The Hyland Resolution

Another story of mine is now published! Whew. Now I have two.

The story is “The Hyland Resolution”, and the anthology that includes it (and lots more) is PLANETARY ANTHOLOGY: LUNA, edited by Declan Finn.

I got the germ of the idea that became the story “The Hyland Resolution” about four years ago next month. I remember because I know what sparked it: it was the episode “For The Girl Who Has Everything” of SUPERGIRL, in which our heroine was attacked by a Kryptonian critter called a Black Mercy (because the Kryptonians used it as a humane method of execution). The Black Mercy’s venom or whatever induces a coma filled with dreams that fulfil the victim’s deepest desires, before ultimately killing him—unless he somehow rejects the happy fantasy.

I only watched the first five or ten minutes, because by the end of its first season I had had my fill of this series and was only tuning in occasionally for long enough to see if the basic idea seemed interesting. Sometime if I only see the beginning of a story, I can abstract out the basic problem that drives the plot and think of a completely different way to present and handle it that might make a good original story. (Perry Mason seems to inspire me that way sometimes.)

I’m probably not the only one who does this: this particular episode’s idea has been around the block many times. I see in Wikipedia that the Supergirl writers cribbed it from a Superman comic (“For The Man Who Has Everything”: even thriftily reusing 83% of the title), and my brother tells me there was an episode of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER on the same idea. Declan Finn, our worthy PAS LUNA editor, pointed me to an episode of BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES (a very good series I’d never watched till then) where Bruce Wayne is trapped in a dream in which he had never become Batman, because his parents had never been killed. The Nexus in STAR TREK: GENERATIONS is yet another iteration. How far back does this plot concept go, I wonder? Does it trace back to the scene where Odysseus loses some crewmen to the Lotus Eaters?

I don’t know how the SUPERGIRL writers handled it, though my guess would be that it involved a lot of emoting and sharing of feelings. But as I thought about it myself, I realized two things: first, that I did have an original idea how a person could be snapped out of such a fantasy; and second, that my protagonist would be a mathematician. To say more would be to give spoilers. I drafted a very short piece, set on Earth, about a math professor named Charles Hyland. But my first draft seemed to be lacking vitality; I shelved it without even giving it a title and went on with other things for awhile.

Then Superversive Press called for submissions for its Planetary Anthology series. When Jagi Lamplighter wrote me she was working on Luna, and did I have anything with themes of the Moon, loneliness, madness, dreams, and despair, I remembered my draft and returned to it.

It needed fleshing out, and the themes of the anthology provided direction for how I could proceed. Dreams, check. Madness, well, check. Loneliness and despair? What if my mathematician, Charles N. Hyland (the N is for Norbert, but that never comes up in the story), is a man of many troubles, who uses mathematics as an escape for thinking of things that upset him? The Moon … I moved my setting to a university on the Moon in the early days of its colonization, a university in a Lunar city, established by Christians from Central and South America, fleeing the religious persecution of the increasingly secularized governments on Earth, named El Redentor: Spanish for “The Redeemer”. (None of this comes up in the story, either.) The ubiquitous AI that Hyland consults sometimes, like an advanced web search application, I named Thoth, after the Egyptian god of wisdom, records, and the Moon; and I put in a couple other faint allusions (or Easter eggs) of moony lore.

As for the theme of despair, I pulled in an idea I have about the coming century of colonization of the Solar System, that I think SF writers have short-changed … namely, war. For some reason, as far as I know, everyone seems to imagine that the opening up of vast stretches of new real estate on the Moon and elsewhere will all be handled in as peaceful and orderly a fashion as a session of Congress devoted to voting themselves a raise. On the contrary, to me it seems natural that some spots on the Moon and elsewhere are going to be particularly desirable, and the colonizers will inevitably come into conflict over them and turn to their various governments on Earth to defend their interests. The Moon may be a pretty violent place for its first few decades … plenty of conflict for stories, and excuse for despair.

So how would my absent-minded Professor Hyland deal with wartime emergencies? He’d go through the motions while striving to keep his mind on his mathematics. That could give me a nice opening scene, developing his character in the midst of some intense action. At least for me, the opening scene is good for a chuckle.

By the way, for those who enjoy number puzzles (I can never understand why there aren’t more of us), the story contains one or two, understated and in no way essential to enjoying the story, but solvable. Nothing fancy—rather like figuring out why Spock said there were 1,771,561 tribbles in the grain bin that emptied out over Captain Kirk.

