Hacking the Substrate

The sky was originally blue.

Well, shit.

Nice job, past me. What shade of blue? Couldn’t you have written down what you did to change it, or at least why it was blue? No, of course not. You were probably so excited to discover that you could engrave notes into the substrate that you typed the first thing that came to mind.

One of these days, I swear I’m going to learn to be less impulsive. You’d think someone with 27 PhDs would have learned a little patience in the—Wait a second. I don’t need to learn anything! I can just alter my brain chemistry.

Shouldn’t take long at all. I’ve read the area of the substrate that encodes information about me front-to-back so many times I could probably do it with my eyes closed.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’m some kind of narcissist admiring his reflection in the substrate. It’s just that whenever I’m having one of those days where I question the nature of existence—when I feel like a tiny insignificant speck in this vast universe—it’s reassuring to know that the substrate doesn’t see me this way. Almost as if reality itself is telling me I’m important enough to remember, that I have a place in the vast scheme of things.

The change I’m imagining is small. Just a slight boost to my serotonin and GABA levels. It’s been years since I studied the brain, but this should be safe. Just type the changes into my computer and the causal transducer will encode them into the substrate. Everything looks good. Applying in 3, 2, 1…

Nothing changed. The computer readout reverted to the previous values.

Curious.

This is the third time the causal transducer failed. Each time, I was trying to change something about myself. Two points do not a line make, but three suggest a pattern.

I’ll have to figure that out later. For now, there’s a sky to fix. I was really hoping that fixing my impulsiveness would take care of the sky at the same time. Now we’re probably stuck with violet summer afternoons forever unless I can figure out what changed.

And who knows what else I screwed up? The sky’s the only thing I left a note about. The world could be completely messed up because I decided to change reality to give myself a girlfriend.

Not that I’ve been successful yet, but can you blame me for trying? Women are awesome. Any straight guy who says he doesn’t want a girlfriend is lying. Hell, I bet most women secretly want a girlfriend on the side. I’ve watched plenty of VTubers, and they all get horny on main for their favorite waifus.

“Horny on main” isn’t cringe yet, is it? Knowing my track record, it probably is. If I could figure out a way to change reality so I was always up-to-date on internet slang, I’d encode it in an instant. But that’s not simple. Change the chemical composition of the atmosphere, and the sky changes color. Simple cause and effect. If I knew what to do to be cool, I wouldn’t have invented a reality-altering machine in the first place.

Right. The sky. Whatever I did to change it, I figured it out on my own, so I can probably figure it out again. Changing the atmospheric composition would have tremendous knock-on effects. Make one mistake, and humans probably wouldn’t even have evolved. Maybe I added an extra layer of sulfates to the stratosphere? But how would I keep them up there?

Maybe I’m thinking about this backwards. Changing the sky itself is way too dangerous. It’s too early for an experiment like that. I’m still figuring out how this works, so I’m limiting myself to small changes. If I didn’t change the sky, I must have changed how we see the sky.

It’s a quick walk down the hall to the advanced lasers lab. No one says anything to me as I snag a pair of UV-blocking goggles. Well, almost no one. Dominique mumbles some kind of greeting I can’t make out. Don’t know why she still tries. Everyone else is intimidated by my winning personality. (lol, I wish.) (Ugh, I really am cringe. What kind of loser uses “lol” in their internal monologues?) I’ve got nothing to gain by being chummy with her.

She even tried to offer me a bag of sour candies from the vending machine. Some kind of excuse about the machine giving her two. Ha! As if. I’ve bought so many of those bags from that machine. I know it would never give extras. What an obvious attempt to bribe me.

Maybe she’s trying to make me forgive her for breaking into my office and rifling through my documents a few years ago. Fat chance. I know she was awarded that grant over me because she got a look at my proposal.

When I say women are awesome, I make an exception for her. I just can’t see her as anything but a bitter rival. Besides, not to be petty, but her thick grandma glasses are a huge turnoff.

Outside, it’s a simple matter to slip the goggles over my eyes and look up at the sky.

It’s blue.

