config.body.transition.name: 'fadeInOut' config.body.transition.duration: '300ms' config.style.page.style: 'none' config.footer.left: '' config.footer.right: '{restart link}' -- [align left] # Vision [[Start->Start Left]]You wake up in a hospital room with no memory of how you got there. The room's empty. Through the [[only window->Window]], you see the sky. Rationally, you should be panicking right now, but somehow, you feel calm. Part of you *knows* you're supposed to be in this room, even if you don't know why. There's two tables: [[one by your bed->Bedside]] and [[one across the room->Round]]. A [[closed door->Door]] leads outside the room.There's a window to your left that shows the sky. Upon closer inspection, it's not an actual window: it's a screen showing a picture of the sky. Realistic, but not real. {back link}On the bedside table is a clipboard with your personal information. Your height, weight, eye color, name. The data makes sense, but you don't recognize the name written on the clipboard. Was that supposed to be you? {back link}There's a round table across your bed. On it is a chessboard with metal pieces, all set up, ready for a game. You don't remember much, but you remember how to play chess, at least. {back link}The door is solid and white. You open the door to see a nurse standing on the other side. "I see you're awake," he says. [["Who are you? Why am I here?"->Door 2]]"Who are you? Why am I here?" "I'll explain everything in a second." The nurse walks to the round table. "Do you want to play a game?" You turn around and slowly walk to the table. The nurse gestures on either side of the board, offering you your choice of color. [["I'll take white, then."->Chess]]"I'll take white, then," you say before seating yourself. You open with e4. "What do you remember?" the nurse asks. The nurse responds with e5. "I remember that I was a college student," you say. "I'm in my fourth year, studying physics. I remember applying for grad school. I remember how to play chess." You respond with d4. [["But I don't remember my name."->Chess 2]]"But I don't remember my name," you continue. "I don't remember anything I've studied. I don't remember [[any family]] or friends." The nurse responds with exd4. "Do you remember anything else?" he asks. "Anything at all?" "Let me guess," you say. "This is some sort of experiment, right?" You respond with c3. "Yes," the nurse says. He produces a [[sheet of paper->Chess 3]] from his uniform and places it in front of you.Running through the word *family* over your head feels like it hits a bump. *Family.* You think again. *Family.* You feel like you could start remembering something if you probed your memory harder, but you're afraid of what you might discover. {back link}It's a contract. It's signed by the same name in the clipboard. You take the contract and scan it. You read that you… or whoever this person is… has signed off most of their memories for the duration of the study. "We're testing one particular interpretation of the many-worlds theory," the nurse says. "Do you remember at least that?" [["I do."->Chess 4]]"I do," you say, "but what about the many-worlds theory?" The nurse responds with dxc3. "When you play chess, have you ever wished you could know what your opponent would respond, before you play the move?" "Yes," you say, "but that's the whole point of analysis. You need to predict what the response would be." "What if your predictions were always accurate?" he asks. [[You capture his pawn with your knight.->Chess 5]]You respond with Nxc3, [[capturing his pawn->Pawn capture]] with your knight. "I don't see where you're going with this," you say. "Why did you decide to capture the pawn with your knight," he asks, "rather than your rook? Why play the knight at all, rather than something like Bc4?" "Hold on a second." [[You touch his kingside bishop.->Chess 6]]The Danish Gambit. You don't remember how you learned it. It's an antiquated opening, rarely played in top-level chess. Although you have a positional advantage, you remember several games where the pawn capture was turned against you. Where did you learn that? Chess club, probably. {back link}"Let me guess," you say, "you were planning to move this bishop to c5." The nurse does so, and smiles. Something's wrong with that smile. Instinctively, you grope your pocket to find a pencil. You take it out and throw it at the nurse. The pencil scatters the metal chess pieces in its flight. The nurse ducks, fails, and falls to the floor. Keys fall out of his uniform. He reaches out to grab them. You kick one of the bishops at him, and the keys spin off. You dash to grab the keys before you [[run out the open door.->Outside 1]]You notice the hallway is empty as you run to the elevator at the end. There's only one button in the front panel, which you press, before seeing its direction: *left*. The elevator doors open as you walk in. You press the button for "floor" C. A small red LED flashes next to a keyhole. Shit. There's lots of keys in this keyring. [[Try the brown one.->Outside Fail]] [[Try the black one.->Outside Fail]] [[Try the silver one.