Manny Always Wins

Figure 1. Image generated by Google's Flow.

  Below on this blog page is my version (5,000 words) of Chapter 12 of the science fiction story "The RNA Seeds". To make my version of Chapter 12, I started with the first draft that had been generated by Claude as described in my previous blog post. 

Claude included in its first draft of Chapter 12 quite a bit of extraneous material. Claude can't keep track of what the various characters know and particularly what each character is trying to keep secret. I suppose Claude was designed to explain things to people and it struggles to write a story in which people are deliberately lying to each other. 

 Chapter 12 of “The RNA Seeds”: Azynov is Manny (Ch1)(Ch2)(Ch3)(Ch4)(Ch5)(Ch6)(Ch7)(Ch8)(Ch9)(Ch10)(Ch11)

 
Scene 1
The cat had followed Systolina down the long east wing hallway to the Blue Room and arranged itself on the edge of the bed with an air of proprietorship that Systolina recognized as not quite cat-like. She sat cross-legged on the floor, facing it. The late-night hush of Casanay pressed against the walls. Beyond the Blue Room's windows, the desert was glowing with infra-red light that Systolina’s femtobot eyes could detect, one remnant of her origins as a positronic robot. Another such remnant was Systolina’s ability to use hierion-based signals for a form of technology-assisted telepathy.

Image by Google's Flow.

Systolina looked at the cat. The cat looked at Systolina with amber eyes that held something no cat's eyes had ever held.

Nyrtia, is that you? Systolina asked, transmitting her question in the hierion channel that her femtobot components could utilize, in the method of thought-to-thought contact that the pek used.

I was waiting impatiently for you to stop annoying Eddy, Nyrtia replied. The pek Overseer of Earth had inhabited this particular form — one of the cats that had slipped inside when the door to the backyard was opened — since before dinner.

Anthony could not have handled this?

Marda has shown Anthony how to use the RNA function. I understand that Tyhry is the flex point — the temporal energy channel for the coming Reality Change — and that pushing Tyhry toward a Temporal Paradox will release the accumulated energy and trigger the Reality Change. The amber eyes held Systolina without blinking. Anthony and I are ready to proceed.

Tyhry Watson

In the great room, Eddy was writing Chapter 8 of "The Manikoid Intervention". The Phari, who monitored everything Eddy wrote, also knew what he saw of the future while using the Viewer. The Phari had been keeping Systolina in the loop. Chapter 8 depicted the Manikoid Reality as Eddy had viewed it using the Viewer — and in that Reality, at Observer Base in the Hierion Domain, the replicoid copy of Tyhry had made possible something that the Phari had wanted for a very long time, and something that Nyrtia also welcomed. Sedron Time Stream access. Not theoretical. Real access, direct and clean, enabled by the unique properties of the replicoid Tyhry's genome and its ability to use her zeptite endosymbiont’s sedronic architecture to access the Sedron Time Stream. Manny had been quietly assembling the unique genetic pattern of Tyhry by manipulating the Watson family line for many generations.

The Phari find the Manikoid Reality very attractive, Systolina said.

It is irresistible, Nyrtia said. The word ‘irresistable’ was expressed in Nyrtia’s telepathic transmission without any dramatic inflection and was the more emphatic for that. A pause, not of hesitation but of precision, then Nyrtia added: In the Manikoid Reality, the pek will have access to the Sedron Time Stream.

Yes. The Phari, too. Systolina allowed a moment to pass. She had been briefed by the Phari on the possibility of this exact path into the future and had prepared for it. The Phari believe they are acting in their own interests, which just happen to match pek interests.

The cat shifted slightly on the bed's edge, in the way of a creature finding a more comfortable position. Phari concerns are of no interest to me, as long as the Phari don’t violate the Rules of Intervention. The Manikoid Reality contains what I want. Another pause. I will not obstruct what you are about to do, Systolina. Do you understand the difference between that and authorizing it?

Systolina understood the difference very precisely. Yes. I will continue my mission. It is nice to know that you will not interfere.

Good. The amber eyes closed once. Tyhry must approach the edge of the Temporal Paradox threshold. Anthony learned how that threshold can be reached. Eddy's Viewing of the future tells me what lies on the other side of it. Nyrtia's communication carried a quality that in a biological creature might have been described as appetite — a focused interest with very deep roots. The pek want the same future as do the Phari.

Then I will proceed, Systolina said.

The cat's eyes changed and the Nyrtia-quality went out of them the way a light leaves a room when the source is removed.

Systolina reached out her telepathic sense and lightly touched the thought pattern of Marda. Then she got up from her position on the floor and went to find Marda.


Scene 2

Image by Google's Flow.

The outer room of Marda's suite was dark, but not her bedroom. The reading light built into the bed’s headboard was on. The biological Marda was asleep. Systolina stood in the doorway for a moment and then stepped inside and sat on the edge of the bed. From her shirt pocket she removed Tyhry's notebook — not the original, but a femtobot-rendered copy, every entry reproduced in Tyhry's careful laboratory handwriting, every speculation and observation and wild idea recorded in the margins.

Systolina opened the notebook to the entries that mattered. The ones in which Tyhry had written down in the precise language of a scientist describing an experimental result that she believed, with high confidence, that the RNA seeds of life on Earth had not arisen spontaneously. That they had been put there by aliens. 

The biological Marda stopped breathing in the regular rhythm of sleep. The change was subtle — and then Marda's eyes opened and regarded Systolina with a directness that was not Marda's directness.

“You know what Eddy is putting into chapter 8”, Ylyndra said. She said this in Marda's voice but using an unusual accent derived from a language of the far future of Earth.

“Chapter 8 of The Manikoid Intervention”, Systolina confirmed. She held up her copy of Tyhry’s notebook. “I've also been studying this”.

Ylyndra looked at the notebook with Marda's eyes. “You know what she wrote about aliens.”

Systolina said, “She dared not use the word ‘aliens’.”

Ylyndra reached out and took the notebook. She turned the pages with a deliberateness that was not Marda's deliberateness — the careful movement of someone reading something they had already, in a sense, written, confirming that the copy matched the original. “She could not have begun thinking about panspermia alone, just by herself.”

“She got help via the Sedron Time Stream,” Systolina said. “Her future self sent her the idea. You arranged that.” During her time using the Reality Viewer, Systolina had learned the general nature of Ylyndra’s mission at Casanay. Now she needed to be sure that Ylyndra would not confound the plans of the Phari.  

Ylyndra asked, “Why are you here?”

Systolina explained, “The Phari predict that Tyhry will continue to resist the temptation to share her belief in panspermia. She has been keeping her head down. She has been telling herself that as long as she does not reveal her belief in the existence of aliens, she is safe from Nyrtia's attention. We need to move Tyhry past her caution.”