Everyone knows that the human eye has four types of cones: U, S, M, and L. The U-cones allow us to see a ridiculously small range of ultraviolet light. Debating why humans evolved them while Old World monkeys didn’t is a favorite pastime among biologists. No wonder I got so sick of attending biology conferences. I was listening to those blowhards debate my screwup.

It’s easy enough to find the random mutation that created U-cones, but I’ve got no idea what conditions I changed to favor U-cone selection. Well, I’m sure the computer can figure it out. While it’s searching, I should jot down what I’ve learned in the note-taking area of the substrate so this doesn’t happen again.

Theory 1: Changes to reality are global across space and time

Corollary 1a: There will be no evidence of how things were before. No one will notice things have changed, not even the person who made the change.

Corollary 1b: The person who made the change will not remember anything they learned, or anything they thought of, while figuring out how to make the change.

Corollary 1c: Since the substrate defines reality, it exists outside of its confines and can be used to record notes that are unaffected by the change. BEFORE MAKING A CHANGE, ALWAYS EXPLAIN EXACTLY WHAT YOU’RE CHANGING AND HOW TO REVERSE IT.

Theory 2: It’s impossible to make a change unless you can understand how it works.

Corollary 2a: This is self-evident when viewing the nature of the substrate. I wanted to give myself a Ferrari in high school, but there’s no value in the substrate that represents owning a Ferrari. Instead, I identified physical events in the past I could change to make my family rich and make Ferrari to be the only luxury car retailer within a thousand kilometers.

Theory 3: You can’t change details about your own past. This one is not self-evident and requires more rigorous testing. The changes I made to give myself a Ferrari did not stick. Changes to my hair color and brain chemistry also failed.

Corollary 3a: This is why, despite my best efforts, I still don’t have a girlfriend.

Admittedly, not the most professional language, but no one else is ever going to read it. When I finally do get a girlfriend, I’ll take great joy in striking out that last corollary.

Looks like the computer’s finished its work while I was typing. It’s identified two changes that selected for the U-cones. Around the same time as the mutation first occurred, a nearby fig tree underwent a mutation that added a UV pattern to the fruit to make them more appealing to birds. But as a side effect, they became toxic to mammals. Only the humans with U-cones could tell the difference between the different kinds of figs.

Seems reasonable enough, and something that I might think of. It’s also incredibly dangerous. What if I’d accidentally killed one of my ancestors? I really need to figure out a way to cure myself of my impulsive streaks.

That will have to wait for tomorrow, however. It will take the causal transducer hours to encode the necessary changes into the substrate, and my desk clock is telling me it’s already 11 PM. Might as well call it a night.

⁂

The sky was originally blue.

No shit. The sky’s always been blue. Take it from someone with 22 PhDs.

Let me guess, I ran an experiment that changed the color of the sky then reversed it. Better delete this now that it’s all taken care of.

What’s with these theories below that? I don’t remember writing those at all. Smart idea, though. I remember the Ferrari and the hair color failure, but I’ve got no recollection of trying to alter my brain chemistry. That seems extremely dangerous. I must have been trying some really desperate things to fix the sky color.

I’m going to really enjoy striking out that Corollary 3a someday. Hopefully sooner than later.

I’ve got nothing scheduled for today. Seems like a good opportunity to test that third theory. After all, if I’m ever going to achieve my goal, I’ll need to figure out a way to make myself more attractive to the ladies.

Maybe I should start with my body odor. I’ve never smelled like roses, but deodorant gives me a rash. On hot days like this, it bothers even me.

There’s a famous gene with a variant that reduces odor, but editing my genes seems like a drastic measure. I could start with something smaller, like changing the bacteria on my skin, but that’s a change that would affect more than just me. Screw it, if I’m right about my theory, the change won’t take anyway. Let me just make a note that I’m switching my ABCC11 gene to the odorless variant. Then enter the changes and…

Yup, still smelly. The substrate rejected my change. Or rather, my changes to the substrate were rejected. The substrate itself doesn’t have anything resembling agency.

