SHIP'S LOG:

The Mephitis

Doctor Argosa 2/24/2023 11:59pm

SUBJECT: @Captain Pirate IX

The subject sits on his cot reading a book. Later, he will likely spend an hour stretching and working out on the exercise bike, then prepare a small microwave dinner in the kitchenette.

Viewing hours end at 8pm, at which time the CCTV screen is deactivated, and the subject leaves the small cell to return to his family for the night.

This is because the subject in the mock Droste containment chamber is not Captain Pirate IX. Naturally, no one can view Captain Pirate IX without being subject to the Droste Effect, contained and controlled as it is in the real Droste containment chamber. This subject is on display for informational purposes only.

The real Captain Pirate IX exists in concrete constraints at the center of the real Droste containment chamber, straining against the maddening effects of his eigenstate looping at the speed of thought from one reality to another and back again to ours, spinning, spinning, jiggling in a bottle like a radioactive jumping bean, the fulcrum point of the grinding crush where realities meet, allowing us to generate enormous amounts of power.

Or at least that's how he was described, in the original blueprints. Naturally, no one can view Captain Pirate IX without being subject to the Droste Effect. The original engineers sealed themselves within the Droste containment chamber in order to maintain the power couplings, and ensure that Captain Pirate IX remain restrained.

It is believed that continuous exposure to the Droste Effect will leave both Captain Pirate IX and the engineers effectively immortal.

Captain Pirate II 11/21/2022 11:57pm

I was remembering the postcard. Thunderheads over Chichen Itza. Me, in the picture, with the postcard in my hand: THUNDERHEADS OVER CHICHEN ITZA, with a little me you can just see, holding the postcard in my hand... It all still felt like someone else's vacation...

WHAM @Captain Pirate pummeled my face again with his fist.

"This universe just ain't big enough for the both of us!" Captain Pirate cried, wheeling back to take another punch.

"Okay, little buddy, you can take it easy..."

A pair of arms came up from behind Captain Pirate and pinned him in a full nelson. A big guy, with a huge chest and biceps, but looking oddly familiar...

"Captain Pirate V, at your service!" he said. Captain Pirate gave up struggling.

"Ready for those zip ties, Captain Pirate III."

A woman suddenly appeared and zipped Captain Pirate's hands behind his back, then rapidly hog-tied them to his ankles. She could have been my sister.

"Droste Fever," she said. "Don't hold it against him."

Glancing around, I'd lost sight of all the choco lonis and Doctor Argosas in this refracted mirror world. Come to think of it, wasn't I in some kind of flying saucer?

"We'd better get a move on before we attract a crowd. We're mostly good natured, but there's really no end of us who would insist on offering opinions," said the big guy.

"Roger that," said Captain Pirate III. "Preparing for translocation..." she began to fiddle with her bulky watch.

"Where are we headed?" I half mumbled. My face was swelling.

"To liberate Captain Pirate IX! Ready three?"

"Ready five."

"Hit it."

choco loni 8/30/2022 10:06pm

CHOCO LONI’S NUTS

hey check out my nuts. I’m a nutseller. biggest nutseller in the tri-market area, with the biggest selection of nuts in the biggest stalls in the biggest malls in the tri-cities.

this slippery nut will escape the owner’s fingers at a moment of its choosing, when it senses where it needs to go.

the down-down nut, always dancing. if shelled, it floats.

rip-barrier nuts. plant them around your house and disconnect from the eigenstate. sail the seven seas!

now if you’ll excuse me it’s back to my numbnuts. choco loni is old and needs her balms.

Doctor Argosa 6/18/2022 11:54pm

"--and it is at this moment that the wave function collapses and reduces to a single eigenstate. Next slide please."

I take a moment for a drink of water. La Paz is hot this time of year. And this lecture hall is stuffy.

"Now, as you can see in this diagram, this new eigenstate exists in an entirely different universe. But those in the immediate proximity of @Captain Pirate IX during these events actually witness the change, as their own quantum states undergo an abrupt transformation, but retain information--in the form of memories--of the prior eigenstate. This is how scientists were first able to identify and harness Droste Energy, which powers the great cities and standard of living that all of us enjoy today. Any questions?"

My students look as lost and bored as ever.

"Yes, uh, I have a question, @Doctor Argosa!" calls a small voice from the shadows up high in the back. I don't even know their name.

"Katz Spindle, third year, sir."

"Yes Katz. Your question?"

"How do you keep it stable? The source, that is.@Captain Pirate IX. Why aren't we just flipping channels wildly all the time?"

"Ah, excellent question, Katz. You see, unless one is right there to observe the change--to be part of the change--then nothing changes. Everything--all of this--" I gesture across the room and towards the large open windows and the colorful city beyond, "has always been here... had its own history, arrow of time and all that. The rest of us haven't gone anywhere. It's @Captain Pirate IX who's flipping. And that's what provides the power. Like an engine..."

Captain Pirate II 3/22/2022 10:52pm

"Hello again, me!" said @Captain Pirate.

"You! Not again!" I answered. "You were... reset. Reconstituted. You were breaking down -- memory errors."