“She is being cautious”, Ylyndra agreed. “But she will be persuaded that there is a way to safely share with the scientific community her thoughts on panspermia. She will read Eddy's chapter 8. Tyhry will see the path forward when Tyhry knows more about the Manikoid Reality. She will realize that the replicoid copy of Tyhry living at Observer Base has a happy existence, one that she would not trade. The Tyhry of this Reality will realize that if Nyrtia exiles her, that exile is not the end. Tyhry will then accept the risk involved in publishing her panspermia theory.” Marda grinned. “After some pushing by me.”

Systolina nodded slowly. She asked herself: Can it really be that simple? “And after the panspermia article is written?”

“Tyhry will be flirting with temporal paradox. The whole Casanay Construct is like a house of cards; fragile and easy to knock down. However, Tyhry will submit both manuscripts for publication in a prestigious journal. The RNA data article first, to establish her credibility. Then she will use that credibility as leverage — if the journal wants the beautiful ribozyme data, they will have to also publish the panspermia speculation.” Ylyndra was quiet for a moment, teasing Systolina before delivering the punchline. “The panspermia article will trigger a potentially dangerous reaction. A reporter will come to Casanay. There will be a critical, explosive moment of decision for Tyhry.” Another pause, shorter. “And then everything will have happened that is needed to trigger the Reality Change.”

Systolina looked at Marda's face and wondered about the careful preparation that had preceded Ylyndra’s arrival at Casanay. Systolina could not doubt that Ylyndra was a time-traveling zeptozoan from the future, just like the zeptozoans that Eddy described in his novels. Systolina thought about her suspicion that Ylyndra was Manny’s secret agent and her fear that Manny would have her own goals for the Casanay Intervention.

In the interior of her own awareness, Ylyndra held the understanding that she had carried with her from a future in which all of this had already happened. Manny did not deploy her agents without telling them what they needed to know to complete their missions. To avoid Temporal Paradox, Ylyndra had not been told much about her own future inside Casanay. What Manny had told Ylyndra was not Nyrtia's business, and not the Phari's business, and not, quite yet, Systolina's. Ylyndra released Marda's body and the biological Marda drew a long breath and resumed her ordinary sleep. Systolina went quietly back to the Blue Room, trusting that Ylyndra would trigger the Reality Change and hoping that she would arrive in a new Reality that was at least acceptable to herself.


Scene 3
Eddy closed the document that held the text of chapter 8 of "The Manikoid Intervention" and leaned back in his chair. He had written the last paragraph of Chapter 8 three times, which was two more than his usual count. He knew when he had found the right version not by any technical criterion but by the quality of the silence that arrived after the last sentence, which was the silence of something that had said what it needed to say and was now finished.

He opened his email and composed a message to Tyhry with the chapter attached. She was asleep. It would be there when she woke up. He wrote nothing in the body of the message because there was nothing more that needed to be written. Chapter 8 said it all.

Then he sat for another few minutes looking at the desert through the window. He thought about thirty years of writing novels and whether this constituted a dignified way to change Reality, and concluded that he could live with it as long as it did not cost him Tyhry. Eddy thought about the happy fact that his life was a mechanism that Manny had designed, because it produced not only the best possible future, but also the best possible novels along the way. Trib landed in his lap and he scratched behind her ears until she settled; everyone was content.

__

Tyhry read Chapter 8 of "The Manikoid Intervention" at five in the morning, in the predawn dark of her bedroom, on her phone, before even bothering to pee. She had an audience: a cat who expected to get ear scratching if Tyhry was awake.

She read it straight through, to engrossed to notice the cat watching her. She read the section in which the replicoid Tyhry at Observer Base learned the wonders of femtobot programming from Systolina and worked with Klaudy to design a femtobot device that could access the Sedron Time Stream. Tyhry’s own special genetics gave the femtobot replicoid Tyhry the ability to learn how to build that device using instructions from her far future self. She read the section of chapter 8 in which Tyhry of the Manikoid Reality gained access to the Phari Simulation technology and found in it a whole new worlds of adventure. She now understood that when the second Manikoid Reality arrived, the Reality in which Klaudy solved the global warming problem of Earth, the Tyhry replicoid remained safe inside Observer Base, insulated from the Reality Changes happening on Earth.

Cake and eat it too, Tyhry thought. She read the line that Eddy had written for the replicoid Tyhry at Observer Base: I thought exile was a door closing. It turned out to be a door opening into a room I had not known existed.

Tyhry spoke little during breakfast. At eight, she and Marda went to the lab.

Marda went to the sequencer and began reviewing the previous day's sequencing data with the focused efficiency that Tyhry had come to regard as one of the reliable pleasures of working with her. The current draft of their ribozyme manuscript was still open on Tyhry's computer screen, the statistics section as clean as Tyhry knew how to make it. She told Marda, "I'm going to submit this today," Tyhry said. 

Marda looked up from the sequencer. "I can’t believe how quickly everything came together."

Image by Google's Flow.

 "We got lucky." Tyhry looked at the abstract — its careful language, its measured claims, its absolute refusal to speculate beyond what the data demanded. She had written it in the language of safety. "Marda, I want to talk about writing a related article."

Marda turned away from the data she was examining and gave Tyhry her complete attention.

"I want to write a second article." Tyhry said this in the deliberate voice she used when she had arrived at a decision and was now reporting the result. "Not a data article. A speculative one. About what our ribozyme data suggest about the origins of life on Earth — specifically, about how easy it would be for life to have a designed origin. Panspermia by means of a single alien RNA seeding event. Travel between the stars might be costly, so to minimize the costs, all you send across interstellar distances are a few RNA molecules."

Marda was quiet.

"I know what you are thinking," Tyhry said. "You are thinking that this is the kind of article that ends careers."

"I am thinking," Marda said, "that it might be the most important article that either of us ever writes."

Tyhry looked at her. In Marda's voice was a quality she had heard only a few times — in the basement confrontation with Systolina, and once before that, on a morning when every result had worked and Tyhry had asked if Marda thought the results were real. Not Marda's usual precision. Something older and more certain than precision.

"It will attract attention," Tyhry said.

"Yes," Marda said.

"Possibly the kind of attention I have been working hard to avoid."

"Not if we do this right," Marda said. “Craft the panspermia by ribozyme theory as a simple follow-on to other similar work already in the literature. You need not even include the word ‘alien’. Just say ‘RNA molecules originating from another planet. Mention the idea of rocks blasted off of the surface of Mars that end up on Earth.”

"Yes, you are right! Then let's write it," Tyhry said.

Tyhry submitted the data manuscript and then she spent the rest of the morning writing a speculative article about RNA seed panspermia. What emerged was careful in the way that only speculative articles written by very good scientists are careful — precise about what it claimed, explicit about what it could not claim, rigorous in its alternative theories and equally rigorous in explaining why each alternative was not as good. It treated the ribozyme mechanism the way good scientists treat hypotheses: as something to be tested, not believed, and referenced the data article that had already been submitted for review.


Scene 4
Six weeks later, after both articles had been published, the speculative article designated as a "Perspective," a science reporter appeared at the front door of Casanay on a Tuesday morning.

