Why do things have to change

Why can’t things just stay the same?

By Roland Verheyden

Had he shifted or had the room altered? Masrol wondered who or what would be next to him today? This was how Masrol started every day. It was how all-sentient creatures and those that were not commenced whatever passed for the start of their day.
There was no need for Masrol to feel alone as this was the predicament facing his and all other universes. Yes, the last 8 years had been somewhat difficult for people, not to mention bug-eyed monsters, galactic empires, agoraphobics and the hospitality industry.
Masrol sprang up to get yet another of what now passed for a typical day repairing the universe on the road. Noting that his wife Beth was both still asleep and actually physically present he gave her a quick peck on the cheek. Being rewarded by a mumbled love you too in return for this sign of affection. He headed for the bathroom. Only to find out that it had been replaced with a room designed to accommodate creatures other than human. Some deduction, and if all else failed guesswork was now required in daily life for even the most essential of tasks. Finally selecting a shiny doughnut that looked promising. It appeared to consist of a lumpy material that containing a spinning vortex at the bottom. While quickly performing his morning ablutions Masrol fervently hoped that he was not in fact seriously offending a representative of some supreme high galactic council from whatever part of the multiverse the room had shifted in from by taking a dump on it.
Heading outside Masrol stopped to fill up the dogs bowl with food. Therese the Border collie was nowhere to be seen. She apparently was currently shifted with the alien slug that greeted him at the garage door. Using over exaggerated but enthusiastic waving of its yellow spongy eyestalks the creature expressed it gratitude. Animals had also been forced to adapt to the new rules of reality. Those that could not had rapidly died out or become feral and sometimes dangerous. Resulting in the provision of new nature handling guidelines. Image that, the whole of creation disrupted and yet the guideline had survived. What did that say about intelligent life?
Now where was he? Oh yes, that’s right, how he had wrecked the universe again? His origin universe job had been as the lead scientist on the Matter Transmitter/Molecular Constructor project. This device was going to be the first successful teleportation device. The company’s board had asked if it could do that why not get it to rebuild the atoms into something more beneficial to the shareholders. Perhaps reassembling the atoms as high value minerals or build it into new devices such as plastic surgery implements. A tool that would not just cut and paste the beauty on, but fix the molecules of the body. Some of the older members of the board had suggested that it could also be designed to regenerate their tired organs, giving them a new lease on life.
Predictably as the linked but incompatible demands for the device grew the project went beyond the ability of Masrol to keep under control. The last straw had been when old man Thomas had insisted it be tested straight away. Apparently the medical experts had just given his liver a few weeks at most before it chucked it in. The inevitable result was that it had gone wrong. Dissolving areas of previously unknown new types of matter. This matter formed the barriers between the various universes. The damaging of the barrier had allowed the ‘dimensionals’ as they were termed to occur. In layman’s jargon, Masrol had facilitated small patches of barrier material drifting anyplace at will. This material had a tendency to take creatures and objects with them before they were later pulled back to the barrier to temporarily redress the shift until next time.
There followed a very uncomfortable period as everyone who was not presently shifted blamed him for the situation. Many tried to give him what was initially to them a well-deserved ass kicking. The next few weeks Masrol had spent hiding in the mountains when he too was not shifted. Until more and more people kept shifting to more possible situations. Eventually the realization dawned that somewhere in a different universe they had stuffed it up. With people in that reality keenly wanting to kick their posteriors. They left him alone after that.
At least old man Thomas was gone now, replaced at present by a giant clam that farted its way around the executive bathroom on the top floor. Apparently the doctors had got his diagnosis incorrect and Thomas would outlive all forms of pleasant life it now appeared.
Everyone, well actually everything knew about the situation. It was impossible not to know. They all now existed in a multiverse in chaos as these ‘dimensionals’ altered and changed the tiny details as well as larger ones of all creatures’ worlds. Someone in the universes now part of the expanded multiverse had caused this effect. In this case it was Masrol who had made the mistake of damaging the barriers between his universe and all of the alternate universes.
Since he had caused this event, at least in this reality Masrol had been told to fix the problem as well. He had been working over the last 8 years to rebuild the molecular constructor that had caused this disturbing effect. Incorporating additional data on the new particles that were at the time of the incident unknown. He felt that the machine could be modified to convert old types of matter into the new molecules. By transmitting these replacement molecules as a covering layer over the entire barrier the universe would be returned to its prior condition. He was in fact close to achieving this. A test run was proposed for tomorrow. Which due to the nature of the problem would in fact be, either the real thing or have no effect at all.
