Editor's note: Reunion, all Chinese new year's wishes. In order to realize this wish, Teacher Liu Yang turned the Beijing West Railway Station into a magical place, where people rode on the mythical beast that could travel in time, defeated the separation of death, and reunited with the deceased relatives.
However, at the reunion dinner table, relatives came from various timelines, the deceased, the unborn, the old grandmother, the granddaughter-in-law, the original blood relationship became ironic, is the family affection still the original affection? How do you deal with emotions that are defined by life and death?
【 Lost Travelers 】
Author | Liu Yang
Liu Yang, a doctor of physics in the three-dimensional universe, studies two-dimensional quantum materials and is also a science fiction writer - as soon as science fiction is written, the space around it does not exist, only the axis of time remains. Columnist for The Non-Existent Daily, university teacher, has published short story collections "Perfect Doomsday" and "The Hive." Works such as Pythagorean and Single Hole Diffraction have been translated into English and published in magazines such as Clarkesworld and Pathlight.
1
After a long journey, the Pu Prison has broken away from the cracks in time and space and entered the Beijing West Railway Station. It trembled its crimson flesh wings, its claws firmly grasping the anchor bar of Platform 18. Beneath its wrinkled belly, an oval translucent chamber slowly slipped out, and a thick and sticky yellow buffer remained on the shell, emitting a pungent smell like disinfectant water. The bulkhead of the cabin coated with fluorescent material contracted from time to time, accompanied by a few passenger complaints.
The vulture, which had just returned from its leap from 182 years later, stood motionless on the anchor pole, quietly waiting for something. Humans have been taming vultures, creatures that can naturally travel through time and space for nearly a thousand years, and they are already familiar with the various instructions and procedures of human pitting. In the sealed platform, there was a low humming sound that echoed all the time. The sound comes from an old gravitational wave compensation modulation system. Apparently, the superconducting coil inside needs to be replaced with a quieter chiller.
When the gravitational waves were released, Yi Ming did not feel anything. Because of the expansion of the universe, when traveling in time, it is necessary to release or absorb gravitational waves of certain frequencies to adapt yourself to the space-time environment of the destination. It is said that some people will feel uncomfortable with this process, but Yi Ming has never been so troubled. A few minutes later, the hatch opened, and Yi Ming immediately drilled out of it and took a long breath of the air from 182 years ago.
It was the air of his grandmother's contemporaries. Every few years during the Spring Festival, he would return to this era to visit her. My grandmother died three years later, and during this time, she could still move a little and say a few words.
As soon as he stepped out of the platform, he saw his parents, who were waiting for him under a red-faced Chinese knot. His parents looked very young and certainly hadn't come back from his time zone. He went up to say hello, and his parents looked at him with a slightly surprised look and didn't ask anything more. The station was crowded, bustling, and some of them huddled together, with bulky cameras and long radios, looking like reporters from some television station. After a few brief greetings, a few people walked outside and went straight into a tea house at the entrance of the station. In the private room on the second floor, as soon as I pushed open the door, I heard the sound of children playing inside. A few well-dressed children were making a fuss at the table, and a middle-aged couple next to them was trying to restrain them. On the main seat was a wheelchair in which a kind old man sat.
"Grandmother, we're coming to see you!" He put his mouth to his grandmother's ear and said loudly.
"Well... Well..." The grandmother responded tremblingly, a smile on her face, pulling Yi Ming to sit next to her. Yi Ming knew the two children, and they came every Spring Festival. Unlike themselves, the two children jumped from the past. They were two of my grandmother's older brothers, who died in a car accident when they were eight years old, and my grandmother kept thinking of them and gave them every time. Yi Ming and his parents had no feelings for these two children, and at the moment they all watched them sneaking around the room with a slightly helpless expression. Of course, on some timelines, the car accident did not happen, but the two brothers who grew up were not as kind to the grandmother as the two children. So, every time, I picked up these two children and came to the reunion. It was not surprising that the middle-aged couple he did not know, and every time someone he did not know came to this Spring Festival party. In the long river of time and space, there are too many relatives who are close or distant.
