Giant Floating Head Kevin

Started 20 Sept. 2022

Disclaimers and Spoilers

Everyone doing anything is over age 18 * All names were invented on the spot and have no associated reality * Military jargon is best-guess * New Writer, comments appreciated (be gentle!!?)

== PREVIEW SUMMARY ==

Ordinary suburban high school day, suddenly a Giant Floating Head, a hologram, appears and warns everyone that humanity is going to go extinct - global warming plus all the ocean fish dying, and, oh yeah, there's some pandemics coming.

The Giant Floating Head has the pandemic fix. He survived because he's genetically immune. Though he's from another multiverse, YOUR multiverse's version of him is in the high school below him!

Thus, he says, the high school's Kevin has to Get Busy and make lots of kids so so they can figure out a vaccine. So, Good luck! Bye!

Thus starts an epic saga that includes a guy that... sometimes says no? Really? Really.

It's every man's worst nightmare - Every Single Girl in his high school just absolutely has to have a kid with him. Now. lol.

== END OF PREVIEW SUMMARY ==

INTRODUCTION

In the grand scheme of things, my life was utterly uneventful until the Giant Floating Head turned the world upside down.

I think I need to back up a little. Maybe not too much, though, because most of you reading this already know a lot of this since Everybody knows the big bits, and the various memoirs of others near me have added odd perspectives to what I remember happening.

My publisher told me that I'd better be really damned specific about my life, so I'm going to do exactly that, and if you're squeamish about reading about sex, well, what the heck, get over it.

Yeah.

Chapter: Father of all Surprises

So, I was sitting in my English literature class, senior year at Aardmore High School, Clintonville, Illinois (a farther-out Chicago Suburb, population about 30,000), 4th period, 10:44 am on a Monday, October 12th, 1987.

I'd turned 18 about two weeks before, and had a little party then, but life was going pretty well. At least, it had been. I had stuff to do, friends, I was in clubs - was in band and cross country, the normal stuff.

About 10 minutes into the class period, a voice BOOMS in from outside. It was so beyond loud it shook everything, almost deafening all of us in the room. We were all holding our ears and it was _still_ painfully loud.

It sounded like it was coming through the roof of the school, even more than through the windows, but it didn't matter, it was Feakin' Loud!

Some of the girls screamed, we all ducked like there was something coming at us, but of course we knew it was a super-amplified voice, so we jumped up and looked out the window. Our windows mostly looked out at another building, but we could look up far enough to see parts of the face from underneath.

The Face. Right - gotta describe that. It was obviously a projection, a 3-D hologram or whatever, since I could see clouds behind it and beyond that, blue sky. It wasn't a projection onto the clouds, it was lower than that.

Everyone started talking and dragging desks, but it didn't matter, the overpowering volume meant we just had to wait and watch.

Listening was going to happen regardless of us not wanting to! Did I mention it being loud?!?

Our view was kind of up the chin and looking up the nose, almost, but it was dark up there so we couldn't see anything besides some hairs.

I guessed then that almost everyone has some hairs in their nose, whether they admit it or not. At least, I think so, I haven't done a survey or anything.

The words, well, everyone knows those, but I'll put in a transcript anyway since why not.

The context here is, one, Oh MY GOD it's LOUD!

Secondly, the entire thing was surreal and science-fiction-like. Nobody had ever seen a hologram in real life. Movies tried to imitate them, they existed as a concept, but it wasn't possible yet.

What we saw was LOTS better than the ones in Star Wars or wherever - it was in daylight, and we could see real details on the face, skin bumps, imperfections, even though it was kind of transparent, too.

He Said:

"Attention. Attention, please. Your attention please. If you have a way to turn on a recorder, to preserve an audio or even visual recording of what I'm about to say, the recording is going to be worth precisely your life, or death, so start that now. Yes, I mean it, record me now, it could be that no one believes I was here, so you'll need it later."

He paused for a moment, maybe 5 whole seconds of no sound. We glanced at each other and kept looking up.

"Got it? Good, I'll keep going."

"Hello. My name is Kevin Kooper. That's Doctor Kevin Kooper, or Professor Kevin Kooper if you want. I'm the Hawking Chair of Cambridge University, Department of Practical Physics and Physical Engineering, Oxfordshire, England, United Kingdom."

