Entanglement (YA Dystopian Romance)

by Dan Rix

  Walter Wu shook his head and set the page down. “No, your situation is quite different.” He looked up. “I’m afraid you don’t have a half.”

  ELEVEN

  Plus 1 minute

  Walter Wu held his breath, his knuckles white on the framed photo in his lap as he waited for Aaron’s reaction.

  But Aaron only blinked.

  You don’t have a half. It was like saying he didn’t have a mother, or that the sun hadn’t risen that morning. It had to be a play on words.

  “Sorry—” Aaron leaned forward. “I didn’t catch that last bit.”

  “I assure you,” said Walter, his breath leaking from the corners of his mouth. “To this day our very best psychologists continue to analyze the circumstances of your birth. They agree that you’re extremely fortunate—”

  Aaron raised his eyebrows, and Walter’s face gave an odd twitch.

  “In fact,” said Walter, still unable to meet Aaron’s gaze. “It’s a miracle you’re alive at all. Anybody else with your condition would be dead.”

  The man’s words travelled slowly, striking Aaron’s ear a full second after they were spoken. In the special office, across from Walter Wu, Aaron watched the answer to his life’s riddle crystalize before his eyes.

  He didn’t have a half. And the opposite of what Walter said was true. To be dead—that would be fortunate.

  Amber had been wrong. It wasn’t a setup.

  “So the two who just left,” said Aaron, asking the only question that still mattered, “they’re halves?”

  “You mean the Selavios?”

  At the mention of the name, Aaron’s lungs tightened. He nodded.

  “Actually, I confirmed them myself,” said Walter. “I still have the aitherscope’s printout if you’d like to see.”

  Aaron stared at him, swishing drool around in his mouth. Then he hunched forward, planted his elbows on his knees, and spit on the floor. While his saliva bubbled on the tiles, he listened to the clock’s endless ticking.

  Walter Wu stiffened, and his hand crept toward the telephone on his desk.

  Finally, Aaron rose to his feet and left the office. The deep, purple hallways were lined with paintings of valleys and sunsets—scenes of life’s beauty.

  On Aaron’s eighteenth birthday, he left the Chamber of Halves through a steel service door, peeled a parking ticket off his windshield, and drove home alone.

  And he thought of Amber.

  She had known all along that Clive was her half. All last week, all those nights together, she’d been living with an expiration date.

  Aaron passed his house but kept on driving. Street names repeated. The hours blurred together. He couldn’t face his parents—not without a half. Not alone.

  Not when his final glimpse of Amber was branded into his eyelids, flashing every time he blinked. Amber, all dressed up as a prize for the Brotherhood’s heir, for Clive.

  At sunset, Aaron found himself alone on the cliffs overlooking the pink streaks at the ocean’s edge. Alone, when the word itself meant nothing. And he wondered what they were doing to her.

  ***

  Amber caught a glimpse of the Chamber’s distant towers, soaring like sunburned fists as the last sliver of sunlight cleared the peaks—before she was led into the church.

  The dying light slanted in through stained glass windows, dusting the empty pews. Amber and Clive walked in front of their parents down the aisle toward the priest waiting at the pulpit. They were no longer in their wedding clothes.

  Clive reached Father Dravin first and knelt briefly in front of him. “Father Dravin, I present my half, Amber,” he said.

  Dravin turned his large, golden eyes on Amber and waited. She did nothing.

  He straightened his glasses. “Genuflect on the left knee, sweetheart.”

  Amber was mystified as to what this meant until she felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder, forcing her to kneel.

  “Dravin, are you sure this is the best place?” said Amber’s father. “If anything happens to her—”

  “Then it would be best you waited outside,” said Dravin. “The potentate specifically requested my services. That should put your worries to rest.” With that, he spun and signaled for Amber and Clive to follow him behind the altar, where two tables stood side by side in a circle of light.

  “Shirts off,” he said, moving to an open leather bag on a third table. He slid on latex gloves, then extracted three glinting scalpels. As he arranged his tools on a folded towel, Amber felt her throat tighten. She heard Clive’s shirt fall to the floor then felt the heat of his gaze, but she refused to look at him.