That’s more evidence in support of the third theory, but I still don’t understand why it works that way. Everything else about the substrate is systematic and straightforward. What system prevents me from changing myself?

Technically, I’ve only tested changes that would be beneficial to myself. It would be utterly bizarre if I could make changes that disadvantaged me, but for completeness’ sake, I should try to make myself smell worse. Increasing my apocrine secretion is a bit more involved than swapping ABCC11, but I wouldn’t have 33 PhDs if I weren’t able to adapt on the fly. Should only take a few minutes to figure this one out.

⁂

PU! I know I’ve always smelled like a skunk with its scent gland removed, but today really takes the cake. Must be getting worse as I age. I’d use the causal transducer to fix it, but that damn third theory prevents me from making changes to myself.

Nothing for it but to soldier on. My schedule’s clear today, so maybe I can come up with something to deal with the smell. What’s this? “Increased apocrine secretions by enlarging…”

No kidding. So theory three isn’t accurate after all? Well, I suppose that’s good. If I can figure out what’s preventing me from making certain changes, I can probably figure out how to work around it. Let’s just hope it doesn’t prevent me from changing back.

⁂

As far as I can tell, there’s no pattern. I can make myself smell worse, and I can reverse that change to the baseline, but I can’t make myself smell better than I did originally. On the other hand, I can cure my bald spot and my carpal tunnel, so it is possible to make some positive changes in my life.

According to these notes, I’ve made eight changes today. Three were beneficial; the other five were harmful but were quickly reverted.

Reading the notes feels strange. I have no memory of writing any of them, but they’re obviously in my voice. What takes the cake, though, is the photo I attached of my bald spot, just to prove it exists. It’s like looking at an entirely different me.

Hold on, in the photo, my desk clock says it’s 9:02 AM. But I was in a department meeting at nine, trying not to stare at my reflection in Dominique’s stupid sexy glasses. There’s no way I could have been in here fixing my bald spot.

So what does that mean? Changing my bald spot also changed my schedule? I guess that’s possible. Some kind of butterfly effect thing.

There could be another explanation. No one remembers changes caused by the causal transducer. It’s like things have always been that way. But if they had, then I’d have no reason to use the transducer to make that change. I should note this down.

Corollary 1d: After altering the substrate using the causal transducer, reality changes so that the causal transducer never made the change. Every successful activation of the transducer is the first successful activation.

But if that were true, then I should be able to perform an unlimited number of experiments in a limited period of time. If I change my bald spot at 9:02 AM in reality A, then by the time I reach 9:02 AM in reality B, I’ll have no need to mess with my hair. Instead, I’ll work on my carpal tunnel.

Everything should happen simultaneously. I should have a girlfriend by now. But it didn’t, and I don’t.

Is reality changing so that the transducer always activates later in time than its last successful activation? Today, it was the meeting. A couple days ago, it was the unexpected power outage. But the implications would be… I need to test this immediately.

⁂

Once I started including timestamps in my notes, it became obvious that each activation of the causal transducer occurs later in time than the last. I’ve tried everything I could to disprove it. Now I’m about to do something drastic. If this doesn’t work, nothing will.

Sure, why not? After being stuck in traffic for literally ten hours, this is what I read when I finally make it to the office? Reality’s really kicking me while I’m down. I’m responsible for all the delays? Really? The years of failed experiments, the fire that burned down the lab, all of it because I changed conditions so the lab was established five years earlier?

Well, I can’t really blame myself. Even now, I don’t want to believe it. But a good scientist never shies away from their measurements.

Guess I’ll add this to the rules. Let’s see, where would be the best spot? A corollary for theory three? No, they’re both related to time, but “you can’t change details about your own past” is more about the actual changes than the timing of them. Besides, that’s wrong too. I’ll need to rewrite that theory next. I guess I’ll stuff it into theory one, even though it’s getting a bit crowded with all those corollaries.

Corollary 1e: Time doesn’t exist. There is no past, only the present. Or maybe it’s impossible to use the causal transducer to send information into the past. Either way, every successful activation of the transducer happens at a later date than in the previous reality.