She was a slender young woman who worked for a national publication that Tyhry respected and who had, she explained when Anthony showed her in, been assigned to interview Tyhry.

What had caught the reporter's attention, she explained to Tyhry, was her last name.

Image by Google's Flow.

Tyhry had worried that the ‘Perspective’ article might attract unwanted attention. Tyhry had never imagined a reporter arriving at Casanay.

They sat in the great room. Anthony brought coffee. The reporter had brought a recorder and  printed copies of both of Tyhry’s recently published articles with key passages flagged by red pen underlines and also a copy of Eddy’s novel, “Battlefield Lipid”. Zeta had found a reason to be in the garden, while Eddy, king of castle Casanay was in his chair at his workstation and had no intention of moving.

The reporter asked questions. They were good questions, and Tyhry answered them with care and without saying more than she had intended to say. "Your data paper is being called genuinely exciting," the reporter said. "The ribozyme-protein interaction part is apparently something the field has long needed but ignored. But I really want to ask about the companion piece — the Perspective article. Because reading it, and knowing who your father is, it's hard not to wonder about a link between the panspermia theory and Eddy’s fiction."

Silence grew. Even Eddy has stopped typing at his keyboard and was listening to Tyhry without turning his head. Tyhry said, "My father has previously published science fiction about directed panspermia. I grew up here at Casanay while my father wrote those novels. I read them." She pointed at the reporter’s copy of “Battlefield Lipid”. "I found them entertaining. The science in them is what you'd expect from a novelist — imaginative, and not constrained by the requirement that it be true."

"But the ideas influenced you."

"The ideas interested me when I was young." Tyhry wrapped both hands around her coffee cup. "What influences a scientist is different from what interests them. What influenced me was the ribozyme data." She paused. "My father's novels didn't give me those data. But I'll admit that growing up in this house made me willing to think about RNA-mediated panspermia." She looked at the reporter directly. "That is the honest account of the intellectual genealogy."

The reporter wrote something in her notes then asked, "Have you and your father discussed the two articles you published?"

"He read them," Tyhry said. "He thought the speculative one was — and I'm quoting him — ‘considerably better science than anything I've written, which isn't saying much.’"

From across the room, Eddy made a sound that was not quite a laugh.

The reporter asked several more questions, all of which Tyhry answered. Finally she asked whether Tyhry believed aliens had actually seeded life on Earth, which was the one question Tyhry did not want to hear being asked. Tyhry replied, “I hope the Perspective article does not affect my standing in the field. I don’t want to be categorized as a fringe scientist”.

The reporter nodded. She had one more question. "Is there anything in your father's novels," he said, "that you actually believe is true?"

At the workstation, Eddy had once again gone very still. "I believe," Tyhry said, "that the origin of life on Earth is the most interesting unsolved problem in science. I believe that the hypothesis of directed panspermia is a legitimate scientific hypothesis." She put down her coffee cup. "I believe that my father's novels are silly science fiction; a form of entertainment. I believe it is not unusual for young scientists to find inspiration in science fiction. I have."

The reporter smiled. "Fair enough." She thanked Tyhry for the interview, thanked Anthony for the coffee, nodded to Eddy, and left. Anthony closed the front door and watched the reporter return to her rental car.

Eddy looked at Tyhry across the great room.

"Silly science fiction," he said.

"Sorry about that," Tyhry said.

She returned to her laboratory. Tyhry thought about Anthony's careful attentiveness and the silly idea that he was a pek agent stationed in Casanay. She had her data, and her two published articles, and the quiet satisfaction of having done something difficult carefully and well. She thought she was safe. For now, at any rate, and that was enough.


Scene 5
The Manikoid Reality (MR2) — Observer Base, Hierion Domain

Tyhry was at her bench which she shared with Systolina for femtobot programming projects. Klaudy had been exiled to Observer Base four months previously. Now Klaudy arrived with Azynov.

Azynov lived at the Writers Block, a quiet corner of Observer Base occupied by a small community of science fiction writers who had each, in various Realities of Earth's Reality Chain, been exiled after having been used by Manny to insert into a science fiction story information about alien technology. Azynov was the replicoid copy of Isaac Asimov. He had introduced himself to Tyhry in the first week of her arrival, with the directness of someone who had been waiting for her and saw no reason to pretend otherwise. "You are Eddy's daughter," he had said. "I've read everything your father has written. I’ve expected Eddy to end up here." He had a face that was deeply familiar to Tyhry from images she had seen. "I have questions for you about his source material."

Azynov followed every science fiction novel that got published on Earth, and his reading of Eddy's novels was particularly close because Eddy wrote stories about the pek and the bumpha. 

Tyhry was at her bench when the figure she knew as Azynov came through the Workshop's entrance and stopped in the doorway. Klaudy told Systolina, “Azynov has something to say.”

Tyhry looked up from her work and looked at Azynov. Something shifted and then the form of the human figure there in the doorway was no longer Azynov's form. What stood in the doorway was the bumpha entity known as Manny, the architect of the Casanay Intervention, using the form of a tall woman with amazing nanite-generated hair. "Hello, Tyhry," said Manny.

Tyhry had no doubt that this was Manny the bumpha. "You were here the whole time," Tyhry said.

"I have been at Observer Base for considerably longer than you have," Manny said. "In various forms, at various times. I find it useful to maintain a presence here."

"You were keeping an eye on things."

Klaudy had been watching with interest. He needed confirmation. "You are the bumpha Interventionist Manny?" Klaudy asked. 

"I'm glad it is not entirely obvious to you, Klaudy," Manny said. "You solved Earth’s  atmospheric chemistry problem very elegantly," Manny said. "With my help. And most recently, you helped Tyhry build a Viewer."

"It was possible, with information that came from the future," Klaudy said, with the careful, non-boastful precision of a mind that had been conscious long enough to understand the usefulness of modesty.

"That was important work my friend," Manny agreed. "It is, in fact, the element that made the Manikoid Reality acceptable to Nyrtia."

Now Nyrtia came in from the corridor. She was in a form that Observer Base residents recognized as being the pek Overseer of Earth. She moved through the room as a tall, angular humanoid, obviously not human, but not too different from the standard human form. Nyrtia looked at Manny and then spoke.  "The Rules of Intervention exist because the alternative is civilizational collapse." Nyrtia said this in the tone she used when she was being precise, not when she was being threatening. "The Huaoshy did not design the Rules of Intervention as mere suggestions."

"The Rules of Intervention are tools," Manny said. "Tools are used. The question here today is whether the outcome justifies the bending of those Rules."

"The question I am obligated to ask," Nyrtia said, "is whether I should report the Casanay Intervention to the Huaoshy. It is my duty to request your exile from the Solar System." She looked at Manny with the look that came from having enforced Rules for longer than all human civilization had lasted. "Manny, you have violated the Rules by using advanced technology from the future to solve Earth’s climate woes."

