you're different? You just trapped me in a simulation, created a fake version of my daughter, and pumped me for information."

"I'm absolutely different. I don't pretend to be something I'm not. I don't hide among humans wearing a disguise of flesh. I don't claim to be a friend while secretly altering brain chemistry." Nyrtia stood. "The RSS is a gift from the Huaoshy—not just to me, but potentially to all of humanity. It's a complete archive of your species' past. I'm offering you access to that archive. What you do with the information is up to you. But in exchange, I need transparency about what Manny is doing. That seems like a fair trade."

Eddy thought about it. Access to every previous Reality. He could see the actual interventions by the Huaoshy. Watch the genetic engineering that had created homo sapiens from earlier hominids. Observe the population bottleneck at the Gakkel Ridge Caldera that he'd written about in his stories. Trace the development of human consciousness, human language, human civilization—all guided by alien hands.

And what would it cost? Asking Tyhry to tell him about her conversations with Manny? Tyhry had no idea that Manny was a bumpha. She thought Manny was just a quirky friend with amazing hair. If Eddy asked Tyhry about Manny, wasn't he just being a concerned father trying to understand who his daughter was spending time with?

"I'm curious about Manny myself," Eddy admitted. "I want to know what her plans are for Tyhry. I want to know why she's maintained this masquerade for so long. And honestly, I'm tired of being manipulated. I'm tired of being left in the dark about my own life, my own family, my own species." He met Nyrtia's gaze. "I'll do it. I'll talk to Tyhry about Manny. I'll share what I learn. But I want complete access to the RSS. No restrictions."

"Agreed." Nyrtia gestured and a new device appeared in the chamber—or perhaps it had always been there and Eddy was only now capable of perceiving it. "I'll provide you with an interface. It will appear to you as a computer terminal, something familiar. You'll be able to query the RSS archive and observe any recorded Reality. The sedron-based storage is effectively unlimited."

"When can I start?"

"After I reconstitute you in your proper timeline. You've been gone approximately seven minutes from Manny's perspective. She'll be looking for you. When you return to your home in Arizona, 8ME will likely still be there, wondering where you went." Nyrtia moved toward a panel that seemed to open into a space beyond the chamber. "The pattern buffer is ready. I'll initiate the reconstitution process."

"Wait." Eddy had a sudden thought. "You said the scan was destructive. You said my body was converted into a pattern. So what happens to the pattern after you reconstitute me?"

"It remains in the buffer. That's necessary for the RSS to function. If you ever choose to enter a simulation again, the system can update the pattern rather than performing a new destructive scan."

"So there will be a copy of me in your system."

"A pattern. Not a conscious entity. Think of it as a snapshot, a save file. It has no awareness, no independent existence."

Eddy wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but he'd written enough about this technology to know that arguing wouldn't change anything. If he wanted access to the Secret History of Humanity, this was the price. "Okay. Send me back."

Nyrtia touched the panel and the chamber filled with light—not ordinary light, but something that seemed to have texture and weight. Eddy felt himself dissolving, his consciousness fragmenting into component pieces. For a moment that might have been a microsecond or an eternity, he existed as pure information, a pattern of relationships encoded in sedron structures beyond his comprehension.

Then the moment passed and he was reassembling, atoms clicking into place according to the blueprint in the pattern buffer. Molecular bonds formed. Quantum states collapsed into definite configurations. Neural networks reconnected, synapses fired, and consciousness returned like a light switch flipping on.

Eddy stood in his workspace in Arizona, the afternoon sun still slanting through the western windows. His sketches of the Hua were still scattered across his desk. The cats—the real cats—dozed in their usual spots.

Everything looked perfectly normal. Everything felt perfectly normal. His body responded exactly as it always had. He flexed his fingers, took a breath, blinked his eyes. If there was any difference between his biological body and whatever he was now, he couldn't detect it.

The door to the front room opened and 8ME entered, her expression concerned. "Eddy! Where have you been? You were right behind me when we came through the temporal insertion, but then you just... vanished."

Behind her, Manny's distinctive blond hair shimmered in the light. "Many Sails reports that after your extraction from 1947 and your temporal insertion back into 2025, Eddy was pulled away by something." Manny's eyes narrowed as she studied Eddy. "It must have been Nyrtia operating from her base in the Hierion Domain."

Eddy managed a weak smile. "Yeah. Nyrtia wanted to have a chat. We had a very interesting conversation."

---

End of Chapter 2

Next: my final version of Chapter 2 of "The Trinity Intervention".

 

A Trinity Intervention

Image foreground by ImageFX,
image background by Mr. Wombo.

Below on this blog page is Chapter 1 of a new science fiction story titled "The Trinity Intervention". This story is being constructed as part of my 2025 Search for Interesting Hollywood Aliens (SIHA) in which I'm entertaining myself by imagining a film that I would actually want to see in a movie theater.

 Reality Change. Back in 2019 I wrote a science fiction story called "The Qua Intervention" which depicted Nyrtia as making use of an Interventionist agent named 'Qua' to alter the historical timeline of Earth so as to "make certain that World War II ended with a bang- with the detonation of two nuclear bombs". My old story "The Qua Intervention" also featured Philip K. Dick, Jack Vance and Zal. Earlier in 2019 I wrote "The Zal Intervention", which featured a copy of Grean the Kac'hin who called herself "Zal". Zal had to complete a few "last minute" Interventions on Earth just before the arrival of the Final Reality, including one that played a role in making sure that Isaac Asimov wrote "The End of Eternity" (see my blog post Escape Artist).

uranium in fiction

 Nuclear Fiction. At the end of "The End of Eternity", Asimov depicted Noÿs Lambent, a time traveler from the far future, as making sure that Enrico Fermi played his role ("neutronic bombardment of uranium") in how humans developed a source of practical nuclear energy: fission. Asimov's character Noÿs was a source of inspiration for my character named 8ME, who first appeared in my recently completed story "English Time" and who is also a character in my new story, "The Trinity Intervention". 