Masrol however had been agonizing over this for a very long time now. Initially he had charged into the work determined to sort out the mess. But after the adaptation process of his reality had settled down many emotional conflicts had developed over the pros and cons of normalizing the universe.
The weak spots Masrol had created were allowing a constant flow or shifting of everything that ever was or could possibly be to move anywhere across the multiverse. The effects were often on the small scale and most times people just put up with them. About 80% of everything’s time was spent in a part of the multiverse similar enough to be called home. After all in a multiverse of limitless variations not even scientists like Masrol could tell if the only differences between his original world and the one he was in was the color of a coffee cup in Canada. With the new lifestyle choices it probably did not matter overly much for many.
There were physics rules for the new situation. For example gravity still worked in general, as did conservation of motion. It also appeared that objects and living creatures tended to shift as one collection of molecules so the risks of dismemberment or unstylish recombination with other life forms was low. Sometimes people’s prosthetics remained behind to the great annoyance of the owners. Items and people also commonly moved in a similar geographic relationship across the barriers. So vanishing from your office usually meant that you appeared in some other office. Last week Masrol had been some sort of lab assistant in the production of hormone spray to aid in the nightlife of humanoid sheep like intelligences with antlers. Masrol felt this sounded much better than he had mixed viagra for horny goats. The current etiquette amongst intelligent beings was that if you did something else’s job it would do yours and both would get paid, as they too needed the money and partial security that goes with life.
People just called this effect being shifted and got on with their day. Proof that not only does life go on. But that no matter how great the disruption it is forced to adapt and move on very quickly. Preferably before the individuals place in the scheme of things could deteriorate, resulting in the things that they were working towards being lost.
Leaving the waving slug behind Masrol noted that his car was back. A bit of a pity as last week he had found a really cool rocket sled inside his garage. Resulting in the quickest trip to work ever. Modifications had been made to all transport across this universe. His steering wheel now featured the mandatory vanished sentiment’s switch, along with the accompanying quick quiz panel on the dash. These would stop most accidents related to shifting. Either by the vehicle shifting from around the driver or the driver being shifted and replaced with a creature that had no hands or a form of intelligence we did not recognize. These precautions were to prevent outlandish creatures being in control machinery and the associated safety hazards from this.
Standing firmly on the car’s brakes to let some 5-story beetle cross the intersection before proceeding down a road which was filled with every sort of contraption mechanical and living that rolled, walked, hopped or slithered as the morning rush hour slowed the flow of traffic. Looking at the view screen in the steering wheel he noted that President Witherspoon a boring person in Masrol’s opinion had been shifted with a floating transparent color changing jellyfish. This seemed to Masrol to be a vast improvement. While it did not seem to be saying much new it was at least easier to see through and considerably prettier. A grunt of disapproval escaped his lips. Whom or whatever had used the car during the night had chosen not to or been in a universe without suitable fuel to fill up. Searching the glove box he at least found a token donation.
This was one of the new issues with society. After filling up he got some of the new currency, the Multi from his pocket and paid the octopus armed service station attendant. It asked in trade language how he was existing today.
To make things worse his car had shifted and was now a carriage with four caterpillars harnessed to the front. It looked and did in fact turn out to be slower than his vehicle. Masrol held the safety switch and answered the intelligence quick quiz that came up every time a vehicle stopped before allowing it to move again. The caterpillar wriggled off but only as far as the rear of a turtle like animal with a sedan chair roped on top. The five occupants who looked mammal like Masrol thought talked amongst each other. Except for the little one in back, who stuck a paw up at him and made silly faces at the lights.
This gave Masrol time to remember the sudden, well actually instant arrival of the shifting phenomenon some eight and a bit years ago. During the adjustment period the initial belligerence and confusion of the various planets governments around the planet and the universe in general had been replaced by acceptance and understanding that the one thing that shifted across the multiverse very well was not solid matter but ideas.
This resulted in a plethora of improvements both practical and idealistic. Why go to war when your troops disappeared and were replaced by others who did not give a damn about your politics, prejudices or views. The high tech machinery of destruction instantly shifting on the battlefield replaced by a line of alien Mr. Whippy vans. One interesting footnote to this was the eyewitness reports of the last war on Earth being abandoned to the slightly out of cue music of Greensleeves. The same happened for street violence, as possessions were temporary and constantly being shifted. Mugging someone fraught with peril as the intended victim could at any second be shifted and replaced by a steel skinned giant who would place you under citizen’s arrest. New arrangements had been made for criminals with the construction of geographically similarly located prisons across the member worlds. This resulted in the felons just shifting from one jail to another one, usually with less suitable food.