Declan and Jagi liked “The Hyland Resolution”, and then we had a long wait as the production of Superversive Press’s Planetary Anthology series slowed down to a halt, and ultimately the publishing enterprise that had produced a lot of good reading closed its doors. But Tuscany Bay Books picked up the project and has issued Pluto and Luna with a new look. “The Hyland Resolution” is one of 22 stories in this 600+ page volume. I’ve enjoyed the ones I’ve read so far, and I hope you will too.

The Thirtieth Amendment

Someone (was it on one of the Superversive Press roundtables?) suggested that they do an anthology someday named MISTAKES WERE MADE. Even though as far as I know no one has definitely started work on it, this story I just wrote might fit in it.

I actually wrote it after a Tweet I put out last week sometime, describing the general idea at a high level. Jonathan Swift said of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS that once you think of the idea of big men and little men, the story practically wrote itself; this one has the same quality of following rather immediately from the basic concept.

Enjoy!

"The Thirtieth Amendment"

Larry Kellerman gritted his teeth as he listened to the youth sitting in his office. “I just feel like, if there were no guns, like, then everyone would be safe and stuff, you know?” the kid—his name was Nevish, Liam Nevish—said.

“I understand the idea,” the official said patiently. It was a pleasant office, decorated with dark-finished wood furnishings, and a lovely picture window looking over the park. The oil paintings were attractive portraits of famous people, representational art having come back into vogue even in government buildings in the last couple decades. Over his desk, he knew, was a motto of the Thirtieth Amendment in gold letters. Everything was designed to relax, but Kellerman always felt on edge with a client: largely, he thought, because the clients themselves seemed too calm about their purpose in coming for transference.

He drew in breath. “Well then, Mr. Nevish, you can certainly choose any alternity you prefer, and there are many that were founded with the intention of eliminating guns, some where that was the chief motivating principle, others where it was included in a menu of other policy choices. Actually, before we waste any time, let’s make sure of one thing: you are twenty-one, correct?”

“Yeah, I’m 21. Last fall.”

Damn, thought Kellerman. “Very good,” he said aloud. “And you wish to leave our time line, Alternity Zero, for another that was colonized by persons intending to eliminate guns, either entirely or from the citizenry, is that your idea?”

“Umm. Wait a minute, when you say ‘colonized’, does that mean the people already in the other worldline might have guns? How does that work?”

Great heavenly days. “No. There are no people native to any of the worldlines that we have designated for utopian alternity experiments, Mr. Nevish. The parameters our team sets up when we initialize a portal define a worldline that branched from Alternity Zero at a point twenty to thirty million years in the past, and in which human life never evolved. Nor any other intelligent life, nor any life elsewhere in the Solar System…we’ve taken care to avoid any complications, aside from those the colonists take with them. The founders of each alternity are literally colonizing a world of their own, presumably according to the principles they spell out in their charter.”

“Okay, but the way you keep using words like ‘presumably’ and ‘intended’, it sounds like you’re hedging. There’s no catch to this, right? I mean, you guarantee that there won’t be any guns in the alternity I choose?”

“No, Mr. Nevish,” Kellerman said firmly. “There can be no guarantee of what you will find on the other side of the portal. We have no information about the utopian alternities, other than what we knew of the original worldline query that designated it, and the stated intentions of the colonists who have gone there already. The transference is strictly one-way, sir: this is why we keep emphasizing that you should think carefully about your decision before you step through.”

“Oh, I’ve thought carefully, and all that. I mean, a world just like this one, but with no guns, has to be better, right? I mean, that guy in Missouri who shot those three people last week, I just couldn’t believe the vids. I kept thinking, if only he didn’t have a gun!”

Kellerman nodded sympathetically. “Yes, that was certainly horrific. Of course, statistically, the trend in gun violence has been downward—“

“But what if you’re one of those three people?” the young one shot back, with an air of making a conclusive point.

“Yes, then the statistics would hardly be comforting for you,” agreed the official. “However, you might still wish to take some time to study the alternatives available to you. As I say, there are a number of utopian experiments putting various levels of restrictions on guns, so you can also make a selection of other social parameters you prefer. The degree and kind of social safety net provided, versus the level and distribution of taxation required to pay for it, for example; or the toleration or lack of it for various recreational substances, forms of energy, religious practices, et cetera. I could give you some literature for you to study for a few days before you make your final selection.”