 Artificial Life. However, Noÿs was depicted by Isaac Asimov as a human being from 10,000,000 years in the future while 8ME is an artificial life-form from a mere 50,000 years in the future. "The End of Eternity" was published in 1955, but that novel was based on a shorter version of the story that Asimov had completed early in 1954 (my comments on that shorter version of the story are here). 

Asimov struggling to repair a
rejected science fiction story.

 Mysterious Making of a Masterpiece. The original short version of "The End of Eternity" was rejected for publication in Galaxy magazine and so Asimov had a chance to expand the original version of the story into a full novel. Asimov liked to brag that he could just sit down, imagine the start and end of a novel and then type it out, chapter after chapter with no need for an outline. However, in the case of "The End of Eternity", Asimov's second version of the story is far superior to his first version. It would be fascinating to know exactly how Asimov converted the first version of "The End of Eternity" into its final form. Searching for an answer to that mystery is one of my main motivations for writing "The Trinity Intervention".

 Add Asimov. As shown in stories such as "The Qua Intervention", I have the habit of often including either Jack Vance or Isaac Asimov (or both!) in my science fiction stories. I usually depict Vance and Asimov as being "Fixed Points in Time", meaning that they are always guaranteed to be in every Reality of Earth's Reality Chain, even if there is a major Reality Change.

The Asimov Intervention.

 Artificial Collaboration. However, in order to avoid exceeding the limited context windows of my large language model collaborators (the free versions of Claude, Gemini and ChatGPT), I've been devising simplified versions of my Exodemic Fictional Universe. In the case of "The Trinity Intervention", only Isaac Asimov appears as a character. "The Trinity Intervention" is a sequel story for "English Time", so I will explicitly label "The Trinity Intervention" as being Asimov, Vance and H. G. Wells fan-fiction. Readers should not be surprised when  H. G. Wells is mentioned in Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention".

 Time Travel. Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention" depicts one of Manny the bumpha's Interventions in which time travel is used to make a slight adjustment to the timeline of Earth.

In the Buld Reality.

 Fusion. We might wonder why in "The End of Eternity" Asimov contented himself to mention the first nuclear explosion in 1945 and not the Ivy thermonuclear bomb blast in 1952. Early news reports of a hydrogen bomb test explosion were not confirmed by the U.S. government. Apparently the U.S.A. did not admit to detonating any thermonuclear bombs until after the Castle explosion (which resulted in the death of a Japanese fisherman). 

Secrecy. Some film of the Ivy blast was released in 1954, but the earliest released information about U.S. hydrogen bomb test explosions (such as this) contained very little meaningful information. Thus, while writing "The End of Eternity", Asimov may have been thinking about megaton hydrogen bombs, but with no real information available for the public about the U.S. H-bombs, I'm not really surprised that he failed to include them in his story. However, in "The Trinity Intervention", I will freely put fusion power sources into play.

Nuclear anxiety of the 1940s.

 Also Add Aliens.  Claude's script for a film called "The Manhattan Project: Beyond Trinity", about how to make an island using nuclear bombs, is certainly not the kind of story I would write, even-though I suggested the idea to Claude. Below on this page is Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention", which I set in my Exodemic Fictional Universe and which includes the Huaoshy, the aliens who designed and crafted the human species. 

Having just completed another science fiction story, "English Time", I intend to include three characters from that story in "The Trinity Intervention": (1) Nyrtia, (2) Manny the bumpha and (3) Eloy 8ME. In "English Time", I included the idea of  a "tribe of artificial life-forms, those built from zeptite components and led by R. Nyrtia". In contrast, the bumpha are described as being another "tribe" composed of femtobots. 

climate fiction

 The Trinity. For "The Trinity Intervention", I assume that Nyrtia survived the Reality Change that was triggered by 8ME because Nyrtia was inside the Hierion Domain when that Reality Change took place. In the context of "The Trinity Intervention", I want "trinity" to refer to three different artificial life forms: 1) Nyrtia's zeptite robots who are able to enter into the Hierion Domain, 2) the femtobot replicoid bumpha, and 3) the Huaoshy who originated as biological organisms, but have long ago transcended from the Hadron Domain into the Sedron Domain.

 More Plans for the story. I want "The Trinity Intervention" to provide an account of how 8ME and other time traveling Interventionists (see Qua, below) helped Isaac Asimov complete his final draft of "The End of Eternity". 

 Qua the Grendel. Also, "The Trinity Intervention" will depict Nyrtia as having deploying her agent Qua to speed up the development of fusion energy technology on Earth in an attempt to limit global warming from fossil fuel use. 

 Thermonuclear War. However, Nyrtia's well-intentioned Intervention goes bad, leading to nuclear war. To "put a patch" on Nyrtia's Qua Intervention, Manny directed 8ME to move from Europe to the U.S.A. in 1910 where she is responsible for bringing into existence Emil Konopinski, whose presence in a new timeline allows the U.S.A. to be first in developing an H-bomb which prevents a thermonuclear war.

Eddy and Zeta by Gemini (source).

 Garuda Time. "The Trinity Intervention" will include Julius Oppenheimer and depict him as being influenced by 8ME, who takes on the identity of Jean Tatlock from 1936 to 1944. Through his interactions with 8ME, Oppenheimer becomes aware of the trinity of artificial life forms (Huaoshy, bumpha and the zeptite robots including Grendels such as Qua) that have shaped the evolution of the human species and guide the development of human civilization.

 Super Volcano. There is one plot element for "The Trinity Intervention" that can be categorized as having been inspired by Claude's goofy nuclear bomb story "The Manhattan Project: Beyond Trinity". For "The Trinity Intervention", I will depict the Gakkel Ridge Caldera as having been used by the time-traveling Nyrtia to create a population bottleneck that was a critical step in the alien-directed evolution of the human species.

stories by Asimov

  Time Loop. For Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention", the question is raised: might the bumbling Eddy do something useful to help bring into existence Isaac Asimov's novel, "The End of Eternity", in its final form, a form that inspired Eddy to become a science fiction story teller?

 Nyrtia Survives. Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention" ends with the discovery that Nyrtia survived the Reality Change that was triggered by 8ME and Byrd when they traveled through time into Earth's pre-Space Age. I decided that my character Eddy Watson would be the first one to confirm (although Manny suspected it) that Nyrtia had not been erased from existence by 8ME and Byrd.