A new trade language was developed rapidly and was used in all universes these days. For really different races the translator had been developed, this was a triumph of applied co-operation over the entire multiverse.
Great advances in many areas followed. Farming for example. With vegetables that had intelligence and could think at you for growth needs or to inform the grower of the location of any pests the crops were flourishing. These intelligent veggies only asked that if possible you carried a few seeds in a pocket and when as they often did shift with you that you found a spot to plant them. In medicine improvements arrived as the flood of new forms became common. The following advances in the understanding of such a wide variety of living cells had seen most diseases cured or well on the way to being so.
Unfortunately there had been a lot of tragedies immediately after the barriers broke down. Numerous car accidents until the new fail-safes had been multiverse adopted had occurred. Animal incidents some quite nasty had been one of the most common. Milking sheds were not designed for off world nudists, and the now legendary footage from the live porn industry demonstrated graphically how wrong this type of interaction could go. Here some of the participants had been shifted for the first time with strange visitors from other universes mid show as it were. This had since also happened to Masrol three times now as he or his wife had been shifted with other beings. Twice it was Ok, but another time he had been left with a terrible rash from close contact with some form of stinging nettle covered Squirrel. This life form had shifted on top of him at an inopportune moment. A new sexuality arose as did protocols in the nature of relationships and a modified code of behaviour had followed. A more obliging but confirmation based one currently being in the process of adoption.
Lunching on his preferred park bench and opening his lunch box only to discover the contents had shifted. Instead of sandwiches it was a block of wood. Somewhere else an intelligent beaver was also mumbling about the rubbish in its lunch box.
Looking up he noticed that he had quietly shifted. Fortunately the park bench had shifted with him as most of the life forms in the multiverse had constantly sore tailbones, or whatever’s from seats shifting without the current bottom above them. The old joke of removing someone’s chair as they were sitting was being played regularly on all creation; as yet no one was finding it any funnier than before.
He crossed the sandy alternate park while breaking up the brownie he had carried in his top pocket. Bending down to feed the lobsters that had gathered on the edge of a blasted plain beyond the sand park. “Good day” he said in trade to either radiation affected mutants or perhaps a group of the shifted when they walked past him. It was so hard to tell what was what when shifted.
Things abruptly went vague. While this may seem to be an odd description it was how Masrol always felt when ‘sitting it out’. Of all the shifts that beings went on, ‘sitting it out’ was possibly the worst. This was presently assumed to be one of two possibilities. The first being that the alternate world in question has no him in it any longer, and therefore no alternate person/being to exchange with. So you just go nowhere. Leaving a vague memory of stillness and darkness that had slowly passed. The reports showed that the shift was about the usual few hours. It just felt longer. The second is that some rule of preservation exists in the physics of the multiverse. And that if the end point is not capable of supporting the life form in question it does not go there. Perhaps it was a case of one lack of destination fits all thought Masrol.
By the time he shifted back it was close to knock off time. Masrol suggested that he might slip away before the traffic. His current boss seemed to be a waveform of some type. At this comment the life form crackled making the multi translator on the desk bark out. “Pigs might fly, that mutant that replaced you didn’t do squat so you can stay back and take one for the company,” it crackled.
Heading back to his lab he paused to watch the instant shifting of this waveform grumpy boss, to what was probably his normal origin universe grumpy one. Without slowing he quickly said loudly, “I’ll get right onto that in the morning like we agreed and tell you how it went.” Gerard if it actually was him, as multiple shifts in series were common was still adjusting to his latest transfer. His boss or some alternative version of Gerard absent-mindedly waved him off.
It was much quicker getting home. These dirigibles were as good as the rocket car last week was, but it was always nice to get on the ground. It never seemed to happen that you shifted in mid air. But as they said anything was not only possible, it was probably happening right now somewhere. He had heard an urban legend about of a man who always wore a parachute when traveling. Often heard loudly boasting to his fellow airbus that he would be all right while they would splatter all over the countryside when the bus vanished around them. When the parachute had shifted into a jetpack, taking him out of the atmosphere never to be arrogant again. The remaining passengers had landed for an impromptu street party. At least according to the myth.
Going round the left side of his at the moment glass walled house, he felt like throwing stones. This would be poor form and what goes around comes around. Rather than be led astray he found that Therese was herself at the moment and made time to bond again with the dog. While many pets had adapted they didn’t have to like it.