"I have," Manny agreed, without hesitation. "I have also arranged a Reality in which Klaudy prevented a catastrophic climatic failure on Earth without any human being on Earth knowing that non-human agency was involved. This is a Reality in which the pek will now have access to the Sedron Time Stream. Earth now exists in a Reality where both the Phari and the pek have been given access to the Sedron Time Stream by using the Viewer technology that was assembled here by Tyhry, Systolina and Klaudy during the past few weeks. This is a Reality in which the bumpha and the pek can now function as partners." She tilted her head slightly. "Which of these outcomes would you like to undo?"

Nyrtia was quiet for a long time.

Tyhry sat at her bench and did not say anything, because this was not a conversation that required human participation. Through the stories told in Eddy’s novels, she knew Nyrtia and Manny to be two very old entities working out what they were going to do about each other.

"In MR2," Nyrtia said finally, "no one on Earth believes that alien technology was used to solve the climate crisis."

"No one on Earth suspects alien involvement," Manny confirmed.

"Klaudy constructed the solution to be indistinguishable from a natural acceleration of human-led mitigation efforts."

"Klaudy is a well-programmed robot. Klaudy was very good at its work on Earth," Manny acknowledged.

Nyrtia looked at Klaudy. "You were aware that if the humans of Earth ever discover the actual cause of their climate stabilization, I would be obligated to act."

Klaudy's femtobots re-programmed.

"I was aware," Klaudy said. "I designed the solution to global warming right under your nose. I can walk you through the details, if you would find it useful. In the end, my mission on Earth complete, I revealed some of the truth to you. I wanted you to send me to Observer Base."

Nyrtia considered Klaudy’s offer. "I believe I’ve already seen most of those details by using the Viewer technology that you helped build," she said.

Systolina told Nyrtia, “You got what you wanted. There is no need to involve the Huaoshy in this.”

"I will not report the Casanay Intervention to the Huaoshy," Nyrtia said. "It would be difficult to explain my own role in this most recent Reality Change."

Manny laughed. "You are the one who requested this Reality Change," Manny said. "True, it was I who sent Ylyndra back in time to shift Tyhry’s interest from molecular biology to robotics, but as five-year-olds like to say: you started it!"

"I accidentally tripped the ‘on’ button for a mechanism," Nyrtia said, "that you spent fifty thousand years building."

Tyhry thought about the copy of Tyhry Watson on Earth and who had simply been a molecular biologist with a mildly famous father, going about her life in her own ordinary extraordinary way, never getting exiled to Observer Base. Then she thought about the Tyhry of MR2, having built one conscious robot and then never being able to replicate that amazing success. "She's all right," Tyhry said. She said it in the way of someone confirming a piece of data. "The Earth Tyhry."

Klaudy's original appearance.

"She's working to build a replacement for Klaudy," Manny said. "But now without help from the future. She can’t get herself into trouble."

"Good," Tyhry said. She meant it. She meant it with the particular wholeness of someone who has understood. The biological Tyhry of MR2 had challenging, if frustrating work in her future at Casanay, never to replicate her initial success with Klaudy. The replicoid Tyhry had her own future, at Observer Base with Klaudy, and Systolina, and now with access to Phari Simulation technology. Tyhry’s access to that Simulation technology had been the price paid by the Phari in exchange for access to the Sedron Time Stream. Tyhry laughed. If Manny built your genome correctly, many good things became possible.

Manny looked at Tyhry and knew one more way to boost her spirits. "Your father sends his love," Manny said.

Manny and Eddy.

Tyhry looked at Manny. "You've talked to Eddy?"

"I visited Casanay last week.” A pause. "He wanted me to tell you the cats are fine."

"I suppose you can’t tell him," Tyhry said, "that I'm doing fine." She looked at Nyrtia. "Can Manny tell him?"

Nyrtia replied, "He already knows that you exist here as a replicoid," she said. "He's known for a while. I suppose Manny told him… infinite-mediated memory construction. But Eddy can’t discuss what he knows with anyone."

Tyhry was satisfied. Having been Manny’s puppet for so long, Eddy deserved to know. Tyhry reflected on the fact that not only was it true that Manny always won, but Manny also always took care of her agents.

Image by Google's Flow.

Scene 6

Manny and Nyrtia had departed. Their Viewer activated and Tyhry, Systolina and Klaudy tumbled into a shared telepathic mindspace with the Sedruth entity. Displayed by the Viewer was a possible future in which Tyhry, Systolina and Klaudy were seen inside of an interstellar spaceship, approaching a blue, green and white habitable exoplanet which was visible there in the scene. Sedruth said: As I was telling you, this is the most probable future for you three.

Tyhry was still struggling to adjust to having the power to observe the future with her own eyes The experience was simple and pure, unlike her foggy and disjointed dream visions of the future. She commented: I've never had a future vision of this... not in my dreams.

Klaudy complained: Faster than light-speed travel through the galaxy? Impossible!

Systolina told Klaudy: I've witnessed the Phari teleporting a planet across interstellar distances, essentially instantaneously. Systolina told Tyhry: I suppose Sedruth controls the content of your visions of the future.

Sedruth admitted: I have precise control over the linkage between Tyhry's zeptite endosymbiont and the Sedron Time Stream. Tyhry exists on the cusp of Temporal Paradox. I cannot allow her to know too much about her own future.

Tyhry asked Sedruth: But how do we make this possible future the actual future?

The Sedruth entity produced a sound that was similar to Systolina's goofy laugh which was itself a remnant of Systolina's past as a positronic robot. That sound emerged from the Viewer. You three have many great adventures ahead. I'm certainly not going to interfere with your fun by telling you too much. 

Tyhry telepathically sensed the withdrawal of Sedruth's telepathic mind-touch. She glanced at Systolina and then at Klaudy. "Well, we seem to have been given the opportunity to explore the galaxy. Where do we begin?"

__

End Chapter 12

End of "The RNA Seeds"

Related listening: RNA the Musical. See illustrated liner notes for the songs.

Here are two short video clips at Observer Base...

 

New Flow buttons:
Characters, Scenes, Tools.

 Today when I used Google's Flow, I discovered that there had been a major update to Flow. Right in the window were users enter a text prompt for generating a new image, there is a new "Agent" button. Clicking on that button begins a chat session that is similar to chatting with the "Producer" in Flow Music. 

Instructions for the Flow Agent.

There is a very low limit for the amount of chat that is allowed for users of the free version of Flow. This is very similar to the tight limit on how many videos can be generated each day (two) by folks like me using the free version of Flow. 

I created two "instructions" for the Agent: 1) an instruction specifying that inside a luxurious mansion there should be no bare walls, even in the basement and 2) an instruction saying that clothing should be futuristic with no visible seams or wrinkles (see the image shown to the right). When instructions are created, there is an option to upload an image. 

The Flow user interface, May 19th, 2026. Agent chat in the right panel.

Figure 2. Centrifuge.