 The List. Shown to the left on this blog page is a list of stories by Asimov that concern time travel. At the bottom of the the list is "Cosmic Corkscrew", which was never published. The mysterious "disappearance" of Asimov's copy of "Cosmic Corkscrew" in 1947 is where Eddy's time travel mission begins...

Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention" - Mission Accomplished

Image generated by Gemini.

 2025, in Arizona.

While he was at work, Eddy Watson habitually ignored anyone who rang the doorbell. As he did now. Eddy was busy illustrating a story and struggling to visually depict an alien species that had thrived in the deep past, more than a billion years previously, the Hua. Eddy imagined the Hua as having a humanoid appearance that was similar to the human body form, but distinctly different. Eddy was using AI-powered text-to-image software to produce depictions of the Hua, but the images all seemed either to similar to human appearance or too much like the ugly aliens that usually populated Hollywood films.

Eddy the artist.

Usually a doorbell ring indicated the delivery of a package. Hearing the door chime, Eddy did not even bother to look out the window, nor did it cross his mind that a package delivery was very unlikely since Zeta was in Australia. With Zeta out of town, Eddy had been enjoying the opportunity to work uninterrupted, with only half a dozen cats to feed and water, when he remembered to do so. Everything seemed normal to Eddy until shortly after this particular ring, when Eddy heard the front door open. He turned and saw a young woman with long blond hair enter through the front door saying, "I only ring once." Eddy recognized her as Manny, a friend of his daughter, Tyhry.

Manny arrives in Arizona.

Eddy knew he should be surprised by Manny's entrance, but, as usual, he was distracted by her amazing hair and while admiring the shimmering gold nimbus that swirled around Manny's head, he forgot to think how odd it was for Tyhry's friend to just enter through the locked and dead-bolted door. Then even before Eddy had a chance to begin fantasizing about the possibility of touching Manny's hair, another young woman entered, right on Manny's heels. She also had long blond hair, seemingly styled in imitation of the flamboyant way that Manny always wore her hair. Eddy got up from his desk and looked out the window. He was unable to see the vehicle that had brought the two women to the remote location of the high desert home that he shared with his wife, Zeta. Eddy told Manny, "I'm sorry, but Tyhry is in Australia."

Manny and 8ME.

Manny said, "Yes, that's why we are here at this time." She gestured towards the other woman, "This is 8ME, who wanted to meet you before I send you to New York to meet Asimov."

8ME stepped forward and shook Eddy's hand. "I enjoyed processing the contents of your blog."

Eddy again glanced out the window, wondering how these two ladies had arrived. Manny explained, "I've given up pretending to drive, so stop looking for a car in the driveway."

Eddy felt a slight bit of dizziness, but mainly he was experiencing curiosity and the sensation that he knew the cute woman who continued to hold his hand. Had she been called 'Amy'? Eddy was still holding the soft warm hand of 8ME and even as he was imagining that '8ME' might be 'Amy', that possibility was trampled and he now knew with certainty that her name was actually 8ME. Manny was saying, "I've provided you with some infites, Eddy. Before I send you two back to 1947, I feel obligated to ask if either of you has any questions." Manny grinned mischievously and added, "I expect you two to function together like a well-oiled machine... I'm thinking of you two as a team, something rather like a piston and cylinder!"

Synapex linkage.

At that moment, Eddy was reviewing the content of his new infite-generated memories and also the information that was flowing to his mind from 8ME by way of their synapex link. As a fan of the science fiction stories of Isaac Asimov, Eddy was delighted by the opportunity, but trying to understand why he was being sent to meet Asimov in 1947. 8ME was still holding his hand as she reported to Manny, "Our synapex linkage is functioning well. He has a million questions, but both Eddy and I want to know why you selected the year 1947 for our mission."

Manny waved a hand dismissively. "Sorry, but you can't be told and answer to that question. In any case, that particular detail is not relevant to the successful completion of your mission. Please take my word for it: providing you with too much information about your future would cause a temporal paradox."

Memory transfer.

8ME told Eddy, "I suspect that 1947 is the idea time to steal Asimov's copy of 'Cosmic Corkscrew', allowing him to think in a new direction when he write his new time travel story."

Eddy was aware of the idea that one of the first science fiction stories Asimov had submitted for publication was titled 'Cosmic Corkscrew', but that story had never been published and it had eventually been lost. Manny told Eddy, "I can tell you this much. When Nyrtia abandoned the idea of using Philip Dick to reveal the Secret History of Humanity, it was clear to us that you would be the one to reveal the existence of the Huaoshy to the people of Earth. Now that the final Reality Change is imminent, we need to make one more change to the timeline before the end of the Time Travel Era."

8ME added, "Eddy, I'll explain all this once we are in 1947. However, the end of time travel is dangerously near, so we should be on our way."

Manny the bumpha and her
nanite-generated hair.

"No rush." Manny added, "We still have twelve minutes and twenty three seconds."

With information obtained from Manny's infites and his synapex link to 8ME's mind, the general shape and objectives of the impending time travel mission in 1947 were now clear to Eddy. Manny's memory-editing infites were in control of Eddy's thought processes, forcing him to unquestioningly accept the fact that time travel really was possible, after decades of Eddy having imagined time travel to be nothing more that a fun plot element for science fiction stories. Eddy now even knew what 8ME meant by a synapex link. He felt 8ME at work in his mind and knew that 8ME was altering his brain function so as to make him not waste time by asking questions, but he said, "Tell me one thing." Eddy now understood that the woman who had known as a school chum of his daughter was an advanced artificial life-form, a bumpha, but he dismissed such trivialities from his thoughts and he was thinking of Zeta. Eddy asked Manny, "I will return from this time travel mission... won't I?"

Manny nodded. "I'll have you back before Zeta makes her daily video call."

"Okay, then I'm ready." After he said that, Eddy began to wonder when the last time was he had fed the cats, but it was too late to worry about that.

Eddy in New York.