Instead, the middle-aged couple took the initiative to come over and say hello to Yi Ming. "Grandpa," cried the man, "I'm Yi Hong, do you know me?" ”
Yi Ming shook his head with some embarrassment and looked at the middle-aged man carefully. From the appearance, it does have its own shadow.
"This is my daughter-in-law." The man introduced. Then the middle-aged woman also came up to him and said hello.
"I'm not married yet." Yi Ming said. He saw a few white hairs on Yi Hong's head and roughly estimated the age of his grandson.
At this time, the door of the room opened again, and five or six people came in. This is Yi Ming's aunt's family. The atmosphere in the family was slightly strange, and each other's looks were a little ugly. The eldest aunt greeted her grandmother, and then sat down next to Yi Ming's father, looking unhappy.
"What's going on, this is?" Yi Ming pulled a young man with purple hair and asked softly. The man's name was Lorraine, and he was his cousin, the son of his great aunt.
"It's not because of her!" Luo Lin nuzzled in the direction of the great aunt.
"What's wrong with your mother?"
"She's not my mom."
"How come she's not your mother?"
"She's going to marry Gao Yuan."
"What?" Yi Ming was surprised, "What about your father Luo Qiang?" ”
"My father and Gao Yuan both proposed to her, and as a result, she agreed to Gao Yuan." Speaking of this, Rowling was excited again, "I really don't understand the eyes of this crazy woman, what is the point of gao yuan that is comparable to my father!" You say, you talk about it, is she still my mother? ”
"Forget it." Yi Ming advised, "Let her go, anyway, it won't affect your timeline!" ”
"Anyway, I just can't get used to her looking like this." Damn it! Sometimes I really hate jumping around on different timelines and making people angry. ”
After a moment of silence, more than a dozen people came to the room one after another. Except for a few yiming who can't call out names, most of them are familiar faces. He was slightly relieved, at least so far, that the timeline was stable. People basically came together, except for the two children, who were the descendants of their grandmother. The slightly crowded room was filled with two large tables.
"When is the old man coming?" Someone asked.
"It should be fast, old man in the car at six o'clock." This time it was finally time for the family to truly reunite. ”
Old Master, refers to Yi Ming's grandfather. Both grandfather and grandmother were conservatives and never traveled time, just as many people never flew. No matter what era, there are a small number of such people. They stubbornly cling to a single timeline and never leave.
My grandfather died ten years ago. In the past ten years, every year, some people want to bring their grandfather from the past to spend the Spring Festival with their grandmother, but because their grandfather refuses to make a jump, the trip has not been completed. Unexpectedly, this year, my grandfather unexpectedly agreed, and everyone was very happy. Although the grandmother blamed a few words on her lips, she could see that she was actually very happy in her heart, and she always had a smile on her face.
▲ Source: Шепилова Анна
2
"By the way, Grandpa, I've already asked about what you asked me before." Yi Hong suddenly slipped into Yi Ming's side again and said with a serious face.
"What did I ask you to ask?" Yi Ming had some doubts.
"Oh, by the way, you don't know that yet!" Yi Hong patted his head on the door, "Look at my memory, confused." I think... It should be a year later. ”
"A year later? What did I ask you? ”
"Also at the Spring Festival party, you asked me if Alzheimer's disease could be cured by my time. I said I wasn't quite sure either, and I'd go back and ask. ”
Yi Ming understood at once. My grandmother got this disease, and I probably wanted to find a time to take her to cure the disease. Although the grandmother insisted on not making the jump, could she hide it from her and sneak out? A year later, he probably considered that possibility.
"What about the result of the question?"
Yi Hong shook his head: "No. Not only in my time, but even in a few hundred years, it will still be an incurable disease. ”
"How can this be?" Yi Ming was very puzzled, "Is this disease so difficult to treat?" ”
"It has nothing to do with the disease itself." Yi Hong deliberated, "The fundamental reason is actually the flattening of the times. ”
Yi Ming was stunned: "What flattening?" ”
The latter, anticipating his reaction, explained unhurriedly: "The flattening of the times, in layman's terms, means that every era looks the same. With the popularity of the transition, the technology and culture of different eras began to blend with each other, and the homogenization became more and more serious. If you look at it now hundreds of years ago or hundreds of years from now, you'll see that those people play games and movies that are almost exactly like us. Because of the existence of the transition, all the times—the future or the past—actually become the same era. In the coordinates of time, we have actually lost the arrows and directions. Do you know what that means? ”
Yi Ming shook his head.
