Document AG-124
Clearance: Level-3
Project: Blue Tree
Notes:
Document was acquired during interview AG-7, provided willingly by interviewee. A formalized document AG-125 is submitted and filed with other Blue Tree materials. Access to all documentation is at stated clearance level and above on a NTK basis. This document is maintained on request from the interviewee. the request was granted as there were no apparent risks attached to request.
Given Dr. Greyson's recent employment with us and this being the only example of his note-taking style currently available to us we were happy to grant his request. Personally I prefer this to his formal reports, you can get a sense of what he experienced rather than just his observations - Dr. ████████
Document begins:
Me:
The first time was the best, when no-one was watching.
We had all been waiting for something actually unpredictable to happen. Of course with high-energy experimental physics everything is unpredictable, but you know it is going to be within the mundane, exciting but not as exciting as something truly new. Something that occurs outside of the theory worked out on paper, checked and rechecked before we even think of submitting it for review. So when we span up CERN for this sequence it was another day in the office. Just us, some very fast particles and Heisenberg.
Then we ripped a hole in reality. As with most results we only realised what had happened when we looked at the data. I can remember Charles' face as he put it together. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed wordlessly and let me do the math, took about half the day, I was only a technician. There it was. A Planck size hole to who knew where.
While we were working out how to make it last longer, how to make it bigger, the papers and CNN were reaping the rewards of the story and protest groups were forming. XKCD published a heart-warming romance four panel out of it . Luckily the press brought funding as well as attention. With the resources we kicked off the GATEWAY project, started monopolizing labs and accelerator time to reproduce the results. Progress was slow, we managed increase the duration until it was nearly a minute but the holes were still barely there, just observable. Then, after nearly a year of reproductions, failures and heartache Charles figured out how to force the hole bigger using more mass and more finely tuned velocities, a whole half-meter wide. The lab party that night was astonishing, we finally got to see if Charles really *did* wear sock suspenders. I woke up in the office wearing them, half a beaker of Russian Standard still clutched in my hand. Charles didn't make it in till lunch.
So we had everything we needed. We were going to force the portal to a meter wide. The testing and retesting took months. People prayed for us to succeed or fail, that nut-job tried to sue CERN, again. Protest groups threatened bombing, murders, pickets.
So we switched it on, the energy required would have powered Paris for a day. The whole world turned out or tuned in to watch.
You know what happened next, you can watch it on YouTube if you want. No explosions or alarms, no big blue ball. For 35 seconds there was a blurred glimpse of something that was certainly a world. It had people, it had cars and streets and buildings that we recognised, then it went black, then it was there again then it was gone. The blackness was, we discovered once the ring was spun down, a newspaper dropping through. It was nearly illegible from all the crap that happened to it on its way to our world, but we had science. We would read it.
That newspaper changed a lot of things, particularly the front page story: Yi Wong, then CEO of of Wong Pharmaceuticals would murder his accountant and go on to commit a mass killing at his office… In about 10 years.
Not waiting for an answer to the question about whether this paper was from our future or not the idiots, pundits and terminally short of brain went to town. Public pressure fed by the media forced the governments hand. Yi was taken first into protective custody, then imprisoned without trial. Then dragged out, tried and imprisoned. The human right movements went ballistic demanding his immediate release. There were marches, riots, "direct action" and at least one murder. All over a paper.
What? It's happened before.
Yi attempted suicide, was put into secure facilities and given the best counseling that could be found. After a year he was moved to house arrest and after 4 there wasn't a professional psychologist who'd have kept him locked up. The hardest thing for the psychs to understand was why he would have done it in the first place. Yi was classically well adjusted. An A-type personality, he was self-confident without narcissism, he played close to the limits in business but never risked all. He had a stable marriage, two children that he loved and supported, he was conservative and contentious in his working hours. He had genuinely friendly and accepting nature and valued the people he lived and worked with. He was nice guy. Why would he kill those people?
Now of course he was a wreck, filled with remorse for something he had not done. Released back into society he took back his position at Wong Pharmaceuticals with the board's blessing, hysteria forgotten. He tried to piece his life back together. What happened from there is why I'm here I guess.
Well, you've got me here so let me tell you all about it, my way. I'd like to begin with our subject, a struggling man horrified that what he swore would never happen has just come to pass. Not that he's thinking much now as he is lying bleeding on the floor of his accountants office with a hole in the side of his face….
Yi
The room is fifteen feet by twenty. The door faces approximately west. The size of the room is rather reduced by a lining of filing cabinets along each side, on top of which are many piled papers. A bookcase next to the door is set two feet in from the north wall. In a cleared space on top of the south cabinets a tanto dagger sits in a decorative stand. The east wall is a balcony window, the sun is setting. In front of the window around four feet away from the walls is a large desk. It is made of wood covered with a dark rubber-like material, heavily scratched there placed are a few ornaments, two picture frames with photos of a family, a plastic pen tidy with many biros, one elegant quill pen and a smattering of blood.
A body lies facing upward on the north side of the desk. Its head is badly disfigured from a gunshot wound that enters roughly at the bridge of the nose and exits from the top of the head. It is likely the accountant died instantly.
Slightly to the west, prone, lies Yi. One cheek is a bloody mess, the other has a puckering wound where the bullet entered. He is, at this moment, conscious but entering shock. Shortly afterwards he will go into a coma. All Yi was thinking is "what have I done?" over and over. While he is thinking this his subconscious has processed his surroundings, committing it to the secret parts of our heads that we only ever glimpse. Later his recollection of his surroundings will will surprise the police. They are exact to a detail.
Yi has confronted his accountant over a matter of honour. His accountant has produced a firearm, a Beretta Cougar handgun, from a desk draw and threatened Yi. Yi attempted to disarm the accountant using a barely remembered martial arts technique and in the process shot the accountant through the head. He had not meant for this to happen. This is exactly what the paper said would happen on this date. Yi has already lived this day thousands of times in his head. In despair he falls to his knees and turns the gun on himself. Yi is inexperienced with guns and has lowered the safety catch, he pulls the trigger which does not engage the firing pin. He fiddles with the gun, locates the catch and then tries again. At the moment of pulling the trigger the sweat pouring from his brow and the pressure he is exerting pushing the barrel into his head causes the gun to slip downwards. The bullet passes through his right cheek and through his left upper jaw shattering bone and teeth. Yi drops forward to the floor.
Yi is now passing into a coma that will last just under 12 hours. He will not relish waking up.
When Yi does wake up he has little memory of what happened. Disorientated he stands and sees a body and a gun on the floor. He doesn't know where he is, or who them body belongs to. He only knows he is in pain, incredible, indescribable pain. He looks at his surroundings and staggers over to the desk, he sees his reflection in the window. He remembers.
Yi experiences true rage. They did this. They did this and they imprisoned him, humiliated him, broke him. When he tried to do what he knew was right they cured him and then they let him out. With smiles they welcomed him back, cheered, oh they must have been laughing inside. They knew. Well fuck them. They'll be coming now to see their handiwork. They never expected to die no matter what the damn paper said. They expect to find me dead. He looks at the clock and notes the time is just before 7am. He walks round the desk and picks up the Beretta, remembering to check the safety this time, he walks over to the cabinets and takes the tanto, it has been kept sharp. He turns towards the desk again, eyeing the drawers. The first of them will be arriving soon. He will send an All Hands meeting announcement. From the accountant's mail. Then he will wait.
Then, soon after, this joke will finally have it's punchline.