Corollary 1f: If reality changes enough, I might not remember writing these notes at all.

I need a minute. My hands are still shaking after writing that down. The substrate works on cause and effect, but time may not exist. I don’t understand nearly as much as I thought, but here I am rewriting reality on a regular basis. Just goes to show you can be a genius with 46 PhDs and still know very little.

OK, deep breath. I’ll rewrite theory three and then go get a drink. Or two. Or ten. I need them.

What the hell? That’s not what was written just a few minutes ago.

Theory 3: You cannot make changes that result in a paradox across realities. If you try to make a change that would result in you never being born, it won’t stick because if you weren’t born, you could never make the change in the first place.

That makes perfect sense. I couldn’t make myself smell better or give myself a Ferrari because those changes would bag me a girl. And if I had a girlfriend, I’d never invent the causal transducer. At the same time, it makes no sense at all. If every activation of the transducer is the first activation in that reality, then what does it matter if I survive to create it?

There must be more to the substrate than I realize. Maybe the transducer can only view the substrate as it is now, but its current state depends on its previous state.

A fascinating discovery to be sure, but there’s a more pressing question to deal with first: How did the theory change? Since I don’t remember writing that, it must have been part of my thought process when altering the substrate. But it hasn’t even been five minutes, and I didn’t leave a note of what I was changing. Even in an emergency, it’s hard to see how I could work that fast. Given what I now know about how the transducer interacts with time, it should be impossible.

Unless I didn’t write it.

But that’s impossible unless someone else knows about the substrate. Someone else has the power to rewrite reality.

Who are you?

Stupid. Stupid. Why did I even write that? Anyone intelligent enough to discover the substrate would have to be well-versed in game theory. They’d know that I could erase them from existence, and they me. The only sensible play is to strike first. It’s not a matter of ethics at that point. It’s a matter of survival.

Maybe I thought too highly of them. They’re replying.

Why did you name it the causal transducer? That’s so cringe.

I knew it! I am cringe. More importantly, I still exist. I may not know who they are, but they obviously don’t know who I am either. It’s now a literal death race. The first to unmask the other survives.

This is not what I signed up for. I don’t want to kill anyone: I just want a girlfriend. Then again, who knows how many people I may have accidentally erased already? No, more than that. People could have died because of the changes I made, and I’d be none the wiser.

Still, it’s not like this is the first time my actions caused death. I drive my car to work every day, and that contributes to global warming. Heck, the smog from my vehicle might end up choking some asthmatic kid to death. And don’t get me started on all the sweatshop laborers worked into an early grave so I can buy inexpensive clothes.

Ironic that I should lament reality when I have the power to change it, but there’s no fixing this problem. We’ve exploited others for our own comfort since the dawn of our species, and we’ll continue to do so until we go extinct. To change that would make us something other than human.

To live is to kill others, but I’d rather not do it with my own hands.

If I could take it all back, I would, but that damn third theory prevents me from doing so. My only option is to limit the damage to just one person. If I get rid of them, I can erase my notes, and then anyone who discovers the substrate in the future will think they’re the first.

Assuming it is just one person, that is. Maybe there are dozens of other physicists shaking their heads at how dumb I was to leave public evidence of my actions. Could be hundreds, even! It’s like the Fermi paradox. I’m unlikely to be the first.

Actually, I’m pretty likely to be the first. The causal transducer (which is not a cringe name, thank you very much) is built using materials that we hadn’t discovered until a few years ago, and I searched the substrate high and low and couldn't find any evidence of intelligent extraterrestrial life.

It must be one of my contemporaries in advanced physics. To be safe, I could eliminate them all, or at least send them down different paths in life, but that would set back scientific progress considerably. Without their papers, I probably never would have invented the causal transducer in the first place. Getting rid of all of them would create a theory three-violating paradox.

Besides, how would I get all of them without the other reality-changer catching on? They can read my notes in the substrate. If I encrypted them, there’s no guarantee my private key would remain the same in the next reality. Whatever I do, I can only afford to change reality once. I have to guess right the first time.