The slug had left a slimy present on the lawn, should he clean this up? Not now maybe it would shift and spoil something else’s garden. The veggies called to his mind just as he was thinking of going inside, they knew this of course. Some water for them and a few more seeds in his pocket, Masrol had forgotten to leave any on the wasteland at lunchtime and feeling guilty promised to do better next time. At the end of the veggie row he found the days selection of fresh fruit or vegetables. The many new types of these crops now gave celebrity cooks scope to create new to the multiverse recipes and sell yet more cookbooks. While the nature of food critics had not changed they could now be human and otherwise. The most feared critics of all were the actual veggies. If your produce gave the leaves down over the resulting menu it was straight to the bargain bin section for that book.
Beth his wife had left a note saying she was popping down to the shops. As to if she had made it there or even out of the room after writing the note could not be ascertained. Since no sign of the shifted was apparent in the house it was likely that she would bring some dinner back imminently.
The night was pretty much routine as Beth did indeed bring take away back consisting of some of that currently in vogue spicy food from the dark nebula. Much better they thought than the food from last month. That stuff was designed to flow back up your throat after being swallowed to provide the dinner with a second different tasting course. He and Beth just could not get used to the feeling, despite the truth to its claim of being great value by being two meals for the price of one. He let the dog sneak in and they floated around on winged furniture watching the Televiewer. Until it shifted to a solid cube of black rock that was very likely emitting the best program ever made. But in the infrared or ultrasonic spectrums incapable of being appreciated by the family.
Morning duly arrived and Masrol found a suspiciously ordinary house surrounding him. This did let him catch up on that shave and get a load of washing into the machine before it shifted. It would be back and the clothes most likely with it. He now had a spare set of clothes in both the car and at the office, as these too obeyed the new trend in shifting. Once his clothes had shifted when Masrol was waiting in line at the Post Office. To be replaced by body armor for some sort of 10-foot reptile that immediately fell off onto the ground. Public nudity, while still embarrassing was another case of the old laws being inappropriate for the times.
Once again driving to the lab he did some final calculations for the molecular constructor. All the numbers suggested that it would work and that the barrier matter would be restored if only for this universe.
His past months of reflecting had not really given Masrol a firm concept of what this would mean. Masrol tried to consider if this would make his universe better or worse? Would war return? What about famine and strife? At present all creation is working somewhat haphazardly together at the top and bottom levels to make sense of the new reality.
What about families that have members presently shifted? While he would make sure that Beth was on the phone with Therese in the same room, the repair of the barrier would forever isolate this universe from all the others in the multiverse. How many lonely perhaps only examples of their kind would be trapped in this universe? On this or one of the thousands of recently contacted worlds they had discovered in the Milky Way alone. The tyranny of distance would return, and the entire system of friendly if completely random communications would stop. Many worlds were simply too far away to ever be known of again.
His cure if it worked would only fix the barrier and not the details. How many other Masrol’s in other universes had pressed the button? No one could ever know due to the fact that the limitless universes in the multiverse would disguise their absences. He bet they knew they were no longer part of the whole. Were there worlds out there again cut off now busily purging all aliens from the face of their once again insular planets. Returning back to the good old days of greed, avarice and the insane politics of the past.
He looked up as his lab assistant shifted. To be swapped by an eyeball with a trunk on the front.
“What can I do to help,” it murmured in trade language while tiding up the pile of circuit boards that had been dropped by Isaac his origin universe assistant during the shift.
Making a decision that he instantly felt to be right he said to the creature.
“Help me break up this piece of trash and put it into recycling.”
He started to dismantle the molecular constructor.
“Oh and delete those files on the computer over there first will you.”
Arriving home after the most satisfying day he had had in over 8 years Masrol did not resent the extra 5 hours he had stayed back to completely destroy the device. Including all records of the work. When Isaac shifted back he looked around and quietly tore up the paper notepads kept in the locker. At the end of the day Isaac turned to Masrol to say.
“I have a big family.”
Putting the last of the papers into the shredder Isaac turned and asked him.
“Shall we start work on the gravity-assisted shopping trolley tomorrow? I hate those wobbly wheels.”
As this seemed a worthy goal for the research division he nodded agreement and headed home on a version of a recoil powered spring cycle, only falling off twice. Quietly sliding into bed without turning on the light he found that Beth was shifted somewhere. Instead a four-armed slender creature was lying there. She as he still liked to think of it looked questioningly up at him. Slipping in with it he thought they would work out the differences in thinking and body design. These days’ people always did.