ALBERT

The room was pure white and spherical and small. Mounted in the the center of the sphere was a small desk on was mounted a simple monitor and keyboard. In the small chair sat a monkey, fidgeting and eating grapes. The professor was attaching various wires and tubes to the primate. The tubes and wires hung slightly from the monkey to the wall of the room.

The professor's lab assistant stood at the small portal entrance to the room, leaning in and hand the professor tools and such when requested. The professor was clearly a genius in his field but he was also a bit mad. The type of genius that was fully capable of applying his theories in actual experiments but, to keep himself entertained, found the most convoluted ways to do it. The monkey experiment was a perfect example.

“Professor, can you go over it again?” asked the assistant. “Why are you doing this exactly?”

The professor was finishing up with the monkey, who has begun to tentatively poke at the keys before him. “Yes, Albert. That's a good boy,” the professor said, patting the monkey on the head. He gave on final glance around the sphere and the assistant clear out of the portal for the professor to exit.

“It is very simple. It is a test of randomness. You know the old saw thought experiment about an infinite monkeys, correct?”

The assistant closed the the thick door to the portal behind the professor. “An infinite amount of monkeys at an infinite amount of typewrites for an infinite time will, eventually, type Hamlet.”

“Exactly,” exclaimed the professor as he checked the array of computer screens next to the outside of the sphere room sitting in the far corner of the large lab. The question is if that is true or not. Perhaps the monkeys would just hit the same key over and over. Or write everything BUT Hamlet. It is test of infinity, really.”

“So you created the sphere—“

“Shielded Temporal Stasis Chamber.”

“The chamber and are putting the monkey—“

“Albert.”

“Albert in there to see if he'll type up Hamlet?”

“Correct.” The professor was speaking distractedly ha his excitement of starting the experiment was increasing. He was almost bouncing as he checked readings and statuses and the such.

The assistant had little to do at this stage since he barley understood the underlining theories of how the chamber worked, much less the specifics. He kept busy tidying up after the professor.

“But Albert is just one monkey, not and infinite amount of monkeys.”

“Given and infinite amount of time, you don''t need and infinite amount of monkeys. As long as you can keep that one monkey alive long enough. Which the field does. Cellular decay will be null or close enough for our purposes. The biogel that is grown in the wall of the chamber should maintain itself forever, giving Albert nutrients. And the same effect that will keep Albert alive forever also affects material decay in the same way. In truth it will not be truly infinite. But is at such a factor, it should suffice.”

“Okay. But you have created something that can remove something from time itself. To use it for this silly monkey thing is a bit... well.. forgive me for saying this... ridiculous. I mean, you have made immortality possible.”

The professor sighed. “Well, you description of what the chamber does is a bit off. And most applications at this point are limited. Once the field is initiated, the subject is fully removed from our temporal flow. If we ever attempted to return it to our flow, it would just cease to exist. In the strictest sense, as soon as the field is turned on, the subject will cease to exist for us.

“In addition, that same issue makes observation of inside the sphere extremely difficult. Beyond the issues of interfacing our time-existence with an infinite null time existence, there is the issue of information overload. Albert will be typing for an infinite (or damn near close to) time, creating an infinite amount of information to process. The computer in there is just going to search for matches to Hamlet and close matches. Those are the stats I am curious about everything else with rubbish and will be dumped and not sent out of the sphere. Still, potentially, the university computers may all crash as they are hit instantly with a quadrillion variations of the Prince of Denmark.”

“And what becomes of Albert?”

“Oh, as soon as the we have results, which should be as close to instant as is possible, the field will collapse and he will cease to be.

The assistant gave up. As trivial as the experiment was and seemingly a waste of an amazing machine with literally limitless potential, the experiment would take just an instant. A very expensive instant, considering the burst of energy need and the resources the professor poured into developing it. The assistant did not look forward to having to examine an the piles of slight variations of Hamlet that might resolute. But chance are the whole thing would fail.

“This is a momentous occasion,” the professor said sitting down at the main computer terminal. “We should probably have called the press or some such. But I am too anxious to see what happens. What do you say, son? Shall we see if little Albert can write lie the Bard?”

“Um, sure, I guess.”

“Right!” And the professor typed in a couple of keystrokes and hit ENTER.




In something slightly longer than an instant the computer initiated the chamber. Just after that the field expanded, encompassing the interior of the sphere and Albert. Everything that came after either look slightly longer than no time at all or eons beyond measure.

The chamber monitored Albert physical condition, which was basically unchanging. The biogel was self-sustaining and continued to feed him nutrients. Albert sometimes typed and sometimes masturbated and sometimes slept and often did nothing at all. He'd grow bored and excited and bored again. And time moved on in the chamber and not at all beyond its walls.

Albert typed a lot but the vast majority never approached anything close to English, much less Hamlet. For period of nine years he typed almost entirely in Portuguese. Once he managed, just by random, to write the first four books of the King James Bible.

Albert changed little at first. In the time it would take the universe to be born and die a dozen times, Albert was just himself. But slowly (and slowly in term that had never occurred before) ideas began to come to him. He was not evolving, but given the scale of existence he was having it was bound to happen. And eon here and an eon there, his neurons did rearrange themselves, becoming more efficient.

He came close to writing Hamlet. Although he had never read it, the exact plot came to his brain. But before he put it down, he realized its flaws and decided to put his energies elsewhere.

Eventually Albert's intelligence passed what any human ever had. He knew where he was and how the chamber worked. The knowledge that he was trapped for time beyond time and would perish if he left the sphere filled him with rage at first, but soon he realize that anger wouldn't change his situation.

Some (very very long) time after that, he had a solution. Albert was operating on a level far beyond and to describe his plan would be futile. But, in simple terms, he realized that to exist beyond the chamber could only happen if the field encompassed the rest of the universe. Which would also destroy it, replacing regular time with the chambers null-time.

Once he had a plan it took a relative (a few thousand years) to rewire the inside of the sphere. Albert typed in a couple of keystrokes and hit ENTER.



The professor hit the key and turned to the assistant “We should have results an sec