->Outside Fail]] [[Try the gold one.->Outside Fail]] [[Try the one with a red label.->Outside Fail]] [[Try the one with a green label.->Outside 2]] [[Try the one with a blue label.->Outside Fail]]You plunge the key in the keyhole and turn. It doesn't work. In the hallway, you see the nurse walking toward you. You search for a close doors button on the elevator panel. He's halfway there. You find the button. He's getting closer. You press the button over and over, waiting for the doors to close. They begin closing. As it's about to close, you see the nurse's hand go through the opening, holding a taser. The elevator doors open. You see the nurse's smile, and then you see black. [align center] **END**You plunge the key in the keyhole and turn. The LED flashes green. In the hallway, you see the nurse walking toward you. He sees you in the elevator and begins running, but the doors close before he's halfway there. That was close, but you've always known you were [[lucky]] when it came to things like these. The elevator starts moving, as promised, *left*. A few seconds later, the doors open to [[floor C.->C 1]]Lucky. You had a dog named Lucky. Lucky was a dog that… your dad bought. You remember you have a dad. Or, had a dad? Can't think about this too hard; you're running away. {back link}The doors open to a large, dark, room with beige walls, lined with bookshelves and drawers. Reading desks flank the sides of a dim central lamp. One desk has a stack of papers on it—looks like it's been used recently. You search for a light switch, and for a reason you can't explain, the first place you search is near the central lamp. You find a switch near the base that you turn on. They're going to come after you any minute now. How much time do you have? Come to think of it, [[do you even know what the time is?->C 2]]The window in your room showed the sky, but you have the feeling that it wasn't actually daytime. Curiosity gets the better of you, so instead of searching for an exit, you're searching for answers. You push some empty shelves to block the elevator doors, and then start looking. You start with the desk that had the stack of papers on it. You sit down and search through its drawers, looking for a watch, a clock, a smartphone, *something*. On the bottommost drawer is a laptop. [[You open it.->C 3]]You open its lid, place it on the desk, and turn it on. It brings up a login screen, and you don't know the password, but you see the time: six in the evening. More than that, you see the date. The year is two years later than what you remember. Shit. [[How much time did you lose?->C 4]]You go through the stacks of papers on the desk. Most are technical reports, physics papers about high-energy phenomenology and condensed matter, nothing you understand. In between two papers you find a newspaper clipping, with a picture of you. You read the article. The article's about how this person—you, supposedly—was awarded an undergraduate physics research prize, for their work on quasisymmetry. It's dated from two years ago. There's nothing else to get from this desk, so [[you walk around the room.->C 5]]Most of the shelves are empty. The ones that do have books have more obscure physics books. The drawers are filled with records of patients, none of whom you recognize, none of which are you. The records all have newspaper clippings and photos. Oddly enough, the newspaper articles are all from the same date. You go back to the desk to check the article about "you". It's also on the same date. With all of the room searched, and no other information or exits found, the only thing you haven't searched is the laptop. [[You try guessing the password.->C 6]]You start with "password", of course. That's incorrect. The password hint then comes up. The prompt is "if you can't tell two things apart…" [[Try "they're indistinguishable".->C Fail]] [[Try "they might as well be the same".->Laptop 1]] [[Try "then you can't tell them apart".->C Fail]] [[Try "then which is which".->C Fail]]That doesn't work. That's fine. You weren't expecting it to work. The computer locks you out. With nothing else to do, you stare at the clock on the laptop's login screen. Who are all these other patients? What happened in the last two years? What's up with all these newspaper articles? You hear the sound of cracking wood. You turn to the elevator to see that the bookshelves you piled up have been thrown down. Standing in front of the elevator is the nurse and two security guards. Moments after, you see black. [align center] **END**That… worked. You weren't expecting it to work, which is odd, but that worked. You look through the files on the computer and discover that the research project is an attempt to communicate between parallel universes. If two minds in parallel universes become quasisymmetric, then theory predicts that these minds should become indistinguishable. This "synchronization" of minds can then be used to transmit information between two universes, as the thoughts of these two minds would then proceed in the same way. The plan was to create quasisymmetry