### ### ### ### ### #### ### ### ### #### ### ### ##### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ### ##### ### ### ########## ### ### ########## ### ### ### ### Underground eXperts United Presents... ####### ## ## ####### # # ## ## ####### ####### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## # ## #### ## ## #### # # ####### ####### #### ## ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## # ## ## ## ####### ####### # # ## ####### ####### [ Twist ] [ By The GNN ] ____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ TWIST by The GNN/DCS/uXu For the last time, we made ourselves comfortable in the lecture hall, me and my crew of a few (five, to be exact) good men. An old professor, this time from the department of philosophy and logic, greeted us and held a short dry speech concerning the fantastic voyage we were on our way to embark on. Time-travelling was nothing new. It had been done for several centuries. But our trip was different. We were not about to travel forward in time, but backwards. And that had never been done before, so the expectations were high, to say the least. Not to mention our fear of failure. But, as usual, before we could enter the metallic capsule and get on with our mission we had to attend several boring lectures concerning the theoretical implications of our trip. Today's load of mumbo-jumbo were the last in a series of incomprehensible academic hairsplitting. A young man entered the stage, dropped all of his notes on the floor (how come the people within the academic world are so unpractical?), picked them up, cleared his throat, stuttered his name and grade (Ph.D), and said: "You will not be able to travel backwards in time." Now, this was something new, indeed. I noticed how my crew suddenly got interested. The Ph.D. continued: "Travelling backwards in time will by necessity change the future. And the future of the past is our time, here and now. We are here because the causal stream of events through time have been as they in fact have been. If they had been different, here and now would be quite different." I glanced over my shoulder. My crew of good men looked rather pale. It seemed like they had never actually considered that prospect. "Therefore", the old Ph.D. said and stroke his beard, "you will not be able to travel backwards in time. The proof is here and now: that here and now is actually here and now. If you would succeed in going to what has been, you would - by necessity, I tell you - change the occurrence of events, and turn what is now into something else. But here and now remains stable, as we all can see." One of my men raised his hand. "But... what will happen to us then?" "I dare not speculate on that matter. But I can assure you that you will not succeed. The proof is all around you! Look!" I looked around. Maybe she was right. "Here and now" did in fact not change. The lecture hall did not metamorphose into something new. I began to despair. Damn these logicians! Always playing around with paradoxes! My crew of four good men thought the same; I could see it in their sad eyes. The Ph.D. kept on talking for half an hour. I did not bother to listen. I was preoccupied with the unpleasant thought of failure. When the lecture was over, we applauded politely, even though our dreams had been shattered. When we walked out of the hall, a crew member whispered in my ear. "Chief, was all that true? Will we fail?" "Not at all!" I said confidently. "Mere hypotheses! We will succeed!" The crew lightened up. "Really, Chief?" "Damn right! Nothing can stop us, I tell y'all! We'll make it all the way around the world and prove that earth is round as a cannonball! Nothing, I tell y'all, NOTHING can stop us! Yee-haa!" The crew cheered, fired their muskets in the air and praised the Gods. "Long live the captain!" they yelled. "Long live the captain! Ho hum and a bottle of rum!" And then me and my crew of sixty good men sat sail and embarked on our fantastic voyage, into the unknown beyond the horizon. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- uXu #483 Underground eXperts United 1999 uXu #483 Call RIPCO ][ -> +1-773-528-5020 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------