How To Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart (Part 1)
"The theory changes the reality it describes."
Okay fine so I’ve totally dropped the ball on this newsletter thing. Working on a new album + holiday break with a very active toddler + the general dysfunction of the American daycare industry = a deadly combination. Also I’m still not sure what form I want my semi-regular missives to take (though I’m open to feedback! Please tell me what you want from me!).
So for now, how’s this: I’ll serialize an unpublished novel I wrote that I just don’t think is going to interest any agents right now, for a variety of reasons. And I’ll keep going until you tell me to stop, or I get bored/forget/get self-conscious about the lack of feedback and assume the worst.
It’s called How To Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart, and it’s about an addiction support group for conspiracy theorists that accidentally blows a hole in reality (oops). This first chunk is about 4,000 words, or roughly 17 pages (double-spaced). If you like it, tell your friends! If you don’t — tell me what else you wanna read.
Chapter 1
The atmosphere at Grasso Amante dei Cavalli was perfect, with low-lit LEDs reminiscent of candlelight, flickering shadows across the rustic archways that were printed so precisely as to replicate the textures of some hand-made abode from centuries past. The MIDI melodies of violin hymns were just loud enough to hear without disrupting conversation, and even the careful cut of the cleavage line on Daia's dress -- that was her name, right? -- the careful cut revealed just enough contrast to the curve of her flesh to keep Jason baited without giving it away.
After one thousand two hundred and thirty-six different iterations and who-knows-how-many hours spent manipulating Sindr's open-source database and countless Gulp user reviews, Jason Tavares believed he'd finally managed to optimize his algorithm for the perfect romantic evening, at the best spot in all of Elm City. Patterns and numbers had always been his thing, which is how he landed the high-paying financial analyst job for Kadath Capital that allowed him to afford that many dates in the first place. And when he walked into the restaurant, he knew -- just knew -- that all those calculations for companionship were about to pay off.
The evening waned on and the drinks sank in and Jason found himself utterly overwhelmed by the dopamine flood in the guile of whatshername's every word. She asked about his hobbies; he played it coy; he asked her dreams; she countered with reality; and the two of them went back and forth exchanging cryptic intrigue until the drinks thinned out their blood enough to bring their secrets to the surface. Intrusive thoughts boiled inside of Jason's mind, swelling to a crescendo that was just barely kept beneath the lid and then --
And then she went and brought up the stupid planes.
"It was just, being up on that rooftop," she said at some point, metallic blue eyes rolled back as she recalled the distant memories of her wayward youth. "And we watched this gorgeous pink sunset as the Navy stunt show pilots streaked across the sky, painting lines in the clouds like that, what was his name, that painter guy our parents used to -- "
Jason sucked in air as she spoke. He cleared his throat to hold back his response, to keep the pressures of his paranoia locked behind his lips. But he could only keep the truth contained beneath the surface for another half of a heartbeat before it all burst forth:
“Chemtrails."
If a universe could be contained within a single word, then Jason’s entire reality had just spilled out from the center of his gut.
"What?" Jason’s date recoiled. He could see some kind of parameter flash across her eyes. She shook her head. "No, it was a person. Bob Something-or-other."
Jason sighed. His world had already escaped him, and there was no hiding his shame now. "People think it's exhaust, like it's some kind of natural byproduct, and that makes it okay, or pretty. But it's not," he said, with a flippant hand flip to prove his nonchalance. "It's chemtrails."
She cocked her head to the side, eyes still calculating their way through the scenario. "What is?"
"The streaks. In the sky." Jason placed his drink down as gently as he could, resting his hand on the top of the glass as if he could channel his compulsion through it. The automator waiter whirred its way over, interpreting this as a signal that they needed another bottle. But Jason was too afraid to let himself get any more unhinged. "Sorry. You were saying?"
She straightened her back, like a cobra about to strike. "Is this some kind of test?" she said, her fluttering fiberoptic lashes painting the subtext: "Stop being weird and let me have this, okay?"
Jason bit his knuckle to hold his tongue, but couldn't help himself. He never could. "Are you asking if chemtrails are a test? Or if questioning chemtrails is a test? Because I'd argue, both. I mean, let's be real: we've already geoengineered the atmosphere, so who's to say they haven't already used the same methods to pollute the air with mind-altering drugs in order to secretly sedate the, um..."