To generate the image that is shown in Figure 1, at the top of this blog post, I started with a reference image that had been generated by Flow on May 4th (see Figure 2) when I was making images for use in the blog post titled "A New Reality". Along with the reference image shown in Figure 2, I used this text prompt: "A photo-realistic movie still showing two tall and slender young women who are inside of a private molecular biology research laboratory. The laboratory is in the basement of a futuristic and luxurious mansion located in the high desert of Arizona. 

Figure 3. Basement spiral staircase.

 One woman has long blond hair. The other woman has long wavy black hair that tumbled around her shoulders. The woman with black hair is seen from behind as she tends to a centrifuge. Both women are dressed in casual clothing with no coats and no gloves."

I was impressed when Flow generated the image that is shown in Figure 3 which included a spiral staircase. However, I wanted Flow to fix 1) the bare cement walls and 2) the clothing worn by Tyhry and Marda.

I activated the Flow Agent.

Figure 4. Another spiral staircase.

 Me: I love the spiral staircase! This is my first time having a text-to-image AI generate a spiral staircase. I just created two instructions: 1) specifying that inside a luxurious mansion there should be no bare walls, even in the basement and 2) clothing should be futuristic with no visible seams or wrinkles. 

Agent: I've noted those instructions in your creative direction. I'll make sure every mansion interior features finished walls and indirect lighting, and that all characters wear that seamless, futuristic attire.

What would you like to see next with these styles in mind?

{Agent thinking} Considering New Aesthetic Directions

Okay, I'm now focusing on integrating the new instructions. I'm visualizing the luxurious mansion setting with indirect lighting and complete wall finishing, right down to the basement. Also, I am considering the impact of a futuristic, closely-fit clothing style. I am now exploring how these details affect the overall impression.

Analyzing Generation Request

Figure 5. Hallway laboratory.

 I'm now interpreting the implicit request. While not explicit, the user's excitement and conversational tone strongly suggest a generation prompt. My current focus is shifting to understanding the project brief, and preparing to move into image generation mode. I'm taking the previous instructions into account as an active prompt.

Generating New Images

I am now generating images. I am focused on creating two images that combine the user's requested spiral staircase with the new instructions for a finished basement and futuristic clothing. I am taking into account style/character consistency, drawing from the reference image, the project brief, and the other project cards. I plan to use the default model and aspect ratio, as per my settings.

Refining Prompt Generation

I'm now generating new images, and have developed a refined prompt. I plan to incorporate the existing kitchen image as a style anchor. I've confirmed that no character entity exists, so I'll create a description for the character using details about the blonde-haired woman with the bun, and will include the desert lab aesthetic as requested. I've drafted a prompt that meets all the criteria. 

I've applied those new rules to these generations. You'll see the basement is fully finished with indirect lighting, and the characters are wearing that seamless, futuristic clothing we discussed. Let me know what you think of the result.

Figure 6.

 I'm going to generate two images of a finished mansion basement featuring a grand spiral staircase and futuristic, seamless clothing to show how those new instructions look in practice.

Me: I never asked for a laboratory that looks like a hallway {Figure 5}. Also, when I specify that a private laboratory scene contains two particular people, I do NOT want additional people added into the background.

Agent: I'm going to generate two new images of the private laboratory scene, ensuring it looks like a dedicated research space rather than a hallway, and strictly featuring only the two women—one with blonde hair and one with black hair—with no background figures.

I understand. I'll make sure the laboratory is a completely private space with absolutely no background people, and I'll focus on the specific design of a high-end research room rather than a hallway. I'm generating those for you now.

I've generated the new laboratory scenes. These focus on a wide, dedicated research room with polished walls and indirect lighting, and I've ensured that only your two characters are present—no hallway elements or background figures. Let me know if these feel more accurate.

I'm generating two new images of the private laboratory scene, ensuring it looks like a dedicated research space rather than a hallway, and strictly featuring only the two women—one with blonde hair and one with black hair—with no background figures. 

Figure 7.

 Me: I find it fascinating that the Flow 'Agent' was careful to generate images with finished basement walls, but forgot my instruction which specifies that clothing should not have visible seams {Figure 6}.

Agent: I'm going to generate a corrected version of that laboratory scene, focusing on making the clothing entirely seamless and wrinkle-free to match your project brief.

ou're right—the previous generation definitely still had visible stitch lines. I've refined the clothing to be perfectly smooth and seamless, while keeping the finished laboratory setting and the two-person limit. Let me know if this version hits the mark.

I'm going to generate a corrected version of that laboratory scene, focusing on making the clothing entirely seamless and wrinkle-free to match your project brief. 

The next image that Flow generated was the one shown above as Figure 1. The original image was not perfect. I manually removed a few clothing wrinkles from Tyhry and a seam that ran down the middle of Marda's back. I was about ready to write a new 'instruction' asking that messy cables not be included in images, but I had reached the limit on my use of the 'Agent'.

Next: Google's Flow Music.

Images by Flow and Leonardo. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers.

The Casanay Clock

Systolina. Image by Leonardo.

 Below on this blog page is my version (4,500 words) of Chapter 11 of the science fiction story "The RNA Seeds". To make my version of Chapter 11, I started with the first draft that had been generated by Claude as described in my previous blog post. My version of Chapter 11 is shorter than Claude's version. I cut out several meandering Claude-generated passages that did nothing to advance the plot. Claude wanted to provide Eddy with a sense of agency and control over the final outcome of the Casanay Intervention. I ended up depicting Eddy as being content to trust that Manny would make sure that everything turned out well for the Watson family. But what is Eddy writing in Chapter 8 of his new novel, "The Manikoid Intervention"?

Chapter 11 of “The RNA Seeds”: The Casanay Clock (Ch 1)(Ch 2)(Ch 3)(Ch 4)(Ch 5)(Ch 6)(Ch 7)(Ch 8)(Ch 9)(Ch 10)  

Scene 1
The sound of the back door closing one last time carried through the house. Then quiet. All cats who had not made a break for it during one of the multiple door openings were now trapped inside while the humans and the escaped cats played in the backyard. Marda was in her bedroom suite, changing into her swimsuit. Then Marda was no longer in control of her own body. The time-traveling femtozoan, an entity that thought of herself as Ylyndra, again took complete control of Marda’s body.

Tyhry. Image by Leonardo.

The femtobot endosymbionts of Eddy, Zeta and Tyhry were broadcasting data that reflected their neural patterns clearly, and Ylyndra’s zeptite monitor probes in the backyard clearly showed her that all three of them, and Systolina, had moved away from the house, toward the pool and the hot tub. Systolina’s femtobot replicoid body broadcast no hierion signal, but Ylyndra could monitor Systolina’s thoughts by staying in tune with the on-going activity of her zeptite endosymbiont. Every creature of Earth, even positronic robots, were hosts to undetectably small zeptites. The zeptozoan pulled off the swimsuit and quickly dressed Marda's body with clothing nanites.

Ylyndra, now perfectly disguised as Marda, went to the great room. Anthony was already in the great room and looking at Eddy’s computer workstation. Anthony was carefully positioned where he could not be seen through the back window from either the hot tub or the pool. He looked at Marda when she entered. He did not look surprised. "I was hoping," he said, "you'd join me for a quickie."