"If that doesn't make sense to you, fine, don't worry about it. I'm not totally sure if I have the right set of multiverses selected here, I'm pretty sure I do, but if you speak Dutch or Swahili, well, maybe you can get someone to translate. My image should be over a high school, my high school, where I attended as a kid, though really not that one because I'm in a different multiverse shard-range than you are."

"If you're hearing this, I have good news and bad news. I'll try to be quick. The bad news is, the last humans will go extinct on your planet in about 27 years. There's three causes, all reinforcing each other. I've selected universes, multiverse-shards, where humans go extinct, rewound the clock 27 years, and that's who I'm broadcasting to, so it's not an accident you all die."

"Now, that's the bad news. The good news is, it doesn't have to happen, but it's going to take a HUGE effort on your part to prevent it. The 3 causes are as follows; One, runaway greenhouse effect. You're putting too much carbon dioxide into your air. This will melt permafrost in Siberia and Canada and release more methane, and that will melt Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets, and then, ecosystems collapse, no more animals, no more fish, everybody's dead."

"Second reason, pandemics, mostly caused by weakened humanity having dwindling food supplies, so people started eating absolutely everything. Some of those animals have diseases that then combine with your diseases and then you all get sick and die."

"Third, and I can't emphasize this enough, all the fish die. You're killing all the fish in the ocean. It's really damned stupid. You're doing industrial scale murder on everything edible swimming around, letting most of it die, and then returning to port with 10% that you do want to sell."

"Incredibly Stupid!"

"So, you don't want to die? Here's some clues. Pay attention. Photovoltaic cells, that is, pure 99.999% pure silicon - 5 nines - makes voltage when put in sunlight. Make lots of panels full of them, make your electric power from that. To make PV cells, put quartz sand in a sealed container with carbon, heat the fuck out of it, and boom, carbon dioxide - a little - and pure silicon come out. Let it solidify, pull a voltage across the hunk of it, all the ions go to either end, pure silicon in the middle. There's other ways, but that's the simplest. About 100 miles by 100 miles of PV cells will make power for your entire country."

"Next, make LOTS of wind turbines, like 50,000 of them. 100+ meters tall, 3 blades. Store power using lithium iron phosphate batteries, or lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide, whatever, lots of tech there, save the power for nighttime."

"Absolutely stop, tomorrow morning stop, burning coal, anywhere. Burn methane - CH4 gas - for power if you need to, until you can get the PV and wind going. Gasoline - petrol - stop that. Use battery electric for your cars, no more chemical fuels. Oh, and the nuclear stuff, uranium or thorium reactors, that's so incredibly dangerous and expensive you should already know to stop that."

"Right. That's one. Greenhouse gases. Protect your ecosystems, worldwide. Important there. Make sure everyone, worldwide, knows not to eat wild animals. Get everyone enough food, from farms. Everyone should have their own garden, if they can, and save the seeds from year to year."

"As an aside, it's pretty crucial to put up some colonies in outer space - methane and liquid oxygen rockets, land the rockets, fully reusable, get some self-sufficient colonies out there that are over 1 year travel from Earth. That'll help prevent the spread of disease.

"Third, declare at least half, yes HALF, of all ocean area, all the way to the bottom, to be marine reserves, where fish can grow forever. Never catch or kill anything in an ocean larger than a person. Protect sharks, dolphins, rays, whales, corals, everything. In those areas, add military-level barriers - explosives, net-cutter structures, whatever, make it impossible to catch fish in each of those, say, giant one-eighth of an ocean areas."

"That's all the vital stuff. Do that, you have a chance."

"One more chance. The reason I'm speaking to you, and not someone else. My genetics. In two separate pandemics, all of my kids - and I had 8 of them, I married twice - survived. This is statistically nearly impossible. The genetics of my kids were well studied, and yes, there's something special there. I can't tell you what it is, most of those experts died, but they created a good set of vaccines based on my genetic... my kids' genetic code.