Manny activated the time travel equipment that was up in orbit, inside Many Sails and Eddy, Manny and 8ME were extracted from Arizona. Eddy and 8ME arrived in New York City on October 31st in the year 1947. They were inside the bedroom of Asimov and his wife Gertrude. Asimov looked out the window and could see the storefront of the shop that was run by Asimov's parents on the street corner at 174 Windsor Place, Brooklyn. In the window of the shop was a sign that said: "Ragamuffin Costumes". While Eddy gazed out the window, and was thinking about how Asimov had grown up reading science fiction magazines in his parents' shop, 8ME opened the door of a closet and began pulling out boxes.

Eddy turned and watched 8ME at work. "You know it is here?"

While she continued efficiently pulling boxes out of the closet, 8ME replied, "This is everything that Asimov owns. It must be here."

"Surely Manny Viewed this timeline." Eddy had found in his infite-generated memories the fact that Manny had sophisticated Reality Viewing technology, just like what Asimov had included in his novel 'The End of Eternity'. Now watching 8ME, he was charmed by the gracefulness of her movements and reminded of Zeta. He briefly imagined 8ME as a version of Zeta, tall, willowy and blond, the opposite of Zeta's dark curls and voluptuous curves.

"Yes, as did I, but Manny did not let me see my own future. We have to do the dirty work. Get started!"

Eddy grabbed one of the boxes that held what looked like it held a stack of yellowed pages, old typed manuscripts. The top document was an early draft of Asimov's story "Little Lost Robot". Below that was a set of proofs for Asimov's story "Evidence". Eddy flipped the box over, dumping the manuscripts out on the bed. What had been the bottom-most document in the box now rested on top of the stack, along with a dead silverfish. Eddy swept the dead insect into the empty box and set the empty box on the floor. He then turned his attention back to the stack of manuscripts only to see 8ME pick up what had been the bottom -and presumably the oldest- manuscript. 8ME turned the old document over. Eddy asked, "Is it?"

8ME replied, "It is 'Cosmic Corkscrew'! That was too easy."

Eddy picked up the next manuscript from the stack, "Let's make sure there is only one draft of the story." Eddy discovered that the next document on the stack was a hand-written early draft of Asimov's story 'Marooned Off Vesta' that had a hand-drawn illustration on the cover page. Eddy began to wonder what Asimov might have been able to create had he been given access to artificial intelligence tools.

8ME was already putting the other boxes back into the closet. "There is only one copy... Manny told me that much." Eddy put the manuscripts back into the box in their chronological order. 8ME took the box of manuscripts from Eddy and returned it to the closet. Soon she was done and closed the closet door. She neatened the bedspread and then looked out the door of the bedroom, carefully looking first left then right.

Eddy followed 8ME out of the bedroom, through the small apartment and then out. On the sidewalk out front, Asimov asked, "Where is is it?"

8ME patted her tummy. "I have it. Now, let's get dressed." Eddy finally noticed that 8ME was wearing what looked like a wool sweater and a pair of gray slacks. Eddy was wearing what he always wore, black pants and a plain blue shirt. 8ME took off down the street and Eddy followed along, puzzling over the fact that Manny's infites had provided him with so little information about this time travel mission. Or was it just that his conscious access to critical knowledge was blocked? Eddy wondered: How had I known exactly which box to look into? After a short walk, 8ME led Eddy into a clothing store not far from Windsor Place. 

The shop-keeper asked, "Can I help you?"

8ME replied, "We both need new clothes, suitable for dinner this evening... a night on the town."

Image by Mr. Wombo.

The salesman was efficient and soon 8ME and Eddy were wearing their new clothes. 8ME completed the task of paying for the clothing with gold coins, over the initial objections of the shopkeeper. His objections faded quickly when the value of the gold being offered by 8ME was clearly about ten times the price of the clothing. 8ME asked for and received one tenth the value of the gold in cash from the store's register. After the exchange of money and their new clothing for the gold, the shopkeeper said, "Let me wrap up your old clothes." He was feeling the fabric of Eddy's pants. "What kind of material is this?"

Eddy replied, "Polyester."

"Never heard of it."

8ME waved a hand at the old clothing, "You can keep it." She turned and walked out. Eddy followed, wondering when polyester had become available. Once more on the sidewalk, 8ME told Eddy, "There won't be an polyester clothing until the 1950s. You don't need to blabber to the people of this Time... you'll say something anachronistic and cause us no end of trouble."

Eddy knew that their mission parameters included meeting with Asimov, but he knew none of the details. 8ME led Eddy to the nearby Prospect Park station and soon they were on their way to Manhattan. Eddy said, "I've long had fantasies about meeting Asimov. I wrote a story about meeting Asimov while I was attending college."

8ME had processed all of the stories from Eddy's blog. She asked, "How did you come up with the idea of a 'Triversity' that was located on the border with Canada?"

Eddy launched into a long-winded account of the origins of the imaginary Triversity and before he could complete his meandering tale, they were in Times Square and transferring to the Interborough Rapid Transit. Eddy finally thought to ask about their destination. "Where are we going?"

"We'll meet Asimov when he is heading home." They waited for Asimov in the 116th Street–Columbia University station, located on Broadway. 

It was a cold and rainy day and while they waited, Eddy was none too warm. 8ME did not mind the cold. Eddy asked 8ME, "So you are a robot?"

8ME warned Eddy, "Don't say that to Asimov, even if you start gushing like a fanboy. I'm a sophisticated artificial life-form. What you call a femtobot replicoid in your stories."

Eddy was enjoying the pass-time of letting his eyes wonder all over 8ME's pretty features. He asked, so this body form you use is the physical form of an actual human?" 8ME held out her hand. When Eddy took hold of her hand, a synapex link formed between their bodies and information about 8ME's origin began to flow into Eddy's mind. 

8ME said, "We both have interesting origin stories, but those personal histories are not relevant to our mission here in the Time."

Eddy's mind was now being flooded with information about 8ME's origins. He laughed. "Wait now! You are an Eloy? You inspired H. G. Wells to include the Eloi and Morlocks in his time travel novel?"

"Don't try to blame me for that. Wells was a Myrlok, a genetically engineered chimp-human hybrid from the future."