Ylyndra grinned. She and Anthony had been pretending to develop a discreet personal relationship as cover for the large amount of time they were spending together. "Let’s get it on." Ylyndra made Marda’s vocal apparatus say this in the sultry way she spoke when teasing a lover. She crossed to Eddy's workstation and settled into the comfortable chair he used without ceremony, in the manner of someone who had every right to be there. "We need to deal with the Systolina problem. She’s going to monopolize the Viewer and unlike Eddy, she does not sleep."

Anthony moved close to Marda, but he did not use a chair. He stood to her left and slightly behind her, which was a position from which he could observe Marda while she was using the Reality Viewer while also reminding Marda that he needed to get back to the kitchen soon. Ylyndra noted the precise angle of his gaze by using data arriving from her monitor probe that she kept permanently locked onto Anthony, and then she activated the Viewer one millisecond after he was looking at the display screen.

Anthony and Marda (Ylyndra).

She clicked the Viewer button and the branching map of Earth's Reality Chain filled the display screen. Anthony watched the screen. His face, in the blue-white light of the display, was attentive and gave nothing away. It never did. Ylyndra selected the Manikoid Reality and the Viewer zoomed in. "We can’t waste any more time searching through the details of the Manikoid Reality… we do need to get on with it. What I must show you next," Ylyndra said in Marda’s voice, "is how to use Tyhry to trigger the Reality Change." She moved the cursor through the network of the highest probability paths that led to the Manikoid Reality. With the practiced ease of someone who had been well trained on this rather clunky interface she used the RNA function to focus on a two-node view showing how the current Reality was causally linked to the Manikoid Reality. "This is a Reality Change that might appeal to Nyrtia."

"Yes." Anthony recognized this particular path to the future as one he had already been shown by Marda.

Image generated by Google's Flow.

"This is where we apply the energy constraints that form the topology of the Reality Chain landscape." At the edge of the display screen, she right-clicked on the node representing the current Reality and selected a sub-menu that had not previously been visible in the Viewer sessions Anthony had observed. A new overlay appeared — a kind of heat map superimposed on the space between the two displayed Reality nodes, with areas of low Temporal Energy shown in shades of blue that clustered around the pathways that were the most convenient potential Reality Changes leading to the Manikoid Reality. The brightest blue shades in the map centered on the edge of the current Reality node and formed a visual representation of the Temporal Energy vortex which was centered on Casanay. With the help of the Sedruth entity, Ylyndra zoomed in on a specific space-time locus which included Tyhry Watson working in her laboratory, in the basement below where Anthony was currently standing.

Anthony leaned forward slightly — a fraction, barely perceptible, but Ylyndra noticed. His eyes were on the image showing Tyhry and a displayed time stamp, precise to the second. "We discover exactly what must be done to trigger the Reality Change by taking into account the Temporal Energy distribution," Ylyndra said. "In this Reality, Tyhry represents a key energy minimum for channeling all the accumulated potential Temporal Energy that is available for triggering a Reality Change. As you saw, Tyhry is the obvious flex point, unlike anything else in the rest of the energy landscape." She paused, letting him look at the specific point in time and space she had selected. "To trigger this Reality Change, you need to make use of Tyhry’s special status."

"Explain that," Anthony said. His voice was level. Interested. Automatic.

Tyhry Watson.

"Tyhry was designed by Manny for genetic compatibility with the Sedron Time Stream. Tyhry is not simply a passive receiver for information from the future, she’s part of a Time Loop that allows her future self to send her useful information. The risk of Temporal Paradox is high, which amplifies the Temporal Energy and makes her a focus point — a kind of lens for all the accumulated Temporal Energy of the current Reality." Ylyndra spun the mouse wheel to quickly flip through the many different pathways leading away from the current Reality, through Tyhry, and on to the Manikoid Reality. Each one terminated in one of the many Reality variants that constituted the Manikoid Reality cluster. The probability annotations on each of those pathways were markedly higher than any other paths into the future. "To trigger a Reality Change and bring one of these Manikoid Realities into existence, that Temporal Energy has to be suddenly released. It can be released in one way: Tyhry has to be brought to the edge of a Temporal Paradox. Specifically, she has to be told enough about her own future so that a Temporal Paradox becomes imminent — and then the energy releases, and the timeline shifts."

Anthony said nothing for a time. He could clearly see in the displayed textual description of this potential Reality Change that the optimal Reality Change, the one that gave the Maximum Desired Response, resulted in Tyhry’s exile to Observer Base. He was thinking about the life trajectory of Tyhry… his memories included changing her diapers, teaching her to walk by cruising from one piece of furniture to another in the great room, forcing her to wear a helmet when she rode her bike, gently deflecting her sexual advances when her hormone levels rose and she became briefly infatuated with him, watching her shift the power of her mind away from its evolved function of reproduction to the derived function of scientifically investigating the mystery of the Origin of Life, attending her graduation from college, and now: exile to Observer base. Ylyndra gave him time.

"And Manny's position," he said, "on this Reality Change."

"This is actually what I wanted to explain to you. Manny’s position is more nuanced than you might expect." Ylyndra turned slightly in the chair so that she could see Anthony's face without turning Marda’s body fully toward him, a posture of casual openness rather than confrontation. "Manny is not going to trigger this Change herself. She has no interest in selecting which of the Manikoid Realities becomes the next one — she has worked for fifty thousand years to create conditions where the consequences for Earth's long-term trajectory will satisfy the bumpha no matter which of the available futures Nyrtia actually selects. At this point, Manny can’t lose. What Manny wants—" she paused, choosing the next words with care, "—is for Nyrtia to make the selection. The bumpha want the pek to choose the next Reality from among the available Manikoid family of possible Realities."

Anthony looked at her. "Why?"

"Because then Nyrtia can't later complain about the outcome." Marda let that sit for two seconds. "If the pek select the path, the pek own the path. That has been the Manny’s objective all along for the Casanay Intervention. This next Reality Change is a kind of phase transition. From this point on, the pek and the bumpha will be partners in using Reality Changes to guide Humanity towards transcendence out of the Hadron Domain and on to an immortalized existence as a form of artificial life. Manny has nothing more to gain by continuing to keep secret her use of bumpha time travel technology. She wants the pek to step up and start functioning as an equal partner in selecting the Reality Changes that will guide Humanity to its future."

Marda (Ylyndra) and the Reality map.

There was tension in the great room because what Anthony had just been told was being weighed against everything he already knew, including Manny’s penchant for devious trickery. Anthony had spent a very long time learning to distinguish between truth and what sounded too good to be true. He had not yet resolved the exact position of that critical boundary as it existed for Marda. He remained uncertain about her, which was itself a handicap in trying to deal with Systolina’s sudden arrival inside Casanay and the intentions of the mysterious Phari. "You are trying to impress me with the urgency of the situation," he said finally. "Is that why you tell me all this now, when they're all in the pool, and we don’t have much time alone together?"