Jason managed to stop his mouth, just for a moment, as he looked into her electrical eyes, then down the path of her cleavage again, to her empty hand, resting on the table right near his own. He slicked a hand back through his black pomade hair, then reached across the table and placed his own hand on top of hers with that half-cocked smile he'd rehearsed in the mirror, hoping maybe, just maybe, they could carry on like a normal conversation, and not like he was a crazy person.
She couldn't have pulled away faster if she'd had a shell. "I thought you worked in finance," she said, emphasizing the plosive sounds in a way that had him worried.
The MIDI violins screeched to a halt in his head, even as the pre-recorded music in the room carried on without a care. Did the other drunks just stop and stare at her small outburst? Or was this something that was still just between the two of them? Jason sometimes had difficulty distinguishing between what was real, and what was on his mind.
"I mean, I do." He tried to move his hand close to hers again, but she placed her purse between them.
"And you're sitting here telling me that the government is using airplane exhaust ports to poison and brainwash the general public when I'm trying to share a cool memory from my friend's bachelorette party?"
Jason swallowed. "Maybe not the government so much as the, um, the Illuminati. Or the New World Order, they're, um, well -- "
"Oh, well that just makes it so much better then," she said with a nod as she balled up the napkin on her lap. "Next you're going to tell me that 9/11 was an inside fucking job."
Jason could feel the walls of his dry esophagus slowly peeling apart. In his mind, it was audible over the music; even the LEDs grew harsher overhead. He wondered briefly if perhaps he shouldn't have ordered that fourth drink after all. "I mean, if you look at the patterns of controlled demolitions -- "
He barely got the words out before the napkin hit him in the face.
Jason watched as she weaved her way around the tables, sequined hips swaying in her righteous rage. But then she kept going. And she didn't look back.
"Best case scenario, those stunt pilots were still releasing pollutants into the atmosphere!" he called after her. "And clearly that kind of environmental damage has had a lasting impact and so -- "
But it was no use. And now he was certain the entire restaurant was watching. That embarrassment was the only thing that stopped him from saying something worse.
All that was left to do was raise his hand and ask for the check. Perhaps Jason hadn't figured out the pattern after all.
"The theory changes the reality it describes."
Jason arrived at work the following morning and was immediately called up to the ninety-third floor of One Financial Center -- the top floor of the building, where Jason's boss, Mr. Atal, kept his office.
The head of Kadath Capital paced in front of his bare granite desk, in a tailored blue suit lined with silver thread, waiting impatiently for Jason to settle into the oriental-cushioned magchair. He had only been up there once or twice before, and as he tried to re-acclimate his own center of gravity to balance with the floating seat, Mr. Atal spoke the words that would stick with Jason for the months to come: "The theory changes the reality it describes."
"I'm not sure I follow," Jason said. He glanced at the Sistine relief of himself that Mr. Atal had hung behind his desk. The quiet trickle of the tentacled Buddha fountain in the corner made him want to pee.
"What we do here, Jason, it's not finance," Mr. Atal said with a gesticulating flourish, although Jason couldn't tell if it was a signal meant for him, or for some invisible audience in Mr. Atal's HUD eye lens. "Pushing numbers, moving money around, trading and selling and saving investments -- that's all part of it, at least on the surface. But it's not what we do. Do you understand?"
Jason squinted, hoping his focus would help him ignore the fountain, or the fact that this emergency meeting was starting off on such an ominous tone. "Uh. No, I'm pretty sure that's exactly what we do, sir."
"For individuals, perhaps. But not for the world." Mr. Atal gave a slick snap-and-point, then continued, his fine foreign leather shoes clicking sharply on the floor as he paced. "You see, Jason, humanity was born into chaos. From the first primordial ooze or the ol' Adam-Eve-Fuckfest, whatever you believe, that's all it's ever been: random, awful, uncontrollable chaos. The forces of nature don't give a shit. And each system, every stage of human progress has been nothing more than a desperate attempt to control our perceptions of that chaos.
"But not the chaos itself.
"Human beings can't change the way the world works. But we can change what people think about the world."
Mr. Atal leaned back against the desk and tilted his head at Jason with a smirk, as if to punctuate his speech and pass the baton of response. The tension in the air was palpable, and Jason knew he had to say, well, something, to make it clear that he knew what was going on, that he was just like all the other slick hedge fund managers -- cool and confident and hip to whatever generic industry terminology they were on about these days to make the quarterly revenue reports bleed black as night.