But Nevish was shaking his head. “No, I want to get this done today. I just want a place as much like Alternity Zero as possible, but without guns. Isn’t there one like that somewhere? I mean, they’ve founded hundreds and hundreds of these by now, right?”

Kellerman’s heart sank. “Yes, there are over a thousand alternities registered to various groups of utopian founders, to which more than one hundred fifty million people have emigrated. But surely, even on gun policy, you’ll want to give some thought to the exact plan that you prefer? Do you want a place where even the police have no guns? What would you want the government response to be if someone mischievously builds a gun of his own in a metal shop in his basement, or 3D prints a hundred of them and tries to take over the whole place? What if—“

“Okay, the police can have guns, no one else is allowed to. What have you got like that?”

Kellerman turned reluctantly to his keyboard and tapped keys for a few moments. Damn that lunatic in Missouri, anyway. “Well, Alternity 784 would seem to fill the requirements. Would you like specifications?”

“It’s just like here, but there aren’t any guns, right?”

Kellerman made one last try to get through to the boy. “Mr. Nevish. The people who founded Alternity 784 said that they wanted to set up a utopian community in which only the government would have guns. Their project was officially granted a worldline when one hundred thousand individuals agreed to this charter and presented themselves for transference. Robots and provisions were sent through adequate to create the physical infrastructure of the proposed society. Since that time, everyone who has transferred to Alternity 784 has stated the intention to live in such a world and signed an agreement to abide by this charter. Note, however, that their signature is purely a pro forma agreement, carrying no penalty of perjury nor possibility of the slightest repercussions: either for changing their mind later, or for straight-out dishonesty up front, because we will have no way of knowing what they do after their transference.” He put his hands on his desk and leaned forward for emphasis. “That’s all we know, Mr. Nevish.”

Nevish frowned, as if trying to look like he was thinking hard. Perhaps he believed he was thinking hard. At last he said, “Look, Mr. Kellerman, you’ve been doing this a long time, right?”

“Yes,” said Kellerman. “Ever since the program began, right after the Thirtieth Amendment was passed. Nearly forty years, now.”

“Well, the people you’ve sent through—aren’t they mostly just people like me?”

Kellerman looked sadly into the young man’s eyes, and said, “Yes, that would be a fair statement. I think nearly all of them, perhaps every last one, was someone very much like you.”

The boy sat back and nodded his head. “Then print out the forms. I’m ready to sign.”



After the paperwork was completed and young Nevish had gone on to the transference portal for Alternity 784, Kellerman stopped by the office of his supervisor, Jeffrey Waters. “Got a minute?” he asked, with a long face.

“Sure, Larry.” Waters sat back. “You look like you just served another client.”

His office was shaped much like Kellerman’s. The decorations were different, but there was the same gold motto of the Thirtieth Amendment on the wall behind his head. Kellerman sat down and looked bleakly up at it.

Congress shall make no law impeding any person from living under the government of his preference.

“Serving another client,” said Kellerman. “I just can’t think of it that way.”

“Larry, you know we have to do this. Not just by law, but by necessity.”

“Sure, once the alternity portals were invented, it’s inevitable that people would group into like-minded enclaves—“

“Not just the alternity portals, Larry. Even before then, as soon as it became possible to associate electronically with people who thought the same as you, and disassociate from people who thought differently, the centrifugal tendencies of the new age were set up. Think of the chaos before the Second Constitutional Convention, and then the even worse chaos in the fifteen years before the Third. The alternity portal system is the only thing that has finally saved us, and it’s really not so bad, is it?”

“But Jeff, this kid—and there have been others, all over the country, just this week, since that nutcase in Missouri. He has no clue what he’s getting into, just randomly reacting.”

“Well, Larry, that’s his right, isn’t it? Who knows, maybe his alternity will turn out great for him. And meanwhile, as the utopia-seeking tendency boils out of our own worldline, things here where the bulk of humanity lives get pretty good indeed, and each year we have fewer clients requesting transference.”

“True, true,” sighed Kellerman. “And after all, as I tried to point out to him, three homicides, in the entire nation, over the past two years, is really not that bad.”

“Not bad at all. And the figure I’m even happier about: no new alternities set up for four years straight now.” He stretched. “Why don’t you knock off early today, Larry? Beautiful afternoon.”

“Thanks, Jeff, think I will.”