"That means time stands still. At the same time, human technology and culture have stopped evolving. The technology that can be owned in the future is naturally easy to possess now due to the transfer of technology against time. And if there is no present, there will be no more future. ”
Yi Ming lowered his head and thought about it, and retorted: "But according to my experience, my mobile phone when I was a child was not as advanced as it is now, is this not the embodiment of scientific and technological progress?" ”
"Of course not, it's just a relaxation process of technology spreading between different eras." With the passage of time, the fusion from different time and space becomes closer and closer, and the heterogeneous characteristics of different eras will continue to be smoothed out. Just like the two ends of the connector, of course there will be waves and undercurrents in the process of water rushing, but eventually it will become a contoured and calm water. ”
After a moment of silence, Yi Ming sighed.
"You're in trouble." He looked at the "grandson" in front of him and suddenly asked, "What do you do?" ”
"Me?" Yi Hong smiled bitterly, "When I was a child, I always wanted to be a scientist. Unfortunately, only one electrician was made in the end. ”
3
"Why hasn't the old man arrived yet?" Someone suddenly remembered and shouted loudly. Yi Ming looked down at the time, it was already half past six, and it was supposed to have arrived earlier.
"Nothing will happen... Who is responsible for picking up people at the station? ”
"It's Xiaoyu." Rowling replied, "She was arguing to pick up Grandpa, and I let her stay over there." yes...... Wait a minute, she's calling! As he spoke, he picked up the phone, listened to a few words, and his face changed dramatically.
"Something went wrong!" As soon as he hung up the phone, he said anxiously, "The car is gone!" ”
A large group of people began to rush to the station in a panic, and Yi Ming followed his grandmother's electric wheelchair, occasionally helping to press a few control buttons. While hurrying, people asked Lorraine about the situation.
Things are weird. The Vulture, who was supposed to arrive at Platform 72 at six o'clock, did not appear for a long time. The platform's gravitational wave compensation system started on time, but when the platform door opened, the staff found that there was no one inside.
When Yi Ming and others rushed to the platform of the incident, the cordon had already been put on here. A dozen police officers were on the perimeter, and some technicians were busy nervously, seemingly checking and recording certain data. A large number of media personalities have gathered at the scene and are looking for a suitable location to take pictures. Yi Ming saw several familiar figures, and suddenly remembered that they were the TV reporters he had seen when he first left the station. By then, before the accident had even happened, they had already arrived at the scene. Yi Ming suddenly woke up: They already knew that this would happen!
Seeing the arrival of Yi Ming and others, someone immediately came to inquire about their identity. Subsequently, a man who claimed to be the deputy station chief came over and comforted everyone, said some clichés to try to find out the origin of the matter, and then asked everyone to go to the arranged hotel to rest. No one would go, everyone was deadlocked for a while, someone whispered a few words to the deputy station chief, and he no longer insisted, allowing everyone to stay here, but not interfering with the technical personnel who were investigating.
Yi Ming also accompanied his grandmother with everyone, anxiously looking inside the platform. What was wrong with the Vulture dragon where my grandfather was? According to the staff, the Vulture dragon started normally on the platform in the previous time period and has disappeared from that timeline, but it did not appear here. Did it go wrong and go to another timeline? Government departments and traffic authorities have repeatedly stressed that the transition is absolutely safe, but what is this unclear situation now?
"Grandpa, I remember!" Yi Hong suddenly squeezed to Yi Ming's side, "Our history textbooks have written about this accident. For privacy reasons, the textbook did not write about the specific people involved in the accident. But as it stands, there is no doubt that this is the case. ”
Yi Ming looked at the other party with some disbelief: "Did you write the cause of the accident and the final result in the book?" ”
"None. In fact, for this accident, only a few simple sentences were written in the textbook, focusing on its subsequent development and the social impact it brought about. I don't know if you noticed, in society, many people have a lot of criticism of time travel: saying that it disturbs a single timeline, makes relatives turn against each other, and even causes grandchildren to kill grandfathers and other such tragedies; there are also said that it hinders the development of science and technology, killing the hope and future of mankind and so on. After the accident, a large number of people began to question its safety. Taking this as an opportunity, the movement against time travel began to flourish, and gradually evolved into an opposition to all modern technology and a return to nature. This is a social wave that has spread for centuries, and today's accident can be seen as its fuse. ”
Yi Ming listened quietly, not knowing what to say. He was not interested in social movements or anything, and at the moment he was more concerned with the causes and consequences of the accident. He noticed that several staff members were gathered around discussing something, so he leaned over silently.
