Quantum Night

by Robert J. Sawyer

  “Okay,” Dale said at last. “Let’s give it a try.”

  —

  I came into my living room—you had to go down a couple of steps to get to it, all Mary Tyler Moore–like—and sat on the couch, facing the TV. I fumbled around looking for the correct one of the four remote controls, activated the set, selected the web browser, went to CBC.ca, and there it was, the second story under “International News.”

  “After deliberating for six days,” said a tall female reporter I’d never seen before, “the jury in the Devin Becker case handed down a death sentence. Under Georgia law, when a jury unanimously recommends the death penalty, which it did here, the judge has no option but to impose it. Becker sat emotionless in court as the jury forewoman read the verdict . . .”

  Soon they were showing footage of the jurors exiting the courthouse. I recognized them, but I’d never heard any of them speak until now. They cut to the heavyset black woman, a bouquet of microphones each sporting a different logo in front of her. She said, “The defense tried to say he had no choice in what he did. Hooey. Guy knew what he was doin’, and he did it. We all answerable to the Lord for our actions.”

  It was all there in that woman’s statement—a woman I’d only known as Juror 8, but I’d now seen identified by the text on-screen as Helen Brine. Devin Becker was quite possibly going to die by lethal injection because I’d failed to deliver the goods. The reporter went on: “Under Georgia law, a verdict of first-degree murder can be found in cases where murder involves torture. The original case against Becker had hinged on the state establishing that his maltreatment of the prisoner before drowning him amounted to torture; clearly, the jurors here bought that argument.”

  The newscast automatically moved on to the next story, this one being presented by an anchor I did recognize, Ian Hanomansing. “Continuing with news from south of the border, in the wake of further deaths in Texas . . .”

  I groped for the remote, turned off the set, lay back on the couch, and looked up at the white ceiling, the little spikes of its stippled surface hanging down like ten thousand swords of Damocles.

  28

  THEY could have just tried the tuning fork without preamble, but if it didn’t work, Kayla would never know whether the failure was because of some flaw in the device or because Mrs. Hawkins wasn’t actually currently in the classical-physics state, and it seemed best to determine that beforehand rather than try to beg for further cooperation from Dale if she didn’t wake up. Of course, if it turned out she wasn’t currently free of superposition, they’d give the tuning fork a try anyway—what the heck.

  And so, just as they’d done with Travis, Mrs. Hawkins was brought via ambulance to the Canadian Light Source, and taken on a gurney down to the SusyQ beamline. Kayla had told her boss Jeff what she was doing, and he was standing at one side, his Hawaiian shirt turquoise and aquamarine today; next to him was Dr. Amsterdam. Dale was on hand, too, and he’d shaved off his facial hair. “I didn’t have the beard when she was awake,” he explained, “and I want her to recognize me immediately.”

  Mrs. Hawkins—Jill—looked no older than she had in the smiling photograph at the farmhouse, except that her hair was now completely gray; it might well have been back when that photo had been taken, too, but any dye job had grown out in the interim.

  A CLS staffer was recording everything on video as Victoria and one of the ambulance attendants carefully positioned Jill with the crown of her head by the conical beam emitter. Vic didn’t bother to strap Jill’s head in place; she wasn’t moving at all.

  As always, the test didn’t take long. Kayla knew it was odd to feel elated that this poor woman was showing absolutely zero consciousness—but, as she looked at the readout on Vic’s monitor, she did feel just that: no superposition; not even that usual background-noise line high up. Mrs. Hawkins was in the classical-physics state.

  “Perfect,” said Victoria, grinning.

  Vic got the quantum tuning fork out of its foam-lined case. She handed it to Kayla, who held it, the metal shaft cold in her hands. Dale, wearing a nice gray dress shirt, was whispering a prayer as his tattooed hand gripped the back of a chair. Kayla touched the fork’s twin tines to Jill’s forehead and slid the red switch on the handle forward.