"...And that's why we offer such low interest rates, because it offsets their risk and allows us to hedge our bets against the unpredictable chaos!" he offered. "I'm with you now."
Mr. Atal wagged a finger. "Not entirely. But also yes."
He turned his back and walked over to the plasma screen wall, which changed in rhythm with his every step until it settled on a vista of the Himalayas, as if the office had been transported straight to Bhutan, and that was just the normal view outside the window. He took a breath as he soaked in the sight, then said, "Financial management, Jason. It's the pinnacle of what every religion, kingdom, government, whathaveyou, what they've all been working towards for centuries -- millennia -- billennia, for all we know. It's the Haves and Have Nots, just like it's always been. Time was, the kings and queens had everything, and all the peasants could do was to hope for survival."
This was something Jason understood, something he'd been raised to understand and to follow as the first immutable truth of the civilized world. As far as his dad was concerned, financial management was the only path that was worthy of pursuit, and from an early age, Jason had taken this to heart -- despite the voice inside of him that yearned to find the truth among the patterns left behind by the New World Order. Perhaps one day he would have enough wealth of his own to drown them all out.
Then Mr. Atal spun around abruptly. "But survival alone is not enough."
"It's not?" Just when he thought he knew what this was about, Jason found himself floundering once again.
"Not for creatures as evolved as we." Mr. Atal paused and glanced up at the ceiling. "'As us?' 'We?' Whatever. Either way, it ends the same: pitchforks and torches. Equilibrium falls into chaos. Until capitalism.
"Now do you understand why I've called you here today?"
Jason said, "I do," but he didn't.
Mr. Atal tipped his head and jabbed his elbow, like a father giving a speech at his daughter's wedding with a tongue-in-cheek warning about the prenuptial agreement. "You're a smart young man, Jason. That's why I like you. Well, that, and you make me money."
Then he snapped his fingers, and the room transformed again into a cyclorama view of ancient Egypt. Mr. Atal stepped methodically towards Jason, who sunk deeper into his floating bubble chair as holograms of haggard men slaved to build the pyramids around them. "The magic that we do here is not about tricks or maneuvering the system. It's not even about making fake money mean something through layers of deceptive shells, although that is part of the fun. The theory changes the reality it describes, Jason. And the theory of Capitalism has changed our reality into one of wants and needs, supply and demand. Incentive for progress...and change."
The plasma screen murals jumped forth in time to the Industrial Revolution, then to the rise of Silicon Valley, and up until today. Jason didn't necessarily need the augmented reality multimedia presentation to be impressed or intimidated. He still wasn't sure why the boss had called him into the office, but, well, if that was it, then it certainly did its job.
"Nothing actually changes, of course. Nothing ever changes. Just behind the curtain -- which is getting increasingly difficult to hide, mind you -- it's still the same old ugly chaos of the human condition. But the theory of our financial system creates an illusion that changes how we perceive that reality.
"What we're doing here, Jason, it's the Lord's work. It's our job to keep the illusion intact, and give the people something to believe in. And everyone -- literally everyone, from prison slaves to the fucking Kardashian Empire -- everyone is better off because of that. Because of us."
And with that, the screens went black, emitting nothing but a luminescent darkness while the drip drip dip of the Buddha fountain filled the silence in the room.
Jason gulped. He was finally starting to understand. "Is this about the W.A.S.T.E. account, sir?"
Mr. Atal leaned in close to Jason, sneering: "You can't keep cornering our clients to bitch about your chemtrail conspiracy bullshit."
"That's not what I -- and anyway chemtrails are not bullshit, they're actually -- "
"Yes! They fucking are!" The vein in Mr. Atal's neck swelled like a snake along with the volume of his voice. "No one gives a rat's ass about jet fuel or steel beams or any of it. For fuck's sake, that's why God invented spreadsheets, to find the random patterns in the chaos and act like they mean a god damn thing just to make people feel better for a tiny while! That is what we do, Jason."
Mr. Atal turned away from Jason and pressed his arms down against the desk, taking a moment to catch his breath and contain the seething. When he finally spoke again, he kept his back turned and his teeth clenched as tight as the sound would allow.
"Your job is to push that fucking money around in some hand-wave-y bullshit way that sometimes pays out. And you're great at that, Jason. Stock like yours was bred for this, through the culmination of generations of business pedigree. That's good for business. And what's good for business is good for everyone."
