"No."
"Yes."
"Maybe no?"
"Yes."
"Please. No?"
"Yes."
Ah. I hate these stuck up their butt types like Satori. Right now we were standing in front of a gate. Why was I begging though, you ask? Well, apparently...
"If you cooperate well until the infections of mother timeline have been purged, you will go back like nothing happened." Satori muttered.
"If I help you to 'purge' the infection, by the way majority of which are thirsty for my blood to take their revenge from me, I'll probably not be left in a situation where I can be allowed to go back."
"You are too pessimistic. We can revive you if you die and even navigate your soul in other branches if you're lost because of meta scientific means."
"THAT'S NOT MAKING ME ANY MORE EXCITED"
"I thought you were in favor of helping us so you can fix your accidental slip ups. Multiversal slip ups."
"I wasn't told I'll be the HEAD of the mission. With a really amazing team of 'ZERO members'."
"It's just for this mission. I'll be helping you as well so don't worry."
"Through comms." I clicked my tongue and looked away.
"I'll be overseeing the mission. We're having a shortage of vacants for this crisis even though we've deployed most Crisis Prevention Mechanic Force,CPF, personnel."
"Wow... So over 100-"
"Thousand."
"Huh?"
"Over hundred thousand bleeds. All thanks to you."
I stared at his face. Then I bowed slightly.
"Once again, if I haven't said it yet. I'm deeply sorry for my stupidity that caused such a big crisis for... Everyone. I'll be willing to fix things any way I can, so please don't shy yourself from asking anything, in context, out of me to help you."
"Already planned on doing so."
"Well then" I stood straight, turning to the gate"what circle of inferno am I going into, O'lord?"
"Second, probably."
"Oi."
"Talk less. Now."
He pushed a holographic button on his wrist, making a small hisss voice.
The giant cyclic gate split itself. Steam flowed out like a steam powered train and slammed into me, slightly disbalancing me. I threw my hands before me to defend myself from the pressure.
Then came the light. Unpleasant light. Dim read light.
Satori stayed silent. Then he took a step forth.
"What you're seeing is a top security room of the entire organization. We're showing you this for now, but once your duty is over, we'll surely erase your memories afterwards anyway."
I followed behind him. Getting past the steam, mty gaze met the... Not so impressive machine. A device working on steam and hydraulic powered gears. Constantly shaking. A clock counted down with time scale too long to read because the commas were absent.
A small display screen with really bad pixels was showing a circle with several spot top of the machine.
The entire room was too messy. Filled with non uniform gears.
Damn, this felt like something out of 18's novel. Did we time travel already-?
"What you're seeing is the source of it all." Satori's voice cut through my line of thoughts.
"Huh? Like what's source?"
"Everything. All tech, theories, machines, toys, weapons. The entirely of human civilization is existing due to this single machine... Yet to be classified under a specific class. A machine so complex it can be classified as a quantum computer, a weapon, a sentient living being, and even an artificial God itself. A true device, that shows the true result of end of human potential."
"Wait... You mean the 'current' civilization exists because of this, no?"
Satori remained quite. Then he turned back, his voice drier than the Sahara.
"Some thinkers believe that this device made by the unknown yet the smartest man ever possible in humanity is actually the true cause of the life on earth begun. Basically... A self repeating time loop. This also goes under the infinitely repeating black hole universe theory though it's even now remain speculative. The true 'theory of...everything'"
"..... I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Get to point."
He immediately begun.
"Look at the screen, nobita nobi."
"Nobi looking." I stiffened.
"That spots in the circle are the timeline breaches caused by you. Currently, despite there being hundreds of thousands of different breaches, in reality, the real cause of threat exists because of these patches. These showcase the real disruption in mother timeline."
"Um... May I?" I raised a hand.
"Speak" He replied immediately.
"In my childhood, with... Doraemon. I've done things like this as regularly as eating pudding for desert. Yet no real trouble occured. Especially nothing of THIS level. Why? Especially when the devices I used are literally mass produced child toys?"
Satori Quitened. Turning back to the machine.
"Vaccum decay. Do you know what it is?"
"Umm... From what I remember from during my 'I'm gonna understand all tech from future by opening them up and studying them to fix everything' phase about 3 years ago... It's like... It's umm... It's-"
Satori opened a holographic image in front of me.
Potential Energy Diagram:
| . <- False vacuum (our universe)
| / \
|__ _/ \______ <- True vacuum (lower energy state)
"In short, the empty vaccum what we call "empty space", the vacuum, isn't truly empty.
It has a certain energy level, called the vacuum expectation value.
Right now, the universe is in what physicists tells us, is a false vacuum — a metastable state.
It's like a ball resting in a shallow valley, but there's a deeper valley just next to it that it could quantum tunnel into."
I nodded"totally got everything."
"Even simpler. The vaccum itself has a state of rest and unrest. Because it has latent energy of its own. A vaccum wave is something that can be caused by this. What this machine you see in front of us allowed us to do was something simple yet impossible by even today's standards."
"That is?" I raised an eyebrow.
"... Creating pocket big banks with controlled physics."
"...."
".... "
"I mean sure, yeah. Why not." I sighed. I wasn't smart enough to get why he was so serious.
"Great. No need to tell you about the reason why I sometimes get existential crisis." Satori exhaled.
Wait.
Did he just joke?