  Nothing happened. True, even if the fork restored superposition, it didn’t necessarily mean that Jill would actually wake up; she could be blissfully asleep now. But Vic’s monitor showed no change.

  Kayla took a deep breath and tried rotating the fork, flipping the tines, just as she’d done with Travis. But it made no difference. The readout still didn’t show any spikes.

  Of course, the conditions were different than with Travis; the synchrotron itself and tons of other high-tech equipment were operating here. But Victoria’s colleagues had been using the tuning fork for many days now with substrate blocks adjacent to beamline emitters, and it worked just fine in boosting them into superposition. And, yes, Kayla would go back to the facility with Jill and try again there, just to be sure, but . . .

  But she knew in her heart that it wasn’t going to work, and looking over at Dale, this rugged, tattooed farmer now with tears running down his cheeks, she felt awful.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. She was sorting through other words she might say, hoping to find ones that could comfort him, such as noting that at least things were no worse than before, but—

  But Dale beat her to it, turning to Dr. Amsterdam, and as soon as he finished speaking, she knew that things were, in fact, much worse. “Until today,” he said, “I always thought she was in there. I always thought she could hear me when I talked. I always thought she’d come back to me someday, but . . .” He gestured at the monitor and its damning flat line. “But she’s gone, isn’t she? Been gone for years.” He wiped his nose with his arm, the shirt’s sleeve pushing up to reveal more ivy. “It’s time to let her go.”

  —

  I walked out onto my third-floor balcony and looked at the Red River rolling by. Between my building and it was a green strip with a couple of picnic tables. It was dark out, and, as a gibbous moon was rising over the park on the opposite side of the river, I batted away a few of the season’s first mosquitoes—they were coming earlier every year. While I stood there, I saw two people jogging north, and, shortly thereafter, two more running south. P-zeds? Psychopaths? Quicks? Who knew?

  I returned to the living room and plunked myself back down on the couch. My walls were a celery shade; that wouldn’t have been my choice, but that’s what they’d been when I moved in. I stared into the soft greenness, thinking . . .

  . . . and I must have lost track of time, because I was interrupted by the bleep-bloop-bleep-bloop of an incoming Skype call. Kayla was supposed to reach out to me tonight at 10:00 my time, after she’d put Ryan to bed; I hadn’t realized it had gotten so late. I hurried over to my laptop and clicked on the button to answer the call.

  She was in her living room, wearing a plain brown top, her red hair tied back. She looked melancholy, and I guess she must have thought I looked the same way, because we both said, “What’s wrong?”

  And that, at least, caused each of us to smile, however wanly. “Okay,” I said. “You first.”

  She recounted her attempt of this afternoon to revive one of the other patients from the long-term-care facility. I was quiet, listening.

  “I don’t get it,” she said at the end, “and neither does Vic. Why did the quantum tuning fork restore my brother’s superposition but not Mrs. Hawkins’s?”

  I lifted my shoulders and shifted on the couch, then tilted my laptop’s screen back slightly to reframe myself in the outgoing video. “I don’t know. There’s something different about your brother. Why did I wake up only a few minutes after Menno knocked me into a coma, but your brother stayed in that state for almost twenty years? Sure, each brain is unique, but it would be nice to know why Travis reacted differently f
rom me and differently from this woman.”

  “I feel horrible,” said Kayla. “I got her husband’s hopes up. She didn’t respond when we tried again with her back at the facility. Her husband’s going to see his lawyer and get the paperwork done so that they can stop feeding her.”

  “Oh,” I said softly, knowing better than to point out that this was indeed the right utilitarian move.

  “I mean,” said Kayla, “she’s been gone for years—almost certainly since her accident. But still . . .”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyway.” She tilted her head. Behind her, I could see the table and bookcases in her dining room. “How was your day?” she asked.

  I thought briefly about what normal couples talked about at the end of the day, and kind of envied it. “Well, I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “They handed down the sentence in the Devin Becker case today.”

