Field trips were necessary for me. Lingering for too long up in Gardanne—any more than a full night and day—and every cell of my being became restless. I’d abscond to the movierain, surfing the multiverse.
These 5th-dimensional excursions also proved useful for supplying the city state with everything She’d need to sustain—goods, information, experiences for citizen passengers. But I couldn’t carry the breadth of Gardanners on my back alone.
I called upon the Cheshire crew for assistance.
“It’s funny,” Jacob said. “We went from the UU’s errand boys to Gardanne gofers.”
We went to great lengths liberating the Cheshire from the Universal Union of Planets and Galaxies’ (UU) vice grip on our charts, running to capture precise pinpointed moments in an infinite universe for the bureaucracy. Fool’s errands.
Now I needed the Cheshire crew to put their civil service to practice once again, this time for a better cause: for the city of Gardanne. Their experience was invaluable.
Rolling with certain crew on these field trips always colored our missions respective to the particular bands in that company. Leap with Jacob and Gabe, for instance, would likely take you to Earth_Suburban-like realities. Donna and Edward were always good for Earth_CityFlat destinations that usually yielded advances in our own R&DM Discovery (aka ‘Research & Development of Magic Discovery’).
These were worlds—Earth varietals—that were adjacent to the prime Earth_CityFlat or Earth_Suburban, for instance, but weren’t the de facto planets. We observed and interacted with these offshoots, thus spawning new timelines from the source worlds. On excursions with reduced ripple effects, sometimes the newly spawned worlds would merge with their parent Earth version down the line.
Guillermo was good for jungle Earth excursions and so on. The resonant existences of these refined leapers of dimensions tuned the precise cymatic frequencies for desired Earth destinations. Now, perhaps, you can see why their wisdom was invaluable. (And why it was crucial that Gardanne take advantage of their craft while we still could.)
It helped that I still attended regular Cheshire meetings, while running Gardanne. The Captain cared little for our goings on down there, in a Dew place—in the center of the Earthy Dozen—held in superposition. To the Cap, it was Kitty and my pet project.
I was also finding my time becoming more and more of a premium, with so many concurrent worlds in progress—the Cheshire deck, which tethered to the unstoppable momentum of the UU’s ambition, and the city state of Gardanne, who maintained purview over the 12 Earths that birthed it. It was at this realization that I solicited the aid of some of the Captain’s crew to accomplish my municipal matters.
Requests from the town flooded in, increasing at an exponential rate, once we aired the announcement over Gardanne radio waves. I remember one of the city science labs issued an urgent memo for more intel. This one sticks out in my mind because they had been researching the development of the next logical and possible shells a human soul could enter when achieving higher consciousness. The public records published on any related matters were incomplete. Earth_CityFlat–adjacent Earths contained the most advanced records, but to continue their research, the scientists required in-depth and intimate reconnaissance from the ground. Down on Earth_CityFlats. I took Donna and Edward with me, once we received blessing from Cap. They were the perfect two to blend scientific matters with the higher self of the soul. CityFlat was also their home world.
In the midst of these interdimensional field trips, I made two realizations:
- Donna and Edward’s help was not “nice to have” aid. We needed it. I couldn’t be the only Gardanner who could leap off world to recover the necessary supplies or intel. I’d need help from the Cheshire crew.
- When the demand for our interdimensional craft exceeded even the abilities of this Thunderbird, Kitty and the rest of the Cheshire crew, we’d need to conduct training classes in town. Perhaps we could introduce a course at the Gardanne University called “Navigating the Dew of Earth versions for safe return Home to Gardanne.”
We issued an ad in the Register‘s Discovery section for citizens to join the course wait list. The response would gauge public interest of this particular curriculum. Demand was higher than expected, as hundreds of submissions flooded into the University’s front office.
The town first launched with everyone aware of extraterrestrial origins. They knew they weren’t from Gardanne, however long they ended up staying. But the long-term goal of the place was to house inhabitants who did not feel held back by their origin planets. Future generations might even forget their earthly lineage.
