Robert Sawyer - Quantum Night

When the last balcony came to an end, we headed down a staircase onto the synchrotron floor. There were other researchers here, some in lab coats, and Vic and Kayla greeted each one we passed.

We quickly came to the SusyQ beamline, which had a gurney parked in front of it. Victoria had already received ethics approval and experimental permits for her ongoing work with humans here, but she still needed me to sign a waiver; I did so without bothering to read it. And then I lay down on my back, and, as Vic loomed in, I couldn’t help but notice that she was quite lovely. She put a strap—thick, off-white, the kind of material seat belts were made of—over my forehead to hold my head still. And then, with Kayla’s help, she rolled the gurney to the end of her beamline, a series of tubes that terminated in a conical emitter.

I looked up at the ceiling, far above. Conduits and pipes hung from it, and there was a yellow crane unit depending from tracks that apparently allowed it to move backward and forward as well as left and right.

Victoria said, “Okay.”

“Yup, anytime you’re ready.”

She laughed. “We’re done, Jim.”

“Oh.”

She leaned over me again and undid the strap. I rubbed my forehead to restore circulation; the strap’s texture had been impressed into my skin.

“And what’s the scoop?”

“You’re a Q3, just like me and Kayla,” said Vic.

“A super position to be in,” I said as I sat up.

“Is he always like that?” Vic said, looking at Kayla.

Kayla sighed affectionately. “I’m afraid so.”

I got off the gurney and walked over so I could see the monitor they were looking at. Vic pointed. “See the three spikes? Each one is an electron in superposition.”

“What’s that?” I said, pointing to a wobbly horizontal line much higher up on the display.

“We’re not sure,” said Vic, frowning. “It’s always there when we do our runs, and it never changes. It looks like some sort of quantum entanglement, but…” She shrugged.

“We’ll identify it eventually,” said Kayla, “but—yeah, it’s been driving us nuts.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Kayla had work to do that day, which left me with many hours to kill. I wanted to fill in as much of my missing six months as possible, and so I decided to see if anyone I knew from that period happened to live in Saskatoon now. Kayla set me up in an empty office at the Light Source, and I typed this query into the computer there:

“University of Manitoba” graduated 2003 Saskatoon

I looked at the first batch of results—LinkedIn pages, business listings—but didn’t recognize any of the names. I clicked “Next,” and, lo and behold, there was someone I knew well: David Swinson; we’d had adjacent dorm rooms. He’d become an optometrist, it seems, and his business address, according to Google Maps, wasn’t far from the Light Source. What the hell, I thought, and headed off to ask Kayla if I could borrow her car.

The shopping mall was small by the standards of such things, just a couple dozen stores, most of which were chain clothing shops: The Gap, Lululemon, Old Navy. But there were also a few professional offices: two family practitioners, an accountant, and my friend Dave the optometrist. His unit had a front window with posters of people wearing glasses. Actually, I was convinced they were posters of people wearing glasses frames: there was no distortion or reflection to give any indication that they had lenses in them.

I swung the door open, and a little chime sounded. Inside was a receptionist’s desk, some chairs, wooden racks filled with frames, and another door that presumably led to the examining room. The receptionist must have been away because a man emerged from the back wearing a navy-blue lab coat. I wouldn’t have recognized him on the street. All but the barest fringe of Dave’s hair was gone, and a full beard hid much of his lower face. His blue eyes were bracketed by crow’s-feet, and his skin had both a roughness and looseness it hadn’t possessed when he’d been in his early twenties.

“Dave?” I said.

He looked at me without the slightest hint of recognition, which disappointed me. I liked to think I’d aged better than he had. “Yes?”

“It’s me,” I said. “Jim. Jim Marchuk. You know, from U of M.”

The eyes went wide, and color came into his lined face. “Fuck,” he said softly.

“I know it’s been a long time, but—”

“Get out.” His voice had taken on an edge. “Get the fuck out.”

“Dave, I—”

“Don’t you fucking ‘Dave’ me. Jesus Christ. Jesus Fucking Christ.”

I tried to keep my tone friendly. “I just want to ask you a few questions.”

“About what? About how you almost ruined my whole life? What the hell are you doing here? I’m going to piss on your fucking grave, asshole—and you can’t be in it soon enough.”

“Dave, honestly—”

A vertical vein was standing out in the middle of his forehead. “‘Honestly’?” he sneered. “‘Honestly’? You don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Dave, I don’t know what you think I did, but—”

“But nothing,” he said. His fists were trembling at his sides. He seemed to be aware of the fact that he was losing it, because he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. And then he spoke, low, measured: “This is private property. I’m asking you—I’m telling you—to leave. Right now.”

“Dave…”

“Right now, or I call the goddamn police. Understand?” He pointed to the glass door, his arm shaking as he did so.

I looked at him a moment longer, then shrugged a little. I was worried about what he might do if I turned my back on him, so I backed out, wondering exactly what the hell I had done to him all those years ago.

I walked around the mall in a daze for a while, trying to regain my equilibrium and waiting for my heart to stop pounding. When I at last felt in control enough to operate a motor vehicle, I drove back to the Light Source to return Kayla’s car.

Although my business there was technically concluded—I’d been analyzed on the beamline, and could take a cab to the bus station for the long trip home—it was now Friday afternoon, and, to my delight, Kayla suggested I stay through the weekend. She didn’t live far from the Light Source, and rather than have me hang around there while she worked, she volunteered to drive me back to her house. We swung by Victoria’s office first, and Kayla retrieved her spare key from Vic—apparently, they each had a key to the other’s home—so that I could go out for a walk later, or whatever, and then she drove me back. I thought she was just going to drop me off, but she turned off the car, and came on in with me, and—

—she swung me around, draped her arms around my neck, pulled me close, and kissed me.

When our lips finally separated, I said, softly, “Wow…”

She smiled up at me, blue eyes twinkling. “I wasn’t sure before, but you did pass the test. Plus, Vic thinks you’re a catch.”

She took my hand and led me upstairs to her bedroom, its walls painted a soft mint green, and soon our clothes were off, and we were lying on the bed. I’d certainly fantasized about something like this happening, but, well, it was midafternoon, and, even with the lights off, plenty of illumination poured in through the window. I couldn’t help but feel an even worse case of the discomfort I’d experienced when Kayla and I had met at lunch. Nobody looked as good at thirty-nine as they did at twenty, and although I tried to get at least some exercise every day, she was doubtless thinking I’d aged since the last time she’d seen me naked.