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by Robert Campbell
Edited and Introduced by Pablo Capra
Brass Tacks Press, 2022
388 pages
SHORT STORY
"Tachyon Capsule of Physics"
by Robert Campbell
1.
“Tachyons travel alone.”
— Capsule of Tachyon Physics
Jameson left home at 1:30 p.m. At 2:00 p.m., he entered the California Federal Savings and Loans building via its roof. A rented helicopter transported Jameson from his laboratory at Malibu Beach to the Savings and Loans branch located at Sunset and Glendale Blvds. It was Tuesday, July 16, 1988.
Jameson had worked as a teller in that particular bank building for 14 years, and was promoted to the position of Director of Security approximately one week before he resigned in the spring of that same year. Working days, Jameson took night classes at Pepperdine University. He studied physics, math, horticulture, and optical delineation classes, in which he maintained a 4.0 GPA. Jameson was, in fact, a genius, but nobody knew that. His teachers respected him because he made A’s, and that of course made them look good. His lady loved him, but mainly because Jameson always had the best organic homegrown hybrids money could buy. The fact that the drugs were organic made it easier to swallow because they fit in with all of her synergetic ideals for a healthy environment. She was an all-American girl. No, no one ever suspected Jameson of being a genius. Except Jameson. He had ideas about himself.
*
Tachyons are the other component of the Universe that people don’t talk about much. Sure, there’s been ample talk about matter, cells, molecules, and atoms. Even antimatter made it big in the ’50s, got a manager in the ’60s, and became stars in the ’70s, a household word. That’s when black holes dominated the talk in the scientific community for years. But if you ask anyone about Tachyons, they’d say, “Who?”
Tachyons travel alone. And, boy, do they ever travel fast! One Tachyon can leave your bathroom at a quarter to eight when you start to unzip your fly, and travel to every other square inch of the universe and back again at a quarter of eight before you whip it out and start to pee. I guess that’s why there’s more than one.
Nobody is quite sure exactly how many Tachyons there are in the physical universe at any given time, but I’ll assure you that there’s plenty enough to record every instant of time passing, and to transmit the data to the Unigen1 [footnote missing]. Like I said, Tachyons are fast. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Well, a Tachyon starts up where light leaves off. Scientists are only now beginning to investigate the phenomenon.
*
“Yeah, we were successful… to a point,” states Dr. Allison, head of the Department of Astrophysics at Cal. State Irvine, as they gawk at the smoke billowing from the brain of the Genii X computer. Professors Beason and Sykes storm into the lab.
“Are you all right, Allison?” Beason asks as he runs up beside the professor, closely followed by Professor Sykes.
“Sure, we’re fine, but I think we’ve lost another good man to science. The etherization proceeded without difficulty, and the electrobe [sic] reflector screen registered affirmative. We were able to track Swenson’s activities for 20 minutes after etherization. His vibratory rate approached the speed of light at this point,” Allison says, pointing at the computer read-out sheet. “It looked to us as if Swenson’s body had started contracting at an accelerated rate. However, the messages he reported, although garbled, kept referring to an ultra-expansion. But the part that’s really baffling is where he kept referring to them as turning him inside out.”
“Them?” inquires Dr. Sykes.
“That’s what he kept saying, and that’s when this burnout occurred on the screen and we lost control altogether. We think that’s when Swenson shot the gap. We recorded the event at 2:00 p.m., 7/16/88.”
“You mean—Hyperspace?” Beason asks.
“That or something similar,” replies Dr. Allison, looking at the ceiling. “Maybe even Tachyonspace,” he adds, scratching his head.
*
Devoid of sedimentary impediments, Tachyons consume information. Being a link in the predatory chain, Tachyons illuminate knowledge. This knowledge, having been digested, is of a lower grade. The essence, having been extracted, is ingested into the circulatory patterns of Tachyons, and is transmitted to the Unigen. The raw viscosity, thusly ejected, becomes fertilizer in the fields of human understanding.
*
“Eat shit, Jameson!” screams the security guard on the top floor of the California Savings and Loans building as Jameson enters the rooftop lobby carrying with him an Uzi submachine gun and a black box. He notes a tiny flash of blue light registering in his peripheral vision, the kind one sees after lifting a heavy object, or during times of deep thought or fatigue. Sloughing it off as a normal occurrence, Jameson goes about his business, and training the Uzi on the guard, he unlatches the box. The Unigen groans.
“You’ll never get away with this, Jameson. You of all people! You young upstarts are all alike. Feel like the world owes you something, don’t you, Jameson?” the security guard smirks.
Jameson just listens, angling his body so as not to look directly into the lens of the monitoring camera to keep from being recognized. He lifts a cylinder-shaped object from the box, and aiming it at the camera, he releases a stream of light into its lens as the camera swings around in his direction.
“You’ll see, Jameson. You mark my words. Even if you escape today, it’ll catch up to you soon. What goes around comes around.”