  “Oh! No, I hadn’t heard. And . . . ?”

  “They’re sending him to death row.”

  “Oh.”

  “So I failed to convince the jury that his psychopathy was a mitigating factor.”

  “Well, after . . .” She trailed off; she’d been about to say, no doubt, after the district attorney tore me to shreds on the witness stand, it’s no wonder. But it didn’t have to be said in words; her lifted eyebrows were enough.

  I nodded. “Yeah. Georgia law has all sorts of provisions for executing people when the victim is a cop or prison guard; nothing in the rules about when the perpetrator is one. But the statute says death can be imposed in cases where the victim was tortured, and, well, you saw the Savannah Prison videos, I’m sure.”

  “Yeah.”

  I let out a long, whispery sigh, and pretty much simultaneously she did, too.

  “Anyway,” I said. “It’s late—here, at least. And I’ve got a 9:00 A.M. class.”

  “Okay,” said Kayla, looking out at me from my computer’s screen. “Sleep well, baby.”

  “You, too,” I said.

  But I doubted either of us was going to sleep at all.

  29

  THERE was a strip mall behind my condo building, running perpendicular to the river. It contained an equal mixture of stores that interested me (Best Buy, Staples) and didn’t (Toys“R”Us, Petland). But there was also a Subway, where I could get a decent vegan sandwich or salad, which is why I walked over there this morning, and a Dollarama, which sold the Winnipeg Free Press; if the line was short there, I often popped in to pick up a copy. Today it was, and I headed home with the paper tucked under one arm and carrying my salad with the other.

  Once I was back up in my apartment and had poured myself a Coke Zero, I sat at my little breakfast nook and read as I ate.

  The page-one headline, above the fold: 150 Killed in Nairobi Shooting Rampage. Flipping the paper over: Manitoba Chiefs Decry Ottawa Funding Cuts. Next to that: McCharles Calls Dem Opponents “Unpatriotic.”

  Inside: 18 Dead in Texas “Cleansing.” Brandon Priest Charged in Sex-Abuse Case. Canada, US, Fall Far Short of Carbon Targets: Report.

  The editorial: Despite a Muslim PM, PQ Continues to Push Islamophobic “Charter of Values.” And an op-ed: Canada Needs to Open its Doors to Jews Fleeing Europe.

  The business page was no better: Michigan Decertifies All Public-Sector Unions. Euro Plummets as Spanish Debt Crisis Worsens. Apple, Amazon Defend Chinese Work Conditions. Canadian Income Disparity at All-Time High.

  I found myself wondering, as I had so many times over the years, What’s wrong with these people? But, unlike those previous occasions, this time I supposed I had an answer. I’d known about the vast numbers of psychopaths for a couple of years now, but even so, there weren’t enough of them to account for all the craziness in the world. But evil needs followers, and, given the 4:2:1 ratio between the cohorts, there were four billion p-zeds out there just waiting to be led.

  Of course, those people were entitled to the same moral consideration as any other comparably sophisticated being; I wouldn’t abuse or kill an animal—and I wouldn’t countenance anyone doing that to a p-zed. And yet, Q2s, and, I feared, even many Q3s, if they knew of the prevalence of Q1s, would mistreat them. The most chilling line from the remake of Battlestar Galactica was the edict, “You can’t rape a machine,” uttered when humans were sexually assaulting Cylons, who were physically indistinguishable from humans. Sure, Cylons acted like they were upset at being attacked—but it’s only rape, the humans felt, when done to one of our own.

  And the second most chilling line? The show’s oft-repeated mantra of “So say we all!”—fit in or fuck off. Y’know, Admiral Adama, if you wanted to make the case that humans are morally superior to machines, browbeating everyone until they’re all mindlessly chanting “So say we all!” along with you was probably not the best way to do it.

