The latest in Fair Observers series of fictional dialogues intended to make sense of the underside of the news. This episode belongs to the world of science fiction.

FADE IN:

INT.SHINY FUTURISTIC DOME

THE SCENE takes place 420 years in the future, in the palindrome year 2442. Planet AlsetDS14s most brilliant technological and entrepreneurial mind, NOLE SKUM (50) is on a Hypermooz 5-dimensional holographic call with SEGRIM (34), his ex and mother of two of his bionic children. NOLE has invented the first operational wormhole in the galaxy, but it is still a secret. In recent weeks, he successfully teleported himself to a parallel civilization, an alternate world (earth) exactly 420 light years away. People in these two alien civilizations share the same genomic identity, but in contexts separated in time by the distance between the two planets. Though both were created simultaneously, by an effect of space-time AlsetDS14 is 420 years ahead of earth, benefitting from four supplementary centuries of technological research and development.

NOLE

Hows it going? We havent pinged for some time. I was just calling to know how our kid is doing.

SEGRIM

Which kid? We have two you know.

NOLE

Oh yeah, I forgot. You know, the older one with the weird name I can never remember, its so complicated.

SEGRIM

Fred? Hes OK, but QY!f*inity has started making some sounds that resemble words.

NOLE

What was in our Knilaruen quantum brainfeed when we came up with that bizarre name, Fred?

SEGRIM

Yeah, its weird. My original idea was Derf!93, not Fred. My new holographic soulmate thinks it could have been the lack of oxygen in your wormhole that was playing havoc with our synapses.

NOLE

I told you not to tell anyone about the wormhole.

SEGRIM

Come on! Everyone knows youre obsessed with wormholes and fixated on conquering other planets. They know youve been slaving away secretly on the wormhole.

NOLE

Yeah, but, as usual, with their goddamn short seller mentality, they think I failed, that it would come to nothing

NOLE pauses, closes his eyes, wincing as if about to shed a tear.

NOLE (CONTD)

But thats great! Let them have their way. I couldnt have asked for more. It means nobody suspects what we discovered when the wormhole became operational.

SEGRIM

You mean the twin civilization hundreds of light years away?

NOLE

Yeah, populated by alternate versions of ourselves, weird, backward people locked in the pre-technological past who call their home earth, as if it didnt even deserve a number.

SEGRIM

Yeah, I guess they shouldve at least called it earthDS3 to indicate their rank in their planetary system where there arent even 10 planets and all of them natural, like just barren rock!

NOLE

In any case, what we discovered is too important to share with anyone.

SEGRIM

You mean, the fact that we are finally in contact with another civilization?

NOLE

No, everyone expected that at some point. But nobody imagined finding a civilization that is a mirror of our own. We are literally over there as well as being here.

SEGRIM

So it isnt just your invention of the wormhole, to be sure the wormhole IP yours and yours alone!

NOLE

Everyone understands wormholes are possible and that they annihilate space-time. But no one could have imagined wed reach something thats an exact mirror of our world the only difference being its 420 years earlier in galactic time.

NOLE looks up towards the sky then turns his attention back to the hologram.

NOLE (CONTD)

I know weve split up, Segrim, and, like we agreed, youre free to do your own thing, but, hell, you promised never to reveal the secret.

SEGRIM

I didnt tell anyone. Why are you accusing me?

NOLE

Somebodys been talking and it wasnt me.

SEGRIM

Well, it wasnt me. Maybe theres a leak in your goddamn wormhole!

NOLE

You traveled in it, didnt you? And you talked to people on earth.

SEGRIM

Only once. I was curious what kind of music my alternate identity, someone named Grimes, was into.

NOLE

Didnt I tell you not to interact verbally with anyone on earth?

SEGRIM

I didnt say anything about the wormhole. I just asked a few questions.

NOLE

They must have been the wrong questions. My alternate earth identity a guy everybody talks about, called Elon Musk apparently he got wind of it

NOLE (CONTD)

Anyway,its the only rational explanation I can think of for his recent strange behavior that keeps him constantly in the news.

SEGRIM

Now I get it! Youve been using the wormhole for trivial purposes, spending hours listening to all kinds of rubbish from earths ridiculous electronic media of four centuries ago as if it mattered today. Or even mattered then.

NOLE

Hey when Im not traveling through the wormhole, I use it to pump all their digital communication. Nothing trivial about that! Yknow, figuring out a parallel world thats still centuries in the past could help us understand our own past. I call that a public service.

SEGRIM

Come on! Youve always been a hopeless narcissist. Now youre lost in space admiring the parallel version of yourself.

SEGRIM pulls at her holographic hair then suddenly claps her hands.

SEGRIM (CONTD)

Wake up, Nole! He may look and sound like you, but Elons a loser. He hasnt done anything significant. I mean, its not like hes about to create a wormhole.

NOLE

Look, his obsession with moving earths population to another planet shows that even locked into a technologically backward past hes on to something.

NOLE pauses to let a new brainwave emerge through his neural wiring.

NOLE (CONTD)

OK, he doesnt know it, but we know that hell have to wait another 300 years at least before it even starts becoming conceivable. You know, once the Indians discover how to industrially manipulate quantum entanglement. Hell, those humans stuck in their dark ages 420 years ago hadnt even invented the immortality pill.

SEGRIM

Youre right about that. So sad! Poor wretches!

NOLE

You have to admit its kind of fun watching how things are going on earth. Maybe Elons really going to accelerate things. Hes on the right track. He even created something called the Boring Company

NOLE closes his eyes a few seconds to pick up information from his neural feed.

NOLE (CONTD)

Dont you find it funny that nobody on earth wondered why he would be so obsessed by the idea of boring.

SEGRIM

Wasnt it just a joke about being known for his eccentricity and always doing ridiculous things? I mean, like, telling people hes not just a boring scientist.

NOLE

No. He has so much money people refuse to think of his behavior as ridiculous. Its a world where money makes decisions and value judgments, not people.

NOLE waits for a nod of approval from SEGRIM for this deep thought.

NOLE (CONTD)

I finally figured out what the idea of boring really signifies. Its about Elons obsession with the idea that he might be the first to bore a wormhole in the galaxy. I can say that because, in a certain sense, his brain is my brain.

SEGRIM

True enough, you guys are definitely mirror images of one another. Pathologically obsessed by impossible ideas.

NOLE

Come on, you said the wormhole was impossible and now youve been there and seen it. They also said the immortality pill was impossible.

SEGRIM

Hey, that wasnt you. That was Yar Liew Zruks invention [translated into earth language: Ray Kurzweil].

NOLE

It doesnt matter. Its because everyone people like you doubted all these supposedly impossible inventions that Yar and I had to struggle so hard to make them work.

SEGRIM

Are you really convinced they did work? Maybe its all an illusion.

View post:
Fly on the Wall: A Visit to Elons Parallel Universe - Fair Observer