God Must Die

chapter 7

Kyle could feel Commander Dalmian's stares prickling against her back as she tried to look for the problem. Ramdam niya pa rin ang malakas na pagkabog ng dibdib niya kahit ilang minuto na ang nakalilipas magmula n'ong malayo sila sa mismong traffic.

Pinilit niyang huminga nang malalim tsaka pinakalma ang sarili. She tried to think rationally as well. Tinawagan na niya si Jo kaso hindi niya alam kung kailan ito makararating.

She let out a sigh.

"I think the AdBlue system is malfunctioning," she meant to say it to herself but she must have had said it outloud because the Commander walked closer to inspect the car as well. She swallowed the lump on her throat and continued talking, anyhow. "The car gives insistent warnings when it has 1,500 miles of AdBlue left, but I would've noticed it. The car was perfectly well until a while ago. It just broke down like that."

Her family's cars used a fluid called AdBlue because it helped reduce exhaust emissions. She remembered explaining the concept of it shortly where small amounts of AdBlue were slowly injected into the exhaust pipe; AdBlue turned into ammonia and carbon dioxide at given temperatures. Inside the Selective Catalytic Reduction catalyst, the reaction between harmful nitrogen oxide in the exhaust and the ammonia happened, breaking the harmful gases down, and transforming to harmless nitrogen and water.

Her family bought her explanation and they had been using the kind for years now.

"What could've been the reason of its malfunction?" he asked.

She stared at him for half a second before looking back at the car. "Well, a lot, but what I don't understand is that it looks as if none of those reasons are commonsensical enough to explain its break down."

There was silence between the both of them shortly after that so she closed the hood and the tank of the car before sighing. It was extra to thoroughly examine the car given the situation and the location she was in, so she planned on leaving it to a mechanic, although she was one herself. It was just that she didn't want her break to be spent fixing cars.

Inilabas niya ang kanyang cellphone para tingnan kung may reply na ba ang kapatid niya. Jo replied that he'd be there after an hour. May importante kasi itong ginagawa. Tumawag na rin ito ng mechanic pero hindi niya alam kung kailan ito darating.

Gusto niyang magmura. Now, she was stuck there at the side of the road with the very person she swore she'd never encounter again.

She remembered one of Albert Einstein's famous quotes, "God does not play dice with the universe." Einstein believed that every event and the physical properties of each individual particle could, and must be measured with high precision. The uncertainty in quantum mechanics, given that quantum mechanics was based on Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (which stated that one could not simultaneously measure the location and the momentum of a particle), was the reason why he disagreed with it. Einstein could not accept this level of randomness and uncertainty in nature and the universe. He thought that the uncertainty was only provisional and that there was an underlying reality where particles would have defined location and momentum.

Although there were several theories that could refute Eintein's said belief, she still couldn't help but question: what if the universe really was not random at all, and that everything that was happening was really meant to happen? Scientifically, that would be a subject for different debates, but one still couldn't help but wonder.

Hindi niya alam kung bakit pinagtatagpo masiyado ang landas nilang dalawa.

Naramdaman siguro nito ang kanyang labis na pagkailang kaya muli itong bumalik sa pwesto nito kanina, malapit sa sariling kotse.