Cause and Effect

by Jonathan Chambers

Bradley Zimmerman watched the antique alarm clock by his bedside as if it were his executioner, holding scythes which in their turn marked the length of his thread in fate's hands. His clammy skin held an unnatural pallor to it. What moments he dared to glance across the room, where pieces of a large wall mirror still lay crucified to the apartment wall, his eyes would become clouded by memories of the past twenty four hours. Memories, unfortunately, are not easily evaded. Sometimes they run coy through the recesses of your mind, hiding from you when you need them the most. At other times, however, they stalk you, finding ways to slip around or batter down the bulwark of temporal things by which most men lead their lives. A week ago, Bradley played the hunter, routing about in his brain desperately for a way to exorcise the mix of formula and dementia that haunted his waking hours. As he lay in bed, however, catching his breath every time his pulse coincided with the prophetic ticking of the clock, he understood with clarity what it was like to be hunted.

Bradley entered into the latter days of collegiate studies in pursuit of a Doctorate of Quantum Physics. He began the semester with the confidence that, by way of erudition and intellectual might, the innermost secrets of the atom (and thus all of physical reality) would be his given enough patience and undisturbed study. Always a closed book to the world at large, he chose as his course load a volley of directed studies in the fields of quantum physics, non-Euclidean geometry, and Einstein's relativity. Already familiar with the inverted young man's manner and study habits, the faculty of the science department gave Bradley his space, but only just that. Professors are, after all, a curious lot. Exhibit A, Prof. Stanfield, still lay in the corner of Bradley's apartment, eyes unblinking and face distorted from the symptoms of a grizzly death. I would warn against studying the professor much closer however, as the nature of his...disassociation...is nothing any sane and god fearing man should bear witness of. For this reason was Bradley the only other occupant of the room.

The interaction of particles had always fascinated Bradley. He saw in the study of cause and effect - how the movement of an electron might cause an atom some distance away to change radically via a series of smaller changes in the intervening atomic "space" - the keys to the universe and succumbed quite willingly to that siren’s call which has claimed the lives of great men in the name of science. Through days, even weeks, without sleep, laboring in the constant companionship of desire and delirium, Bradley came upon some rather remarkable discoveries. I will not go into the details here, sir, due to both the highly technical nature of Bradley's studies and also out of fear you might somehow repeat them. It shall have to suffice that the end result of all this fevered epiphiation lay in the contents of a highly modified mainframe whose ominous bulk filled the emptiness of a disused corner of Bradley’s studio.

When the necessities of engineering a computer system the like of which I’ve outlined proved quite beyond his capabilities, Bradley found himself forced to employ the services of the only two colleagues whom he truly trusted. I, being of the technophile's bent, handled the internal circuitry and sheer physics of the beast that would come to claim two men. The weight of that responsibility in and of itself has nearly driven me to join them in oblivion. The other doomed man of our trinity was the aforementioned Prof. Stanfield, whose logical routines and programming aptitude were legendary among those of my ilk. At first only I was contacted, but Bradley acquiesced when I insisted Prof. Stanfield join us in our dithering about the nether regions of quantum space. For this I know I am damned.

Stanfield, Bradley and I stood before the fulfillment of our labors and marveled at the complexity and ingenue of the thing. Bradley, with small nervous gestures, keyed in the sequence that caused a potted plant carefully placed on the floor to suddenly become animate. This reaction also produced a curious odor of ozone in the enclosed space of the apartment. The device responsible worked off the principles of cause and effect I discussed earlier, changing the properties and behaviors of atoms and molecules by micro-management of the series of consequences that arose from minute variances in the local atomic environment. In layman's terms, sir, it pushed a chair in Boston and caused the Eiffel tower to fall down. What we had developed was a molecular computer. It was capable of relaying information and executing functions without need for clunky cables or fragile satellites. The horror of the thing, however, was when we discovered that someone else, something else, already owned the patent on this process and didn't appreciate copyright violation.

After our minor demonstration of penultimate power we shut down the system and sat cloistered together on what furniture we could find, passing between us a bottle of wine with an air of celebration children know when they open their presents at Christmas. Ah, we were heady with what we had done, the implications, the applications. Then a peculiarity occurred. The ticking of the alarm clock that sat by Bradley's bedside became unaccountably loud. Again there came to the air a scent of ozone, and I glanced over to our masterpiece to assure myself the machine had been completely powered down. As I noticed by the lack of light in the LED’s that the system was off, Bradley shot to his feet with a cry of surprise. He looked with horror at his own hands, which started to tremble and move seemingly of their own accord. Again I experienced an unexpected clarity of hearing as what sounded like Bradley's heartbeat came to my ears. A shiver ran down my spine as I realized it was in exact keeping with the clock on his nightstand.

Prof. Stanfield put his hand upon Bradley Zimmerman's shoulder to steady the young man and was promptly hurled across the room by an unseen force. As he hit a mirror on the opposing wall, shards of tumbling glass followed him to the floor, where he lay slumped. Two things now lay inextricable from each other in my memory. First, there was the sight of Stanfield's slumped form slowly dissolving, as if the particles that made up his flesh were gradually disintegrating into a primordial mush. As I leant over to retch I caught the reflection of Bradley's face in a large shard of mirror glass. Upon his face lay a wholly alien expression as the flesh of it writhed with the movement of something underneath, barely concealed and unrecognizable by its sheer alienation from anything human or wholesome. His eyes were the worst. They looked at me with a gaze which contained two pupils in each orb.

At this point in time I succumbed to the fatigue and weakness of someone faced by things their mind refuses to comprehend or cope with. When I awoke it was to the sight of Bradley prone upon his bed, eyes closed and skin an unnatural hue of white. His entire frame spasmed sporadically and he muttered things in a tongue and tone of voice that sounded entirely blasphemous. Feeling unconsciousness creeping up on me again I closed my ears against the sound and concentrated my gaze wholly on his face. After a space of thirty minutes, as marked by the now mute clock, he seemed to settle into a sort of fugue or sleep. I slowly approached his bedside, not daring to come within reach of this unnamable horror that possessed my friend. An hour later his eyes fluttered open to wakefulness. Neither of us offered any words, save it were that Bradley, when his gaze fell upon what remained of Prof. Stanfield, said quietly "I'm sorry" and hid his face in his hands.

The watch that followed was filled with hushed deliberation and nervous anticipation. What had we done? What had we unleashed? And when would it return to ensure no mark of its passing remained? These things we deliberated as Bradley sat in bed, white as bleached bone and eyes never straying from the clock. It was at approximately three thirty eight in the morning that Bradley died. I remember vividly how we jumped when suddenly the clock's ticking increased in volume. The air became permeated afresh with the sickening smell of ozone. I looked over with dread to see what effect this was having on Bradley. As our gazes met there poured out from his lungs a cry of anguish whose distance from the human spectrum of perception made my head throb. As the sound climaxed, so too did Bradley's life. With a sickening sound of flesh being rent he imploded into an amorphous heap upon the floor, whose contents began to leak a strange fetor upon the floor that crept slowly toward me. At this point I can say in all honesty I was not myself. When I was conscious of my surroundings again I was stumbling along the highway that led out of town. This is how your colleagues found me and why they knew to look in that quiet little apartment in an out of the way corner of Harvard's decrepit campus. This is why I am now forced to speak with you, officer, from within the constraints of a straight-jacket. Because I know now what waits for us in the dark corners of the universe, that space between particles. It is cause and effect.

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