Tuesday. Some Tuesday. All Tuesdays.
I saw an Era hit Rigor Mortis today. It wasn't a Shattering. It wasn't a war. It was just a Tuesday in a "High-Stability" node the Authority had spent forty years polishing.
I was sitting in this diner, and I realized the waitress had been holding the same pot of coffee for six minutes. She wasn't frozen — her chest was moving — she was just Stiff.
He checked. The historical record for that diner on that day shows normal operations. The record doesn't mention the coffee. I brought an Elasticity instrument. The reading was 0.003. I tipped a glass. It tipped. The difference between Alan Rose and a Loop Authority Auditor is 0.003 units of Elasticity.
The Diagnosis
In biology, Rigor Mortis is the temporary stiffening of muscles after death. In a timeline, it happens when the Causal Elasticity (C) hits zero. The Authority has redacted so many Inconsistencies that there's no room left for choice.
I tried to tip over a glass of water. The glass wouldn't move. Not because it was heavy — because in the "Official History" of that Tuesday, the glass stayed upright.
The glass wouldn't move. I have no instrument reading for this. There is no field in any form I have for "object refused to be knocked over." I wrote it up anyway. My supervisor returned the report with "insufficient evidence" stamped on it. The glass is still upright.
What I Think About Quiet Eras
Peace is just Rigor Mortis with a better soundtrack. I'd rather live in a world that's screaming and bleeding Paradox than one that's so Correct it can't even blink.
You know what C = 0 feels like from the inside? It feels like being underwater. You can see everything. You can hear nothing that matters. You can move, but the water moves with you and nothing changes.
Screaming and bleeding Paradox. He is describing the world I have been trying to prevent and calling it preferable. And the longer I do this work, the more I understand what he means. A world that can scream is a world that is still alive.
NOTE: If I start to get stiff, kid, shoot me. Don't let me become part of the furniture in a perfect world.
[PERSONAL LOG: ALAN ROSE // LEFT ON BARSTOOL IN THE GREY ZONE DINER // The barman filed it with Sector 4 as a standard abandoned-property report. He did not appear to find its contents unusual. He had been serving the same four regulars the same order for eleven years. He did not appear to find that unusual either. — Sector 4 Records Division]
The barman had been serving the same four regulars for eleven years. He filed the log as abandoned property. He did not find any of this unusual. He was already stiff. Alan Rose left his most personal document in the most Rigorized location he could find, on purpose, because he wanted to see if anyone would notice. Nobody did. Except me. I noticed. I don't know if that counts.