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Chapter 1
Introduction
Alternate Reality News Service Frequently Unasked Questions
1) What is the Alternate Reality News Service?2) Like Rush Limbaugh’s brain?
3) How does it work?
4) Whoa! Whoa! Could you explain that in layman’s terms?
5) How do you get the journalists back from the alternate reality?
6) That may be, but how do you get them back?
7) I’m sure it’s great, but how do you get your journalists back?
8) That’s it?
9) What happens to ARNS reporters who materialize in alternate realities hostile to life?
10) With, like, a plaque on the wall?
11) Do your correspondents ever bring back pieces of where they’ve been with them?
12) Isn’t that a problem?
13) Why don’t I remember any of that?
14) Whose idea was the Alternate Reality News Service?
15) Really?
16) And you accept this?
17) How can I become an Alternate Reality News Service journalist?
18) What if I have my own notepad?
19) Why are all of your correspondents’ names so long?
20)Is the Alternate Reality News Service based in Scandinavia?
21) Do you have any correspondents from, you know, any alternate realities?
22) What’s the strangest alternate reality you’ve got reporters in?
23) What’s so strange about that?
24) All this talk of alien invasions – the truth is that most alternate realities are just as boring as this one, isn’t it?
1) What is the Alternate Reality News Service?
It’s, uhh, a service that provides news from alternate realities.
2) Like Rush Limbaugh’s brain?
No. Some alternate realities are too dangerous for us to allow our reporters to enter.
We use an ion capacitance coil in a particle accelerator to collapse the quantum probabilities of atoms into a different reality than the one that we experience every day. Then, we use a wormhole borrowed from a black hole to transport our journalists between the two realities. The great thing about particles accelerated to near light speeds is that –
4) Whoa! Whoa! Could you explain that in layman’s terms?
Sure. We push the red button, a light goes on in the doorway and we push somebody through it.
5) How do you get the journalists back from the alternate reality?
They’re on a timer.
6) That may be, but how do you get them back?
It’s a really fancy timer. Digital.
7) I’m sure it’s great, but how do you get your journalists back?
We offer them a free meal when they return.
You’d be surprised what journalists will do for a free meal.
9) What happens to ARNS reporters who materialize in alternate realities hostile to life?
They make employee of the month.
10) With, like, a plaque on the wall?
Don’t be so cynical. It’s a lovely plaque.
11) Do your correspondents ever bring back pieces of where they’ve been with them?
Oh, sure. It’s hard to get alternate reality out of leather.
Can be. Funny story: one of our reporters, Alicia Grubskotowskaya, came back from a planet called Ambulster with a fluvianatole. She didn’t know – hee hee – that the fluvianatole was pregnant. Well! Before you could say “If the three yellow suns are aligned, the day will be malign,” the carnivorous race had taken over the Earth, enslaved everybody and started breeding humans for their meat. (They started the human meat farms in countries that already had high levels of obesity – the best argument for dieting I’ve ever heard.) Oops. Our bad.
13) Why don’t I remember any of that?
You don’t? Oh, ahh, we must be getting this mixed up with another reality. Sorry. Still, lesson learned: don’t travel with a fluvianatole unless you know it’s been neutered!
14) Whose idea was the Alternate Reality News Service?
Bill Gates.
No. But after he bought the ARNS, he had the official history of the organization rewritten so that it would seem as though he had created it.
In most realities, Bill Gates is a small sea slug, so it kind of all works out.
17) How can I become an Alternate Reality News Service journalist?
Not everybody can be an ARNS correspondent. It takes a special mix of nerves of steel, the intelligence to be able to negotiate with living beings who are substantially different than you are and the wisdom to know when negotiations are pointless.
18) What if I have my own notepad?
You’re in!
19) Why are all of your correspondents’ names so long?
They’re Scandinavian.
20) Is the Alternate Reality News Service based in Scandinavia?
No, we just recruit heavily there.
21) Do you have any correspondents from, you know, any alternate realities?
