Bad Glass

“Like I said, I was an administrator. It was my job to facilitate things, get the experts the gear and supplies they needed in order to do their research. I got them copy paper, I made sure their computers worked, I helped them organize their expeditions. I did anything and everything they asked me to do. That was my job. I’d get in tight, you see, and they’d tell me all of their theories, all of their hypotheses, and I’d relay it back out of the city.” He nodded toward Charlie. “That’s how I met your parents. That’s how I learned about this.” He gestured toward the laser apparatus in the middle of the room.

“What is it?” I asked.

I addressed the question to Devon, but Charlie was the one who answered. “It’s measuring the speed of light,” he said quietly.

Devon nodded. He looked impressed. “It’s counting the length of time it takes for the laser beam to travel from one end of its path to the other.”

“But why?” Taylor asked. “That’s a known constant.”

“Not anymore,” Charlie answered. “At least, not here.” There was a terrified expression on his face as he turned and gestured toward one of the computer monitors. After a moment’s hesitation, Taylor, Floyd, and I approached. The screen was filled with lines of text, and each time the apparatus flashed, a new line appeared at the top of the screen. It was a time stamp, followed by a long string of digits.

As we watched, the digits changed: 299,792,457.99999908 became 299,792,457.99999907.

“Those are meters per second,” Charlie explained. “It’s getting slower. The speed of light … it’s changing.”

“Your parents had a hypothesis,” Devon said. “They believed that the universe was slowing down. Maybe it’s just stopped expanding, or maybe it’s actively shrinking, but either way, physics has changed—time has changed—and it’s still changing.”

“We wouldn’t be able to survive that,” Charlie said. “Even the slightest shift. The movement of atoms, neurons in the brain—it would all fail. If something like that happened, it’d be the end of everything! No life, no substance.”

“Yeah,” Devon replied, smiling grimly. “That’s what they tell me.”

“What are they doing now? My parents—are they here, are they trying to explain this?”

“No,” Devon said. “They aren’t here. Not anymore.”

“Then where? Where did they go?”

Devon paused for a long moment, casting careful glances at each of us in turn. “They’re dead, Charlie,” he finally replied. “They’re dead, and you know it.”

“No,” Charlie said, his brow furrowing in confusion. “They aren’t dead. They sent me emails. I have pictures of them, in the city. I heard you talking to my father!”

“No, Charlie. They’re dead,” Devon repeated. After a handful of seconds, he continued reluctantly: “Hell, you were there, at the funeral. September 15, just outside of Portland. I saw the pictures.”

“No,” Charlie said, shaking his head in disbelief. Then his face crinkled up in a sudden moment of doubt—What is he thinking? I wondered. Right now, what does he remember?—and he took a tentative step back. The way he was moving, I was afraid his legs were going to collapse beneath him. “It’s not true. You’re lying.” But now there was a note of desperation in his voice.

“Your parents ran tests. They confirmed—” He gestured toward the apparatus. “—they checked interference patterns or something. And then they took a car … I don’t think they could handle it anymore, watching the world fall apart—this was just after the mayor disappeared, when everyone in the building was starting to see things, starting to freak out. Your mother told me it was going to spread, it was going to infect the entire world. It was just a matter of time.” Devon paused. His voice turned soft, sympathetic. “The official reports—the police told you it was an accident, they told you that your father lost control of the car, but I think your parents just didn’t want to see what was coming. I don’t think they could handle it.”

“No. It’s a lie. It’s impossible. I don’t remember … why wouldn’t I remember?” Charlie turned abruptly and kicked out at the laser apparatus, slamming his foot into the nearest mirror. The laser tipped off its axis, and the next time it fired, it bounced high off the far mirror and shot up into the ceiling. I glanced at the tracking monitor and saw the word ERROR repeated a half dozen times on the topmost line. “This whole thing is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit. The universe doesn’t work that way … my parents, they don’t work that way!”

He started toward Devon, taking hard, violent strides, and then his legs did collapse, sending him sprawling to the floor. At first he braced himself on the heels of his hands, then he moved his palms up to his face, hiding his emotions in a hunched-up little ball.

“But we were listening on the radio,” I explained. “You were talking to somebody about plugging up leaks, about the information we were sending out. And what he said … whoever it was, it sounded like Charlie’s father.”