"Well, thank you sir," said Jason, suddenly unsure if his success had resulted from hard work or eugenics. "I do pride myself on -- "
Mr. Atal threw his hand up, demanding silence. "What's not fucking good is sabotaging some fucking hundred billion dollar investment with fucking Weyland-Albemuth Strategic Technology Enterprise of all places because of your bullshit obsession with George Dubya's New World Order -- "
Jason burst out in laughter. Again, he couldn't help it. "Please, Dubya had no power over the NWO. He was a pawn for the Black Mass -- "
"This!" Mr. Atal slammed his palms on the desk, then punched the granite surface with his fist to punctuate each word that followed, ignoring the blood that spilled from his knuckles. "This is exactly what I'm talking about!"
Jason tried to push himself out of the deep seductive cushions of the magchair, but only managed to trigger the reclining feature. He resigned himself to the fact that he was trapped, but at least he had his words.
"I just think the people deserve to know the truth, is all," he said meekly.
"No! They fucking don't! Because the truth is that the world is fucking chaos, and we make it just a little bit better with the promise of a dollar sign. And this? This little outburst of yours?
Mr. Atal sighed. "It's a problem, Jason. And not a high-yield risk with the ROI I'm looking for."
Jason's heart stopped. "Are you...firing me?"
There was a moment of silence. Mr. Atal shook his head, then crossed over to the trickling tentacled Buddha statue. He placed his hands gently on its head, then twisted and snapped its triple-chinned neck. Water sprayed wildly out of the stone wound, even on Mr. Atal's fancy suit, but he didn't seem to mind.
With the decapitated Buddha head still in his hands, he walked over to the magchair and squatted in front of Jason. He made sure there was eye contact before he went any further. "You're an asset, Jason. But only when your head's on right. And I can't keep cleaning up your messes."
Mr. Atal dropped his head, now avoiding Jason’s eyes. "There's a support group that meets on Thursdays at that weirdass church in Ninth Square. I don't know where else you'd go for the kind of help you need, but it's a start."
Jason sucked in air. "...So you're not firing me then?" He forced a smile, but he knew the words sounded dumb as soon as they fell out of his fluttering lips.
"Consider this your final warning, son." Mr. Atal patted Jason on the knee as he stood up. "Take the rest of the week off. Get your shit together. Then do your job. And stay the fuck away from the Weyland account. Because we're taking that deal, and I don't care what you think. If you can do those three things, then we'll talk."
Mr. Atal slammed the severed Buddha head into Jason's stomach, then turned and walked out of the room.
Jason returned to his apartment that evening, to a mess of synthetisilk slacks and shirts strewn about like splatter paint on a field of empty boxes. It had been that way since he'd moved in three months earlier, taking advantage of a deal with the management company to save on three months rent for the first year.
Which meant that he had just started making actual payments on the place. Which meant he really, really needed to keep his job at Kadath Capital, if he hoped to continue having a place where he could escape from reality in the six-walled comfort of IoT-enabled luxury isolation.
As he uncorked the twist-off cap on a bottle of unpronounceable red wine at the retractable island in the center of the kitchenette, Jason couldn't help but wonder if this had all been part of the plan, something coordinated -- maybe even orchestrated -- for maximum embarrassment by the woman from Weyland Albemuth Strategic Technology Enterprises. He'd seen their financial documents; they had their hands in everything.
In hindsight, perhaps Jason had shown his cards a bit too soon when he'd casually asked the Weyland woman about the New World Order.
He took a sip and shook his head. The wine went down smooth; it tasted like red wine that he'd paid thirty cryptocoin for, whatever the hell that meant. And it gave him a chance to pretend for a moment that he wasn't an irrational, self-centered, compulsively paranoid and over-analytical cretin.
"iLexus, run daily edits," he said.
"Running edits..." the apartment responded in a vaguely feminine voice as it rattled off a list of wiki tweaks from users all around the world for a selection of pages that Jason had previously designated. Halliburton, the Bilderberg Group, Bohemian Grove, A∴A∴, Liber Oz, and of course, the Masons -- it was all there, along with geotagged references to any federal IP address used to change a page that day, with an extra algorithm programmed to scan the code and timestamps for any discernible pattern that might hold some meaning just beyond the veil of perception.
Apparently someone at the CIA had felt compelled to clarify the current whereabouts of the voice-actor who played Patrick on Spongebob Squarepants that day. That was about the closest that he'd come to learning anything of use after years of the same damn ritual.