"Residual gravitational wave radiation was detected, proving that the Vulture did reach the platform."
"The gravitational wave compensation system has also been activated."
"What is the compensation frequency?"
"I'll see." A staff member picked up the tablet in his hand, touched it a few times, and brought up the specific data.
"This frequency is no problem... Well? Wait, what is this peak!? One of them clicked on a spike on the time domain map and asked in surprise. The others also gathered around, staring at the suspicious peak, frowning.
At this time, Lorraine also came to this side. He touched Yi Ming's hand and said in a deep voice, "Grandma said something strange just now." ”
"Say what?"
"She said, Apoon in the lamp."
"Apoon in the lamp?"
"Well, that's what she said, she said it several times, I don't know what it means."
Ah Pang naturally meant his grandfather, but how could he be in the lamp? Yi Ming repeated this sentence incomprehensibly and slowly walked back to his grandmother. Grandmother was looking up motionlessly at the overhead lamp above the platform. He also followed his grandmother's gaze and looked up. The lights were bright and some eyes were shaking.
"Look, Xiao Ming," the grandmother suddenly pulled Yi Ming and said, "your grandfather is sending us a signal!" It was two long and one short, right? ”
At this time, Yi Ming also found a problem with the lighting. Although it is not very obvious, as long as you keep staring at the light tube and look closely, you will find that the brightness of the light does occasionally dim for a while. The pattern of change is very regular, indeed like someone is signaling.
"It's Morse code," Yi Hong said suddenly. He looked up at the light at some point, and muttered in his mouth: "P-A-N-G, it just happens to be a 'Pang' word!" ”
▲ Source: Jimin Yoon
4
"The reason is clear." After the technical group discussion, a representative came out and began to explain the matter to the family.
"The whole accident was a coincidence, or rather, a natural disaster. According to the data recorded by the instrument, at six o'clock tonight, the Vulture entered the platform on time, and then the gravitational wave compensation system was activated, ready to launch a beam of gravitational wave excitons. But at the same time, a high-frequency gravitational wave from the direction of Andromeda just swept across the Earth and interfered with our excitons. The two work together to form a soliton of gravitational waves, which are just absorbed by the Vulture. You see, this is it! ”
He pointed to a spike on the drawing board and paused for a moment.
"What's going to happen, are people okay?"
"Rest assured, the Vulture, with all its passengers, is still in our time zone, most likely somewhere on our platform."
The crowd erupted in an uproar.
"Where?"
The narrator was a little embarrassed: "We can't see them for a while, because... They're getting smaller. ”
"Getting smaller?"
"Yes. Based on calculations of the soliton data, we estimate that the passengers' current spatial size should be around a few nanometers —about the size of an atom. They may now float in the air in front of our eyes, or in the dirt and dust on the ground. ”
Everyone subconsciously shrank their feet and looked down at the ground.
"Rest assured, we'll find out the exact location, it just takes some time. You can now go back to the hotel first..."
"I know where they are?" Yi Hong suddenly interjected.
The eyes of the scene suddenly turned to him.
"Give me a multi-meter." He asked the technical team for the instrument, then found the console of the platform and closed the electric gate. Then, he removed the circuit protection cover and began to measure them one by one with the meter in the direction of the wiring. After a few minutes, he suddenly pointed to a section of wire on the ground and said, "Right here!" Drawing a circle on the wire with a pen, he added, "Inside the wire." ”
People looked at each other, but soon the technical team moved. They carefully intercepted the wire and prepared to send it to the laboratory for scanning with an STM.
"How do you know?" Yi Ming looked at his "grandson" and asked.
