Robert Sawyer - Quantum Night

I frowned, trying to sort this out. “So halothane is used as an inhalant to induce anesthesia?”

Kayla nodded. “Right.”

“And anesthesia is a state in which only classical physics occurs in the brain?”

“When it puts you out cold, yes.”

“So, halothane is a classical gas.”

“Yes?”

“It has its own theme song.”

“What are you talking about?”

“‘Classical Gas.’ It’s that famous instrumental by Mason Williams.” I made ba-ba-ba-bump-ba-ba trombone sounds.

“You are a very strange man,” Kayla said.

She was not the first to have observed that; still, I guess I looked crestfallen because she reached over and patted the back of my hand. “Which is precisely why I fell for you all those years ago.”

I smiled, and she went on: “Anyway, my work is on consciousness as a product of quantum superposition of electrons in neuronal microtubules. And, well… that’s kind of why I looked you up.”

“I, um, don’t quite see the connection.”

“I saw the news coverage about your being an expert witness.”

I looked away. “Oh.”

“You know, you did know about your grandfather. I remember when the news broke. You were mortified.”

“Yeah, so my sister said. But I honestly don’t recall it. I—it’s so strange, not remembering that period.”

“I’m sure.”

“And that’s why you wanted to see me? Because of my grandfather?”

“No, no, no. I mean, yeah, that’s fascinating, but it was your technique that caught my eye—the microsaccades thing.”

“Caught your eye. Microsaccades.”

“What? Oh.”

“I’m here all week.”

She shook her head in what I took to be fond exasperation, then said, “No, it was the correlation with the Hare Checklist that interested me. I’ve been following your work in that area.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Because, just like your microsaccades test, I’ve found a quantum-superposition state that also precisely corresponds to psychopathy. If you’re a high scorer on the Hare Checklist, you’ll have this correlation, too.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, cripes, the time! I gotta go. They’re expecting me back at three.”

And that should have been that, but the words just popped out of my mouth. “Well, what about dinner?”

Her eyebrows ascended, but then, after considering it for a long moment, she said, “Sure. Sure, why not?”

Kayla and I agreed to meet for dinner at 8:00 P.M., which gave me almost five hours to kill—and time to do some more reality-checking. She and I hadn’t started dating until March of 2001, so she couldn’t help me with what had gone down the preceding New Year’s Eve, but perhaps someone else could.

I suppose the information I wanted was also online, but nothing beat the human touch. And so after returning to my office in the Duff Roblin Building and making a phone call to be sure she’d be in, I wandered along Dysart Road to the office of Sally Mahaffey, who taught meteorology in the awkwardly named Faculty of Environment, Earth, and Resources. That could be a miserable hike in winter, but now, in May, it was pleasant as long as you avoided all the droppings from the Canada geese wandering about.

The interior of the Wallace Building was done in Early Modern Tinkertoy, with red, green, and yellow tubes and pipes everywhere, and its washrooms were bizarre standalone modules like indoor outhouses. Sally’s office was off a corridor painted floor to ceiling, doors included, in bright yellow; going down it, I felt like I was inside a French’s mustard squeeze bottle.

Although there were lots of faculty members I’d never met, I’d run into Sally a few times in her role as treasurer of the Faculty Association. She was sixty-something, with hair I thought of as appropriately thundercloud gray.

“Hey,” I said, entering. “Thanks for making time for me.”

Her office had wall-mounted metal shelving she used for a display of vintage weather-forecasting equipment; I was pleased with myself for knowing that the propeller with cups was an anemometer. “My pleasure,” Sally said as she got up from her chair—which didn’t do much to increase her height. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for some old weather data.”

“How old?”

“Two thousand and one.”

She sounded relieved. “I had a history student come here last week, wanting to see the weather report for a key battle in the War of 1812. I had to explain to the poor thing that Environment Canada’s records don’t go back quite that far.” She sat down in front of her computer and proceeded to type rapidly, using two knobby fingers. “Location?”

“Calgary.”

“Airport or downtown?”

“Downtown, I suppose.”

“What date?”

“January first, early in the morning. Like, 2:00 A.M.”

She worked away for a minute. Above her desk was a political cartoon showing a trio of baffled old men in baggy golf shorts on an island only a few feet across surrounded by nothing but water. The caption: “Climate-change deniers retire to Florida.”

“Got it,” she said, rolling her chair aside to let me have a look.

There was so much data on the screen—meteorologists apparently care about all sorts of measurements regular folk don’t—that it took me a moment to find my way around. But at last I spotted it: Falling snow. “That can’t be right,” I said, pointing. “Are you sure you’ve got the correct date?”

She indicated where it was listed; the time was correct, too. “Can you show me the hour before, and the hour after, please?”

She nodded and did so. For 1:00 A.M., the readout was also “Falling snow.” For 3:00 A.M., it had changed to “Heavy snowfall.”

“But the sky was crystal clear,” I said. “I remember that.”

“I’ve seen a lot of wondrous weather in my day,” Sally said gently. “Tornadoes, sun dogs, hail the size of grapefruit. But I’ve never seen snow come down from a cloudless sky. Are you sure you’ve got the right day?”

“Yes.”

“And the right year? It took me to February to stop writing 2019 on things.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure about the date.” I recalled the stars so vividly that night, Orion low in the southwest. I knew my way around the night sky like the proverbial back of my hand; Orion is absolutely visible in Calgary at that time of night in the winter months. Or, at least he is when the sky is clear. I took hold of the edge of Sally’s desk for support.

Menno Warkentin was friends with Dominic Adler, a transplanted Torontonian who held the university’s Bev Geddes Chair in Audiology. They played racquetball together once a week; there was no doubt Dominic was the better player. “Balance, my boy!” he’d exclaim whenever he got in a return that astonished Menno. “And balance is all in the inner ear!”

Menno had recently bought a carbon-fiber racquet in the vain hope that better equipment would make up for his lack of coordination. He served, and wiry Dominic swatted the ball back. Predictably, Menno missed. As he went to retrieve the ball, he said, “I walked by your lab earlier. Saw a guy delivering a skid full of new computing equipment.” He tossed the ball vaguely in Dominic’s direction.

Dominic served, and Menno managed to return it three times before he missed. When Menno went to get the ball again, Dominic said, “Yeah, we got a major new research grant.”

“From who?”

Dominic put down his racquet and motioned Menno over. “The DoD.”