  Amber swallowed and pulled her own shirt over her head. Her loose hair swished across her back, prickling her bare skin.

  Dravin glanced up at her and straightened his glasses. “The brassiere too, sweetheart.”

  Amber glared at him and climbed onto the table, and only when she was lying on her stomach did she unclip her bra.

  Clive lay down on the other table.

  Father Dravin walked between them, and Amber felt his fingers brush her back, trace her shoulder blades, and run down her spine. She tensed, hardly breathing. He leaned over Clive next and touched the scars on his back.

  “Curious,” he said, finally. “I understand now why this was to be conducted in private.”

  “Can you duplicate it?” said Amber’s mother.

  “Hers will be cleaner,” said Dravin.

  Amber felt something cold dab her back, and she squeezed her eyes shut, helpless against the shivers that followed.

  “It’s just alcohol, sweetheart.”

  The priest grabbed something off the towel and leaned over her, blocking the light, and she gripped the front of the table. He pressed a sharp object against her spine. She winced, but it was just the tip of a pencil.

  Dravin’s hand curved up the side of her torso, where the pencil jerked over her ribs. He lifted the pencil, referred to Clive’s tattoo, and made another arc below the first. By nightfall, the outline was done.

  He picked up the scalpel.

  Once again, his shadow swallowed her. He pressed the scalpel to her skin, moved it slightly—and then the blade sank in. Prickles surged through Amber’s body, and her throat squeezed shut. As he sliced her skin, everything inside her screamed. She felt spasms of pain, electric shocks. Her body twitched.

  Dravin dabbed at her back, and his rag came away spotted with blood. He went over the line twice, then started a second cut. Droplets of blood cooled on her skin and dribbled down the side of her waist. As the pain blurred into a prickly fog, she whimpered, and her tears pooled under her cheeks.

  Her parents watched proudly as the priest carved the mirror image of Clive’s tattoo into her back. Clive’s clairvoyance was in her blood. He would prevent the cuts from healing, and they would form white scars forever branding her as his half.

  When the incisions were done, Dravin reached for another tool—and Amber felt him peel away the strips of skin, exposing what was underneath to the cold, cold air.

  ***

  “In the woods, you say?” said the deputy.

  “I can show you where,” said Aaron.

  “A body?”

  “Justin Gorski’s, there’s a hole drilled through his head. They’re going to hurt Amber next,” said Aaron, fearing what they might have already done to her.

  The deputy scrunched up his eyebrows. “How old are you again?”

  “I’m eighteen.”

  “Are you jealous or something? Where’s your half?”

  “There's a body,” Aaron repeated slowly. “Casler murdered Justin Gorski, and he’s going to hurt Amber next.”

  The police officer regarded him for a moment then rubbed his sleep-deprived eyes. “You're going to have to give me more than that,” he said. “Our community values the contributions of Dr. Selavio. I can’t start a criminal investigation based off a crack-pot story from a jealous seventeen-year old.”

  “Eighteen,
” said Aaron.

  “Maybe you should spend some time with your half,” said the deputy, and his eyes flicked to the picture frame on his desk.

  Aaron followed his gaze to a photo of the deputy’s half and their kids. A normal family. Except something in the picture was off.

  Aaron glanced at the other photos behind the deputy, also of the same woman, then back to the one on his desk—and he felt a chill.

  In each photograph, the deputy’s half had the same blank look, like there wasn’t anything behind her eyes.

  The officer saw where he was looking and twisted the picture away from him. He stood. “Let me show you out, Mr. Harper.”

  ***

  He needed more proof.

  When he was sure his parents were asleep, Aaron snuck into his house and tiptoed to his bedroom. He took a deep breath and flipped on the lights. His room was just as he left it.

  Aaron hesitated in the doorway, breathing slowly, as the smell of sunscreen and vanilla floated over him—her smell. It was all over his clothes, floating out of his laundry hamper, just as strong as the first time they met.

