This Blue Ball | Page 8

"Hi."
"Hello to you both," replied Gary. His eyes were already drawn to the screen and the
drawing held up almost in his line of sight. Even Gary's dulled and neglected gray mass
was not fooled -- and yet also not to be trusted. In a moment you could tell that this was
not the confluence of an electrical spike with the chaotic breakdown of the monitor. This
was a directed action, etched into a dumb object by a crude and forceful hand. But how?
It was as if an evil villain had directed his electron-beam rifle at this monitor and let fly,
with a laugh both evil and chilling. But there was no such gun, and no such villains to
provide context. The context, if any, had to come from elsewhere: either back to the

random occurrence or to another form of intelligence.
Gary looked at Alice's immense brown eyes, now directed at him. They saw the
confusion and she sensed the alarm in Gary's face. Together they might even have
recognized, if either mind was ready to encompass it, that this was one of those moments
at which reality, subjective reality, forks. An experiential quantum mechanics, if you will:
an experience that by common sense must have a mundane explanation, but which at the
same time does not admit of one. Such an experience is both and neither until the
moment that either outcome establishes itself and your own personal reality is confirmed
or torn apart, depending on which direction you were leaning and on the weight you
applied to your belief.
"That's quite an engraving," he said in an effort to sound nonchalant, going slowly up to
the monitor. Alice wanted to tell him stop and she put out a hand, but she didn't open her
mouth.
Gary put his face up to the monitor. The etching was as regular as if a PhotoShop wand
had drawn it -- a whoosh of an electronic paint spray, with a solid core line and fuzzy
pixilation, dribbling away alongside. There were three distinct areas: one looked a little
like an iconic representation of "the twilight zone," a spring emanating from a point zero
outward; there were two others to the side, one looking like a miniature explosion and the
other like an ocean wave about to strike a shore. That was all, but enough to be
hieroglyphic, not chance, not a blown circuit, not a cosmic accident. That was will.
No. 6 -- The outlines of the action are set, and it is probably time to reflect a bit more on
my place in it. Notwithstanding the speculation of some individuals with too much time
and not enough neural activity -- especially in the amusing "alt.crackpot.thisblueball"
newsgroup and a corresponding Yahoo group that were both recently pointed out to me
by [email protected] -- I am not Gary, nor am I Alice, nor a precocious
Andrew. Of course, Gary isn't Gary, and Alice isn't Alice. No one whom you meet here is
quite who or what I paint him or her to be. I'm sure you understand the need for
discretion. It's not so much to hide from my pursuers, who will regardless recognize the
outlines of this story, inasmuch as they were themselves involved in it. Rather, it's
necessary to fictionalize the story a bit to keep the prying lay public from exercising their
lack of discretion.
Not that I lack mortal concern for the actors whom I bring under the scrutiny of those
who would end this story at any cost. These innocents are protected by one tenuous but
salient fact: if they are killed, this speculative non-fiction becomes eyewitness-news
factual. While my anonymous death could still prevent this story from becoming real for
you all, their deaths would be documented in a way that would statistically and logically
dissipate all traces of the cloud of random occurrence upon which my opponents rely so
firmly. My antagonists understand this -- and they will probably know by now that my
acquaintances are unaware of my whereabouts, do not approve of my actions and want
nothing more than to be free of this legacy. So let us let them be.
Newsboi seems to have no fear in trying to communicate with me openly through various

public forums. If you have an unconquerable need to communicate with me -- if you
cannot be dissuaded by the dangers outlined here -- you may contact me as follows.
Every few days, when I can be contacted, I will post on this website a PGP public key
that you may use to encrypt a message to me. Post your encrypted message without any
other identifying information in either news.test or alt.rec.aliens; don't post it in any other
news group, especially alt.crackpot.thisblueball. Include your own PGP public