Robert Sawyer - Quantum Night

Before my work, and now Kayla’s, no one knew how many psychopaths there actually were. Twenty-nine million? Nuh-uh, Kent. It’s more like two fucking billion —thirty percent of Earth’s population, two out of every seven people.

The waiter came with our entrees. When he was gone, I said, “What about the other two cohorts—you know, just one electron in superposition, or all three in superposition?”

Kayla lifted her shoulders. “I couldn’t discern any difference between Q1s and Q3s. No, as far as we can tell, there are only two types of consciousness, at least from a quantum-mechanical point of view: psychopathic Q2s, and everyone else.”

“Do you think you inherit your state?”

“It doesn’t seem to run in families. Oh, some people are the same state as their parents, siblings, or children, but that’s not disproportionately common. And, as far as we can tell, people don’t change states—we’ve done as much of a longitudinal study as we can so far, and no one has ever switched.”

“Fascinating,” I said. Marveling at the circumstances that had brought us together again after so much time, I added, “Quite a coincidence, you and me both ending up working on psychopathy.”

Kayla’s tone grew cold. “It’s not a coincidence, Jim.”

“What?”

She stared at me, and I met her gaze—until I couldn’t. “I got interested in psychopathy because of you,” she said. “Because of the horrible things you did all those years ago.”

“Good evening, Jim. Thanks for coming in again.”

Jim Marchuk was carrying a plastic bag with the green McNally Robinson logo. “No problem, Professor Warkentin. Bit surprised anyone’s working on New Year’s Eve.”

“Oh, Christmas break is my favorite time on campus,” Menno said. “Peace and quiet. Summers are great, too—the campus is mostly empty, and the weather’s nicer then, but Christmas is the best; the place is dead.”

Jim’s tone was light. “Universities would be wonderful if it weren’t for all those pesky students.”

“No, no, no,” said Menno. “It’s faculty that drive me up the walls. Departmental meetings, committee meetings, so-and-so’s retirement dinner, somebody else’s birthday lunch. Here, with almost everyone away, a body can finally concentrate.”

“Huh,” said Jim.

“You got a party to get to?”

“Kinda. Bunch of friends, we’re going to Garbonzo’s—hang out, watch Ed the Sock do Fromage.”

“I’m sure that means something,” said Menno. “Anyway, we’ll get you out of here long before midnight.”

“I’m happy to come in,” said Jim. “Dorm’s kinda lonely. But my parents are off on a cruise for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, so not much point in going back to Cow Town.”

Dominic Adler entered the room, carrying the Mark II. “That’s not the same helmet as before,” said Jim, but there was nothing suspicious in his tone; he was just making conversation, and it beat talking about the weather.

“True,” said Dominic. “Completely new design.” They were hoping that by using transcranial focused ultrasound—a new brain-stimulation technique the DoD was experimenting with—they could boost the phonemes enough to punch through the background noise.

“Great,” said Jim, reaching for the helmet. It had different modules attached to its surface, and, in addition to ones that looked like decks of cards, there were two—one on either side—that looked like green hockey pucks.

“Put it on,” Dominic said.

Jim pulled it over his head, and Dominic loomed in to make various adjustments. “It’s a snugger fit than the old one,” Jim offered.

“Yes. We thought maybe we were losing alignment with the previous setup.” Dom pulled on the chin strap, cinching it. “How’s it look, Menno?”

Jim glanced toward Menno, as if expecting an assessment of his appearance, but Menno was peering at the oscilloscope, which showed the thick, chaotic trace of the para-auditory scan. “I think it’s fine,” Menno said.

“Okay,” said Dominic. He glanced at his calculator watch, then: “Take your seat next door, Jim.”

Jim headed out into the corridor and went into the other room, lowering himself onto the swivel chair on the opposite side of the glass.

Menno turned on the cassette recorder, which had a little microphone on a plastic stand. “Project Lucidity, stage two, test number fourteen on thirty-one December 2000, 7:49 P.M. PIs: Dominic K. Adler and Menno Warkentin. Subject JM is in place.”

Menno looked at Dom, who said, “Okay. Let’s rock and roll.” Menno nodded and typed “execute” at his computer’s command prompt. He poised his chubby index finger over the backward L of the enter key, took a deep breath, then tapped it.

Through the window, in the chair, they could see Jim’s head loll back, as though he were looking up at the ceiling, the way one might when lost in thought.

Menno and Dom exchanged glances. Menno halted the program, then touched the intercom button. “Jim?”

No response.

“Jim?” said Dom, as if somehow the young man could hear him even if he couldn’t hear Menno. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, shit,” Menno said, pointing at the oscilloscope, which showed nothing but a perfectly flat green phosphor line.

Dominic’s eyes went wide, and the two of them rushed toward the door, did a hasty turn in the corridor, then entered the testing room.

“Jim!” said Menno, crouching before him.

Dominic tipped Jim’s head forward by gently lifting the back of the helmet. The student’s chin dropped to his chest.

Menno attempted to check for a pulse in Jim’s right wrist. Unused to doing the test he’d seen so often on TV, his own heart raced as he tried to find it, but at last he did, feeling the rhythmic movement of Jim’s radial artery, good and strong and at the normal pace, too. “He’s just fainted.”

“Maybe the helmet is too tight,” Dominic said as he undid the chin strap, then pulled the helmet off, setting it gently—it had cost sixty thousand dollars, after all—on the tile floor. “Might have restricted his circulation.”

Menno tried something else he’d seen on TV: lightly slapping Jim on one cheek and then the other. “Come on,” he said. “Wake up.” But there was no response from Jim. Menno then held his own hand in front of Jim’s nose, feeling breath—warm, regular—on his palm.

“What should we do?” asked Dominic.

“Let’s get him out of the chair and onto the floor, before he falls out.”

They did just that, laying Jim on his back.

“He’s not sweating,” said Menno. “He’s not breathing hard. He’s just…”

“Unconscious.”

“Yeah.”

“But the others we tested,” said Dom, “the ones who normally didn’t have an inner voice—nothing happened to them.”

“True.”

“So,” said Dominic, sounding increasingly desperate, “why in God’s name won’t he wake up?”

“I don’t know,” replied Menno, “but we’ve got to call 911.”

“No, we can’t do that.”

“But he’s unconscious.”

“There will be too many questions. Lucidity is classified.”

“Yes, but this boy—”

“Look,” said Dominic. “He’s breathing. His pulse is steady.”

“What if he’s in a coma, for God’s sake? He needs to be in a hospital. He’ll need water soon. Food. And he’ll have to go the bathroom.”

“Well, how do we explain—”

“I don’t care about that!” snapped Menno. “We’re in no position to look after him.”

“We’re under a military nondisclosure agreement.”