Here & There

by Joshua V. Scher

  Thwack. Got it in one. It unraveled smack dab over the barbed wire and dangled over the carriage house’s gutters, providing me a barb-free, vertical escape route.

  Yes, I was desperate. But it worked in the movies. The hard part was going to be the briefcase. Mom’s report was heavy. Tossing it up and over onto the roof would be hard enough. But I could just imagine it popping open and all the loose sheets blowing out over the rooftops. That happened in the movies too.

  Once again the garbage was the answer. I dug, and I sifted and came up with an old extension cord. I tied one end around the briefcase, the other around me. All I had to do was stand on the railing, jump to the carpeted neutral zone across the barbed wire, climb up onto the roof, pull up the report, and find some way down on the other side to 40th Street, far away from any would-be watchful gazes, safe from any snares.

  That was the plan at least.

  By the time I came to, it was night. My brain throbbed against the inside of my skull. My hair was crusty and matted with dried blood. The briefcase sat a few feet away. An orange umbilical cord snaked along the ground to where it was wrapped across my torso.

  I don’t remember falling. I don’t even remember jumping. The last thing I remember was starting to climb up the railing.

  I sat up and felt my brain turn over inside my cranium like wet cement in a mixer. I had to lean back against the railing and grab on so I didn’t fall right off the floor. The carpet’s tassels fluttered in the breeze.

  Fuck the carpet. Fuck the movies. And fuck my mom.

  I put the battery back in my phone. Texted Toby:

  Slip out my holden . . .

  On a yellow chariot—

  Stop stopping. Just slow . . .

  Reidier wasn’t the only one with his codes. Decipher that, you Department Pricks. My tricky acrostic haiku is not for you. My message muddled with a heavy accent of personal allusions. I’m just praying that Toby’s not too drunk to deconstruct it.

  Hopefully spelling out SOS with the first letter of each line will snap him into sobriety. Then he just has to speak my language. He should get the holden reference pretty easily. We both used to worship J. D. Salinger. So Toby should be able to get: I need him to leave wherever he is and come catch me before I go right over a cliff. If he can get that far, then he sure as hell can figure out from my second line that I want him to take a taxi. It’s the third line that I’m the most worried about. If he doesn’t get that, well, then all this was for naught. We’ll get nabbed, and then he’ll be Departmental property too. Whatever you do, Toby, just don’t get out of the cab. Don’t stop. For the love of God. Just slow down, open the door, let me dash in, and drive off.

  Now we wait. Underneath the stairs. Not to worry, I took some initiative and unscrewed all the light bulbs in the front hallway. Can’t see me now, can you? No more carnival shooting range for you guys.

  Come on, Toby. Come get me. Come get me.

  * * *

  A student interrupts with an unintelligible question.

  “Yes, I would agree that this outlook is the general worldview. Most of us consider the world is out there whether we see it or not. But imagine this: Last night your mother bought a lottery ticket and sent it to you. It turns out she picked the correct numbers. Are you a millionaire?”

  A number of yes’s and one boisterous “hell yeah” come from the class.

  “Thank you for your enthusiasm, Mr. Maynard. So then, now that you’re rich, would you mind tipping me five hundred dollars for this lecture? It’s a pittance to you with your newfound wealth, and I do give an entertaining lecture.”

  “Uh . . .”

  “Why do you hesitate? Am I not worth it? Better question, why haven’t you gotten up and left my class yet to start celebrating? No one?”

  “Because it didn’t happen,” someone offers.

  “How do you know? Just because I made it up doesn’t mean it’s not true. Any one of you could be receiving the winning ticket this afternoon. Who thinks they are?”

  Reidier waits. No takers.

  “So then you agree, even if it happened, it hasn’t happened because you haven’t heard the news yet. You haven’t received the letter, checked the newspaper, and gone to collect your winnings. It’s not real yet.”

  Mr. Maynard protests that that doesn’t matter, as the ticket still exists and is on its way. Just because he hasn’t received it yet doesn’t mean it’s not out there, on its way.

  “Really. What happens if it’s lost in the mail? What happens if when you finally receive it, you throw it away by accident?”

