The Time Bubble Box Set 2, стр. 32

They didn’t just stick to people from their own time,travelling back to the twentieth century and beyond, sending people back andthen comparing the two resulting universes to see what changes had occurred.

The whole thing was a historian’s dream and both Henry andJosh became quite addicted to what they were doing. It was just so fascinatingto sit in the lab every day, dreaming up “what if?” scenarios. Then they wouldgo off and find suitable candidates to act them out.

Sometimes things turned out badly, such as one candidate whohad claimed to be visiting his grandmother in Berlin in the 1920s but hadactually gone there to assassinate Hitler. This resulted in the whole worldbeing conquered by an even worse dictator fifty years later. Josh and Henrytried to justify this by saying that it was another universe that wouldn’t haveexisted in the first place if they hadn’t created it.

It was a flimsy argument and Josh knew it. Alice stronglydisapproved of them meddling in major world events, even if they were induplicate universes and for supposedly good causes.

She insisted they put a stop to it, saying that people’slives in randomly created universes were as valuable as lives in their own. Shewas, of course, right, and Josh and Henry agreed to stop such large-scaletinkering, not wanting to be responsible for the deaths of millions due to somewell-intentioned idea that had unexpected consequences.

Josh hadn’t forgotten the world he had once visited wherenuclear war had kicked off and he was having to live with the likelihood thathe had unintentionally caused it at some point.

As a compromise, Josh agreed to keep the experiments low-keyand on a more local basis they could have more control over. He was fascinatedby some of the characters he had encountered throughout his life and spent sometravelling back in time to find out what made them tick.

When he did this he usually masqueraded as some sort ofhigher power, using Henry’s ever-sophisticated technology to appear in mirrors,as a hologram of the subject themselves, or in any shape or form he liked. Onetime he presented himself in the traditional white-robed, white-bearded imageof God.

When he told Alice about it, thinking she would find itfunny, he got quite the opposite response.

“What can you possibly have been thinking?” she asked.

“It’s just a bit of fun,” he said. “I thought my old REteacher would appreciate it.”

“Why don’t you just go back to AD 30 and turn some waterinto wine and start Christianity while you are at it?” she said. “You know Ijust can’t believe you at times!”

“Look, whatever shape or form I take, it’s going to looklike magic, isn’t it?” he countered. “Any advanced science looks like a miracleto those who can’t understand it.”

“Yes, but playing God? This power is seriously going to yourhead.”

“Alright, I’ll lose the robes and the beard,” he conceded.

“Good,” she replied. “And don’t ever do anything soirresponsible again.”

Suitably chastised, he went back to the lab and theycontinued to conduct small-scale experiments for a few more weeks. Then, onemorning, Henry called him into the lab with a concerned look on his face.

“Josh, you need to come and have a look at this,” he said,bringing up a large holographic display in the middle of the room. It showedone large sphere with thousands of smaller spheres rotating around inside. Theywere packed in tightly in some parts, but there were other areas where therewere a few small gaps in other places.

“What exactly is this?” he asked, having a hunch that itmust be something to do with the multiverse.

“This is a representation of the multiverse as it standstoday,” confirmed Henry. “It’s based on mapping every single universe thatwe’ve catalogued since we began this project.”

“Wow, that many,” said Josh. “There must be tens ofthousands in there.”

“There are,” replied Henry. “64,211, to be precise. That’swhat I want to talk to you about. I’m afraid I’ve discovered somethingextremely disconcerting.”

“What’s that?” asked Josh, feeling apprehensive.

“When we first started cataloguing the multiverse, we workedon the premise that the number of possible universes was infinite. However, itturns out this isn’t the case at all. You see this outer shell here?”

He pointed at the outside of the large sphere.

Josh nodded, and let Henry continue.

“That’s the outer shell of the multiverse. It’s a precisemathematical model capable of holding a fixed number of universes – in thiscase 2 to the power of 16, or in layman’s terms 65,536.”

“But you said there are already over 64,000,” replied Josh.“What happens when we reach the limit?”

“That’s the really scary part,” said Henry. “I ran somesimulations last night. Look at this. Maisie, run simulation Henry 459.”

Josh watched as more spheres rapidly popped into theholographic model in front of him, filling in the remaining gaps in thestructure. After about ten seconds the sphere was completely full, at whichpoint there was a bright flash, like a firework exploding, which quickly faded.All that was left was a small, bright white dot in the centre like on anold-fashioned television set that had just been switched off.

“Do you realise what just happened?” asked Henry.

“It didn’t look good,” replied Josh.

“It wasn’t,” replied Henry. “This is what will happen if wefill the multiverse beyond capacity. Imagine it as being like blowing up aballoon until it pops.”

“You’re talking about the destruction of everything,everywhere,” exclaimed Josh, as the implications began to sink in.

“I know – scary, isn’t it? You know, this could be exactlywhat caused the original Big Bang. And if this simulation is correct it couldeasily happen again.”

“Great,” said Josh. “The charge sheet just keeps gettinglonger and longer. So now I’m going to be the man who caused the death not justof all life on Earth, but all life on every planet in every universe. I don’tthink I can possibly top that.”

“It hasn’t happened yet,” said Henry. “And it won’t if westop creating new universes.”

“Will that be enough, though? What if someone else discovershow to do what we’re doing? And it’s not like we can stop them. They might noteven be on Earth. There must be millions of planets out there. What if