This is one of the stories in my new book Truth or Consequences.

Corey Hunt was credited as the original designer of the machine when he and his team received the National Medal of Technology and Innovation. As they shook hands all around and received the award, applause swept the auditorium. The audience was composed of professors and researchers, leading scientists and heads of state from ten nations, delegates from the UN, CEOS and COOs from major corporations, and even the more progressive religious leaders from multiple denominations.

“Well, you have certainly blown us out of the water with this one,” said the President as he awarded the Medal.

Corey cleared his throat and envisioned the years of speech therapy that ridded him of a lingering stutter. He addressed the auditorium. 

“Thank you for your invaluable support. We are honored to be here today. The OujiaBuilt 2000 was conceived with the greatest intent and care. It was a great aunt of mine who inspired its creation. My family took a trip to visit her in a senior living home when I was 10. And, between all the cursing and pinching of us kids, we tried to show her a funny video on a smart phone. We explained you could research anything on the internet now. And she responded, ‘I don’t want nothing to do with it. All this technology won’t mean nothing to me lest we can talk to the dead and they answer back.’”

The auditorium roared.

“Thank you, Aunt Luisa!” Corey said, waving. He and his team descended the stage to a standing ovation.

What he said was mostly true, he told himself on the ride home in the dark. The idea, the creation itself, was the intent. To build something without the support of the corporation or investors – it was any creator’s dream. All this – the fame, the awards, the applause, and the ridiculous amount of money pouring in … those were the side benefits of something like this.

Cory remembered his recruitment to Predestined Systems Inc., where he had finally begun designing the OujiaBuilt. Working for the Research and Development Department, he naively thought this would be the opportunity to garner research space, cutting edge software, and financial support. It quickly became evident that he and the other corporate drudges were only here to innovate what the corporation demanded. And what the corporation demanded was specific tech for the defense contract. That’s where all the funding came and went for the scripted job of “making a living” in the tech field.

So, he designed the wonderful machine after hours, in rented lab space, with the most updated software available. He built prototype after prototype with basic materials. It was, after all, designed on the same principles as the original Ham Radios. The key to it all was just a matter of accessing a frequency that no one had ever accessed before. He obtained all the necessary licenses in order to operate such a communication device; he was bound to get tangled up in some random airwaves, like the confused response of an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. It took years of late nights and paychecks saved to invest in equipment. It looked like a dead end. Until …

The rise of quantum computing. That was it. It had to be it. Where else could he be sure to find the key to mysteries unknown other than the quantum field, where he was close enough to taste the possibilities? Forget that building a quantum computer cost tens of millions. There had to be a way.

Now, it was just a matter of time. It had to be the right time and place. He studied all the research across disciplines, until he found where some students had published a paper suggesting a kind of quantum radio which could send data across large distances and mitigate static. The paper conceptualized using silicone carbide, which carried within quantum states at a wavelength close to the telecommunications band. A diode circuit could be used to stabilize the signal and remove electronic noise.

This was the OuijaBuilt 2000 – the first working prototype. The great hereafter was busy. It was noisy. The first time Corey hit the frequency, it sounded like thousands of voices chattering through static all at once. But it must be that quantum entanglement was a factor in drawing the right being to the right frequency. It was a bark. He knew it well. His puppy, Duke. Then others came. A kid he knew in school who was in an accident in fourth grade. Corey nearly fell out of his chair. It was 3 AM and Davey was talking about “Let’s go hunt some frogs again.”

Was the voice still a child? Was it a ghost, trapped at that age forever? Or just a memory imprint on the records of consciousness? What if he had tapped into more levels other than just calling up dead loved ones?

Abstractions aside, Corey didn’t sleep for almost a week. Focus on the details, he reminded himself. Yes, entanglement was a factor that must be used to separate the signals. But, it worked! The communicator worked depending on the Subject who interacted with it!

He needed help with the finishing details. He worked with a fabulous, if weird, set of researchers at Predestined Systems Inc. He asked Patel Ambani, Roger Kimbaro, and Kelly Zhang to come over and test the machine, for fun.

“What is it again? A party game?” They laughed. Of course, it was a trick. But it was common in the city to play board games at parlors with friends, if you weren’t online gaming.

Patel was in shock when an ancestor, a widow who had thrown herself on the funeral pyre, said she had been watching over his family and its great wealth. Roger Kimbaro had tears in his eyes when his father told him to continue his great lineage. And Kelly Zhang, the 20-year-old software engineer who spent evenings in her condo gaming in a separate room from her husband, cracked a smile when her deceased aunt told her to “Remember the jasmine tea.”

“Shit, man. What have you done?” Patel said. “You’ve got a gold mine here.”

He asked for their help with the final touches on the OujiaBuilt to prepare it for trials. They would receive credits, and, of course, royalties. The team got down to business. Patel contacted some stateside family members and hired a lawyer. Zheng and Kimbaro began recruiting for trials – working class, the people who cared about things like family, the consumers. All three refined the software and subdued the otherworld static. Waivers were drawn up for the selected trial participants, because things were bound to happen.