"The flickering lights told me." He pointed to the wires on the ground and said, "The superconducting lines used here are theoretically no resistors." But the change in light made me wonder if there was some desuperconducting noise somewhere. So, I used the method of measuring resistance to find the location of this noise. ”
"Are you saying, sir, that their entry has changed the resistance of this place?"
"Yes. Superconductivity is a macroscopic quantum state whose existence depends on the function of electron waves paired with each other. When an atomic-sized human enters, its observation of the state of the surrounding electrons disrupts this wave function, allowing locally desuperconducting noise. ”
"Is it that as long as the passengers close their eyes, the superconducting state will be restored again?"
"Yes, that's why the lights flicker!"
I see. Yi Ming nodded, and an interesting picture suddenly appeared in his mind: in the boundless superconducting lattice, people listened to their grandfather's command and closed their eyes in an orderly manner. Nearby electron clouds are sometimes entangled, sometimes broken apart, and become islands. In the light of the eyes, the world around them has changed color.
He suddenly looked forward to such a journey.
"So how do you rescue these passengers?" Someone asked.
"It's not difficult," replied the previous official spokesman calmly, "solitons do not exist forever, and under the influence of the external environment, they will decay due to spontaneous radiation." If we impose some more proactive regulation, they should soon be back to normal. ”
At this time, the intercom in his ear pinna lit up. He put his hand on the pinna of his ear and listened carefully to something. After a moment, he looked up with a smile and announced loudly:
"Found them!"
▲ Source: Artturi Mäntysaari
5
When the press conference was held, the scene was crowded by hundreds of media reporters. They come from different timelines. In most time zones, the accident took a long time to resolve. They were surprised at how quickly the current timeline had rescued passengers. Of course, there is something else they care about.
"I would like to ask this old gentleman," a young journalist asked first, "we know that you have always been conservative about time travel, and after this accident, will you be more determined to oppose the application of this technology?" ”
Yi Ming raised his head and looked at his grandfather sitting in the middle of the podium. My grandmother was also on the stage, sitting next to my grandfather, her right hand clasped in his left hand, and she seemed to have a lingering feeling about the accident. He probably knew what kind of answer the reporter wanted to hear, and what kind of public opinion atmosphere he wanted to create.
"Yeah, for a long time, I never left my time zone, which has everything for me." Grandfather's tone was slow and calm, not at all depressed, "I was also worried about the negative effects of time travel, and even participated in some joint activities. However, because of this accident, I figured it out instead. He paused for a moment, as if carefully organizing the language: "Any application of new technology has negative effects, from the steam engine to the Internet. If we forbid their application for this reason, what would today's society look like? The crisis brought about by science and technology must be solved by means of science and technology, and today is not the best example? ”
There were some small noises in the audience, as if this statement was unexpected by everyone, which caught many reporters off guard.
"What's more, for the sake of the best thing in your heart, why take some risks?"
The grandfather turned his head to look at his grandmother and suddenly laughed like a child.
END.
| Keywords | #Visiting Family ##Train Accident##Superconducting ##纳米尺度 #
| Author | Liu Yang. A ph.D. in physics in the three-dimensional universe, who studies two-dimensional quantum materials, and is also a one-dimensional science fiction writer - as soon as science fiction is written, the surrounding space does not exist, leaving only the axis of time. Columnist for The Non-Existent Daily, university teacher, has published short story collections "Perfect Doomsday" and "The Hive." Works such as Pythagorean and Single Hole Diffraction have been translated into English and published in magazines such as Clarkesworld and Pathlight.
What is the "Sci-Fi Spring Festival Gala"?
In 2018, "Non-existent Daily" held the third "Science Fiction Spring Festival Gala", inviting 21 top science fiction creators at home and abroad to bring together their respective timelines with the theme of "Spring Festival approaching, Beijing West Railway Station", creating science fiction novels or comics of about 5,000 words, presenting 21 familiar or unfamiliar worlds for science fiction fans. At the same time, on @No News Weibo, we will discuss topics and set up forwarding lottery. From the 20th day of the 20th month of the lunar month to the 10th day of the first lunar month (February 5-25), every morning, the science fiction feast of the Spring Festival holiday is presented to all science fiction fans.
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