This Blue Ball | Page 8

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 key of at least 1024 bits in PGP-encrypted message. (Assume that this is not perfect protection, so be discrete about your personal details.) I highly recommend that you send this message through an anonymizer or from a temporary third location, for your own safety, but your life is ultimately your own. My response will appear in the same newsgroup, if it