The consumer base loved the OujiaBuilt. Despite a few glitches – hostile relatives appearing in audio, secrets between living members of the family revealed, a deceased stalker tuning in – the people wanted more. They were addicted. And, much like its namesake the board game, the spirits seemed to tell participants the answers to life they wanted to hear. Yes, he misses you. Yes, you are on the right track for your purpose in life. But, not everything in the levels of spirit is honest, and it wasn’t yet clear if some responses might be generated by deceitful or malevolent entities. But, other than one family who claimed the machine had opened a portal leading to poltergeist activity in the home, the trials were a brazen success.

Manufacturers and retailers were ringing the phone day and night. The OujiaBuilt 2000 was available for order by July. It hit the shelves just in time for Black Friday, where riots swept the major retailers with customers punching, pushing, and stampeding for a chance to ask lost loved ones the answers to all of life’s questions.

Patel’s family was already wealthy, and Kelly was still gaming in her condo, but they were digging the credits. Roger Kimbaro bought a house and got married.

“Thanks for letting me in on this, man” he told Corey at a party held by one of the major retailers. He put his arm around Corey’s shoulder. “Brother, it’s a game-changer.”

Corey pulled the sports EV through his automatic gates after punching in the code. The mansion was dark. He forgot to leave a light on, so he triggered the timer from his phone. He was still doing part-time consultancy for Predestined Systems to cover any unseen pitfalls, but Patel’s lawyer was handling most of that on the executive end.

Speak of the devil, the lawyer popped up on Caller ID. He must’ve called during the party. Corey called back.

“Nothing serious we can’t handle,” the lawyer said. “We’ve got a complaint that a lady in Kansas spent all her limited income on Lottery tickets after the OuijiaBuilt said so. Some old bingo lady or something.”

“Ok. You need anything from me?”

“No, no, brother. We handle it. That’s what disclaimers are for.”

The following day there was another report from the Complaints department. In Maryland, a young father had been jailed after ectoplasm appeared in the garage. The figure congealed into a glowing, etheric spirit that encouraged him to burn his SUV for the insurance money. He was up on multiple charges.

This one hit the evening news under headlines “Machine that claims to summon loved ones from the Great Beyond prompts a Maryland man to commit multiple felonies”. The guy made an appearance in handcuffs.

“It was the scariest thing ever,” he said. “The kids were there. They said ‘That’s not grandma’.”

“Sh-should I be worried?” Corey asked the lawyer.

“Noooo,” the lawyer laughed. “No, buddy. They think high-tech engineering, it’s the Magic 8-Ball, you know? This will all blow over. There’s bound to be lawsuits on a billion dollar product like this. Besides, that guy already has a history. No big deal, ok? ”

But the next day the phone rang.

“I think we may have a problem,” the lawyer said.

A location where the OujiaBuilt was in use was experiencing the appearance of floating orbs. No, the orbs were not doing any damage. They were hovering and zipping through the apartment. The customer’s cat was chasing the orbs, knocking objects off tables and countertops, while the dog whined miserably from under the bed. The customer was asking how to put the orbs back in the box.

The following day reports were coming in that a couple who lived in their conversion van had called police and emergency personnel because the van was wedged halfway between two dimensions. The persons involved could access both ends of the van. One end was as usual; the other end refused to adhere to common laws of gravity and locality. Automobile insurance was refusing to cover the end of the van that was in an alternate dimension.

New anomalies appeared daily. The communication capabilities of the OujiaBuilt seemed to be opening all kinds of portals to the previously critiqued speculative dimensions that superimpose everyday reality.

A dual-father family of urban professionals appeared on the news. In the background, their house seemed to be changing shape as if something large and jagged was moving around inside – popping through the roof one minute and projecting through a side wall the next.

“We just want to go back to normal,” one of the men said. The other nodded sympathetically. “We had to send our teens to their friends’ houses until we work this out. It’s tearing our family apart.”

Corey watched these developments transpire. He was on the phone with the lawyer.

“But-but, didn’t we have all this covered in the disclaimers? The c-customers bought it. They wanted it.”

“Yes. And mostly it’s ok. The portals could not have been anticipated from a legal standpoint. Most of these conditions fall under the umbrella of ‘act of God’.”

“S-so, what now? Are all these customers going to want refunds? What ab-bout damages? We can’t be expected to compensate for a -all this!”

“No. We’ll only have to settle some of these claims. But overall, our profit margins won’t suffer significantly. This will all blow over, like any news coverage.”

“But the OujiaBuilt will stop selling? Will we be forced to halt production?”

“No. That’s excessive. And they won’t stop buying it. Just be prepared to ride out a bit of a storm.”