After collaborating on so many papers, turning the end of a text document into an ad hoc chat room has become second nature to me. Obviously, whoever’s on the other end is comfortable with it as well. That doesn’t actually tell me much. Anyone who could invent a causal transducer would have to be in a similar life situation. But maybe I can use this to lure them into a sense of familiarity and get them to slip up.

What do you call it then?

The destiny engine.

And you think I’m cringe?

It’s catchy and marketable. Not that I’m going to market it to anyone. Could you imagine what a government would do with this?

All too easily, and I don’t like it. At least this person has some sense. Maybe I can use that against them.

I worry about that all the time. We should team up to prevent that from happening.

No need. We’re the only ones who understand the fundamentals. No one else has any idea the substrate even exists.

Really? Did you alter reality to make sure of that?

No response to that, huh? If they’re so confident that no one else knows, then they must have discovered some way to pull that data from the substrate. Didn’t matter whether or not they threw others off the track. Either they’re bluffing, or they know who I am but haven’t come after me.

Maybe because they can’t come after me.

Publish or perish is the law of the land in academia. You can’t earn 55 PhDs without publishing hundreds of papers. If this person only developed their own causal transducer after reading my work, theory three would prevent them from taking me out.

They even used the term substrate, even though they named their transducer something cringe. It’s unlikely we would have come up with the same name independently, but I used the term in my most recent paper.

If they’re relying on my research, they can’t kill me in the past or set my life on a different trajectory without causing a paradox. But can I really bet my life on that hunch? Besides, that couldn’t stop them from killing me in the present. Just alter the substrate so I have a heart attack or a stroke. I’m on borrowed time. I need to get them to slip up.

What kinds of experiments did you run to figure out that you can’t create paradoxes?

Hopefully they’ll take the bait again and it will distract them long enough so I can make a change. If I’m right about them needing my research to create their own transducer, I can win by preventing those papers from being published in the first place.

Honestly, I chickened out. I tried to change my past so I never built a destiny engine. It should have worked. Since the engine would never have been activated in the new universe, there would be no paradox. But reality refused to change. That’s when I realized that I’d been thinking of the substrate like it was a page full of text. Flat, 2D. But that’s just the projection of the substrate that we can see from our reality.

Of course! Why didn’t I realize that? This might end up working out well for me. I can remove them as a threat without killing anyone, and their insight will be preserved forever in these notes.

I can’t risk noting down what I’m about to change, so there’s a good chance I won’t remember any of this afterward. I’ll only have one shot to get this right.

But if I am right, this might be unnecessary. If they can’t erase me, there’s no reason to go through with this. And it will have serious repercussions on my career in the new timeline. I need to make a guess, and I need to make it now. If I get it wrong, the result will be disastrous.

I answered your question. Now you answer mine. Why did you try to change your brain chemistry? Trying to fix your bad personality?

Welp, that’s a strong signal that they know who I am. Or at least suspect it. Sorry, me in the next reality. I know this’ll be rough on you, but it’s the only way for us to survive.

⁂

Why didn’t I think of it sooner? The substrate exists outside reality. If I can somehow store information within it, I can communicate across realities. Once I have proof, they’ll have to publish this paper. My quasi-banishment from the scientific world will be over.

The trick is, I need to find a way to write to the substrate without altering reality. Luckily, I’ve got a good idea where I can find one. Although the substrate isn’t a physical object, if you imagine it as a piece of paper, the back should be blank. That is, assuming there’s not some kind of alternate reality on the back. Wouldn’t that be a discovery! All I have to do is tweak the parameters of the causal transducer and…

There is something on the back! But it’s not another reality. Someone wrote notes on the back, in English to boot. Let’s see here. Theories, corollaries… Ah, I wrote these notes. I’m going to really enjoy striking out that Corollary 3a some day.

After that, there are some notes from previous experiments. Wow, I really tried a lot, but somehow, I’m no closer to bagging a girlfriend. Maybe it’s not possible. Huh, turns out that activating the transducer happens later in time in each reality.

