The Universal Scanner

 J. Rogers

Dr. Kessa Varn pressed her palm against the bio-scanner and watched her unique genetic signature scroll across the screen—the same signature she'd just programmed the Universal Quantum Detection Array to "discover" in the cosmic background radiation fifteen minutes earlier.

"Well," she muttered to the empty lab, "that's... problematic."

The UQDA hummed behind her, all sixty kilometers of it buried beneath the surface of Kepler-442b. Humanity's greatest scientific achievement, they called it. A device capable of detecting any particle, any energy signature, any quantum fluctuation in the universe. After two centuries of construction and a budget that had bankrupted three star systems, it was finally online.

And it was complete bullshit.

Kessa had suspected it for months. The preliminary results were too clean, too perfectly aligned with whatever theoretical framework the research teams fed into the targeting algorithms. The Higgs-Boson Confirmation Team had "detected" seventeen new varieties of Higgs particles. The String Theory Validation Group had "observed" eleven-dimensional vibrations that exactly matched their mathematical models. The Dark Matter Investigation Unit had "located" three different types of exotic matter particles, each one precisely where their simulations predicted.

Every team got exactly what they were looking for. Every hypothesis was confirmed. Every theory was validated.

That should have been humanity's first clue.

"Computer," she said aloud, "display the detection parameters for my bio-signature experiment."

The holographic display materialized above her workstation. There it was, spelled out in nauseating detail: she'd programmed the UQDA to scan for a quantum pattern that matched her specific genetic markers. She'd told it to look for the electromagnetic resonance signature that her particular combination of DNA would theoretically produce if somehow encoded into the fabric of space-time itself.

It was ridiculous. Impossible. Meaningless pseudoscience.

And the UQDA had found it.

Not only found it—it had detected her bio-signature embedded in the cosmic microwave background radiation in seventeen different sectors of the galaxy. According to the readouts, her genetic pattern was somehow woven into the fundamental structure of the universe itself. The computer was already drafting papers about the "Varn Genetic Resonance Phenomenon" and its implications for consciousness studies and universal interconnectedness.

She walked to the massive viewing port that looked down into the UQDA's central chamber. The particle accelerators stretched away into the distance like a chrome cathedral, all gleaming conduits and magnetic focusing arrays. Somewhere in that maze of technology, particles were being accelerated to 99.99% the speed of light and smashed together with such precision that the resulting debris could be arranged into any pattern the operators desired.

That was the revelation that had been creeping up on her for weeks. The UQDA wasn't detecting particles—it was creating them. The tremendous energies involved, the complex magnetic field interactions, the precisely timed detection sequences... they weren't measuring the universe. They were painting pictures with subatomic brushstrokes and then pretending they'd found those pictures naturally occurring in nature.

Her wrist communicator chimed. "Kessa?" It was Dr. Hoffman, the project director. "The Consciousness Research Team wants to know if they can use your bio-signature findings for their presentation to the Galactic Science Council next week. They think it supports their theory that individual consciousness patterns are embedded in the quantum foam."

Kessa closed her eyes. "Tell them... tell them I need to run some verification tests first."

"Of course. Take your time. This is groundbreaking work."

Groundbreaking. Right.

She pulled up the master control interface and scrolled through the active research projects. The Parallel Universe Detection Team had just "confirmed" the existence of alternate realities by programming the UQDA to look for quantum signatures that matched their alternate-physics models. The Time Research Division had "detected" temporal particles by telling the machine to find energy patterns that behaved according to their time-travel equations. The Consciousness Studies Group had "proven" that thoughts had mass by instructing the detector to locate mental-energy signatures in empty space.

Every single project was finding exactly what it was programmed to find.

Kessa sat down heavily in her chair. Two hundred years of construction. Trillions of credits. The greatest minds in human civilization, all convinced they were unlocking the secrets of the universe.

Instead, they'd built the most expensive confirmation bias machine in the history of the galaxy.

She thought about the alternatives. She could expose the fraud, destroy centuries of research, end thousands of careers, and bankrupt the colonies that had funded this project. Or she could stay quiet and let humanity continue believing they were making cosmic discoveries while actually just projecting their own theories onto the universe like shapes in clouds.

Her fingers hovered over the control panel. With a few keystrokes, she could program the UQDA to detect anything she wanted. She could "discover" that her morning coffee was somehow quantum-entangled with distant quasars. She could "prove" that her favorite song existed as standing waves in the galactic magnetic field. She could even program it to detect evidence that the entire universe was just a holographic projection from some higher dimension.

And it would work. The papers would be published. The theories would be celebrated. Another "breakthrough" in humanity's understanding of cosmic truth.

The worst part was, she was starting to suspect that every other advanced civilization in the galaxy had probably built their own version of the UQDA. And every single one of them was probably getting back exactly what they programmed it to find, convinced they alone had unlocked the secrets of existence.

Maybe that's all science ever was, in the end. Sophisticated ways of confirming what you already believed, with increasingly expensive equipment.

Kessa looked down at her bio-scanner readout one more time. According to the UQDA, her genetic signature was embedded in the cosmic microwave background. According to reality, she'd just spent the afternoon proving that humanity's greatest scientific achievement was an elaborate way of lying to itself.

She reached for the control panel and began typing a new detection protocol. If the universe was going to reflect back whatever she programmed into it, she might as well have some fun with it.

"Computer, initiate new scan parameters," she said. "Search for quantum signatures indicating that the entire cosmos is fundamentally composed of... compressed hydrogen atoms in various energy states."

Let's see what kind of universe that projected back at her.

The UQDA hummed louder as it began its scan, sixty kilometers of the most advanced particle detection equipment in human history, dutifully preparing to find exactly what she'd told it to look for.

Just like it always had.