Jameson looks at the clock. 2:01 p.m.
*
At Cal. State Irvine in the Astrophysics lab, another baffling occurrence is taking place.
“What the fuck!” exclaims Dr. Allison as the strange object begins to etherize in the air above their heads.
“Oh my God, Scott! Look at that thing,” Beason says, curiosity rising in his voice. A lab tech grabs a mike and flips on the recorder when the object, having materialized, falls to the floor with a clank. Everyone hovers around. The lab tech glances at his watch. He speaks into the microphone.
“At 2:01, the seventh month, the 16th day, 19 hundred and eigh….”
*
In Malibu, Linda, Jameson’s fiancée, walks inside the beachfront apartment, and as she enters the living room, she notices a package lying on the sofa. Gift-wrapped, it is addressed to her. She quickly rips it open, and to her amazement, inside lies a most beautiful mink coat. Overjoyed, she lifts the garment from the box, and walking into the bedroom, she tries it on before a mirror.
“It’s ravishing,” she smiles as she gazes in the glass.
Then taking a joint from a nearby bedstand, she lights it. And after another modeled look in the mirror, she leaves back into the living room. And sitting down on the sofa, she notices a note in the bottom of the package. She reads it.
*
Passing through a physical vortex or universe, Tachyons register more than 26,000 years of information in every passing second of Earth time.
*
The officer at the first floor monitoring station in the California Federal building, whose job is to view the activity of several monitoring devices, imagines he sees a bank robbery on the top floor change into an everyday routine bank pick-up. He wipes his eyes. Not exactly sure of what transpired, he sounds an alert.
“See there, Jameson,” grins the security guard on the top floor, “your goose is cooked. They’re on their way.”
Jameson removes an aerosol can from the box, and spraying its contents into the air, the security guard’s attitude changes abruptly.
“It’s really okay if you’re a few minutes early, Rodger,” he says, speaking to Jameson. “The sooner we get this stuff loaded up, the sooner I’ll be able to take my lunch break. I feel really great today,” he adds, smiling and patting his stomach. “But I have a terrible case of the munchies.”
The other guards file into the room and line the wall. They train their guns on Jameson.
Jameson, aware of the effectiveness of his serum, smiles. “Relax, fellas. I just called you up here to see if you could give me and Wilson here a hand with all these heavy boxes of tender.”
The guards begin to smile and chat among themselves as the drug starts to take effect. They shove their guns back into their holsters.
“Oh sure, Rodge,” offers one of the guards. “No problem. Just tell us where you want us to stack the stuff.
2.
“Ye acts proceedeth thee and standeth the balance of time.”
— Capsule of Tachyon Physics
“Very interesting,” says Dr. Rayburn from the Geology Department. “It’s made from a substance I’ve never seen before, nor read about,” he adds. “There’s enough energy here to keep every light bulb in LA burning for the next four centuries, and that’s just an educated guess. I’ve never seen anything like it. Why, it’s in a constant state of fission, but it’s stable!” he adds again, pounding the table.
All of the department heads stand around the small object, gazing in wonder. The object measures about 10 centimeters in length, and glows like the noonday sun. A lab tech rolls an ultraviolet lamp over the object and switches it on. The initials MA stand out in bold relief.
“For heaven’s sake!” exhorts Dr. Allison, frisking himself. “Why, that’s my pen!” Then turning around to face the others, “It’s my gold pen I lent to Swenson right before the experiment!”
*
In Malibu, Linda finishes the letter as tears swell in her eyes. She wraps herself in the mink and walks into the kitchen, where she turns a flame on under a pot of tea. And crying, she sits down at the table, her head falling onto her hands as her pain concludes with loud sobs. The letter falls to the floor.
Dear Linda,I’m leaving the country. I can’t explain now but here is a small gift I am leaving for you as a token of my love. I hope you like it.Pleasant thoughts,Jameson
When hearing the roar of an approaching chopper, Linda raises her head. She enters the living room, and taking the joint from the ashtray, she fires it up and walks outside.
The sky is bleak, and 20-foot waves dash under a dirty red cloud cover. The rays of the sun penetrate the clouds and blaze onto the sea like spotlights. Wrapped in the mink, she turns her head around, and tilting it skyward, she sees a pterodactyl gliding overhead. A paltry figure dangles limply from its beak. Screams of terror exude from the figure as the giant bird hovers above the sea. She notices something falling from the figure’s hand as a meteor slants from the sky, striking the bird’s head pointblank. The beast falters and tumbles, belly-up, down into the sea below.
She wanders aimlessly to the shoreline and gazes on the ocean, confused. Something washes up against her foot. Bending over, she picks it up and carries it into her cave, and kneeling before a blazing fire, she bangs on her find with a stone. The latch flies open, and to her amazement, the interior is filled with crisp, thin, green material. And gazing on it curiously, she smells it. A strange gleam ignites her eyes as she holds the material over the flame. It burns.
[Written in 1988?, the year the story happens]
