Quantum Times Read Free

showed up so quickly after the annihilation of North and South Korea. Connected or not, that was bizarre! And also of course, the appearance of The Object had caused the whole planet to be shaky, confused, scared, buzzed, distracted, disoriented and a whole lot of other adjectives he could come up with and that was just describing the more sane people of the world! The extremists, the borderline crazies and the real lunatics had gone way over the bend into favorite fantasylands and religious epiphanies and excesses over the idea of extra-terrestrials.
         But overall, he mused, he had to give people credit. After the first few days of emptying out of supermarkets, the Home Depots and Lowes, the gun and ammo shops, and anywhere else survivalist gear could be found, goods and services had again become available. Store inventories had been replenished and he could again find what he needed to eat at the same little groceries he had always shopped at. The lasagna he had just put in his refrigerator was proof of that.
         In fact, life had resumed its normalcy remarkably quickly. At least superficially. Perhaps that was because after its single communication to practically everyone in the world about not firing any more missiles at it, The Object had remained completely silent. It just meandered its way across the skies as predictable now as the Sun or the Moon in their daily paths. The fact that there was no indication at all whether it had arrived with good or evil intent did not seem to matter. People had returned to their day to day existence. Well at least most people. Not all.
         It then occurred to David that perhaps that was not true. Perhaps it was communicating with the Government or several governments? He needed to try to look into that. As he considered that possibility, he rejected it. First because so far everything it had done seemed to maximize its exposure. Secondly, if the government was communicating with The Object, they wouldn’t be able to keep it a secret.
         Right then he heard the sound of a key opening the lock of his front door and as he turned to it, it opened and Gabriela came into the room. Looking a little disheveled as she usually did when returning from Columbia where she was a professor in the Physics Department but still looking great with her jet black hair, tall, trim figure, olive complexion and general Spanish gypsy looks, she tossed her knapsack on the couch and plunked herself down next to it.
         With her typical lack of preamble, she looked at him and said, “It’s making me crazy!”
         “It being The Object, I presume.” David responded.
         “Of course! What else is there now in the world of Physics? “
        David knew what she meant. Physicists were really not happy about The Object. For weeks they had been trying without success to determine how it had arrived undetected by any of the thousands of telescopes that routinely observe all that occurs out in space, telescopes that map star positions, planet orbits or even potential killer asteroids. In the time before the arrival of The Object not one telescope anywhere had picked up anything that could have been The Object traversing the heavens. It just suddenly appeared. The physicists just hated that!
         And right after they finished hating that, they hated that The Object seemed to move all over the place without the apparent exertion of any energy – even when traveling through atmosphere. Laws of Physics were not supposed to be so easily circumvented! Einstein would have hated it too.
         David smiled and said, “I love The Object!”
         Gabriela was not amused, “And why is that?” David’s sense of humor was usually wasted on Gabriela, and frankly on most people. It was usually somewhat self-involved and often more than a little esoteric; still he was popular with people because he was non-judgmental and invariably good humored. And he rarely felt