So, my last clue, and if you're him, you're not going to like this, is... There's a kid in Aardmore High School. His name is Kevin Kooper. He's the younger version of me, at least your universe's version. If you want to save humanity, he has to have kids with a lot of different ... girls? Women? Whatever. I guess I'm talking then, to you girls in that high school, anyone over, what, legal age in your society? Fifteen? Eighteen? I'm speaking to so many universes, it could be anything where you are. You want to help humanity survive the coming waves of pandemic, and know that only if you have kids with Kevin will those kids live through it. At least, my universe, yours could be different. Maybe. So, Kevin, girls, like, right now, get Busy, if you know what I mean. Yesterday. As soon as possible, make lots of kids. Scientists will need time to sequence the DNA of everyone, of Kevin, of his kids, your kids, to find a vaccine that will save billions. At least, it barely worked in my reality. It was a close thing. All humans almost died."

"I can't guarantee results. Your universe may not have humans in it 27 years from now. Or, it may, with those humans on other planets, living in lush green happy cities in harmony with nature, and even eating fish from oceans that have been allowed to repopulate themselves. Ours haven't quite gotten that far back, it's still a crime here to have or eat wild fish."

"That's it, people. Stop burning coal, oil, methane, anything carbon based. Thorium nuclear reactors are safer, build those if you must, but only short-term. It's far better to make insane-huge amounts of PV panels and wind turbines."

"You won't need that military hardware. Militaries just waste resources to fight over pieces of a pie that's turning into to shit, and in the end, even the kings of the hill can't survive."

"What you need is infrastructure that can resist monster hurricanes and ensure people have outbuilding-barns for their livestock - NOT live under the same roof as them. Never live with livestock in one house. Ever. Not during monsoon season, Just. Not. Ever. Diseases spread that way. Bad shit. Don't."

"Kevin, I'm sorry to do this to you. I'm not you, you're not me, we just share the same genetics and in a set of possible timelines, you become me maybe in some of them, and then maybe you'll save other sets of universes just like I'm doing? Maybe. You never know."

"Peace be with you, humans. Stop your wars, you're about to get schooled on what real desolation looks like, and it's worse than anything you do to each other. There's no silence like the permanent silence of an extinction."

"That's all. I hope you survive, it's not assured, but now that you know this, it might be more likely."

"Dr. Kevin Kooper, out."

Running Around

Well, that was the transcript. At the time? At the mention of me, I went kind of numb. It couldn't be. This guy was me? The guy I was looking up the nose of?

I knew this wasn't a trick. October of 1987 didn't have holograms. We didn't have a lot of things. We certainly didn't have giant floating heads spouting off about how all humans were going to die.

Until... we did have that.

The floating head disappeared into thin air, like it was a TV picture being turned off - some distortion as it faded - but that was that, and the class mostly turned around and faced me.

Maybe 10 or 20 seconds later, the door flew open and the principal and the school security guard burst in.

I held up my hands in both confusion and innocence. "I didn't do it! I have no idea what's going on!"

A couple of people I knew said some things like, "It's true, he was just standing here." and all that, but I think wisely in retrospect, Mr. Connors and Alice (the security guard) motioned for me to follow them. "Safer in the front office."

To Mrs. Little (the teacher), Mr. Connors said, "Keep them in class. Have them sit and write down silently everything they observed. Every - little - thing. Details. What it said, what it looked like, what they thought of, what it seemed to imply, everything. Then, everything they know about Kevin here. Everything he's ever said, done, all of it. Not faulting you, Kevin, just good... I have a feeling some people will be here to ask questions, and it'd be good to have this down, somewhere."

I left with Mr. Connors. We jogged down hallways back to the office, where Mr. Connors got the P.A. microphone and I heard it echo all across the school.

"Attention, this is Principal Connors. Please remain in your classrooms for the moment. If anyone has a recording of that, please bring it to the office. Everyone else, please sit back down, whatever class you're in, and write down everything you remember about what just happened. Also, separately, everything you know or remember about Kevin Kooper - every interaction you've had, or seen, or heard about. Kevin should be presumed innocent here, we just need to know everything you know about him. Kevin, is this okay?"

He held up the mike to me, and I said, "Yeah, sure, I guess. No worries, just... Yeah, it's okay, I'm sooooo confused." My voice echoed from a speaker outside the office.

Some police cars had pulled up and cops were going around.