  Mr. Maynard responds with a despondent “damn.”

  “Not damn at all. You won’t be disappointed because you were never a millionaire. You were never thinking you were. Not until the moment that you open your mother’s letter, look at the lottery ticket, and verify it’s a winner will it ever be reality for you. Because until that moment, your mother could have been remembering the numbers incorrectly.

  “Reality isn’t necessarily out there, it could be in here.” Reidier taps his finger against his temple. “Descartes’s demon might be dreaming us. Right, Ms. Echeverria? You’re our token English major. What is it Hamlet tells Rosencrantz about the realities of our world?”

  A quiet clear voice recites, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

  “Precisely. Who knew Shakespeare knew so much about the quantum mechanical world.”

  The class laughs.

  “Which brings us to counterfactual definiteness: the ability to meaningfully discuss and utilize the results of measurements even if they were not performed.”

  Mr. Maynard interjects a question.

  “Alas, no, I cannot apply that principle to your ‘answers’ on last week’s test.”

  More laughs.

  “Although, I did appreciate how you performed your own locality experiment by taking that test without really being here at all.”

  The class explodes with several hisses, ohs, and a stinging, You need some aloe for that burn?

  “CFD is essentially the ability to assume the existence of objects and properties of objects even if they haven’t been measured. And I am going to preempt you, Mr. Maynard, and ask you to refrain from your burgeoning, ‘That’s what she said.’”

  The class laughs.

  “Still, I respect your distrust for this concept. You’re in good company. Albert Einstein thought something was fundamentally wrong with quantum mechanics since it predicted violations of locality. He even went so far as to write a harshly worded letter about it that became known as the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox paper.

  “Albert would have none of it. Locality was an absolute necessity, and there could be no violations. It’d be like if the speed of light could slow down. Nope, according to Big Al, ‘If this axiom were to be completely abolished, the idea of the existence of quasi-enclosed systems, and thereby the postulation of laws which can be checked empirically in the accepted sense, would become impossible.’”

  Big Al. Anarchist Al = Albert Einstein = E? Or Eve? Flip a coin.

  The “speed of light is inversely proportional to alpha, and both have been considered unchangeable constants.”

  Is this what Reidier was writing? What does belief have to do with Reidier’s work?

  So far, that’s all that could be decoded. But there was more hidden inside Reidier’s Notebooks than codes.

  TITLE CARD: GALILEE 6:21

  TITLE CARD: EXPERIMENT 7 ALPHA

  CONTROL ROOM, GOULD ISLAND FACILITY - 2008-05-17 00:17

  Console lights flicker on, spotting the dark.

  The video screen blinks awake.

  Ambient light bleeds in from the Mirror Lab as it comes to life.

  On video screen, SPLIT SCREEN-

  RIGHT SIDE, target room: blackness.

  LEFT SIDE, transmission room:

  Fiber-optic cables, circumscribing the Entanglement Channel flare red for several seconds, then morph
into an orbiting white light as the Entanglement Channel opens.

  A small geometric solid made out of what appears to be graphite sits on transmission pad.

  NOTE: after close video analysis it has been determined that (presumed) graphite is roughly 9 mm by 6 mm. It has a tiered shape with 58 facets including 25 crown, 8 girdle, and 25 pavilion surfaces.

  The Boson Cannons and Pion Beams twitch to life. SOUNDS of the rapid ACCELERATION and DECELERATION of GEARS as the men take a series of readings of the graphite. Once complete they settle into optimized focal positions.

  Encrypted calibrations roll up the console’s computer screen.

  NOTE: as with unauthorized Experiment 9 Bravo, all of the calibrations and settings were encrypted. Once again, I2O has been unable to decrypt to date.

  Another console screen flickers to life, SPLIT SCREEN:

  ANGELL RIGHT: lit, though empty, target pad in Angell Lab.

  ANGELL LEFT: shows Dr. Reidier (again PJs and tweed sport coat) pacing back and forth behind his desk in Angell Lab. In his arms, he holds a swaddled and sleeping boy (later confirmed to be Ecco Reidier).