  He remembered meeting her at the bonfire. Now, on his birthday, if not for the throbbing in his lungs, if not for that smell, everything in between could have been a dream—Dr. Selavio’s machine, the body, the vial full of clairvoyance.

  There was no proof.

  But as Aaron watched his wrinkled, mud-smeared jeans sway on the back of his chair, a terrifying idea took hold of him.

  The vial was proof.

  It had tumbled off his fingers. He knew exactly where it sank . . . He could recover it.

  Before he backed down, Aaron opened the bottom drawer and closed his fingers around the hem of his bathing suit. Instinct pressed against the back of his mind, screaming at him. The vial was buried in the sand under thirty feet of water. He’d never find it.

  But what if he could?

  Could a vial full of clairvoyance save Amber’s life? Could it give her a new half?

  That was what truly scared him.

  ***

  Entanglement

  Aaron googled the word after he parked outside the Arroyo Beach Café, using their Wi-Fi and his mom’s laptop which he balanced against the steering wheel. The word was thrown around every five seconds, but he still didn’t understand it.

  The sun was just rising.

  He clicked on the second link, a wiki page titled “Quantum entanglement,” and read from the top.

  Quantum entanglement (commonly known as entanglement or clairvoyance) occurs when particles such as photons, electrons, and even molecules as large as DNA interact physically and then become separated such that each resulting member of a pair is properly described by the same quantum mechanical state . . .

  Fat lot of sense that made.

  Aaron scanned the rest of the page, but none of it meant jack. Frustrated, he clicked on random keywords, jumping through page after page about halves until he ended up on a page titled “Quantum teleportation.”

  Aaron waded through more dense physics, again comprehending none of it, and he was about to slam the laptop shut when a sub-heading caught his eye.

  He stared at the strangest phrase he had ever seen.

  Entanglement swapping

  A film of dust coated the laptop’s display, catching the morning rays and obscuring the text. He grabbed his shirt and wiped the screen, and read the first thing all morning he did understand.

  If Alice has a particle which is entangled with a particle owned by Bob, and Bob teleports it to Carol, then Alice’s particle becomes entangled with Carol’s.

  ***

  At nine in the morning on Easter Sunday, Aaron peeled off his shoes and stuck his feet into the sand at Arroyo Beach. Fog whisked past him. The month-old charred logs from the bonfire had long since been broken apart and buried.

  Entanglement swapping.

  There was no way.

  Aaron felt thunder against his back and glanced up to see a wall of white foam smash against the sand. The surf looked especially rough today.

  But he had come prepared.

  He threw down his backpack and extracted a pair of goggles, an underwater flashlight, and a package of eight neon dive sticks.

  Aaron tore open the package with his teeth and jammed all eight of them into the pocket of his bathing suit. Then he slid the flashlight into his other pocket, took off his shirt, and stumbled toward the water.

  A wave rose and smashed in front of him, stinging his eyes with mist and parting around his ankles. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as the night he swam with Clive, but it still stung. He stepped up to his knees in foam, and goose bumps rushed across his skin.

  After he nearly drowned in the well, the thought of diving for the vial made his lungs ache. For a month, he had tortured himself brooding over its hiding place, knowing it was just out of reach—and knowing that it could be reached.

  Now, wading thigh-deep through the ocean’s thrusts, he wished more than anything that he never had the thought.

  What exactly was he planning to do once he found the vial? Take it to the police? A doctor? Or find a way to use it himself.

  Aaron rotated his shoulders, crouched, and charged through a mountain of water. He popped up on the other side and climbed another wave, struggled over a third, a fourth, then broke free of the pounding surf.

  A vial full of clairvoyance could be capable of anything, but he prayed it never came to that.

  Aaron swam as hard as he could, and his uneasiness reminded him, once again, that he had no idea what Dr. Selavio was up to. Or why he even filled the vial in the first place.

  Around him, the fog thickened, blocking his view of the buoy. He slowed and treaded water, and a crisp breeze whistled in his ears. He patted his pockets to make sure he still had the flashlight and dive sticks before he started up again.

