When this first coasted into my
Inbox, I paid it little attention. I read the report, checked out my
statistics, and it was otherwise fine. Then I noticed the 2 digit '
00' at the end of the date. 'Not
Y2K compatible? That struck me as strange, until I realized that the year was at the
left side of the date. The '00' was the date of the month, not the year.
I got dizzy for a few seconds, as I tried to puzzle that one out. Glitch. It has to be a glitch. Or maybe, just maybe, this report was caught in the dimensional rift between months. The length of time should be zero, but theoretically, there is some infintesimal probability of an event happening in that zero-length period.
I checked the numbers again. Yes, they showed arrival consistent with what I would expect from a temporal anomaly. Of course, I had never seen a real anomaly occur, so I could not be absolutely certain. I decided to put the report in the particle accelerator and see what happened.
As the report approached the speed of light, something started happening. It began around one-fourth c, in the shape of a torus around the accelerating report. It looked like a misty swirling thing, further resolving as the report approached lightspeed. Normally, the report would never have been able to reach that velocity, but this was no ordinary report. This was a report in a state of quantum indecision. I cannot explain it fully; it just seemed like it wanted to go back to where it came from.
The report broke the light barrier, and the swirly mist coalesced into a kind of portal. It hurt the eyes to look at. I was in some kind of shock, never having expected this. Then two men stepped out of the portal; another unbelievable surprise.
One looked at the other, and said, "Nate, I thought I told you to fix that Zero-Date glitch."
"Sorry, bones. I'll fix it as soon as the server phases back into existence again."
They stepped back into the portal. Figures. I knew it had to be a glitch.