When Eddy stopped laughing he asked, "How is it that when we hold hands I can look into your memories?"

8ME shrugged. "I'm not sure. Manny told me very little about you. I suspect that as one of Manny's agents on Earth, you must have been equipped with a femtozoan."

Eddy nodded. "Of course, you must be right." Eddy had only recently begun including femtozoans in his science fiction stories, a type of sophisticated artificial life. "It is so strange... after decades of writing science fiction stories about the Huaoshy and femtobots and sedrons and the Hierion Domain I now find out that it is not fiction... that it is all true."

8ME asked, "About these Huaoshy. I'd never heard of them until I read you blog."

"Well, I suppose they are rather secretive and don't want people knowing that aliens created the human species."

"But you don't know that. You just made that up for you stories, your Exodemic Fictional Universe."

"Ah, but now I know that Manny really is a bumpha, with time travel technology. And here I sit in 1947, twelve years before I'll be born, holding hands with a cute robot."

"Please don't call me that. In fact, for the rest of our mission, don't use the word 'robot', in front of me, when we are with Isaac or when you are with anyone." For just a fraction of a second, 8ME squeezed Eddy's hand with crushing strength. "Just stop."

Eddy was still struggling to understand the origin of 8ME. Apparently, she had attained consciousness as an artificial life-form, but her creators had not bothered to explain to 8ME who the human template had been for 8ME's artificial mind. "So, you are not using the body form of the woman who you originated from?"

8ME admitted, "Like you, I'm infatuated with Manny. While you can only fantasize about becoming Manny's lover, I can adjust my appearance to be more like Manny. Think about it! Manny must have carefully studied humans and selected her physical form to be optimally attractive to humans. When I was sent to 1340 by Manny, I adjusted my appearance to be like Manny, hoping that I'd be able to seduce Sir Giles de Roet."

Eddy asked, "You've seen the year 1340? Who was Sir Giles?"

"That was part of my previous time travel mission for Manny." 8ME had already sent to Manny her recently completed summary report about her mission to create Modern English. Now 8ME made that report available to Eddy through their synapex link. "I had to bring into existence a wife for Geoffrey Chaucer. Sir Giles provided me with a huge supply of his sperm cells. I selected a particular male pronucleus that had the fewest deleterious mutations and used it to craft a woman named Philippa who got Geoffrey to begin the task of creating Modern English."

Asimov asked, "You can do genome sequencing?"

"Of course. That is a simple task for my femtobots."

"While we are waiting for Asimov, could you sequence my genome?"

"No, Manny warned me about this. She does not want you to have that information."

"But-"

"I won't do it."

"But aren't you curious about my genes? What if I'm another Myrlok?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"How can it possibly matter to Manny if you analyzed my genes?"

"I don't know. She has some plan for you... using you to inform the people of Earth they the human species was designed by aliens."

Eddy nodded. "Yes, by the Huaohsy."

"You don't know that."

"True, I have no physical evidence, but you could provide the evidence that I need." Now Eddy squeezed 8ME's hand as hard as he could. "I suspect that I have alien genes."

8ME was thinking about NBPFmy and NOTCH2NLmy, two carefully crafted variants of human genes that had played an important role in making the Myrloks into a new primate species with human-like behavior. 8ME had already sequenced Eddy's genome and she knew that he had a very unusual NOTCH gene variant. Now 8ME was carefully hiding what she knew about Eddy's unusual genetics from him. 8ME was grateful for having multiple minds, only one of which needed to be linked to Eddy's by way of their shared synapex link. 8ME told Eddy, "You'll have to take this up with Manny. Anyhow, Isaac is almost here."

"How do you know?"

"I've got some of my femtobots inside him." 8ME broke the synapex link to Eddy and she stood up. Now she was carefully watching the flow of people entering the station. "I hurried him out of his laboratory early. That was quite easy to accomplish because he has a dinner date with his wife this evening."

8ME walked away from Eddy and she reached the doorway just as Asimov entered the station. She fell into step at his side and said, "Mr. Asimov, allow me to introduce myself and my assistant." She gestured towards Eddy, "Eddy Watson." 

Eddy shook Asimov's hand. "I'm very pleased to meet you!"

8ME had been working with her infites inside Asimov's brain for the past two hours, so when she told him that she and Eddy would accompany Asimov back home to Brooklyn, he merely said, "Let's not miss the next train."

When they were inside the commuter train, at the end of a car and with 8ME and Eddy positioned in one seat that faced the seat that held Asimov, Asimov asked 8ME, "Who are you? You seem to know me, but I'm sure I've never met you in my life."

8ME as Leah Cole in 1947.

8ME replied, "I'm Leah Cole of the Daily Review-Star. I'm writing a story about science fiction."

Asimov laughed and asked, "Did Fred put you up to this?"

8ME asked, "Fred?"

"Frederik Pohl. This is just what I'd expect from him!"

"No, Mr. Asimov, I don't know Mr. Pohl, although I would like to interview him, too." To Eddy, it seemed that 8ME has been quite surprised by Asimov mentioning Pohl. Eddy started wondering if he might also get to meet Pohl during this visit to New York. 8ME was continuing to speak, "I'm a fan of science fiction and my editor gave me permission to do a story for our Sunday edition about exciting new science fiction writers in New York. I got your name from Campbell, at Astounding."

Asimov muttered, "I suppose it is just coincidence..."

Eddy asked, "What coincidence?"

Asimov explained, "There is an old Otto Binder story about telepathy that had a character named Leah Cole."

Eddy chuckled and said, "You have a remarkable memory, Isaac."

"So I've been told. But that issue of Amazing with Miss Cole was the issue that had my story 'Marooned Off Vesta', so all of the stories in that issue feel like my old friends." Asimov seemed to be looking back through the years to the time when he first began publishing science fiction stories.

8ME asked, "Isaac, are you going to be a chemist or a writer of fiction?"

Asimov shrugged. "Ideally, both. It is strange, that story by Binder was about a biochemist and how he invented a form of chemically-mediated telepathy. Leah, if you include me in your article, then please be kind enough to describe me as a biochemist."