"Oh come off it. It wasn't because I was broken. It was because I'd SEEN things."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Like them."

Captain Pirate -- my nemesis, my doppelgänger, a dysfunctional version of myself from a prior life -- pointed across the plain white expanse we found ourselves in, and there were @choco loni and @Doctor Argosa, surrounded by more choco lonis and more Doctor Argosas, I, II, III, IV... In fact, it was hard to tell the originals from the--

"There ARE no originals! Don't you see?" said Captain Pirate. "There's an infinite number, probably, of all the different us's out there. And an infinite number of permutations that might call for us."

"But I like my permutation," I said. "Things were just coming along. I was going to be a canned coffee celebrity in Japan!"

"Now that sounds more like it. Just the kind of lifestyle I'm looking for."

"You can't take it. It's mine. I made it. That's why I'm stable -- because in the process of creating that world I became part of it. You... you're nothing but a hijacker! But you don't know how to fly the plane!"

"You have a plane now?"

"Arrrrrrrrrrgh!!!!!!" I cried, and threw myself at Captain Pirate.

choco loni 1/14/2022 11:58pm

the mirrors. the captain's mind. the droste fever. it was all coming back.

my memory stick.

i'd completely forgotten about my memory stick. not since i'd thrown it at @Captain Pirate's head at the height his fever.

it had been in my pocket the entire time.

i loaded it up and aimed for the pinnacle of the spiral. the origin. why were we here again? a relapse of the droste?

i pulled the trigger without thinking. it was more like remembering i pulled the trigger than actually doing it.

the bullet had already been fired.

the bullet had always been fired.

the memory stick hurtled towards the point of the sprial above us. heading closer, heading closer, deeper and deeper into entwined mirror memories of us all.

where did they end?

Doctor Argosa 11/21/2021 11:29pm

The light opened my mind like a hall of mirrors, and I could see myself in all reflections.

"Doctor are you getting this? this? this? this?" the Captain asked. Our reality frame was stuttering, due to the buffering.

My own hall of mirrors stretched before me, most recent moments first, followed by earlier moments, then the earlier moments to those moments, on and on and on, all neatly filed like folders in a filing cabinet. From one perspective it seemed like it must go on for millions of miles, but from another perspective you could see how they were coiled, like movie film, then telescoped out, like a snail's shell, into a kind of cone or paty hat.

"Yep, it's all pretty clear from up here. here. here. here," said the Captain.

"What is it they are looking for, I wonder. wonder. wonder. wonder," I said.

"Perhaps they're looking for the point. point. point. point," said the Captain, pointing his finger at the very pinnacle of the spiral above us. The eye of the storm.

@choco loni was already taking aim.

Captain Pirate II 10/1/2021 11:04pm

"So, it's mighty dark in here..."

Nobody on the crew says a word. We're only lit up by the lights in the control panels.

"I suppose we still can't turn around... @Doctor Argosa?"

The Doctor mumbles something about magnetic bean rays. Also that the large doors that opened to pull us inside the spaceship have just closed.

"Now it's EXTRA dark in here."

Nobody replies.

"Isn't there supposed to be a beam of light or something when you're abducted? Not some big dark garage."

And suddenly, there WAS light. From everywhere. The brightest most intense light I had ever seen.

"Ow! That's bright!"

choco loni 8/18/2021 11:04pm

i had never been near a bullet so large.

the entire saucer was a bullet. i could tell. i know bullets. i sense them. i have a connection. they are sentient, and seek pairing, and companionship. they have a job, and someone to do it for.

whose bullet was this? and what had they sent it to do?

the saucer loomed above us, humming with a green magnetic throb.

the mountain spread beneath us, draped in snow.

the sky blue sky hung behind it all.

a wide door slid open in the saucer above us.

nothing but darkness inside. but immediately i felt the pull.

"Captain, it's pulling us in," said the ensign.

"Fly away!" the captain told him.

but there was no flying away.

this bullet was winning, and i wanted it to win.

Doctor Argosa 7/5/2021 10:23pm

"Yes, absolutely. To the top! Onwards! Towards the caldera!"

After rescuing us in the nick of time, there was some confusion on board The Mephitis as to our next step.

"We've come this far, and look--the Ice Zephyrs are turning away! This is obviously the safest direction."

Looking back down the snowy slopes, the wardens of the Ice Hotels had given up the chase. Their pet Ice Zephyrs had been called back, and their security forces had stopped short of the slippery end of the ice bridge.

Following his near-death experience, the Captain was even more indecisive than usual.

"Well... I dunno..."

The top of Mt. Skell loomed above us. The rim of the caldera beckoned.

"Seems like we've got a clear path if we want to turn around and run," the Captain continued. "Maybe the Paranormal Skyways Authority will cut us a little slack if we don't push it..."

@choco loni looked at me in askance. We both had business at the top of that mountain.

"Uh... sirs?" It was the ensign at the helm. "The situation is developing. Look!"

Out of the caldera, a huge metallic saucer was emerging. It quickly filled the sky above the mountain -- a metallic green dome throbbing light at its base. The air filled with a magnetic hum.