Liam Nevish looked down the portal to Alternity 784. It was a corridor that receded from a large, high-ceilinged area, one of several dozen in this lobby. He found it hard to rest eyes upon, as it flickered and flashed in an irritating way. His escort, having accompanied him to the very foot of the portal, seemed to have no such problem gazing in. Probably long custom had desensitized him to it.

“Last chance to change your mind,” he said with a grin.

“No, thanks,” said Nevish. “So I just walk in?”

“Yep. Good luck.”

“Okay,” he said, feeling a bit nervous. “Here I go.” The escort nodded and turned to go back.

Nevish started into the flickering haze. As he walked, the part close to him stayed normal, and the zone of turbulence always seemed about five feet ahead of him. He looked back and saw that the same was true behind him. Swallowing, he continued into the portal. After a few more steps, he found it seemed to be pulling him forward, as if he were walking down an increasingly sloped hill.

At last he felt a rushing suction and almost lost his balance, then at once found himself standing on perfectly firm ground. He looked around at his new worldline, and his jaw slowly dropped open.

“Oh, no,” he whispered. “Oh, nooooooo!”

Socrates and the Hugos

Writing projects underway:

• “The Kings of the Corona”: 17000 word story: finished, accepted for the upcoming anthology TALES OF THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING, edited by Anthony Marchetta. Publication date not yet scheduled. #Fantasy #Arthurian #YoungAdult 
• “The Stowaways” (working title): projected as 8000 word story. #ScienceFiction #SpaceOpera

Socrates and the Hugos

I was at the agora the other day buying some baklava and some ripe olives stuffed with feta and nuts when I ran into my old friend, Socrates, and we fell to talking about the Hugo Awards. Our dialog went something like this:

JUSTIN M TARQUIN: It depresses me that the Hugo Awards nowadays can go to mediocre works as long as their authors espouse popular leftist political viewpoints, or have personal identities that the political left associates with a “victim group”, rather than to works that deserve the award.

SOCRATES: Is there, then, some quality a work can have, besides giving homage to leftist political causes, that would better deserve the award?

JMT: Why, of course, Socrates. I think the Hugo award should go to science fiction that’s fun to read, and that excites the imagination, inspires wonder, draws the reader to a sense that the world is grander and finer than he might have supposed.

S: Such an award would be useful for guiding readers who desire such science fiction! But, of course, then it would not be useful for leftist readers who prefer science fiction that echoes their political views and congratulates them for holding them.

JMT: Surely, Socrates, you do not suggest that such puerile sycophancy is as suitable to an award called “the most prestigious in Science Fiction” as the criteria I have mentioned.

S: That does seem an odd state of affairs, does it not? Perhaps there is something to be learned from considering the question. Here, let us sit upon this bench and snack on our olives while we talk. Well then: the matter before us is what is ‘suitable’. I believe we are agreed that suitability is a quality that depends on its object.

JMT: What do you mean, Socrates?

S: I mean what you already implied when you questioned the suitability, not of political bias per se, but bias in a particular object: namely, in an award called the most prestigious in Science Fiction. Are not the robes of a king suitable to a king?

JMT: Of course.

S: But would they be suitable for a shepherd?

JMT: Clearly not, Socrates!

S: Or a shepherd’s tunic, would it be suitable for a surgeon?

JMT: No.

S: Or again, would a surgeon’s outfit be suitable for an olive-picker?

JMT: Not at all.

S: But the garb of each of these men would be suitable to himself, or another in his station?

JMT: Correct.

S: Then suitability is a relationship that matches a subject and an object?

JMT: You make it perfectly clear.

S: But what if a shepherd’s master were pleased to call him a king. Would royal robes then become suitable to him, while he remain a shepherd?

JMT: Why, no.

S: Or say that a surgeon’s patient insists upon calling him a shepherd. Would it then be suitable that he perform surgery in the stained and dirty tunic of a keeper of flocks?

JMT: No, no.

S: Then what is suitable depends not on what a thing is called, but upon what it truly is?

JMT: Clearly so, Socrates.

S: Then to inquire whether awarding the Hugo to works that tickle the egos of leftists is suitable or not, we must determine what the Hugo Award actually is: and not merely what it is called. As you have remarked, the award is called “the most prestigious award in science fiction,” but is it that in reality? And again, does “prestigious” mean that it is in reality the award most worthy of respect, or only that people believe it so or call it so? There are layers of shadow and illusory perceptions to be peeled away before we arrive at the reality of what the Hugo Award really is, my good Tarquin.

