Day 28 (Epilogue)

SUMMARY OF RUN 16383 (0x3FFF )

Features of all previous runs are preserved in 0x3FFF: VonCannon
is kept out of Academia, which in the original timeline only
slowed the creation of the Coincidence Machine. Caster is kept
away from him, as his influence causes only delays in accordance
with VonCannon's own theories. Rosetta is ensured a higher
education at an institution prestigious enough for her to acquire
any job of her preference, but is tethered to the salient
geographical region in the same step. Though initially intended
for VonCannon, she finds her way to Grant instead, which was a
boon. In no previous run has VonCannon completed the Machine in
his lifetime; his belief that he is its inventor is entirely
false. Run 16383 concludes with the emergence of the earliest
creation of the Machine yet - a full 121years before the original
timeline. The inventor emerged as an unlikely offspring of two
actors deemed unimportant in early runs. That they should produce
such an important figure is a testament to the importance of the
'run' system and a reinforcement that brute-force prediction
cannot possibly capture all outcomes.

Epilogue

``Be sure to check the boiler room, okay?'' Rosetta asked.

Mal rolled his eyes. ``Fine!''

Malachai Patrick Wynn - ``Mal'' to his friends - had returned
from college an entire 12 hours at this point, and already his
parents had put him to work. He looked around the now nearly
empty plant wistfully, he'd practically grown up here.

Of course, Sandys Recycling was a statewide institution at this
point. A grant from his namesake had ensured that; Mal was fuzzy
on the details but apparently the original Malachai had a
statement in his will that had put the land this plant had been
built on in charge of one Rosetta Sandys and one Grant Wynn. His
parents hadn't even married at that point yet, but that
apparently hadn't stopped him.

Now, over two decades later, Sandys Recycling had grown too large
even for this larger premises to hold them. He'd been pressed
into work helping them clean out any old computers they'd missed
in preparation for the Big Move. So far, the movers had been
diligent, but they hadn't checked the boiler room.

That's what it was called, but in his teenage years when his
lifelong interest with machinery had really taken off he'd gone
in there and not found the furnace in that room hooked up to
anything. It was clearly active, making all the noises one would
assume a furnace would make, but he couldn't even see that it was
plugged in. When he'd asked, he'd gotten an uncomfortable
explanation that it was inherited from ``Crazy Uncle VonCannon'',
who in Mal's mind was a mad scientist of the highest caliber. His
parents didn't talk about Uncle Mal much, but he enjoyed hearing
about his namesake whenever he could. Grant in particular liked
to relate the story of the strange Immobile Machine which was
only visible in your memory. Mal himself had never seen it;
apparently it had been donated to the university shortly after
his birth.

The younger Wynn wound through the back rooms of the warehouse,
familiar with each one. He reached the one labeled simply ``
Boiler Room'' and opened it.

It was as he had remembered it as a child. The furnace was as
charred and, surprisingly, as big as it had ever been. It
continued to make noise as though it was in use, despite the fact
that the heat had long since been turned off in preparation for
the move.

His mother's instinct had been right; there were a half dozen
computers, all having been burnt to a greater or lesser degree.
One looked as though it had either exploded or melted, possibly
both.

And one, the one second-closest to the furnace, had a monitor and
was still plugged in.

Why not? he thought with a shrug, and turned it on. Some incident
in the company's past had led to a policy of not backing up the
hard drives that clients brought in to be destroyed, and while
he'd always been tempted to look he'd never worked up the
courage.

These, though, were clearly salvage. They were fair game.

The computer had finished booting up. He slowly navigated the
obsolete interface, looking through files. The computer had
apparently belonged to a Dr. James Caster, and this doctor had
some strange inventions indeed.

Mal pulled one up; schematics for something Caster had built,
entitled ``The Disappointment Machine.''

He laughed silently to himself. Why would you even need
schematics for such a thing? he thought in a sudden insight.
After all...

You couldn't fail to build a Disappointment Machine.

THE END

(begin run 16384)

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