  Dr. Reidier pauses, pacing to read something off his computer.

  Dr. Reidier disappears offscreen.

  OFFSCREEN: SCREAM as Ecco starts awake. Sounds of CRYING.

  A frustrated Reidier comes back into frame. He’s no longer holding Ecco. He leans over his chair and presses “Enter.”

  Inside their Plexiglas covers, Contact Buttons Alpha and Bravo sink down, simultaneously engaging.

  CUT TO:

  MIRROR LAB - SAME TIME

  ---MULTIPLE SCREENS---

  ANGELL LAB RIGHT: empty target pad

  MIRROR LAB LEFT: the Quark Resonator emits a SOFT, HIGH-PITCHED DRONE as it powers up.

  The graphite geometric solid on the transmission pad remains perfectly still.

  At 2008-05-17 00:21:58.8893302 a quiet THRUM coincides with . . . nothing. The graphite geometric solid remains on the transmission pad.

  NOTE: While undetectable to the naked eye, when high-speed footage was slowed down, a phenomenon was detected for the last 800 picoseconds on the left side. During this increment, the graphite solid seems to tessellate then (slightly) shudder, and finally settle back into its previous state.

  ANGELL LAB RIGHT: at 2008-05-17 00:21:58.8893302, the video feed distorts with static waves. Moments later it snaps back straight, into focus. On the Angell Lab target pad sits a 2-carat diamond, roughly 9 mm by 6 mm, with 58 facets, 25 crown, 8 girdle, and 25 pavilion surfaces.

  ANGELL LAB LEFT: Dr. Reidier smiles, staring off at the target pad. He double-checks something on his computer, then walks off (and over) to the target pad.

  OFFSCREEN: Ecco still CRYING.

  ANGELL LAB RIGHT: A tweed-sport-coated arm comes into view and picks up diamond between thumb and forefinger.

  ANGELL LAB LEFT: Dr. Reidier enters frame behind chair, cradling and gently bouncing a crying Ecco in one arm.

  Dr. Reidier whispers comforting murmurs into his boy’s ear, while holding the diamond up to the light with his free hand.

  Dr. Reidier leans in and taps a couple buttons on his keyboard.

  Angell Lab feed shuts off.

  CONTROL ROOM - 00:22:20

  Contact Buttons Alpha and Bravo depress.

  Data scrolls up computer screen and stops. The screen and computer shut down.

  The console lights flicker out into the dim.

  INT. MIRROR LAB -

  The HIGH-PITCH of the Quark Resonator fades out as the machine powers down.

  GEARS SPINNING NOISE ramps up and down as the Boson Cannons and Pion Beams retract.

  The circling indicator lights surrounding the Entanglement Channel orbit to a standstill, flash green, and then switch off.

  The Mirror Lab Transmission Room light turns off.

  XII

  Who knows when the end is reached? Death may be the beginning of life.

  ~Zhuang Zhou

  The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?

  ~Edgar Allan Poe

  from the Reidier SD Card

  .mp4 file

  Size: 449 MB

  Created: May 21, 2007104

  “You need two things for your work: funding and autonomy. And they almost never go together,” shouts an older man in a dark blue-striped suit, barely audible over the blaring dance music. His hair is wavy and vibrantly white contrasted against his tanned smooth skin. His pale-blue eyes reveal little, and the deep smile lines that frame his lips suggest a practiced, set expression that has been engraved over decades. He wears French cuffs with cameo cufflinks, and a French-Swiss Tour de l’Ile watch to match his French-Swiss accent. Overall he gives the impression of someone who goes to great lengths to exude refinement. So much so, that it seems likely he didn’t come from it, but rather had to claw his way into the upper echelons. He’s a measured man who carved his path with the relentless patience of a river. All of which makes one wonder why, of all places, he chose to meet Reidier at a strip club.

  Reidier sits across from him in a leather chair, a small mahogany table between them.

  “For with funding come strings,” the man continues. “Agendas. Agendas not your own.”

  A blonde waitress in a purple chemise and black lingerie sets down two drinks, a bottle of water in front of the man, a pineapple juice in front of Reidier. Neither acknowledge her.

