#2 The Get Quick

 

Imagine a world where the Rolling Stones weren’t famous.

In this strange, alternate world, The Stones never got big, had no impact on the world, and nobody knew Keith and Mick and their whole rock n roll circus. All their songs were unrecorded. As far as records? None. Every one of their concerts never happened. Their entire place in pop culture is entirely removed from culture. It's like they never existed. That would be some strange morning to wake-up in, wouldn't it?

Let's take it a bit more round the bend.

What if in this world, the Rolling Stones existed, but just a little bit.

What if the Rolling Stones were just some bar band in Sussex? Never famous, hardly known, geezers now, lugging their amps a bit and strumming away. Songs nobody paid attention to—little ditties done down the pub. Songs slightly different. Like a number called “Jumping John Flash”.

You find them online and see an old Mick but he's not quite Mick and there’s Charlie, but he's not really Charlie, and absolutely nobody in the world cares about these old gits. Cadge a few listens from their mates, play for a pint of plain, and that's the Rolling Stones, jamming away at a Sunday roast in Horsham.

And you're the only one in the world who finds that strange.

Because you're the only one in the whole bloody world who says, wait now, that's THE ROLLING STONES.

Think on that shortly, if you will. Imagine how you'd feel about that.

Now you know where old qTom is coming from.

It wasn't The Rolling Stones, though.

It was The Get Quick.

These lads were bigger than the Stones. They beat The Beatles. They were the whole rock and roll revolution itself. They were the Get Quick. They are the Get Quick. Only you don't know about them and I do.

Which only means one thing. And that is not a good thing at all. Not for me and my favorite pop group. Not for you and your favorite timeline. Not for our shared reality.

Not at all.

Things have gone Quantum. Massively so. This was always the danger and never the plan. We always discussed this, my former colleagues and I. We wondered if they would be mad enough to go large. And now we know they have. Trimming our reality and sorting our timeline, they are.

Mandela Effects were just for practice. A reality without The Get Quick is massively disruptive. This is the nuclear bomb of quantum reality management.

It’s pure madness.

It’s also poor form.

They could have bloody well got rid of Barbara Streisand, just as easily.

Instead, they took my lads.

Our lads.

The Get Quick is our world's greatest and most famous rock and roll band.

But they've been shifted out of our reality.

Or we have been shifted out of their reality.

This is a major problem of a particular sort. It's a quantum problem, caused entirely by the powers of quantum processing. I should know. I had a large hand in conjuring those powers, long ago. The Get Quick was part of all that.

Maybe that's why they're gone. Because the powers that be have “turned on” quantum processing.

Quantum computers and AI have been packaged for popular consumption by shining CEOs as “the next big thing” in technology.

Sure, that's how it's sold by gleaming corporate forces.

But the origins are darker. Quantum powers are born from shadows; knowledge pulled from the night. Rock and roll had lots to do with summoning those Quantum forces. The Get Quick, especially.

The adventure nearly pulled them apart—Erik Evol, especially. At very least he got some fame and glory for his troubles. Well, not here. But in the reality that I left behind. That time line been dashed or smashed or traded for this one. In this one, Erik Evol and his band The Get Quick are hardly known.

But they're here.

I did find the lads.

But they're different lads. Because instead of defining a genre, The Get Quick is finding their way through middle age obscurity. In Philadelphia, of all places. If you can imagine that. And you can't. Or don't even bother, because your experience of the past has been entirely modified.

You have no idea The Get Quick existed, how profoundly they existed, and how their existence shaped an entire generation. These lads practically invented 20th century entertainment.

So you tell me what to do.

What would you do, upon realizing that not a soul alive knew the Rolling Stones except you. Because that's where I woke up this morning. Where would you even start explaining things? How would you explain their absence?

When it comes to The Get Quick, I have more than an inkling. This might bloody well be a book. And it won't be pretty spelling it out. Shan't be healthy, either.

This quantum business is quite the circus. There's more than a few lumbering beasts sniffing about. Clowns abound, with acrobats of various sorts. Magicians with all their tricks. Games and rides are rigged by this point, so there's pots of money to be made. Certain types are drawn to such fare. Not the types I prefer. Where brute, animal natures and filthy lucre are lurking, the dirt gets particularly sticky.

Which is a long winded way of saying this: don’t get too used to my voice. You most likely won’t be hearing it long.

Once begun, we'll have precious little time to talk through an awful, terrible lot of things. Things you should know about, but aren't being told.

I suppose I've spent my life waiting for some other bloke to blow the Quantum whistle. If they did, I never heard it. Which means you damn well didn't, either. So I suppose I'm Fate's idiot here. And I suppose that evens out, really.

I've lived a fine life and watched others who haven't. Colleagues who crashed, young men—children, really—bruised, battered and burned by all this Quantum business. But not me. I did alright, see.

I'm Welsh and built to last. That's what you learn scraping coal as a lad: how to last.

I wasn't like the rest of them. I never tried to cash in on Quantum forces. I saw this whole thing for it was: something to survive. Well, I have. Others haven't. And as I've had a distinctive—but well-hidden hand—in this entire bloody cosmic charade, I suppose I'll do for blowing the whistle on it all.

Although nobody knows the lot of it.

Never thought I'd ever discuss even parts of it. We hold our mud, where I'm from. When I signed up, I took silence as the course of things. The nature of the business, so to speak, was not speaking about it. Not at all. Ever.

Even when that business took things away. And it did. It took my chance to live a normal life. I accepted that as rules of the game. It took away my freedom to speak, and I saw that as fair play. It took away my decisions about where to live, whom to associate with, and sometimes, almost took away my life itself.

All that was right and proper, considering what we were rattling about with.

But they shouldn’t have taken the lads.

Not The Get Quick.

Now I’m properly vexed.

So I will be telling the good people of this world what's happening. Or rather, “un-happening” in our current reality.

Right, I'm here to blow the whistle so I better well hit my note. Expect that note to have a few tones. Some you might not regularly tune into. I understand how confusing this all sounds, as I listen to myself prattle on. You’ll have to pardon that and stay with me. Things will sink in. I don’t have the luxury of outlining or managing this information. We’re short on time and long on terrain.

Most of it will be handled on the fly. That flight plan will vary. Quantum Anonymous will be partly historical, somewhat biographical, casually scientific and—if I do this right—profoundly alarming.

For all the trouble such revelations might cause those in Quantum, I have zero apologies.

You've gone too far, you have. That wasn't a bloody book title you changed. That was The Get Quick you wiped away. They made my favorite records. So you've made me rather upset.

That was your mistake.

And if you made one, you'll make more. So I'll make this bloody whistle blow and let people know the whole circus. All this quantum, where it started, what it means, and where it's taking them.

Because you haven't told them that, have you?

You're just selling them this business like it's a brand new toaster.

Well I helped make that blasted toaster and so did The Get Quick so here's their story, right and ready for whoever will listen.

The lads deserve that.

I'm a believer. And I believe in The Get Quick.

If I do my job right, you will too.

Right then, more tomorrow. Or “More the morrow”, as Ma would say.

I don't think she'd be proud of what I've done through my decades in Quantum.

But she'd damn well box my ears, if I didn't do what's right and proper now.

So… more the morrow.