JMT: But, Socrates, here we are only returning to what I began by saying: I want the Hugo Award to go to science fiction that is fun and uplifting. One might say, to works that are enjoyable to read and enjoyable afterward to reflect upon.

S: Then let us begin there our inquiry into what the Hugo Award is. Is the Hugo Award bestowed to such works?

JMT: It once was. But not for many years, no.

S: Let us confine ourselves to the Hugo award of today, since that is where your complaint lies. Do you determine how the Hugo is bestowed?

JMT: No; though I may vote.

S: Is your vote dispositive of the result?

JMT: No.

S: Then many others also vote?

JMT: Certainly.

S: Do these others share your desires for the Hugo?

JMT: Sadly, most do not.

S: Is it widely known that those who vote for the Hugo do not share your notions of merit?

JMT: Quite so. Indeed, the news criers hail the results of each Hugo ceremony as a victory for trendy left-wing victim groups.

S: Then do even the winners of the award see it as a prize for political views and group identity?

JMT: None that I know of have said so explicitly, though some have made public statements after winning that indicate what is uppermost in their mind is not the qualities of the work they wrote, but rather their personal identity as a member of a group underrepresented among Hugo laureates. Possibly they were led in their remarks by the agendas of those who reported their words. But it would seem impossible they are not aware and approving of how their personal identities influence the decision.

S: What of people like yourself who object to the present nature of the Hugos?

JMT: There was a movement called the Sad Puppies that strove to nominate works that did not meet the left-wing political criteria; but though they succeeded in gaining nominations, the results of the election among the nominees chose “No Award” over any non-left-approved works.

S: And the authors whose work is passed over by this system, do they understand the nature of the award?

JMT: They do, indeed. I have even heard an author I favor say in a podcast that he would be embarrassed to win and thereby join the ranks of the recent winners, their work is so unimpressive.

S: Why then, all the world appears to understand the meaning of this award. The organizers know, the fans who vote for leftist works know, the Sad Puppy sympathizers know, the authors whose works do not win know, even the authors whose works do win Hugos appear to know that the point of the award is to gratify the political left’s view of the world. And therefore, you are wishing the award to signify what the world does not expect it to signify. Indeed, if works that satisfied your definition of merit were to win Hugo awards, the public understanding would be that the authors belong to leftist-approved groups, and that the works promoted leftist-supported positions, which they do not; and why would you wish the public to be so deceived?

JMT: But, Socrates, I think you misunderstand. The Hugo award is supposed to be an award for the best science fiction, chosen by the fans themselves.

S: You must explain this to me. When you say “supposed to be”, by whom is it supposed that the Hugo award is given to science fiction that first of all provides the most enjoyment to readers? For we have just established that it is generally understood by all involved that the Hugos are awarded politically.

JMT: Why, but the other is what the organizers of the Hugo award themselves say of it.

S: Ah, yes, it is then a boast that certain people make of their own project.

JMT: Well, yes.

S: In my life I have heard many who made boasts for themselves, and when I have inquired into the basis of their vaunting I very often found it lacking. But has the practice of self-puffery vanished since my more active years?

JMT: Well, no.

S: Is there not, in fact, an entire industry now devoted to self-aggrandizement, wherein fantastic sums of money are expended, and the ceaseless labor of thousand upon thousands of highly-skilled workers, present to the public hundreds of times a day, on every billboard, on every cereal package, every coffee cup, interspersed every few seconds in every television show or radio broadcast, on the margins of every Web site, these self-same substanceless boasts that the secret to happiness lies in consuming the goods and services they offer?

JMT: Indeed, it is so, Socrates.

S: And every two or four years, barrages of similarly vain boasts about candidates for public office?

JMT: You have said a mouthful, Socrates.

S: Then have not the people become skeptical of such claims?

JMT: True, Socrates, and yet if an award like the Hugo is to be seen as a claim about a work of science fiction, are not those who make false claims doing evil by telling falsehoods, even if they are not believed?

S: We can agree, Tarquin, that to speak falsehood, knowingly, is clearly wrong. For the value of language lies in its power to exchange truths among men; to put even a single deliberate falsehood into language is like striking a gold coin with an admixture of lesser metal: the surfeit of counterfeits in circulation debases the value even of the true coins. But when the choice of an awardee is divided among hundreds, they cannot all be held responsible for the choice of the group: but each man is responsible only for his own choice. No more could a man sentenced to die by a jury of five hundred think of the entire jury as his enemies, but only those who cast the vote for his condemnation. But, Tarquin, are not those voting for the winner of the Hugo award asked to vote for whichever nominee they feel should receive it?