"After at least 40 minutes of writing, classes are dismissed for the day. At that point, turn in your papers to your teachers. Teachers, please bring them to the office asap after that. That is all."

I could see more and more police cars pulling into the street the school was on, blocking off traffic. Cops getting out were getting long shotguns out of their trunks, and I wondered what else was going on.

Of course, did anything else need to happen besides a giant floating head predicting the extinction of mankind?

That's kind of a full day, right there!

Pretty fast, a guy in a suit came running up towards the front of the building, pointing at cops and telling them obviously to face both towards and away from the building, be ready for anything.

As he came in, then into the office, he was out of breath, "Principal?"

"Bill Connors."

"Clintonville Police Chief Harris, John Harris. Call me Chief. What happened that we didn't see from blocks away?"

"Nothing. Voice was really loud in here, and we could look up and see the guy's head."

He motioned to me, "Is this Kevin?"

I said, "Sir, yeah, that's me." I think my face reflected my fear.

He shook his head, "Heck of a thing." He paused for a moment, "Any clue this was coming? Anything at all? Anything odd in your life lately?"

I searched my mind. Nothing came up. "I... No? I'm... just sitting there in class, and ... this happens. Everyone was looking at me. I have no idea what's going on."

Looking at the principal, the Chief said, "Get his parents in here, like, right now. Or... No, tell me where they are, we'll have a police escort. Get them to ... the police station. I'll take him there now, it... might be safer."

The secretary, an older lady, said, "From what? Safer from what?"

The Chief shook his head, "I have no idea. It's just, at the station, I have... resources. Here, I don't know what's up. Anything else going on? Normal day, or not? Odd?"

Connors said, "Nothing at all. Utterly normal day."

"What's your plan?"

"I'm having every class, every person, write out everything they've noticed about this event - what was said, what they thought, everything. Plus, everything they know about Kevin. Figure it might be useful later. This seems historic, and... well..."

"Damned smart idea. Can you make photocopies and get them to us? Save us getting statements from all the students, and - parents might not let us."

They talked for maybe 20 more minutes, during which time the chief kept getting pinged on his radio that various intersections had been closed off, and there were anxious parents waiting for their kids to come out.

Connors got confirmation that there was nothing in the sky around us, but that was soon changed when we heard some fast-moving jets fly by us, and then helicopters a few minutes later.

One of them landed in the ball field opposite the front of the building. It was big, a transport helicopter of some kind, it said 'US NAVY" on the side.

Maybe 10 guys piled out, with flak jackets that said 'MP' or 'POLICE' on them, and carrying machine guns. They ran for the front of the building, right towards us, fast. Most of them were scanning to the side, looking out for other threats, I figured.

They got to us pretty quickly, but then spread out right near the front door. Two took positions just inside the entranceway aimed towards the building, two more came through he doors and ignored us, positioned by the hallway corners with guns aimed at the ceiling but alert.

The ones that didn't come in, I looked back to see they were behind the entranceway's concrete supporting structure, like railings that end in a platform that could hold a statue but didn't. They made the building look important, sort of, but I could see they were almost like a military fortification, to those guys.

Some of the last off the helicopter had run over to the cops, crouching by their cars, and were busy scanning the environment - the sky, the street around us, everything.

I'd missed some of them, he'd ducked around entrance-way, but then came up the stairs, in the doors like he owned the place, trailed by another guy who was obviously the assistant. His question was direct. He asked, "Who are you?"

"Bill Connors, I'm the principal. This is Police Chief Harris."

They shook hands.

He looked at the secretary, and then me. "This Mr. Kooper, Kevin Kooper?"

I nodded but the secretary said, "Yes, he is," before the other guys could. I liked her for that. It seemed like she was on my side, just with that. I was feeling really scared right then. I had no idea, well, anymore than anyone else did right then, what was going to happen.

"School is locked down?"

Connors said, "Locked? We've told the kids to stay in their classrooms for now, we didn't know if it would be safer inside or out, so I decided inside was better."

The Navy guys spoke into his radio, a terse sentence I didn't hear, and the helicopter (kind of loud even inside) spooled up and took off.

The Navy guy looked at the police chief and said, "We have ground transport inbound. I have national command authority to take custody of Mr. Kooper. Objecting is kind of pointless, but if you want to, I'll listen."