Could that be the cause of all my setbacks in this reality? It would certainly make sense that reality itself was conspiring to delay me from altering it if that were the case. But that means, if I keep using the transducer, my subsequent realities will just get worse and worse.

Hold on, there’s more. It looks like an impromptu chat room. That’s weird. Who the hell chats in a text document? There are a million better ways to do it. Maybe messaging apps weren’t invented in the last reality.

That I was chatting with anyone at all is frightening. It means someone else built one, but I don’t know who. Reading between the lines, it must have been a game of cat and mouse. The first to unmask the other’s identity got to write the other out of existence.

Obviously, I won. From just those few lines of text, I’m not sure how I figured it out, but if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here now.

Guess that makes me a murderer. Why am I not surprised by that? Probably because I already knew I had it in me. You don’t come back from a plagiarism scandal of that magnitude and manage to earn a PhD unless you have the tenacity and determination to do what’s necessary. I should probably feel worse about it, but I’m mostly glad to still be alive.

And if I want to stay alive, I should stop messing with this stuff. I might not be as lucky the next time someone finds these notes. Besides, if changing reality keeps messing up my life, it’s not worth it.

Time to delete these notes and dismantle the transducer. No, that doesn’t go far enough. If I leave the pieces lying around, someone else could study them, possibly build a new transducer. I need to destroy it completely, without drawing attention to myself.

Luckily, the device itself is no larger than my fist. I should be able to sneak it out without my labmates noticing.

I can feel Dominique’s eyes on me as I slip it into my bag, but what else is new? She’s probably watching for another opportunity to rifle through my notes. It’s too bad I couldn’t change reality to be non-hypocritical. Seriously, I got falsely accused of plagiarism, and it ruined my career, but she actually ripped me off and was rewarded with a grant.

Whatever. For all I know, that’s my fault, too. Now that I think about it, it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that the me in the last reality could have arranged it so I could never get published so no one else could ever figure out how to build a causal transducer. It’s easier than murder.

At least no one else pays me any mind as I leave the office and get into my car. I’m skipping out of work without an excuse, but they’re probably relieved to see the back of me.

Traffic’s light for this time of day—too light. Shit, it’s that time of the year. Did I forget to check the weather forecast again? Must have, because there’s a magnetite cloud moving in. I’m glad I got my car re-sealed the other day. Better pull over though, just to be safe.

Good thing I did. This storm is thicker than pitch. It’s like I’m being encased in iron. Can’t see anything around me, except for a dark silhouette stumbling in my direction. As much as I want to be alone to think right now, I’m not so heartless as to leave someone out in that.

“Dominique? What are you doing out in—”

She’s got a gun! Her hand is trembling so hard that it almost looks like she’s trying to shake off the bits of magnetite clinging to it. She obviously doesn’t want to do this, but she’s desperate.

“Put the gun down. If you’re after my research that badly, there’s no need—”

“You found the notes in the substrate.”

So she was the other person from the chat. If the previous me had attempted to keep the knowledge to myself by preventing my papers from being published, I failed. Dominique just stole the research anyway.

“If you shoot me, they’ll catch you. Don’t throw your life away.”

“I’d rather do time than let you erase my existence.”

Her voice is quiet. She doesn’t sound sure of herself. I can still get out of this.

“I’m not going to do that. I was on my way to destroy the transducer. I don’t want anything to do with this anymore.”

“I wish I could trust you. Even if you destroy this one, you could always create another. Why did it have to be you? Why couldn’t it have been Francine? Or Vivek?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I… created the destiny engine because I wanted you to like me.”

That’s too funny. All this time, Dominique actually liked me? She sure had a funny way of showing it. Then again, anyone actually interested in an asshole like me probably has a few screws loose.

Has she always looked like that? Round cheeks dappled with cute freckles. Shapely curves obscured by a lab coat. She would probably have smelled nice if she weren’t covered in bits of iron. And don’t get me started about those sexy glasses.

“I only created the causal transducer because I wanted a girlfriend!”

That’s the first time I ever saw her blink in surprise. The way her eyelashes flutter is cute.

“Then… will you go out with me?”