JMT: Why, yes.

S: And surely there is no thought of any voter not voting for the work they wish to receive the award?

JMT: Well, no.

S: Then, among the voters it would seem that no question of dishonesty occurs. It is an instance of what you might call “free speech”.

JMT: And yet it still seems to me that the works that win a Hugo award ought to deserve to win it.

S: Why, but whether or not the Hugo winners deserve to win Hugos is a question we have not yet touched upon, Tarquin!

JMT: What do you mean? Have we not been discussing it this whole while?

S: Not at all! Up until now we have only considered to what sort of qualities the Hugo award actually does attest. Now that we have established that it awards works on the basis of stroking the egos of leftists, and is understood to do this both by the fans who vote for it, the people who receive it, the authors who do not receive it, as well as to you and to me, we can at last proceed to the question of whether the Hugo and its winners are suitable to one another.

JMT: And are they, then?

S: Is it not quite clear, Tarquin? The nature of the present-day Hugo award is that it is given to those works voted in by a group who are strongly disposed to favor works that promote leftist ideology and are written by authors who themselves support leftist ideology, by their public opinions and identities as members of groups the political left is pleased to extol. Therefore, works that promote such ideology, written by such authors, are perfectly suitable to the Hugo awards.

JMT: Do you mean to say that the Hugo winners, in fact, do deserve Hugo awards?

S: I think it would be more complete, elegant, and illuminating, to say that these authors and this award deserve each other.

JMT: I confess I am floored by this conclusion, though I can find no fault with the logic.

S: We must follow the argument where it leads us, Tarquin.

JMT: Why, but Socrates, it occurs to me that there is nothing about your argument that is specific to the Hugo awards. This would apply to any honorary award whatsoever—to the Oscars, the Emmies, the Grammies, the Edgars; to the kings and queens of all the proms, all the big-city parades and all the small-town festivals; to prizes that are awarded with rank nepotism, cheating, to contests with slipshod ballot-counting, where errors change the result. Can you say that all of the winners of all of these contests deserve the awards they receive?

S: Absolutely, Tarquin. Though, of course, the honors that they get, and deserve, are worthless in such cases.

JMT: I can only say, Socrates, that this would come as a great shock to the many thousands, the millions, who spend a great deal of time arguing about whether the winners of all these contests deserve their prizes, or whether it should have gone to another.

S: It does seem a great waste of time, when they might be arguing about the nature of beauty, or justice, or of goodness, of piety, or the nature of poetic inspiration, or the immortality of the soul, or of knowledge, truth and wisdom itself.

JMT: Yes, well, most people would consider arguing about all those things to be a waste of time.

S: A waste of time?

JMT: So they say.

S: Discussing truth, beauty, and virtue?

JMT: I’m afraid so.

S: While arguing about who deserves a trophy is worthwhile?

JMT: I can only report what I have heard men say, Socrates.

S: Well. I have nothing to say.

Coincidentally, we had just finished the baklava.

Dr. Matrix explains 2016

The year just ended seemed so, well, odd to me that I felt a need to get some insight on it from the spirit world. I had lately learned a system for consulting with the souls of the departed, so I gave it a try. Not to bore you with the details of preparing for the seance, in a few hours I found myself in conversation with a spirit who identified himself as Dr. Irving Joshua Matrix.

"Dr. Matrix!" I exclaimed. "I thought you were a fictional creation of the late, great Martin Gardner!"

Martin Gardner wrote a series of esays recounting his interviews with Dr. Matrix over a period of many years from the 1960s to the 1980s. Dr. Matrix was a numerologist and always explained contemporary events through numerical coincidences. His theory was that numbers control human behavior, in some mystical way.

"Well, here I am," he (it?) said. "You wanted to ask something about 2016?"

"Of course. I mean, what's with Pokemon Go? And clown attacks? And how does who can go to which bathroom in North Carolina become a national issue? And..."

"My time is limited, you know. Maybe you should prioritize?"

"Well...how does the Republican party come to nominate a candidate that past Republican presidents wouldn't endorse, and whose nominating convention prominent Republicans wouldn't even attend?"

"That's more like it. You know the GOP was founded in 1854, right?"