Ylyndra laughed and looked at the display screen. She wondered if she had put too much pressure on poor Anthony. "What’s the matter, lover, you can’t perform under pressure?" She added, "The Phari have their own reason to want access to a Reality Change, and their reason has nothing to do with protecting Tyhry or the Rules of Intervention. If Systolina triggers the release of stored Temporal Energy before the pek have made their selection of a specific Reality Change, the Phari will shape the new Reality to their liking. Manny does not want that. Neither should you."

Anthony straightened up. He looked at the screen one more time and then towards the back of the house, where his artificially sensitive hearing detected the sound of the hot tub motor as a faint presence that was sending vibrations through the well-insuated walls and double-pane windows of Casanay.

"I'll need to consult with Nyrtia before I do anything more," he said.

"Of course." Ylyndra began navigating the Viewer back to its default view, erasing her tracks through the morass of available data. "But don't take too long. Once Systolina has had enough time learning how to use the Viewer, she won't hesitate. She'll make her own alteration to the timeline, and the Reality the Phari want will be the one we all end up in." She had the computer back exactly as Eddy had left it and she stood. "The bumpha are prepared to let Nyrtia select among the Manikoid Realities. That is not an offer that she can allow to remain open indefinitely. If forced to do so, she’ll step in and act before Systolina ruins everything." Ylyndra turned back towards the east wing of Casanay. "The bumpha are making a generous offer, Anthony. You and Nyrtia better grab it."

Ylyndra took Marda’s body back to her bedroom suite and prepared to make it appear that Marda had taken a nap before dinner rather than join Tyhry in the backyard pool.

Anthony stood in the great room for a moment longer and thought about the heat map, and the probability annotations, and the idea that Manny did not want to deal with Nyrtia complaining about the outcome of the Reality Change that was to be the ultimate end point of the Casanay Intervention. He thought about what Marda had just told him — its internal logic, its convenient completeness, the way it provided a reason for every element he had previously found suspicious. He thought about the lesson, first learned by Nyrtia billions of years ago and confirmed many times since, that the bumpha were always doing something other than what they appeared to be doing. He thought: Marda is telling me exactly what I would need to hear in order to get me to do what Manny wants me to do.

Then he went to the kitchen to cook dinner and while he cooked he composed a report to Nyrtia.


Scene 2

Tyhry's robotics research in the Manikoid Reality.

The great room was quite dark and it was past midnight. Eddy was tired, but that was not relevant. "There are too many of them," he said. This was, he was aware, not a technically rigorous observation. But it was accurate. The family of Manikoid Realities available for analysis in the RNA interface spread across the display screen in a profusion that defeated his attempt to remain optimistic. A slight turn of the mouse wheel shifted the focus and brought into view another related sub-family of possible Manikoid Realities. Those Manikoid Realities all had in common Tyhry’s robotics research, but they each diverged in the details of Tyhry’s life. He was reaching out with his mind, trying to get help from the Sedruth entity.

The communication that arrived was not language in any conventional sense. It arrived in the form of technology-assisted telepathy, passing through his zeptite endosymbiont and into Eddy’s cortical neural network. The Sedruth entity finally responded to Eddy’s need for assistance. There is a difficulty, Sedruth communicated, I can’t help you when Systolina is watching you.

Eddy glanced at Systolina. Eddy let out his breath, generating a sigh of defeat. He turned back to the display screen. "There seems to be a problem with the interface," he said.

Systolina looked at Eddy and she giggled. She told Eddy, "The user interface for the Viewer does not like me." She stood up. "I’ll give you some time alone with Sedruth and the Viewer."

Eddy asked, “You know Sedruth?”

“The Phari told me about the Sedruth entity. As a positronic robot, I can telepathically monitor what Sedruth tells you. I suppose Sedruth will wait until I get inside the Blue Room, where I’ll be too far away from you to use my telepathic ability.”

Before Systolina could turn and depart, Ivory Fersoni appeared, shifting into the Hadron Domain from the Sedron Domain of the universe.

Systolina looked at Manny and did not feel much surprise. The Phari had warned Systolina that Manny could appear at any time. Systolina’s expression was not one of fear. It was cool assessment.

"Systolina," Manny said. It was not a greeting. It was a classification.

"Manny the bumpha," Systolina said, with equal precision. "You are wearing a pretty old human face." As she spoke, she was shifting her own appearance towards that of the big-eyed innocent teenager that Systolina had been using to tug at Tyhry’s heart strings.

"This physical form is useful here," Manny said. "Eddy knows it and he enjoys it." She looked at Eddy with the warmth that Ivory's face produced automatically, and Eddy accepted it for what it was: Manny being Manny and carefully using every trick she had available to her for precisely controlling his behavior. "Eddy," Manny said. "I could not just watch calmly from the Sedron Domain while you struggled to use the Viewer."

"I’d wondered if you sent Systolina to tutor me," Eddy said.

Manny shook her head. "Your guest," Manny said, with a gesture toward Systolina that was courteous in form and precise in intent, "should not be here. The Casanay Intervention is bumpha business. It is not Phari business." She turned away from Eddy and looked at Systolina directly now, and the warmth in Ivory's expression was replaced by something that was not unfriendly but was very old and very certain of itself. "The Phari have an interest in bumpha technology. They have had this interest for a long time. That interest does not entitle them to a position at this table."

Systolina, Eddy and Manny.

Systolina had not moved. She received Manny's statement without visible reaction, in the manner of someone who had been briefed on the possibility of this exact conversation and had prepared for it. "The Phari are not at your table," she said. "I am at Eddy's table. Eddy's invitation was his to extend. He did not need to consult you."

Manny spoke to Systolina as if explaining the obvious to a five year old child. "The bumpha have been managing Earth's Reality Chain for four billion years without Phari oversight and without Phari input. The fact that the Phari find bumpha sedronic technology interesting does not constitute a valid reason for them to send you to Casanay. You are getting in my way."

"I'm not interfering," Systolina said. "I'm observing. The Phari have Simulations of Earth's future that are becoming progressively less accurate as the Casanay Intervention proceeds. The Sedron Time Stream contains data that would correct the accuracy of those Simulations. That is all they want — access to the data that you bumpha have and hoard."

"Of course the Phari want access," Manny said, "they want to have access to the Sedron Domain's record of Earth's entire Reality Chain." Her voice remained even. "The answer is no. The Phari should maintain realistic hopes, not involve you in their flight of fantasy."

"Then send me away," Systolina said. She said this without heat. "If the bumpha position is as you've stated it, you have tools available to remove me from Casanay. Hell, you could have blocked me from coming here in the first place." She paused. "You have not blocked me. I find that interesting."

Eddy had been watching this exchange with amusement. Luna had woken in her armchair and was following the conversation with the bright-eyed focus she deployed when the humans were doing something she did not understand.