through amnesia. That explains the [[memory loss]]: if two minds remember making different decisions, then they'd be too different. That also explains why you'd sign up for something like this, as a physics student in the field. [[On the other hand…->Laptop 2]]You wouldn't have agreed to something so drastic if it wasn't something you wanted. Why would you want to forget about your dad? Or Lucky? Chess? Scrapbooks? Random words, no connections. You want to know. {back link}On the other hand, you know that amnesia isn't enough. The two minds need to be similar not only in their mental state, but physical configuration. In fact, that's more important than the mental state for invoking quasisymmetry properly. The question is now: is there a universe where you're seated on the table across from you? [[Yes.->Sync 1]]Yes. There they are, right now, in as much as there can be a *now*. You try self-synchronizing. Think of a number… [[One.->Sync Fail]] [[Two.->Sync Fail]] [[Three.->Sync Fail]] [[Four.->Sync Fail]] [[Five.->Sync Fail]] [[Six.->Sync Fail]] [[Seven.->Sync Fail]] [[Eight.->Sync Fail]] [[Nine.->Sync Fail]] [[Ten.->Sync 2]]No, that didn't work. Your head aches, and your vision starts to blur. You hear an elevator ding, the sound of bookshelves crashing, and a whirring, buzzing sound. The next thing you see is black. [align center] **END**Ten. Yes, that's the right number. Or perhaps, the *left* number? You don't know what their universe's chirality is with respect to yours, but due to quasisymmetry they're either the same or mirrored. Your turn to transmit. Think of a number… two. [[Did they get it?->Sync 3]]Yes. That's good. One-in-a-hundred chance of coincidence now. You know you could repeat the experiment if you wanted more confidence, but you're convinced. Your vision begins to swim. You see yourself sitting on the opposite table. You see yourself sitting on the table you are now. You see someone else sitting on the table you're sitting on, right now—the same nurse that visited your room earlier. You see the nurse holding the newspaper clipping about you. You remember, but it's not quite your memory, the nurse explaining that the article was published a month ago. [[Then, you fall over.->Sync 4]]"Oh shit," you hear. It's the nurse's voice, but it's quiet. "Are you okay?" You feel like a butcher knife is splitting your brain into halves. A black line cleaves through the center of your vision. The line rips open, filling your vision with black. "No, no I am not okay," you say. "My head hurts. I"m seeing double." You feel your shoulders vibrating, and the nurse's voice, louder this time. "Hello? Hey? Can you hear me?" "Yes, I can hear you!" you hear yourself saying. "I already said I wasn't okay!" "I didn't… what?" The nurse pauses. "Hey! Hey!" [[More knives split your vision.->Sync 5]]The buzzing gets louder. You see more copies of yourself. It starts with four, then twelve, then fifty, possibly hundreds. All here, in this office. Each split making the copies look smaller and smaller, farther and farther away. One copy stands out. They look like a five-year-old version of you, with their back turned against you. [[You walk towards them.->Sync 6]]You draw closer. You see that they're sitting behind a table, the one you were just looking at. You come closer and see that they're playing a game of chess, playing against someone older. Sitting next to the board is a sleeping dog. Their opponent, your opponent, pats the dog's head gently. The closer you get, the more details of his face that you see. A double chin, a light stubble, square glasses, graying hair. You see the board. It's the Danish Gambit. They're about to… you're about to [[move your bishop->End 1]].You focus. You see through their eyes, the eyes of five-year-old you. Your eyes are only a few inches above the surface of the table. The chess pieces look taller, much taller than you remember. You watch yourself lose the game, your positional advantage quickly disappearing, as your opponent deftly converted his material lead to a win. You both laugh. He stands up, and you do too, [[and you give him a hug->End 2]]."You must be so tired," he says. You are. "I need to go," he says. "Go to sleep, okay?" [[A knife drops.->End 3]]You watch as the knife splits the man in half, one copy going right, another going left. You see yourself walking left, as the right copy disappears. You watch as another knife drops from the sky, splitting yourself in half, again, and again, and again. You keep moving, right, left, right. You see thousands upon thousands of copies of yourself pass by. You [[never see the man again->End 4]].The tiny square in your vision, the one you were using to look at yourself, fades to black. You feel like you lost. *One more chance,* you tell yourself. This time, you'll find the winning path. You'll do things differently this time. Cooperate. Trust the nurse. It'll be different. *One more chance.* You turn around and see the nurse. He sighs. He whispers something you can't make out. You see him pull out a taser, and you don't resist. [align center] **END**