"Um, yeah, sure, I knew that."

"Making it 162 years old in 2016. You'll note that 2016 is a shuffling of the digits of 0162, leaving no digit in the same position. Hence, the shuffling of the power within the party."

"Holy cow! I would never have thought of that! But then, how did Trump come to win out? Everyone seemed to think Hillary Clinton would win."

"Hillary was overconfident," he said, smirking. How I could tell that a disembodied spirit was smirking I can't say, but I could. "I'm afraid her numerologists were not as competent as I would have been." Hillary Clinton used numerologists? I thought. "They were deceived into thinking 2016 would be auspicious for her by the somewhat remarkable fact that 2016 times 81833 turns out to contain all the digits from 1 through 9, each one exactly once."

"Uhh," I said, whipping out my calculator. I punched in the product and found it to be 164,975,328. "Yep, all nine digits. But so what? What was that 81,833 about?"

"Translate the letters HRC, her initials, into their positions in the alphabet," explained the spirit patiently. "H is letter 8, R is 18, C is 3. So HRC is 8183, and if you repeat the last 3, there you are."

"Huh," I said. "Well."

"But what they neglected to consider is that an even more significant product is to multiply 2016 by 818330, so that you get all ten digits in the result. And that suggests HRC 30. You see?"

"Umm," I said, not seeing. "But the alphabet has only 26 letters?"

"Good lord. Don't you know the significance of the number 30 in journalism? You put it at the end of a story. It lets the next person handling the paper know that he's at the end."

Light dawned. "You mean..."

"Absolutely. 2016 marks THE END of HRC's political career."

Somehow, he seemed to be making sense. "But why Trump, of all people?"

"Well, 2016 is something new in American politics. This is, of course, the first election year in US history that's a triangular number."

"A triangular number? Let's see, that is..."

"You call yourself a math major? A triangular number is a sum of consecutive integers starting with 1. Such as 1 itself, 1+2=3, 1+2+3=6, and so on. Fifteen pool balls form a perfect triangle at the start of a game because 15=1+2+3+4+5, and those are the numbers of balls in the five rows of the triangle."

"I see," I said. "And 2016?"

"Is the 63rd triangular number. Hence the departure from previous trends, such as the GOP nominating a candidate whose last name did not have either 6 or 4 letters."

"Wait, now--what's that about?"

"Great Gauss's ghost, you really are a beginner, aren't you? You haven't noticed that ever since the Watergate scandals, every GOP presidential candidate's first and last names have had either 6 or 4 letters?"

"What? Wait a minute," I said. How could anything so bizarre have escaped notice? Let's see: Gerald Ford; Ronald Wilson Reagan, George Bush -- two of those -- Robert Dole, John McCain, Mitt Romney: holy guacamole, he's right!

"But what could account for that?" I said, baffled.

"Gerald Ford set it off, of course. The Republicans were so relieved to be done with Watergate, and FORD suggested F or D, which translated to their alphabet positions, meant 6 or 4. The trend held for nearly 40 years. It even affected most of their vice presidents. Up until the overwhelming influence of the triangular number, 2016, when you elected the 45th president: 45 being the 9th triangular number. Hence, Donald John Trump, whose name has 15 letters..."

"The fifth triangular number!"

"Now you've got it. It didn't hurt that 2016 divides into 20 and 16, which are the positions of T and P in the alphabet, the first and last letters of his name.

"Of course, once he got the nomination it was practically over, since 2016 is pretty obviously a Republican year, based on its remainder when divided by 17. Since 1968, every election year whose remainder when divided by 17 was from 1-7 has had a Democrat president, and all others Republican."

My head was spinning by this time. "Then--then, for instance, that's how Barack Obama won reelection in 2012? It was fated all along? I mean, even Karl Rove was flabbergasted--"

The spirit snorted. Imagine something that could make a spirit snort. "Of course he won in 2012. It's four times 503, a prime number. The Democrats haven't lost an election in a year that was four time a prime since Reconstruction. I mean, if people would pay attention to just rudimentary numerology--"

"Okay, hang on. What can you tell me about 2017?"

"Twenty-seventeen, now that's when things are going to get really interesting," he said, but his voice seemed to be coming from farther away. "You see ..."

It was as if he were retreating down a hallway. "Dr. Matrix!" I cried. "Talk louder! I can't hear!"

I could still make out his voice, but only snatches of words now. "... prime ... expressed in base ... cube root ..."

And that was all.