the+page+of+will,+chapter+7

= Chapter7 = [Bzsrgpt gestures for you to follow him, and in response, you activate what amounts to "legs" on this robot body of yours (which seem to be some sort of wheel arrangement), and follow him down the white, poorly lit hallway, past various banks of complicated computer equipment] [You are now proceeding toward an open door, behind which, you can sense, is something a fair sight more interesting then the rather dull hallways you have been seeing so far. You feign interest in Bzsrgpt's tangents as your curiosity grows. You enter the doorway, finding yourself in the middle of what appears to be the ship's control room. The room is immense, its thousands of levels and modules filled with view-screens and computer equipment, each mechanism more complicated and inscrutable than the last. At the center of this vast collection of paraphernalia is stationed a gigantic scale replica of the galaxy, currently zoomed out to show the galaxy in its entirety. You notice it also contains more limited software for viewing parts of the Andromeda galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds.]
 * WE HAV TO US A LOT MOR SPAC FOR OUR CMPUTRS THEN YU DO, BECAS WE NEVR DEVELOPD SMALL TECHNOLOGY BECAS WE WER TO BUSY MAKNG POWRFL TECHNOLOGY. WE CAN DO A LOT MOR WITH CMPUTRS THEN YU CAN, BUT THY TAK UP A WHOL LOT OF ROOM. **

Bzsrgpt?


 * YES? **

Would you mind if I used your universe model to view Earth? I must admit that I'm very curious as to what happened to it.


 * OF CORS. ASK ME IF YU NED HELP WITH IT. OTHRWIS, I'LL LET YU DO IT N PEC. **

[Bzsrgpt wanders off to some other part of the control room, leaving you to eagerly experiment with the Galaxy viewer. You find that it can be scrolled and zoomed through spacetime using a joystick, or exact coordinates can be entered. An unusually large yellow pages lies on the control panel, its title reading, "Really quite handy book of spacetime coordinates for every potentially existent heavenly body in the Milky Way Galaxy" You flip through the books unbelievably thin pages, suddenly noticing that you're halfway through the book and still haven't gotten past the "A's". You flip to the last page, but as soon as you have done so, you again appear to be halfway through, and still not much farther through the "A's" by now it dawns on you that if this book catalogs every heavenly body that could possibly exist, it must be infinite, making it impossible to escape the A section through normal flipping. You try to turn the book over, but find it to be fixed to the control panel. You examine the area around it and find a small screen and a keypad next to it. You try typing "Earth" into the keypad, and are surprised to see the book open to a page an infinite number of pages through. One of the microscopic names is flashing green, indicating the object of your search. Unfortunately, the type is far too small to read, but for your convenience, a super-powerful magnifier is hovering above the book, already showing you a more readable version of the letters below. You read them, and with trepidation, enter the coordinates into the search function of the Galaxy viewer. Immediately, the viewer zooms into the western spiral arm, past Proxima Centauri, through the Solar System, and up to the unassuming little blue planet you have always called home. However, this is not the earth you know and love. The continents, rather than the green, lush, expanses you know, are vast, brown, barren wastelands of sun-baked rock. Not they have any recognizable shape, either. All the land on the planet seems concentrated in one huge mass that extends from the southern hemisphere up to cover the east half of earth. You glance look down at the time knob on the control panel, and realize that it is set to the Cambrian. You turn it up a little, and find yourself looking at your era, the Quaternary. You zoom in a little, and see the earth as you know it, but slightly different, due to the fact that nuclear missiles are zooming through the air like flies. You watch, with horrified fascination, as the events of the nuclear war that you initiated rage on the small holographic earth below you. You watch as US missiles, fired from Turkey, scream into Russia and eastern Europe, wreaking havoc until Turkey itself is incapacitated by return fire. You see Alaska torn to shreds as it in turn rips at important missile bases in Siberia. You glance at Moscow, now a smoldering crater, then Paris, replaced by a broken, smoking ruin. You turn back the time knob a few days and focus on the base from which the very first missile, the one you unwittingly activated, was fired, in a remote part of the Ural mountains. There is a light covering of snow on the ground as you zoom closer still, up to the small village of houses outside the base where the personnel spend their spare time. Only one window has a light in it. You zoom in close to this window and examine the room's occupant. He is a young Russian, obviously a low-ranking technician, but the fossils and paleontology texts adorning his shelves reveal his true interests. He is bent over the table, examining some fossilized bones, which look strangely human, as he talks excitedly on an old-fashioned telephone. Strangely enough, you are able to understand his words, despite not speaking a word of Russian. "Mikael," he says excitedly, "you simply must see this! I'm not yet sure, but I believe the bones are human, and Mikael, you will never believe this, but they date to the early Cretaceous! The early Cretaceous, Mikeal, 140 million years ago! They were sent to me by a friend in the south. He said the region was once underwater, but the bones were found alongside fossilized remains of a pterosaur colony, so there may have been a small island!" Mikael's response goes unheard, for at just that moment, the P.A. outlet in the young technician's room blares to life, and a static-y voice over the intercom yells "Attention! Attention! all personnel report to main missile control! Unknown program has activated missile launch!" The young man freezes, fear and shock painted on his gaping features. He slams down the receiver without saying goodbye, stands up, grabs his coat from the wall, and dashes out of the room. Racing down the stairs and out the front door, he pulls his coat on and charges toward the base, where the rumblings of the missile takeoff can already be heard. Just as he reaches the first security checkpoint, the silo opens and the missile rises slowly out of it. The young technician throws himself to the ground, screaming, "I could have stopped it! I could have stopped it!" over and over again. You follow the missile's path across Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, over Canada, and down towards your house, where you can see yourself, staring with horrified disbelief at the words, "**ATTENTION: IF YOU HAVE OPENED THIS PAGE, YOU HAVE JUST ACTIVATED THE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR DEFENCE** **SYSTEM**."] Chapter 8