  Soon he couldn’t see the beach, just swells and white caps, and the same arctic gray in all directions. His arms throbbed with fatigue. He should have reached the buoy by now.

  Aaron pressed on, but his strokes felt heavier, burdened by anxiety. He stopped again, now gasping for breath, and scanned three-hundred-and-sixty degrees of bleak horizon. A swell drove him skyward then gave out beneath him.

  No way he’d swum this far, not at midnight, not after a volleyball game, and not in freezing March waters. He must have passed the buoy in the fog.

  Aaron angled his body back to shore—or what he thought was shore—and once again lugged his arms through the brine. He had wasted his energy, and now he had precious little left to recover the vial.

  But the fog thinned. For a few seconds, he glimpsed the beach—and the buoy?

  Still beyond him. He’d hardly made it a third of the way.

  A long time ago, Aaron had heard the water was seventeen feet deep at the buoys. Or was it thirty-seven? Aaron reached the buoy choking for breath, not sure he could manage five.

  After catching his breath, he tugged the dive sticks from his pocket and released them all into the water. He watched them sink.

  They were bigger than the vial, but their behavior would be the same underwater—they would sink the same. And if everything went according to plan, the neon dive sticks would roughly mark the area at the bottom where he should search for the vial.

  Aaron stretched the goggles over his eyes and dipped his head underwater. A murky green abyss swallowed his gaze. There was no hint of the bottom, and the buoy’s chain sank deep into the haze, eerily still.

  Aaron raised his head, took a deep breath, and made the plunge. Scraps of kelp materialized inches from his nose and whisked past him. He swam as deep as he could, until his ears throbbed. But there was no sign of the bottom.

  Back at the surface, Aaron clung to the buoy, panting. But as he waiting for the hollow feeling in his chest to subside, he had a chilling thought. Even now, Dr. Selavio could be strapping Amber into his machine. Who knew how much time she had left.

  Feeling
sick and failing to push the thought from his mind, Aaron submerged his head again and scanned the teal gloom for any indication of the sea floor. Nothing. The bleak haze sank into infinity. It was hopeless.

  No it wasn’t. Aaron’s eyes settled on the crusty chain swaying gently in the ocean’s current—the chain that anchored the buoy to the bottom.

  Aaron grabbed the rusted links, and slime oozed between his fingers. He dived again, this time climbing down the chain. Seawater rushed around him, squashing him. Still no sign of the bottom.

  His heart thumped in his ears, like impacts from a baseball bat. The goggles pinched his sinuses. Again and again he plunged his hands through freezing water and yanked the chain, dragged himself deeper. A cold, dark midnight closed around him.

  Without warning, a vast black wall materialized from the gloom in front of him—the bottom of the ocean. Three of the dive sticks gleamed in the sand: yellow, green, and pink. He slapped the bottom and scrambled back up to the surface.

  Afterwards, he had to catch his breath for a whole minute. Waves lapped against the buoy. If he could touch the bottom, then he could definitely recover the vial.

  Aaron dived again. Three more times. He scoured the seafloor with his flashlight, and the dive sticks lit up in its beam. All eight of them.

  But he never found the vial.

  It should have been easy, like finding a glow stick at night. The vial held bright red fluid—or was it buried in the sand? Aaron clung to the buoy and caught his breath for the sixth time, and a gust of wind made him shiver.

  He simply had to find the vial.

  On his next dive, he swept his flashlight around a larger radius. For a split-second, just inside the farthest dive stick, the sand glinted. He flicked the beam back to the spot but saw nothing.

  Aaron swam through flakes of dead kelp and brushed his hand along the bottom. He had to check now or risk losing the spot.

  His lungs heaved, pulling at nothing. He already should have surfaced. Aaron raked his fingers through the muck, which billowed up in his face. He watched it settle. Bits of silica, grains of iridescent shells. In the flashlight’s beam, it all glinted—he hadn’t seen a damn thing.