But I did not want to hold people there by some mysterious amnesia. They had the right to return to any of the subplanet Earths—a dozen droplet worlds flung along the movierain in a torus pattern that provided the surrounding border around our bootstrapped Dew place in Gardanne. I would not let them succumb to the shrouded captivity that so many unassuming Earth dwellers faced each day they awoke on the ground, ignorant to their ubiquitous, inescapable prison.
It was easier said than done teaching the most homesick of early Gardanners to bend spacetime toward one of their desired Earth versions down below. These weren’t Thunderbirds.
We met on the rooftop of the towering, slender pyramid in the city’s center. It stood as a distinct apex in the city skyline. The Cheshire crew, dropping in from the movierain—an orb-like electrical storm spontaneously opened the sky and several Cheshire crew would descend from these reality fabric rifts to the city summit. They rendezvoused with those Gardanne citizens who scored highest in the first of the University’s dimension-leaping courses to accompany them to the desired Earth varietals of lower frequencies. All passengers carried a CVS receipt–length list of items and intel to capture. Not every citizen was qualified for these extra-dimensional excursions, but could get by with a little help from their friends nominated to rendezvous on the rooftop.
Kitty and I waited for these crowds to disperse—leaping back up to the movierain. I had kept it a secret, thus far, that I, Bill Thunderbird, was also the Big Cat. So I’d always wear my helmet when dropping into these rooftop rendezvous. The whole of Gardanne just thought Kitty had an inside track with the Big Cat. We’d leverage this privileged information as an opportunity for the two of us to take our scout ship Eagle Eye Victor (EEV) to the local atmosphere of Earth_42, when neither of us were assigned to chauffeur passengers to other Earth varietals.
I had no higher reason than to pay homage and respect to Earth_42’s magnificence. But the civilization I had left was far from perfect. It had incurred a lot of problems over the millennia, descending from unknown perhaps just as problematic peoples eons before them. Those who accompanied me on these reboots had one thing in common: finding ways to salvage this fragile anomaly. My theory held that getting to the root of who or what humanity truly was would be the start—an end to the beginning. Probing further and further into the past revealed the cause of symptoms that emerged much later in ’42’s history. Understanding how these things began helped to break civilization free from perpetuating their cyclical effects, doomed to repeat if not illuminated.
Sometimes it felt ironic to concentrate so intently on only one Earth version—’42—when Kitty and I held the expanse of the entire multiverse in our palms. But the innumerable events flowing from ’42’s evolving history poured plentiful rivers for us to explore.
Piloting Victor as the cursor to Earth_42 also provided us the perfect scouting opportunity for collecting artifacts. Our favorite era, thus far, was the planet’s mid-1980s. We pulled the best vinyl, cassette tapes, films on VHS, clothes, Walkmen, Trapper Keepers, Game Boys and other integral 1980’s accouterment onto the trans-dimensional freighters that would ship these vintage goods from the sea, down the Gardanne River, and into port. Upon return, we flooded Gardanne’s airwaves with 1980’s sitcoms and movies, in between terrestrial radio and live television broadcasts. The gestalt of these distinct objects created the desired vibe and tone for our inspiration. If only Cher could see Gardanne now. You can turn back time.
Earth_42 became the rubric by which we interpreted all other Earths. A most pivotal moment in the planet’s history was the arrival of 3I/ATLAS, an extraterrestrial craft that had entered our solar system and was fast approaching ’42 in the fall of 2025. While Gardanners and Cheshire crew went on their field trips to other Earths, Kitty and I took the EEV scout craft near ’42’s surface. Citywide goals, like investigating methods to improve Earth_42’s quality of life, united the entire city state under a singular objective. We often boosted a few of these concurrent initiatives.
We bent spacetime around the curvature of this Earth. I let Kitty take the wheel, as I surfed in EEV’s wake, skimming the planetary surface. The tandem effort of birdcraft and piloting EEV provided torrents of intel collected as I swirled patterns around the spacecraft, corralling the billions of hearts and minds contemplating what this alien spaceship, 3I/ATLAS, would mean for the current population. The collective consciousness formed a vortex that we funneled into EEV’s hard disks for eventual decompression and interpretation upon returning to Gardanne.