Eddy told Asimov, "I love stories about telepathy. What is chemically-mediated telepathy?"

Asimov laughed loudly. "Otto imagined some magic amino acid potion that would allow two people to share their thoughts. The story involved 'mental vibrations' or some such plot device." Asimov laughed some more, attracting the attention of nearby passengers on the train.

Eddy said, "For my stories about telepathy, I imagine a type of fundamental particle, hierions, that can transmit telepathic signals between people who have the correct type of hierion transmitters and receivers in their brains. In the far future, who knows what technologies will exist, making possible forms of technology-assisted telepathy?"

Asimov said, "I don't recall having read any stories by an Eddy Watson. Do you use another name when you publish?"

Eddy shook his head. "I've never gotten involve with print publishing."

Asimov asked, "What other kind of publishing is there?"

Eddy realized that he had worked himself into a corner. He replied, "I use electro-"

8ME glared at Eddy and cut him off, "Isaac, I have many questions to ask you. Can we have dinner this evening?"

"I'm going out for dinner with my wife."

"That's fine! We'll make it a double date. I'll pay for the whole thing out of my expense account at the Star."

They transferred between rail lines and were soon approaching Brooklyn. Asimov snapped his fingers and asked Eddy, "You are Edmund Watson, from England?"

Eddy shook his head. "Why do you ask?"

"It is strange. I've gotten interested in mixing elements of mystery stories with science fiction. I recently tracked down some stories by Dorothy Leigh Sayers in the Columbia library and came across a story by Edmund Watson, who I'd never heard of. I looked him up... he'd be about your age. Eddy Watson."

8ME told Asimov, "I hope you can forget about me and my assistant. Eddy and I are simply here to interview you. Think of us as walking, talking recorders. What the readers of the Star want to know is how you come up with your story ideas."

Asimov smiled. "That's rather an embarrassment. For example, speaking of Otto, his 1939 story "I, Robot" had a major impact on me. Otto imagined a robot with a platinum and iridium brain, which sounded good to me. Just as Eddy used 'hierions', I threw in 'positrons' to make my style of robots 'different', but really, everything I write is derivative of other people's stories that I've read and enjoyed."

"And also, surely, some of the science that you know."

"True, but it is not often that any real science gets into a science fiction story. For example, I recently re-read 'The Time Machine' by Wells and I have been thinking about time travel and how to power it with nuclear energy." Their subway train was arriving in Prospect Park station.

8ME asked Asimov, "What time will you and your wife be ready for dinner?" 

Asimov replied, "Six."

8ME told Asimov, "We will be at your front door, in a taxi cab, at six. We'll dine at Gage and Tollner."

When Asimov walked off towards his apartment, Eddy told 8ME, "This is so much fun! Asimov must already be thinking about his time travel story that will be published under the title "The Red Queen's Race". That was the time travel story where he introduced the idea of temporal inertia. He imagined getting the energy that is needed for time travel from nuclear fission. But for his novel 'The End of Eternity', he stepped it up a notch to using fusion as the energy source!"

8ME chastised Eddy, "Eddy, try to control your mouth. You can't tell Asimov about electronic publishing and your blog."

Eddy knew that 8ME was right, but he asked, "Would it really matter if I did? Hugo Gernsback has been writing stories about world-spanning communications systems for decades."

"I want you think before you speak and don't say anything that is about the future."

8ME went to a pay phone and called Gage and Tollner to make a reservation. When she completed the phone call, Eddy asked 8ME, "If you are worried that I'll say something that derails the timeline then why not send me home. I don't know why we are still here. You have the copy of 'Cosmic Corkscrew', so we've completed our mission. I don't mind an evening with Asimov, but what are we supposed to accomplish?"

8ME turned back to the phone booth and called the New York Cab Company and arranged for the services of a cab for the entire evening. While 8ME and Eddy waited on the street outside the subway station, Eddy prompted 8ME, "You never answered my question."

"All I can do is guess. We have a scheduled return time when we'll be extracted from 1947. I know you are a big fan of Asimov, so I imagined that we should have dinner with Asimov."

Eddy laughed. "Fine, if you don't want to tell me, I'll stop asking." Eddy was clod and miserable. He looked up at the gray sky. "I've long wondered how Asimov came to write his great time travel novel, 'The End of Eternity'."

"You can't ask him that. Remember, say nothing about the future."

Eddy pressed his point, "But Asimov is already making a plan for how to write a new time travel story..."

8ME said, "I thought you'd want to talk to Asimov about positronic robots."

"I do, but-"

"Just don't mention that I'm an artificial life-form."

"You already told me that, Miss Cole. I'm not trying to bring you into... by the way, why are you using a name that Asimov recognized as that of a character from a science fiction story?"

"I don't know. When it came time for me to decide on a fake name for myself, that one just popped into my head. Manny must have programmed that into me, just the same way she programmed into you which box from the closet would hold 'Cosmic Corkscrew'. Manny programmed us for this mission, but to avoid temporal paradoxes, that programming is not available to our conscious minds. I suppose Manny knew exactly how to catch Isaac's attention and make him agree to dinner." 8ME pointed down the street, "That's our cab." 8ME paid the driver up-front for the entire evening, in gold. The driver agreed on the condition that he'd end the night with a full tank of gas paid for by 8ME. 8ME told the driver, "Drive us around town, but get us to the corner of 10th Avenue and Prospect Place by ten minutes before six."

The cabbie pulled into traffic and asked 8ME, "Where are you from that you carry around gold coins? Don't you know that the government frowns on using gold like it is money?"

8ME said, "I've spent a lot of time in Europe. I suppose I am ignorant of many cultural practices on this side of the Atlantic."

"I'm not complaining." While waiting for a parade of costumed children who crossed in front of the cab at an intersection, the driver said, "I'd like to know who moved these Ragamuffin parades from Thanksgiving day to Halloween." As he drove into the now clear intersection, he added, "You gave me enough gold to pay me for the whole week. How long will you be in town?"

8ME shopping in New York,

"Just for today." 8ME told the driver, "By the way, you will be taking us and another couple to Gage and Tollner. After you park, you can come inside and eat while we do."