Jason had one hundred and fifty square feet in this world that belonged to him, in a professionally managed building that he himself had helped to finance. He didn't know his neighbors; he didn't particularly care to, as long as they weren't eating up the bandwidth of the smart home tech that kept his little bubble working. As the wiki list continued, he made a dinner request, which the AI sent directly to the restaurant downstairs, which sent some generic fusion curry dish up a vacuum tube and directly into his microwave where it warmed up for consumption. He knew he'd need to finish his first glass before he dug into whatever synthesized meatstuff they had given him, so he did, then poured another one.
There were no human faces in Jason's apartment -- no GIFgraph memories or poster prints or FaceCam connects. There was a mirror on the underside of his retracted Futron bed, however, where he could see the lines of thirty-four years wearing deeper into his skin. It was the ones beneath his eyes that reminded him the most of the abyss at the center of the black hole that he'd seen in that vidtube doc one time. Somehow he always ended up down cosmic video wormholes on those nights when he stayed awake until three in the morning. And hey, maybe the processed food from downstairs didn't fill him up inside, but at least his body'd stayed in decent shape, with help from daily runs on his cryptocoin treadmill, which also helped him save on his energy bill. Without a job, he realized, he might need it to power his mine for more cryptocoin, too.
Jason really, really had to salvage this.
The AI took a brief pause from its wiki-listing to let him know the food was ready, then went back to its rambling. Jason removed the plate from the microwave and took a bite while standing at the island. At least it was food; at least it did its job. He could relate to that more than he liked to admit.
Was it really so wrong to approach his life with skepticism? To seek the truth where it had once been obscured?
Some folks on the forums thought the secret was hidden with the hedge funds, where people like Jason had some exclusive access. But he had no more control -- no more of a clue -- than the rest of them. Like Mr. Atal had said: it was all chaos.
"iLexus, Sindr me."
As Jason swatted through the air, sifting past projected profiles of potential dating matches, his mind wandered back to Mr. Atal's other words, that the theory changed the very same reality that it described. How could a theory -- an evidence-based hypothesis -- change the real facts of an historical event? It didn't make any sense at the time, especially in regard to the conspiracy at the heart of the attacks on the towers.
But as the loneliness settled in his stomach with a coating of curry, Jason also wondered how it might affect his choice of women.
Maybe he'd been looking for the wrong answers. Or maybe he had found them, and that was the problem.
Jason stopped swiping at the sight of Sam's smiling visage, or at least a hard light simulacrum of it. He took a moment to observe the reflexive clench of facial muscles in her profile clip, the way that her translucent skin sank into dimples at the mid-point of the vidloop -- a softness which stood in a striking contrast to the tension of her expression, now that he'd stopped to look for it. It wasn't that his powers of observation were off, not with all those upconverted 480p news clips he'd combed over time and time again in search of new discrepancies. It was just that, well, he'd never cared to look. Like companionship at classically Euro-American-style bistros was predicated entirely on whether a woman could match with the upholstery.
Jason had just noticed a scar on Sam's clavicle, and the glimmer of a ball-chain necklace peering out from under her collar, when the AI interrupted: "Would you like me to read this profile?"
"Yeah, sure."
Jason walked to the window and looked down at the lights of Ninth Square, overlooking the classic colonial grid of downtown Elm City through the hail of a hyperstorm as he listened to the strained excitement in Sam's pre-recorded voice rattling off a generic list of interests. It wasn't until the AI prompted him for action that he'd realized he hadn't absorbed an ounce of information he heard.
"Dismiss," he said instinctively. Then he took another sip of wine and wondered what it was that couldn't hold his interest -- the theory that he'd used to listen, which lead to the disappointing reality he'd found.
The answer was obvious: she was pretty but hollow, just like him.
"iLexus, remind me to try a better theory next time."
"I'm not sure I understand," the apartment responded.
"I get that a lot," Jason said. Then he told his home to dim the shades and drop the bed. The Futron whirred its walled descent as he watched the windows darken, blocking out the light from the world outside, and he realized that he was now without responsibility. What else was he to do, besides give into the same temptation that had gotten him in trouble in the first place?
Jason glanced around his twelve-by-twelve apartment. He wondered briefly if anyone could see him -- or if they could, whether they would see him, if they'd even care enough to watch him at the depths of isolation. Then the dulcet tones of a digicrypted voice began to recite video analyses of the attacks on the World Trade Center, lulling him to sleep.