  “And that’s where you run into trouble.”

  “I’m not in any trouble,” Reidier says.

  The man gazes at the table. He removes a Ziploc bag from his suit pocket. It contains at least three dozen vitaminlike pills. He unscrews his water bottle. “It’s the unfortunate sheep who doesn’t see the wolf until he feels the fangs.”

  “Fate cannot be fooled,” Reidier counters.

  “I did not take you for a fatalist. That’s rare in a scientist.”

  “Fate made me an authority on myself.”

  “Among other things.”

  The music shifts to a quieter, though similarly beat-driven song.

  “I apologize for the necessity of the environment,” the man says. “I hope you don’t interpret it as disrespect.”

  Reidier leans back and sips his juice. “It’s a reflection on you and your company, not me.”

  The man nods. “It provides a convenient cover for us. The noise precludes prying eyes and nosy ears, and the setting gives you a reasonable alibi. Your caretakers will assume you had an extracurricular impulse and won’t wonder too much when you neglect to mention to your family your whereabouts later this afternoon.”

  “Very thorough. Still, it doesn’t explain what I’m doing here with you.”

  “Tell me,” the man leans in, “How’s your work going?”

  Reidier stalls with another sip of juice. “My classes are going quite well. Very bright students this semester.”

  “And your other work?”

  “What work are you referring to?”

  “Clearly, I come to you having done my due diligence. Why else would I be here? Why else would you be?”

  Reidier offers up nothing.

  The man smiles and then laughs. “Of course your discretion would be something I would insist on too. Then again, discretion is nothing more than a polite word for hypocrisy. I worry we might be getting off on the wrong foot.”

  “Having your man in a taxi wait for me outside my office and then intimate it’s in my family’s best interest to take a ride does sour first impressions.”

  The man sighs. “You’ll have to forgive my methods. I could not of course show up in person. Please understand that in no way are you obligated to remain. Should you so desire, you’re free to leave, and my man in the taxi will drop you anywhere you wish. I hope, however, you will do me the courtesy and yourself the favor of hearing me out so that both of us might consider the professional possibilities.”

  Reidie
r waits a moment then says, “I think I’ll leave now.”

  The man raises his hands, palms up, as if in an “as you please” gesture.

  Reidier stands and extends his arm to shake hands, “Goodbye, Mr. Curzwell.”

  The man reaches out and takes Reidier’s hand in his own. As he does so, his right sleeve pulls up, revealing a bracelet. It’s a half-inch strip of metal, gold on one side and silver on the other that twists around his wrist to create a Möbius strip.*

  * * *

  * When I read this for the first time, my heart accelerated to about 260 bpms, pounded my stomach loose from its moorings, and drummed it right out my asshole.

  There I was, huddled, practically fetal, under the stairs. My phone sat silently next to me. Against my better judgment, I had to keep it on. But assuming my alcoholic Apollo had risen to action, he needed a way to give me the signal. On your mark, get set, run your ass off and dive into the cab before we get to Ninth Avenue.

  Just don’t text or call me before that. Let’s not tip our hand, dear Tobias.

  So far, so good. He was either on his way or too busy dancing with Bacchus to even notice his phone vibrating with my SOS. Either I was saved, or no worse off.

  Or my guardians were mobilizing some sort of intervention. A bunch of officially unofficial G-men types, with a portable breaching ram in their trunk, semiautomatic .45s in their holsters, and extra clips in their pockets. Maybe they’d use a flash grenade. It’s Hell’s Kitchen. Who the hell would notice? Nobody’d come out of their apartments to check. That’s for sure. You’d be crazy not to double-lock your dead bolts and slip the chain for good measure.

  With that little daydream, my pulse took off like a tap dancer on crack. As sharp as my mind is, it’s a double-edged scalpel, lobotomizing any sense of sanity and calm right out of my medulla oblongata. I had to do something to occupy it before it sent me screaming out into the night, right into the G-men’s backseat.

  Hilary’s briefcase waited patiently at my feet. No. That fat fucker was the whole reason I was in this state to begin with. The last thing I wanted to do was stoke the fire.