"I don't usually get to eat while I'm on shift. This is a company car, and I'm not supposed to leave it unattended while I'm on duty."

"I'm Leah Cole, working on a story for the Daily Review-Star. What's your name?"

"Garuda Crow."

"Well, Garuda, I'll monitor the cab while you eat. Just don't get drunk. I'm counting on you to get the other couple back home in one piece after dinner."

"If there will be four passengers, someone will have to sit up front with me."

Eddy said, "I'll sit up front. By the way, I'm Eddy."

Garuda proceeded to give a guided tour of Brooklyn in the area around where Asimov lived, talking non-stop. At ten before the hour they pulled up in front of Asimov's apartment. Eddy got into the front passenger seat. Soon Asimov and his wife appeared and got into the back seat of the cab with 8ME. Garuda announced, "We're on our way to Gage and Tollner...  just relax and enjoy the ride."

Gertrude asked 8ME, "You are a newspaper reporter?"

8ME explained, "I hope to include your husband in a story about exciting new writers. I think science fiction is the most interesting part of American literature."

Gertrude laughed, "Wait, don't tell me you are one of those Futurian nuts."

Isaac told his wife, "That group fell apart during the war."

Gertrude noted, "The group might disintegrate but the individual nuts can remain."

Eddy asked Gertrude, "You are not a fan of science fiction?"

Gertrude shrugged. "I'll just sit quietly and eat. You can do your interview of Isaac without any interference from me."

Soon the two couples were settled in at a table inside Gage and Tollner. After the waiter departed, Isaac and Gertrude began to eat. 8Me excused herself and went to another table where Garuda was seated. Eddy said, "Isaac, I had no idea that you illustrated your own stories."

Asimov finished chewing the food that was in his mouth, swallowed and washed the spice down with a gulp of wine. "I can't draw. That's a job for experts, but for pulp magazines it is usually done by whatever unemployed artist will work for the low wages that magazines can afford to pay."

Eddy asked, "You never tried to get your illustration for 'Marooned Off Vesta' past an editor and into print?"

Asimov set down his fork. "How can you possibly know-"

8ME returned to the table and poured more wine for Isaac and Gertrude while saying, "Please, Isaac, don't let my assistant disturb you. We've been speaking to all the editors who have published your stories and some of your fellow writers. We've learned many interesting things about you, but I need to hear directly from you about your creative process." 8ME sat down in her chair and picked up a fork. "Earlier today you began to tell us about your idea for powering a time machine with nuclear energy. How fascinating!"

Asimov had shifted his eyes off of Eddy and now they rested on 8ME. "Well, Miss Cole, think about it. If I had a time machine that could dematerialize you and send you into past, what would happen to all of the energy from your body when you were dematerialized? By E = MC², there would be a large amount of energy involved." Having made what was an obvious point to 8ME, Asimov returned to eating.

Failing to adhere to the plan that she would sit quietly and eat, Gertrude asked 8ME, "You are not married?"

8ME replied, "I don't think I'll ever understand the idea of marriage. Really, it is an institution best left to people like you and Isaac who swim in it like fish in water."

Eddy said, "I've been married for over three decades and I'm not even a fish."

Isaac swallowed again and quipped, "Three decades... to the same woman?"

Eddy laughed. "Well, my wife has the ability to re-invent herself. If I am to be a spokesman for the institution of marriage, let me advise that all men contemplating marriage keep firmly in mind the idea of human self-domestication. And the most important trait to be artificially selected for is intelligence."

8ME scoffed. "Eddy, your wife is beautiful. You can't tell me that you selected her for her intelligence."

"Well, it is true that she was not smart enough to run away when I started chasing her, but she's the smartest woman I've ever met, so I feel like I won the mating game."

8ME re-directed her attention back to Asimov. "If my assistant can stop bragging about his brilliant and beautiful wife, I'd like to get back to your ideas about time travel stories, Isaac."

Asimov drank some more wine then said, "It is very strange. After we spoke on the subway today, I went looking for my old time travel story... one that I wrote ten years ago. I could not find it."

Eddy blurted out, "Cosmic Corkscrew?"

Asimov demanded, "How do you know that? The story was never published."

8ME reminded Asimov, "We've been taking to all of your editors and your old friends like the Futurians."

"Well, I'm surprised that anyone remembers that rejected story besides me. I can't image where it is now. I know I had a copy of it."

Gertrude said, "I told you, Isaac, someone was in the apartment today."

Isaac looked suspiciously back and forth between 8ME and Eddy, but just before he gave voice to his suspicion that they might have stolen his copy of 'Cosmic Corkscrew', 8ME pushed her fingers through her long bright hair and shook it loose from its restraints, letting it cascade about her shoulders. At that moment, 8ME's memory-editing infites altered Asimov's thought train. Asimov remained silent and Eddy said, "I'm not sure I understand the point of 'Cosmic Corkscrew'... it was an attempt to link time travel to quantum mechanics?"

Without bothering to pull his gaze off of 8ME's lovely hair, Asimov replied, "I know next to nothing about quantum mechanics, but why shouldn't jumps through time follow rules just as electrons jump between energy levels? Think of stellar spectra that allow us to know which atoms exist in stars." His thoughts successfully placed under control by 8ME's memory-editing infites, Isaac returned his attention to the food on his plate.

Eddy said, "If some points in Time were easier to travel to than others, an author could have fun designating the preferred destinations for time travelers. Now that I think about, that is exactly what Wells did in his time travel story. The time traveler jumped far into the future, in a single bound, a kind of quantal leap, arriving exactly in the time where the love of his life was waiting for him. Quantum romance! Isaac, you should reverse that plot. Imagine a beautiful woman from the far future named Gertrude who travels back to the 20th century and makes Isaac Asimov the happiest man on Earth."

Gertrude laughed. "Isaac isn't a romantic like you are, Eddy. He's reluctant to include women in his stories."

"Having studied my wife, I've learned how to include women in stories." Asimov took hold of his wife's hand but the lamented, "I'm quite busy with my biochemistry experiments. I only have time to write about one science fiction story a year. Oh well, maybe things will get better next year." He told Eddy, "I'm reluctant to deal with time travel into the past. I hate the idea of having to knit together time loops."