Corey took two Excedrin and some calming herb mix capsules and lay down on the cool dark of his room on the floating bed. He counted breaths, as he had been taught so long ago by his kind, somewhat sexy speech therapist. She was the first older woman, the only woman, he had ever been attracted to at the time.

The OujiaBuilt 2000 team issued a press release after settlements were accepted in the most severe cases. 

“The team at OuijiaBuilt stands by this exemplary leap in technology, which was created for the people in good faith. We still consider its capabilities one of the greatest achievements of the century. Just imagine the possibilities we have opened in connecting the public to its ancestors and cultural heritage, to the realms beyond death. When dealing with the uncertainties of any next-level innovation, we must learn to negotiate these uncertainties together. Just think of the security and comfort brought to you from acknowledging that we have overcome the greatest uncertainty of all – life after death. Imagine the door we’ve opened to new, broad fields of research into the nature of reality, parallel dimensions, possibly even life on other planets and in incredible realms yet unexplored. This is the new frontier!”

It was a brilliant maneuver, developed by the entire team led by the lawyer as spokesperson. The statement was, after all, technically true. Within hours the OujiaBuilt 2000 team had been contacted by global organizations, the International Council of Peace, Trade organizations, global suppliers, top government agencies, shadow government agencies, well-known research labs. The development team was informed each member would need to apply for a Top Secret clearance. They would need to be investigated and monitored by officials for implementing more safety protocols to keep the general public from access to any information that might be floating around in the ether or leaked by unsecured entities.

“How’re we gonna do that?” 

The development team, now the Board of Directors for the OuijaBuilt Corporation, attended board meetings once per month or as needed for emergencies. When the company was incorporated, its product R & D team expanded into mobile and app design for OujiaBuilt. It was important to meet the security requirements, now that they had signed a contract with SpaceY to send the tech into space.

“How do we filter what some ghost or spirit leaks or censor the information in the records of all space-time consciousness?”

Meanwhile, the original OuijaBuilt 2000 design was being sent to multiple departments in DC. Access to the machine was restricted to secure personnel on a need-to-know basis. But, of course, someone who had never seen it in action needed to know. A member of personnel attempted contact with a penpal who had been on death row. He hadn’t responded to her emails in two weeks. An eight-foot-tall bull-shaped apparition, dark and walking on its hind legs, appeared at the center of the Pentagon.

Multiple deals conducted on an interim clearance were in effect, backed nationally to cement trade relations. OujiaBuilt 2000 models were sent to multiple government offices all over the world. French Parliament reported that non-carbon-based organisms were crawling through the halls. Traditional extermination services wouldn’t work; the organisms were unified. They had already hacked the main systems and established a coup. In the houses of government across the Middle East, the Djinn escaped the machines in a wisp of smoke. They transformed into humans, black dogs, and snakes – overthrowing the royal families and pulling the hair of girls with uncovered heads. Other countries reported similar occurrences throughout the government. 

The most extreme environmental groups banded together and summoned angels to guard delicate ecosystems. These were brutish, Nordic, androgynous angels – Seraphim. They stood at entryways to National Parks and rainforests with swords spinning to guard the paradisiacal places.

So many spirits had been released into the world, it was hard to tell on the streets who was dead and who was alive. Repetitive ghosts paced the sidewalks, indistinguishable from the mentally ill and addicted. They roamed corridors, homes, and offices, performing the jobs they had done while alive, displacing all sorts of essential documents, cooking utensils, hand tools, and homework.

The OujiaBuilt Board decided unanimously to shuffle all accounts offshore – to pack quickly and vanish completely. A test mission had already deployed with OujiaBuilt technology aboard the SpaceY shuttle. It was time to go. There was no chance of coming up with a solution for the leaks. The information pouring in could not be contained – interdimensional law was not under the province of bureaucratic regulation.

The original OujiaBuilt team shook hands for the final time.

“It’s been a good run.”

“Better than good. Miraculous.”

“Genius.”

“Th-Thank you all for your work. Best of luck to y-you all.”

Several days before disbanding the board, Corey went home to the mansion and performed a search for his speech teacher, Ellen Ducharme. She was listed as deceased, killed in a car accident, seven years ago. Maybe it was time to use his own creation again. The fruits of his labor weren’t finished.

He stepped off the private biplane into a landscape saturated by the Honduran sun. He exited the plane and took the hand of the lady in the red dress and sun hat, accompanying her down the metal airstairs.

Updates:

Kelly Zhang continued on pretty much as usual. No one in her social group knew or cared what any of the others did for a living nor about the deeper aspects of the others’ identities. Even her husband just knew her as an “ok” gamer chick. 

Patel Ambani returned to India and settled into the old rhythms of luxury with his extended family.

Roger Kimbaro returned with his wife and two daughters to his native country, only to face burning effigies lit by Vodouin-inclined tribes. The family was exiled and settled into urban anonymity in Cape Town.

The lawyer continued to successfully practice in the United States, his reputation buoyed by the handling of the OujiaBuilt Incorporated legal department.