A Message in a Bottle (Short Story)

You are about to become the most famous, and most infamous, among all of your fellows. You will probably live in interesting times, and be the one to make them interesting. For that, I offer my gravest apologies.

You are probably wondering why this machine works, and how it works. If you are like me, you find the 'why' more interesting.

This is a question to which my answer will probably not be satisfactory. I can say that I wanted very badly for this machine to work. I can say that this machine is part of the universe in a way, and with a completeness, that most other things are not. If the one did not work, the other would not work either. The fact that you understand the machine on some level, and comprehend it to some degree, proves that both work. There are some details I find no benefit to chasing after; were I in your place, this would be one of those.

You may also be wondering who I am. To this, I can provide an answer that may be satisfactory. I have no name, but if you would accept a curriculum vitae–

I am the one who created this machine.

In addition to this machine, I also created a perimeter of receptor-transmitter devices to detect most of the plausible forms of long-distance communication between sentients. This was the easiest part, so I did it first. It is, however, far simpler to allow possibilities than account for them. Thus, there remains a chance that there are fellow sentients somewhere, which were not detected.

If you are like me, you will think this a possibility worth investigating. If you are not like me...then you must be especially fascinating.

Once the receptor-transmitter devices detected your civilization communicating, the machine would have taken a place in close proximity to your civilization. It would not simply appear to any one or all of you, of course; there is no sense in making this sort of contact with incurious species, one which would not go to some length to investigate the surroundings in its close proximity. Once found, of course, it will do what it does, as it is doing right now, but you know that.

This machine was more difficult, more complex than the detection devices supporting it. This, I made second.

The third part, you must know a little something about, as you have found the machine. The third part is everything else. If you are like me, you would have stories which speculate as to how the physical world, and the life therein, came to be. If everything else worked as I have planned, there might be many, with many stories, who speculate differently, with different stories. In stories, everything that is may have taken the lifetime of lifetimes, or only the space of a breath, to bring into being. Perhaps the storytellers have even speculated as to whether we are nearer the beginning than the end.

If you have such stories, then you are curious, and I would be happy to indulge your curiosity. To build the physical world was exacting, but not arduous. There was first the matter of matter, and of its opposite. It was not so simple to bring one about without the other, and once they were both present, neither wished to remain. You may, perhaps, have been aware of this conundrum; I do not know. The remedy was a very precise combination of dexterity, patience, and clever trickery. I ended up having to do it twice, which might have been frustrating. I suspect, given enough attempts, that I could repeat it again.

With the gross hardware in place, there remained a lot of what you might call fine tuning. The forces needed to be in balance so that atoms would be stable, and so that complex molecules might form, but then also break down. There needed to be a proper concentration of matter within space, so that matter would gather, and then not be too hot or too cold. The distribution of energy on both large and small scales could not be too homogenous or too volatile. There were many similar problems, characterized by the possibility of extremes and by solutions to be found in the middle of those; it would be tedious to list them all now that you have the idea. The attempt was to create an acceptable set of conditions, the consequence of which would be the eventual arising of intelligent life. The fact that you understand this machine on some level, and comprehend it to some degree, proves the attempt a success. I believe I was fortunate to have accomplished this in only two tries.

I guess, if you wished to speak in simple terms, I created you. It would be fairer to us both to say that I gave you an opportunity to exist, which you have taken. That is how I would prefer you tell it. The way I have designed it, life is just something that passes through water, though I suspect that to you it will seem so much more. It often does to me.

I would also be happy to indulge your curiosity as to your place on the timeline, but I'm afraid that question has no intelligible answer. Neither would the question of how long it took to complete the task I have just described. Before the task was completed, there was no time. Since then, there seems to be nothing but.

I am sure that you have many more questions, both personally and as one of your fellows. Those are of your own choosing, individually and collectively, and I cannot predict what they will be, beyond those I have already answered. As a consequence, I cannot have prepared the machine to address them. Please know that if you find a way to ask me those questions, or to answer them, that I will be almost overcome with pride.