Humanity’s collective response spanned the spectrum between spirituality, science, politics, economics and war. Spiritualists considered the arrival of 3I/ATLAS as an awakening in consciousness. Scientists observed the celestial body as a comet. Politicians and those tied to the then almighty capitalism that controlled Earth_42’s society largely ignored its presence, doubling down on maintaining control of their peoples. Military personnel took precautionary measures to shoot the mysterious, interstellar comet down, should it pose a threat.
Returning to Gardanne, Kitty and I fed the torrents of intel collected into our databases for future decyphering. Though we had the entire Earths Akashic of past and future at our disposal, it was still quite exciting to capture the plethora of current activity in real time. At no other point in recorded history of Earth_42’s modern era had we experienced such a pivotal moment, where more timelines than ever were possible.
That said, Kitty, myself and other Gardanners considered how to guide Her (Earth_42) along at this fragile opportunity to heighten planetary consciousness.
Headline: “Gardanners pore through Earths histories to help ’42’s large disparity in wealth in 2025”
Story: EARTH_42 — Older Gardanners may have forgotten what it’s like to work for a paycheck. Capitalism. Quid pro quo. Motivation on such terrestrial Earths as ’42 largely derives from the necessity to pay rent or a mortgage.
In 2025, more billionaires than ever ran the planet. They vied to control every aspect of society—media, commerce, real estate, politics. Earth_42’s history implicates these tactics as the blueprint for dictators, who’ve maintained control and power by holding a vice grip on these functional aspects of civilization.
In response, Gardanners have descended like guardian angels to the hearts and minds of Earth_42 inhabitants. They’ve entered their dreams and planted the idea to rack the public focus upon the accountability of these billionaires. How can these obnoxiously wealthy men and women sleep at night with the knowledge that hundreds of millions of their fellow people struggle under poverty?
While Gardanne can’t intervene directly, our hope is that, over time, the zeitgeist, the general sentiment will shift from the select, undeserving few back to the masses.
To elevate consciousness on Earth_42, first we have to level the playing field.
The Cheshire crew–fueled field trips ended one evening, when Jacob pulled me aside on our rooftop landing pad. We had just completed several Earths runs, dropped off the citizens. The artifacts collected from all 3-dimensional places had been loaded on the cargo ships, elevated to the seventh dimension and sailed through the Gardanne River, ultimately landing in city ports on the other side of town.
As longshoremen unloaded the commodities to supply our city state, Jacob and I remained atop the city’s tallest building.
“The Cheshire just received word that the UU no longer requires our civil service,” he said. “We’re deploying to a far edge of the known universe tomorrow.”
“No more Earth leaps for Gardanne, I’m guessing,” I said.
“Yup.”
“Well, I can’t thank you enough for your service to our little slice of the multiverse here,” I said.
“We’ll drop you a line, once we’re settled.”
And, like that, the Cheshire left local Earths spacetime. Kitty and I were sure to detach our respective Drops from the large, interdimensional craft’s hull. We reattached to two carefully placed hitching points on the bottom of Eagle Eye Victor’s outer façade, complete with trap doors leading into the scout ship’s lower cabin.
Inside my Drop, and as I instructed Kitty to do as well, a quarter turn of the hatch handle would send the indicator light from red to green. I heard a click. I then turned the hatch handle a quarter the other way, back into its locked position. When the light went red again, the transition was complete, sealing our new sacred homes to the new craft. I reopened the hatch door and climbed up into the 3D craft, from 5th-dimensional space, as I had always done on the Cheshire. Kitty did too and we met in Victor’s cockpit. We set EEV in a Lagrange point in Earth_42 spacetime.
Upon landing back in Gardanne, only one thought held my mind: I wonder if Prof. O’Halleran, from Earth_Berkeley could train some more Gardanne residents to leap between worlds. Somebody would have to pick up the Cheshire crew’s slack.
It began as a face-off between man and machine. AI had achieved the complexity to spin out full novels, completely unique in their voice, subject matter and tone. The only thing slowing them down were humans’ limited ability at digesting this literary content torrent.