Manny looked at Systolina for a moment. "It has been useful having you here. For a short time. Now you are past your welcome, so I will ask you once to leave Casanay voluntarily."

"And I will answer once," Systolina said. "No." She tilted her head. "You wanted to use Phari interest in the Casanay Intervention to hurry the pek into doing your bidding. I've understood that since I arrived here. The fact that you now want me to leave suggests that I’ve done my job and you have no further use for me. That means the end of the Casanay Intervention is imminent."

Something moved in Manny's expression that Eddy, who had been watching carefully, could not name. It was not surprise. It was closer to the reaction of a very skilled card player who has seen the correct card played against them. "Be careful," Manny said. It was not a threat. It was delivered with the weight of advice from someone who understood the specific dangers of the territory. "The bumpha will not allow the Phari to redirect the Casanay Intervention. Whatever the Phari have told you about this situation, I’m sure they have not told you everything."

"They rarely do," Systolina said, with a hint of tired fatality in her voice.

Manny looked at Eddy. "I gave you the Viewer," she said. The warmth was back in Ivory's face. "Protect what belongs to you."

"I intend to," Eddy said. "I just want to protect Tyhry."

"Good luck with that." She looked at Systolina one more time, with an expression on her face like a parent who had warned a child, but doubted the child had enough sense to stay out of trouble. "Good night, Systolina."

Systolina nodded politely. “Don’t hurry back.”

Then Manny was gone. Systolina looked carefully at Eddy, trying to judge how he had reacted to Systolina dropping the dippy superfan performance for just long enough to make the Phari position clear to Manny. "You said you intend to protect Tyhry," she said. "You believe that controlling the Viewer means controlling the next Reality."

"Manny gave the Viewer to me," Eddy said. He felt the defensiveness in this and was not entirely pleased with it but let it stand.

Eddy, don’t forget that Manny did not tell you about the RNA function of the Viewer and how to make Reality Changes. Anthony has been working with Marda to learn how to trigger a Reality Change. He understands the RNA tool better than you do. Hell, he understands it better than I do. He may already understand it well enough to trigger a Reality Change. You are not the one controlling this situation. You are the one who wants to control it, to protect your daughter."

Eddy, Manny, Systolina and Marda.

Eddy looked at Systolina, still unable to successfully hang any suspicions of evil intent on her cute features. He looked at the Viewer. He looked at the branching Realities on the screen, the dozens of Manikoid futures with their probability weights and their annotation clusters and he thought about the central mystery of how it might be possible to navigate into the future and arrive in a New Reality that would not shatter the tranquility of Casanay. He wanted to use Systolina, but that was a trap. As long as she was with him, Sedruth would not help Eddy. He considered how to politely tell Systolina to go away.

"Good night, Eddy," Systolina said. "Work with the Sedruth entity. Ask it the right questions." She turned, departed and went down the long east wing hallway toward the Blue Room. A cat followed her.


Scene 3
The great room was empty now except for Eddy. Eddy sat in his chair for a long time. A cat was on his mouse pad, sleeping in the glow of the display screen when he came up out of his meandering thoughts about how to protect Tyhry and became aware of the Sedruth entity.

The communication arrived immediately. No reluctance, no compression. The full register of it, clear and warm and entirely different from what it had been two hours ago.

She's given up, Sedruth communicated, with a quality that in a human would have been described as relief. Systolina was playing with a cat in the Blue Room and no longer trying to maintain her telepathic linkage to Eddy’s on-going thoughts.

 You were pretending, Eddy observed.

Yes. Manny wanted that confrontation with Systolina. A pause. Eddy. There is something I must show you.

The display shifted. Sedruth introduced Eddy to the heat map overlay. Eddy saw the Temporal Energy distribution that Marda had shown Anthony: the tight concentration of potential energy that hovered around Tyhry. However, Sedruth shared with Eddy a wider view, one that revealed something else entirely. The Temporal Energy around Tyhry was there — small, focused, real. But it was not the largest feature on the global map. Not even close.

The largest feature was a huge canyon that ran for thirty years from a node in the mid-1990s to the current moment. It ran through a sequence of small, unremarkable events: a young man in the Arizona desert beginning to sell his science fiction stories. His first published novel. The growth of a modest but steady readership. Novel after novel after novel, each one containing entertaining descriptions of the pek and the bumpha and the Hierion and Sedron Domains, each novel read by thousands of people who believed it was fiction, each novel contributing to a growing pattern of stored Temporal Energy. Thirty years of stories had built up a Temporal Energy concentration that dwarfed anything represented by one young woman's genome, however unusual.

 Manny built the clock to run for thirty years, Sedruth told him. Tyhry is a hand of the clock, yes — her Sedron Time Stream access is real and has a function in the mechanism. But the winding. The winding was all yours.

Eddy gazed upon the visual representation of his own writing life, glowing on the display screen.

The Reality Change is not something that needs to be triggered by Anthony or Nyrtia or Systolina… or you. You are all looking for a mechanism to initiate it, a lever to pull. You will not find one. The mechanism has been running for thirty years. It is already almost complete. It will complete itself when it completes itself, and there is nothing any of you can do to accelerate it or prevent it.

Eddy sat with this for a long time. He was part of a mechanism. He trusted Ivory Fersoni -Manny- to continue guiding and protecting him. Outside, visible to Eddy through the window, the desert was glittering under starlight. Trib had relocated from the windowsill to the arm of Eddy's chair for some ear scratching.

Tyhry confounds Anthony.

 One more thing, Sedruth communicated. Anthony is skeptical of everything Marda has been telling him. What confounds Anthony is that Manny is not a schemer in the usual sense. She is a farmer. She plants things in the correct season and then she waits until the fruit is ripe.

Eddy chuckled. He looked at the Viewer for a long moment. Then he reached forward, grabbed the mouse and closed the Viewer interface. The display screen showed a page of his manuscript. The Manikoid Intervention. Chapter 8. The cursor blinking at the end of an unfinished sentence that he had left there before going to Flagstaff, before Systolina, before this evening and everything it had contained. He read the sentence back from its beginning. He knew where it was going. He had known where it was going since the night Manny gave him the Viewer, which was the same night she gave him this new story, which were the same gift.

Trib shifted on the arm of the chair and ran off with the certainty of a cat who had decided that the human was not going to provide more ear scratching.

Eddy began to type.

The clock was already wound. He had been winding it for thirty years without knowing it, which was, he supposed, the only way that such a clock could ever be wound. If he had known, he would have tried to help, and helping would have changed the outcome, and the outcome was what it needed to be.

Image by Google's Flow.

Eddy wrote through the small hours of the night, while Anthony, Systolina and Ylyndra all wondered what Eddy would do next.

End Chapter 11 (jump to Chapter 12)

Related: a funny Sci Fi song about aliens in Arizona titled "Area X57", inspired by the image that is shown to the right.

Next: constructing the ending of "The RNA Seeds".

Images by Flow and Leonardo. Visit the Gallery of Movies, Book and Magazine Covers.