Time to Decide.

when you live half your life enclosed in a spacecraft you find that things like jet lag aren't so much of a problem anymore.

Take for instance, the way a person may feel when up at the north pole of a planet. Some people are often a bit put off by the long days or nights.

Myself, I found a nice little planet that has a perfect 90 degree axis to its sun. This allows for this place up north that is always at sunset - or sunrise if you prefer. Great climate: tropical poles.

Lately, I've been preferring the sunset...makes it feel like the party is always just getting started, or that you've always gotten off work just a few hours ago.

I even simulate this time while on the spacecraft.

I find it amazing how many people there are out here. I guess that earth just gives every person that is born a spacecraft. The sheer number of people out here is a testament to that.

I am one of the oldest ones now...at least one of the earliest travelers. I do find people who have been making short hops, and thus have made many more visits that I have yet. These people have already spent their 200 or so years of life running about the near planets.

The roaming charge on these visits is mere decades.

Myself, I've decided to take the half-century jumps. Get further out there, you know. Interstellar travel is a reality, well then lets make it to some stellar distances.

A thousand or so years have passed since I left earth. This current planet is my 20th jump. To bad it's such a dump though. Hell of a way to spend this momentous distance in time.

Well now, its getting time to decide.

I am now nearly 1k light years from Earth. I could head straight back right now and get there 2k years after I left.

Or, I could take another route back and spend my last 100 years enjoying the journey back.

Or, of course, I can just keep on going. I could become one of the explorers. I could forsake anything close to my present world and venture out into the complete unknown.

Of course, with this last option, the chance of going back to Earth approaches zero.

But to see the universe of a million years from now. To see the people - if they are still around (and it looks like they are here to stay).

A person is enshrouded by floating 3-dimensional images.

Suddenly, instantaneously, the images are simply gone and in their place is a simple white message floating in the darkness.

It is a time of thought crime. Neural signals are intercepted by nanites and are actively suppressed by the nanites themselves.

How did they do it? The hackers.

how did they bypass the nanites?

The person can think these thoughts and suddenly the person can read the message.

observation via entangled computers

"There! That's it!"

"How?"

"I placed these two computers in a state where they both watched the same system of particles yet observed different results. The two computers were entangled here in our world, and yet they observe different universes."

"how could you know that?"

"Because, I simply hooked up a camera and caught one screen displaying

the name written on the CD and the other showing the name as different!"

"But which is the real CD's name?"

"Why, they both are."

"But, I mean, If I go over there and actually look, which CD name will I see?"

"Both, probably. I wonder if perhaps I should recommend you don't go over there, actually. You are newly initiated, but perhaps you haven't been told some of the more, er, distressing stories about these experiments."

"Like what?"

"Have you ever said a word over and over and noticed it change into a meaningless sound?"

"I think everyone must have."

"Well, imagine walking into a room and suddenly every 10th word or so sounds like that."

"Please explain this to me, what do you mean 'every 10th word or so sounds like that'?"

"I mean what I said, you will know what this word means, but it will sound different: like a foreign language, evidently. This has happened and apparently, after some time, the words did begin to sound normal again, but every so often a long-unheard word or phrase will be uttered which will again sound meaningless. There are theories about interuniversal transportation, but I'm siding with good old brain damage on this one."

"I think I will stay out of that room and avoid directly observing this entangled system you've got here. Oh, Which way to the exercise room, by the way?"

"Oh, yes. It's right down the grey hall to the left. It's the only door in the hallway, so you shouldn't miss it."

When the freshmen arrived and encountered two doors he found himself clever enough to write the occurrence off as minor hazing and not interdimensional anomalies.