  No, I wasn’t going to tell anyone else about the existence of huge quantities of p-zeds. As far as we knew, the three quantum states were uniformly distributed across the general population; there was nothing in Menno’s work or that of Kayla and Vic to suggest anything to the contrary. But if the quantum taxonomy became general knowledge, it wouldn’t be long, I knew, before the accusation that all fill-in-the-blanks were p-zeds would be used to justify not just the horror of rape, but slavery and murder, too. Menno Warkentin had been right to keep secret the existence of people without inner voices, and I intended to do the same.

  —

  And then the call I’d been waiting for came.

  Dr. Bhavesh Namboothiri, over at the University of Winnipeg, had finally finished mapping out my visual memory index, based on the recent MRI scan I’d had at St. Boniface. In other words, he finally had the key; it was time to open the lock. It was a warm summer day as I drove to his lab—but not warm enough to account for how much I was sweating.

  I’d sort of expected to be laid out on a gurney, looking up at the ceiling, but it was much easier for Dr. Namboothiri to probe the top of my head with me sitting in a simple low-to-the-ground bucket seat on a rotating stand. Nor was he wearing the surgical garb I associated with Wilder Penfield. Rather, he had on blue jeans and a loose-fitting dark-red shirt. After all, as he said, he wasn’t going to open my skull—just my mind.

  Namboothiri stood next to me, and next to him, on a wheeled tray, was a device about the size of a shoebox. Attached to it were two long cables, each ending in a metal tip, a bit like the probes on an ohmmeter. He placed one of the probes over my left temporal lobe, and the other near the anterior cingulate cortex. There was clearly some sort of readout on the box that he could see but I couldn’t; he kept glancing over at it.

  “Okay,” he said. “Do you feel anything?”

  “No. Nothing.”

  “And what about now?”

  “Nothing.”

  “And now?”

  “My God . . .” I said. I recognized her at once, of course—and yet had no other recollection of her when she was this young, or of her with 1980s-style big hair.

  “What is it?”

  “My . . . my mother. She looks so young, and . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, I mean, they told me my nursery had puke-green walls, but I’d had no recollection of that. But . . . but this must be it.”

  He slightly repositioned one of the probes; I felt a twinge of sadness as the vivid image disappeared.

  “Okay, and now?”

  “A teddy bear, but not one I ever recall seeing before.”

  “And here?” Namboothiri moved the probe again, and I tasted something cloyingly sweet.

  “Perhaps children’s cough syrup?”

  “And here?”

  “My dad—with hair!—reading to me.”

  “And here?”

  I sucked in air.

  “What?” s
aid Namboothiri.

  “That’s it. That must be it!”

  “What are you seeing?”

  “Kayla—my girlfriend, as she must have been during my dark period—but . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Younger. And . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Naked.”

  Maybe Namboothiri smiled; maybe he didn’t. “All right,” he said. “Definitely the right time period. And—”

  I almost stopped him from moving the probe, not because the memory was so pleasant, although it was, but because this was the first bit of that time I’d recalled at all, and I was afraid we’d never get it or any other part of it, back, but—

  “A classroom,” I said. “And . . . perfume. God, yes, I’d completely forgotten: that crazy Eastern European chick who sat in front of me in that science-fiction course; always came to class drenched in perfume. What’s her name . . .”

  “You tell me.”

  I scrunched my eyes shut, and it came to me. “Bozena.”

  But suddenly her face—and the smell—were gone. Still: “But I don’t understand. I’m remembering smells and sounds, not just visuals.”

  “Sure, and you remember those with the verbal indexing system, too, even though they’re not words; elicited memories will be of your full sensorium, no matter how they’re indexed.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  The next three memories he invoked were clearly of my toddler years, including what I rather suspect, as a Valentine’s baby, was my first time seeing the ground without snow on it. And then it was back to 2001, or, at least, I assumed so; I’d lived in that campus residence for two years, but only memories from my dark period should be indexed here.