We’ve considered using superthin 17 dimensional beings in universes with conditions that are hostile to human life. We call this our “Stringer Theory.” It’s still a theory because we haven’t found any superthin 17 dimensional beings to test it out on.
22) What’s the strangest alternate reality you’ve got reporters in?
The one where George W. Bush wins the Nobel Prize for Peace, Love and Understanding.
23) What’s so strange about that?
Alfred Nobel made his fortune in dynamite. Where’s the peace, love and understanding in that?
24) All this talk of alien invasions – the truth is that most alternate realities are just as boring as this one, isn’t it?
Look, when you come home from work, do you tell your wife about the three hours you spent filling out requisition forms for photocopier toner cartridges? Of course not. You tell her about the weasel that got into the coffee pot. Yes, okay, most alternate realities are duller than Jimmy Carter. You happy, now? Okay, that’s it. I’m going to see if any weasels got into the coffee pot.
Welcome, Science Fiction Fans!
If you came to Les Pages aux Folles curious about my writing thanks to science fiction or fan fiction, welcome! You can find the complete text of Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys in the Archive Section, as well as three new Alternate Reality News Stories every third week in the New Section. They are clearly marked [ARNS] for easy identification. And, please feel to browse through the other writing, cartoons and miscellaneous oddments - you never know what you might enjoy!
You may already be a winner? Well, actually...
It is with great pleasure that I can announce that I have taken first prize in the Swift Satire Writing Competition. This was for a poem called "Love Amid the Construction. The official announcement can be found here. Details of the contest, including, at some point soon, my winning entry, can be found here. What can I say?
WHOOT WHOOT WHOOT!
Do Not Adjust Your Eyes
The Weight of Information: Episode One: The Realities Leak is now available on YouTube! This pilot for a radio series is based on stories out of the two Alternate Reality News Service Books, Alternate Reality Ain't What It Used To Be and What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys (or, as one online used bookstore has it, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children - don't ask). Click on this link to listen to Part One and this link to listen to Part Two. Interdimensional travel has never been so...multidimensional!
You May Already Be A Winner Redux
The Alternate Reality News Service, in conjunction with the Grasping for the Wind Web site, is running a contest! The readers who submit the best questions to either of the Alternate Reality News Service columns (which, regular readers will remember, are Ask Amritsar and Ask the Tech Answer Guy) will win free autographed copies of What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children's Toys (or, as one online discount bookseller has it listed, What Were Once Miracles Are Now Children - don't ask). Click on the link for the rules. Enter now, enter often!Ira Speaks!
Sal Monaco, the Oracle of Enlightenment who now does interviews at Think Twice Radio, conducted an interview with me at Polaris 24. Don't think twice: go to Sal Monaco's Think Twice Radio Web page and give it a listen!
The Alternate Reality News Service Grows Up
Have you ever wanted to know what goes on behind the scenes at the Alternate Reality News Service? Of course you didn't! But, now that the question has been raised, it sounds intriguing, no? Okay, probably not. Still, here's the thing: there is now a Facebook group called The Alternate Reality News Service Cafe. If you go there, you will automatically receive a tri-weekly newsletter full of exclusive information. It is also a place where you can contribute to the Alternate Reality News Service and even, perhaps, work your way up the ARNS ladder until you are given a journalistic beat all for yourself. Doesn't that sound exciting?
Don't answer that.
Would you be interested in immortality?
As you may have noticed, there is a weekly feature on Les Pages aux Folles called The Daily Me. Each article in this feature is a collection of bits and pieces of interest to a different person. I probably won't be shocking any of my readers when I say that, to date, I have made the persons up. (If you are shocked, I hear the Girls With Eyepatches site is nice this time of year...) Well, a future Daily Me could feature...you!
Simply send me an email with your name and the names of three or four publications you regularly read and three or four issues/subjects in which you have an interest. Then, let me digest them and, two or three weeks later, The Daily Me could be The Daily You! Your name will appear in my writing...forever! No complicated creams! No messy cryogenic devices! Immortality has never been easier! What are you waiting for?