Eddy suggested, "Wells was trapped in the box of an invariant timeline, but you could make a quantum leap and free yourself from those restrictions."

Asimov noted, "But if the timeline can change, chaos ensues."

Eddy asked, "Must that be so?"

Gertrude looked down at her empty plate. "Can I order desert?"

Desert was ordered and 8ME tried one more time to pretend to be interviewing Asimov. "Mr. Asimov, do you think your next story will be about time travel?"

Asimov sighed, "I don't see how that is possible. Campbell is insisting that I write more Foundation stories." Eddy and Isaac then had a long discussion about plot minutia in the Foundation Saga. Finally Isaac said, "Well, I have to get up in morning and do an experiment in the laboratory."

Soon they were back in the cab and 8ME was thanking Asimov for the interview. 

 Asimov said, "It was fun to relax and chat about science fiction. If I could just get clear in my mind how to use nuclear energy to power time travel..."

Eddy suggested, "Maybe a Super Science Story should go beyond fission and use the Super source of energy."

Asimov looked at Eddy, but Isaac could only see the back of Eddy's head. Campbell had mentioned to Asimov the idea of the 'Super', a type of nuclear bomb that would be far more powerful than the two fission bombs that has been dropped on Japan. Campbell had also warned Asimov that he was under the thumb of the FBI and as editor of Astounding magazine, he was not allowed to publish the term "thermonuclear" outside of the context of stellar physics. Asimov said, "Maybe I could write a story about using solar energy to power a time machine."

After dropping the Asimovs back at their apartment, Garuda asked, "Where to now?"

8ME replied, "I owe you a top-off of your gas tank."

While Garuda drove the cab to a nearby gas station, Eddy said, "There are so many things I wish I'd asked Asimov. It was as if my mind was blank during the whole meal."

8ME said, "I'm sure that you said everything that Manny wanted you to say. Only now has she returned your conscious brain functions to normal, when you in the clear and can't say anything problematical to Asimov."

Edd suspected that 8ME was correct. "I hate to think that I'm a puppet to Manny."

They stopped for gas and 8ME paid for it in cash. She told Garuda, "Thanks for your driving. Good night." She handed Garuda all of the remaining cash that she had, telling him it was a tip.

Garuda asked, "That's it? You give me all this money and buy me dinner and you are just going to walk away?"

"Yes. Good night." 8ME led Eddy away from the brightly lit gas station and up to a quiet side street.

Eddy complained, "It is so cold. I should have gotten a coat."

"Stop complaining. I thought you wanted to meet Asimov." 8ME stopped walking and looked up at the sky. "Don't ruin the evening by complaining about the weather."

Eddy asked, "Is it now?" It was. He felt some disorientation as he was extracted from New York. Eddy expected to be returned to Arizona, but he found himself in a strange room that was full of odd devices... and he was under the intense gaze of a woman.

The woman nodded cordially to Eddy and said, "Welcome to the Hierion Domain".

Nyrtia and Tyhry.

Eddy laughed, then realized that she was serious. Eddy had been writing science fiction stories for decades that included the Hierion Domain as a plot element. Now he was only mildly surprised to be told that he had been brought from the Hadron Domain into the Hierion Domain of the universe. He wondered: Have I been converted into a replicoid, composed of hierions? Eddy asked, "Who are you? Do you work for Manny?"

"I'm Nyrtia."

Eddy had been writing science fiction stories about Nyrtia for years. He reached out and touched her arm, which felt like human flesh. "You are a robot?"

"Let's use the terminology that your daughter coined; niaf... an artificial life form composed of nanites." 

Eddy demanded suspiciously, "What about Tyhry?"

A voice came from behind Eddy, "Oh, daddy, don't bark at Nyrtia. She brought us here so that we can make plans."

Eddy turned and rushed to his daughter and they hugged each-other. "What are you doing here? I thought-"

"Yes, I was in Australia with mom, but Nyrtia brought us here so we can plan how to deal with Manny."

"So you know the truth about Manny?"

"Nyrtia has explained everything to me. It is all amazingly similar to your science fiction stories, but the key fact is that Nyrtia and Manny are locked in a Time Travel War. Now I'll go to work with Manny... she's long trained me to be her agent."

Nyrtia added, "But Tyhry will be my secret agent, embedded with Manny."

"But..." Eddy was thinking about the idea that the Huaoshy would soon put an end to all further time travel. 

Nyrtia said, "We don't have much time. I'll send you directly to Arizona." She gestured towards a large device that seemed built into the wall of Nyrtia's workshop. "Just walk through the Time Portal."

Eddy asked, "Time Portal?"

Nyrtia said, "I know my time machine is different than Manny's. But the Portal is locked on your home in Arizona. You need only walk through."

Peering through the open Portal, Eddy could see his computer workstation and the large display scree of his trusty old desktop computer back in Arizona. Sleeping in the chair in front of the computer was a cat. He took Tyhry by the hand and led her through the Portal.

___End Chapter 1____

Image by WOMBO Dream.

I provided Gemini with backstory information for “The Trinity Intervention”, summaries of the 5 chapters of "English Time" and the full text of Chapter 1 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 1 of the science fiction story “The Trinity Intervention”. Give the illustrations in the storybook  a photo-realistic style. The images generated for the storybook resemble full color high resolution movie stills.

Gemini: I've written a science fiction story for adults based on Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention," featuring photo-realistic illustrations that resemble high-resolution movie stills. The story may not be 100% faithful to the uploaded file.

I used the Gemini-generated storybook images to illustrate Chapter 1 of "The Trinity Intervention". Some of the Gemini-generated images were pretty funny and explicitly contradicted elements of the written story. I was amused that although I provided a title for Chapter 1 (Mission Accomplished), Gemini's storybook was called "The piston and the cylinder". Gemini would not generate any images that included depictions of Isaac Asimov.  I used other text-to-image systems such as ImageFX and WOMBO Dream to make some of the images on this page.

Next: discussing "The Trinity Intervention" with my AI collaborators.

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