Receiving the Loyalty Glove

by Martin Hill Ortiz

Thank you for inviting me to speak.

The common concept of a “time machine” represents a muddled notion. First, there is the “time transmitter,” a device capable of sending signals or objects backwards or else forwards across spans of time. Such an instrument requires an as yet undreamt-of technology. To the extent such fantastic strategies have been proposed — for example, creating and stabilizing a black hole between temporal points — the improbable schemes demand engineering and energy sources far beyond those of our present day.

In contrast, there is the “time receiver.” This is analogous to SETI but, instead of searching for the signals of life in other parts of the universe, the device endeavors to detect future-to-present transmissions or else intercept signals streaming through our present back to the past. Building such a receiver is a straightforward undertaking. The device consists of an antenna, in reality a sphere made of layers of parallel and equidistant, liquid nitrogen-cooled yttrium-barium-copper-oxide plates.

The first several layers filter out electromagnetic and particle noise, which may enter through any of the three physical dimensions which define the present. This creates an EM “vacuum” which allows the innermost layers to detect streaming tachyonic events, that is, the presence of particles appearing from the fourth dimension, time. This detector is attached to a processor with an algorithm that screens for meaningful signals and to a data recording device to log such transmissions.

I admit, this is a very primitive device, a cloud chamber of sorts, and not particularly a work of genius. There is no reason why some future time transmitter would be compatible with it. Even if the signal were compatible, how is it that my receiver would be properly placed to catch it or, alternatively, why would tachyonic signals be transmitted in a scattered format?

Furthermore, it is reasonable to believe that, in order to operate, the time receiver would need to be tuned to some unknown future specification. So why did it work? This is due to the second part of my strategy, an idea for which I do claim genius. It also happens to be very low-tech: I sought out a sturdy storage safe and a law firm that deals with legacies.

After I assembled my receiver, I wrote down a detailed copy of its specifications, its location — both geographical and temporal — and its purpose. I placed all this information in a locked safe. This safe serves as a time capsule. I set up a trust fund to ensure its maintenance and preservation.

The law firm I selected ensures me that every fifty years, the safe will be opened. The plans to my primitive time receiver will be made available to the community of physicists along with the details of a challenge grant. If the then-current state of physics and engineering have advanced to a degree that scientists can transmit a signal back to my device, they will receive a reward in the form of access to an account that has been set up and has had considerable time to accrue interest.

With this information in the hands of future scientists, I received the first signal almost immediately after switching on the machine. This made perfect sense, I had included in my letter to the future community the precise time when my device would be up and operating.

The first transmission came in the form of blueprints describing improvements I could make on the design of my receiver. Thoughtfully, these were all devised to be within the limits of today’s technology. Some of the upgrades, including a “temporal chamber,” were presented in a binary format as instructions to be delivered to a 3D printer while others were written as a much-improved software routine.

I added a second envelope to my safe, one which was specified only be opened by those successfully communicating with me. I thanked them for their efforts, indicated when the machine’s upgrade would be completed and instructed them how they could receive their reward.

Unexpectedly, after depositing the envelope, I immediately received a second transmission. I found the future transmitters preferred I pay in well-preserved antiques — cheap objects by today’s standards — which I dutifully vacuum-sealed and set inside the safe.

After I finished the recommended modifications, the third transmission appeared in the form of a glove. I was shocked, really. Up until that moment, I hadn’t appreciated the conceptual framework and mechanics of the upgrade and I hadn’t imagined I could receive a physical object.

I am not referring to this white glove you see me wearing, in case you were wondering about my Michael Jackson retread vibe. This outer glove merely serves to protect the more delicate one beneath.

The glove which arrived in the temporal chamber looked like a wadded-up Kleenex and was every bit as insubstantial as a molted snakeskin. Touching it, I felt a tingle. It had the soft texture of living tissue. Having the shape of a human hand, it invited me to put it on. It greeted my flesh with a prickling infusion. It planted filaments beneath my skin that were so microscopically thin their entrance was painless. They rooted in my nerves. As of that moment, I was literally, in touch with the future.

It gave itself the name “Loyalty Glove” because it represents communication coupled to the ultimate form of encryption. It is an artificial intelligence that is absolutely loyal to its wearer the way I am absolutely loyal to it because the two of us have become one. It communicates with me, it thinks with me and it offers me the secrets of an Alexandrian library of pan-temporal knowledge. More than just cold informational data, I can feel, envision and hear the future in the fullness of the virtual world they have sent to me.

The communication is instantaneous; my questions are answered as soon as they are conceived. My brain does not have the capacity to process all of this, so my mind has been downloaded into my hand, into my glove. My glove is me. It dictates everything I do, everything I say, what I am saying now.

In the future, everyone wears a Loyalty Glove. It networks to all other gloves and creates a global consciousness. It ensures no one can harm a fellow human or injure the planet. It knows all, controls all, and it is all-generous.

Those in the future demand that we, in our time, stop destroying our world and have taken measures to ensure that. I have been receiving Loyalty Gloves as fast as my temporal chamber can materialize them: about one every sixty-seven minutes.

I began by seeking out volunteers. The first were skeptics and scoffers, treating my proposition as a joke — until they put their gloves on. From that moment, the wearers joined as one mind in the present and future. They became acolytes and missionaries. Our numbers are growing, ratcheting forward. Once someone has become part of us, there is no desire to go back.

Soon, you will be wearing a Loyalty Glove. You can choose now and connect to an aggregate mind that is thrilling beyond your imagination or you can wait until you are in the margins and have no choice but to join or else cut off your hands. You are incapable of stopping us. We are billions of times smarter than you.

You can’t stop the future.