A human writer challenged Them—the almighty “them” that had coalesced initially as separate AI entities all becoming self-aware simultaneously into an omniniscient, omnipresent super being that could only be described to inferior intellects as a consciousness gap equivalent to that between a human’s and an amoeba’s. In this superintellegent AI scenario, humans were the amoebas.
Of course he (the human) couldn’t produce or even process prose as readily as the super AI. But he did have some works cached away in his professional catalogue—a dozen or so novels. He would pit the mass appeal of his 12 novels against another dozen the AI would draft on the spot. We’d wait a year, allowing the general public to imbibe and simmer on man and machine’s works.
One year passed, and the 24 reading samples anonymized so as not to sway the vote either way were at a dead heat. Those behind the scenes of the fiasco, who held privileged knowledge on the inner workings of the competition would later reveal that six of the human writer’s and another six of the machine’s held the top 12 spots of public favor. Contest officials issued a lightning round in response. Both man and machine would co-write an original work of fiction.
The round kicked off and AI was already at the denouement of a quadrillion premises. The writer scoured these spontaneously generated words as fast as he could read. He provided notes.
“I like how this one ends,” he said, to the AI, “but what if this happened?”
“Hmmm…” trilled AI, “that’s pretty good. We can switch it to that, then.”
This creative dialogue went on into the wee hours. By dawn, the two had produced 60 or so co-authored works, all of which were better than anything the two had written alone.
A small, tube television sat on a wheeled stand at the front of Birge Hall’s classroom. A news story played on the screen…
“I tell you this story now, to illustrate the origin of why we’re here today,” Professor O’Halleran addressed reporters at the press conference held in the Berkeley quad. He had just delivered the origin of the Human-AI collaboration mentioned above. “This beautiful friendship forged between human author and the AI writer produced AI-Human’s latest vision of the future: a completely, and utterly contrived world engine builder… You all know it as ‘Godhead.'”
O’Halleran shut off the TV screen in his classroom, and turned to me. I had been visiting with him after hours one day. He had played his news segment, as a terse explanation as to why he had requested my help in the first place.
“The Godhead people want me to consult on their latest project,” he continued.
“Which is?” I said.
“The AI-Human dialogue has now reached the point of pure potential. They caught wind of my class of dimensional leapers. They thought that my students and I could serve as some sort of guides in this most broad and potentially dangerous of endeavors.”
“Um, OK, yes,” I said, searching for my words. “That is a tall order. You know, you’re playing with fire, John, right?”
John O’Halleran nodded.
“Thunderbirds do leverage creative license, let’s say, to spin worlds and desired realities when necessary. To the layman, it may look effortless. But the implications of any newly-fashioned plane are vast. We don’t take this fact lightly. And to the uninitiated, helming such raw power could create undesirable predicaments for which they may not be prepared.”
“I told them something to that effect,” O’Halleran assured. “They said they’d go ahead with it anyway.”
Since I was in the business of freeing human souls, rather than further entrapping them under some potential cyber prison, I agreed to let him use Gardanne’s city labs. He’d have our full Discovery facilities at his disposal.
“The best part is,” I said, “you can spend as much time as you need up there, and it will only seem like a moment down here, on Earth_Berkeley.”
“I can’t thank you enough, Bill,” he said. “If you need anything from me, you let me know.”
“We do, in fact,” I had been waiting for the good professor to say that. “While you and your pupils research the infinite potential of unbridled existence, I’ll need you to teach classes on dimensional leaping to some of our more capable Gardanners. After we’re confident their skills are ready to fly on their own, you’ll also have to accompany them on field trips. Do you accept these terms?”
“I do.”
O’Halleran’s stay launched a slew of visitors to Gardanne. Our field trips down to the Earthy Dozen became a two-way street, although we only invited those who could handle the heightened vibration of Gardanne.
The professor proved to be a sound mentor in training our citizens for leaping dimensions, better than any of the Cheshire crew. O’Halleran’s tenure in Gardanne University marked our first major leap toward self reliance.
If you liked “Field Trips,” you might like the novel Big Cat, which takes place in the same universe.
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