Quantum Night

13

“What horrible things?”

Kayla looked out the semicircular window. The sun had set; the rivers were dark and still, winding blacktop roads. I let the words hang there for a moment as she chewed on her lower lip. At last, she looked back at me, blue eyes slightly narrowed. “You really don’t remember? Not even that?”

“Honestly, no.”

“Look,” she said, “I kept track of you a bit over the years. Checking online now and then, or asking mutual acquaintances how you were doing. And people kept saying things like, ‘Oh, yeah, Jim. What a nice guy!’ And you were a good guy when we started dating. Thoughtful, kind, supportive. So when…”

She trailed off and looked at the blond brick wall.

“What?” I said.

“So when you got violent, it was a total surprise, you know? Knocked me for a loop.” She lowered her voice, and then, softly, sadly, she added, “Figuratively and literally.”

I was absolutely floored, and I’m sure my eyes went wide. “My… God. I—Kayla, honestly, I wouldn’t—I’d never…”

She lifted her head and finally met my gaze—and held it, looking really, really hard, her attention flicking from my left eye to my right and back again. “Did you take your own test?” she asked. “The microsaccades one?”

“Of course.”

“And?”

“And I’m normal, absolutely. Not a psychopath.”

“You know, just on the numbers, there’s a thirty percent chance you are.”

“I’m not.”

She drew her eyebrows together and compressed her lips.

“Look,” I said, “whatever happened—whatever I did—I’m so, so sorry. It has to be related to the brain damage that caused me to lose those memories. But I’m all right now.”

“You can’t know that. Until a few days ago—until what happened on the witness stand—you didn’t even know you’d lost any memories. Who knows what else you don’t remember doing?”

“I’m not a psychopath,” I said again. “I can prove it with my goggles.”

She looked dubious again. “I mean, your technique is interesting, but…”

“Okay, all right. Prefer your own equipment? How ’bout this? I’d love to see that synchrotron of yours, and you can test me for yourself. What is it, ten hours by car to Saskatoon?”

“Eight, if you’ve got a heavy foot like me, but, seriously, Jim, that’s not necessary.”

“Hey, I’m only teaching a couple of summer courses. My last class ends at 1:00 on Thursday, and you said that’s about when you’re going home. I don’t have another class until 8:00 A.M. Wednesday morning.” I made my tone offhanded. “We could do it this weekend. Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to share the driving?”

She was clearly startled. “Well, I mean, um, how would you get home?”

“Greyhound? VIA Rail?”

She looked out into the darkness again, then slowly turned back to me. “Okay, sure. Why not? But I have to warn you: Saturdays I go see Travis.”

I was surprised at the way my heart fell, but Kayla was brilliant and beautiful; was it any wonder she had a boyfriend?

“Oh. Um, okay.”

“You could come along, if you like. Just like old times.”

Good grief! Just how much had I forgotten? “I, ah, wouldn’t want to be a third wheel.”

She looked startled for a moment. “You really don’t remember, do you? Travis is my brother.”

“Oh!”

“We used to visit him here in Winnipeg, back when we were dating.” She saw my puzzled expression. “He’s in a coma; has been for ages.”

“What happened?”

“Nobody knows. They found him passed out. No head injury, though; he didn’t trip and smash his skull, or anything like that.”

“Huh.”

“He was so strong, and not just physically. He was a brick, you know? He was fourteen when our dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Our mother was a mess, but Travis, he was her pillar of strength.” She paused. “Anyway, Trav and I grew up in Winnipeg, but when I got the job at the synchrotron, I moved him and my mom to Saskatoon.” She shrugged a little. “It didn’t make any difference to Travis, and Mom was delighted to be closer to her granddaughter; she looks after Ryan for me when I can’t.”

“Oh, that must be handy, having her live with you.”

“My mom? No, no. She’s just sixty-two. She’s got her own place. She’s a freelance graphic designer; works out of her house. But Travis is in a facility. I visit him every Saturday morning, sit with him for an hour.” She smiled ruefully. “It’s almost like therapy. I talk about my week, natter on, say whatever comes to mind. I long ago gave up any hope that he’s going to respond, but…”

“Sure,” I said. “And, yeah, I’d be happy to keep you company on Saturday, if you’d like me there.”

“Thanks. I know it doesn’t make any real difference if I go or not, but, well…” She shrugged. “It’s something I have to do.”

I nodded. “Some people in minimally conscious states or with locked-in syndrome are aware of, and do appreciate, visitors, even if they can’t respond.”

“And doubtless some of those at the facility are minimally conscious. But not Travis.”

“Oh?”

“I had an ambulance service bring him to the Light Source a while ago. Took him on a stretcher down to the SusyQ beamline; that’s short for ‘superpositioned systems—quantum.’ Vic ran our process on him.” Kayla let out a small sigh. “Might as well have put a hunk of granite in front of the emitter; they both would’ve shown the same thing.” She shrugged. “Scientist first, little sister second, I guess. Anyway, that’s how we confirmed our notion about the classical-physics state: no superposition means a complete lack of consciousness.”

I didn’t want to seem insensitive, but, well, the utilitarian position would be clear in a case like this. “So then, ah—”

“Why don’t I pull the plug?”

“Well, yeah.”

She shrugged a little. “He’s my brother.” I couldn’t think of a good response, so I remained silent. But after a time, she went on. “I know he’s not suffering; he can’t be in any pain. And, well, where there is life, there is hope.”

I peered out the semicircular window, radial slats making it look like a half-submerged captain’s wheel. The immaculately groomed waiter deposited the bill, then disappeared; I paid, since Kayla had gotten lunch. Kayla was staying at Inn at The Forks, which is why I’d chosen Sydney’s. I walked her the hundred meters or so to her hotel.

The Inn was five stories tall, and apparently pretty upscale. I’d been to the lobby a few times but never to the rooms—and it didn’t look like that was going to change this evening. The elevators were close to the front desk, affording little privacy, although an indoor waterfall provided some masking white noise.

“You really want to come to Saskatoon?” Kayla asked, facing me.

“Absolutely,” I said. “And—oh, shit.”

“What?”

“I forgot. Damn! I have to make an appearance at the CMHR Thursday at four.”

“At the what?”

“The Canadian Museum for Human Rights.” I pointed at the north wall, hoping she could visualize what was on the other side of it. “It’s that round, glass-and-steel building just over there. They’re having a reception to kick off a lecture series, and I’m on the board of directors, so…”

“Can you bring a date?”

My heart skipped a beat. “Um, sure. Sure, yeah.”

She pushed the up button. “I was hoping to get to visit that museum on this trip, but haven’t had a chance. Okay; let’s do it. We’ll hit the road right after the reception.”

“Wonderful! Thank you.”

The elevator arrived. She hesitated for a moment, leaned in and gave me a quick hug, then entered the car.

I headed out the sliding glass doors into the summer evening. I didn’t often get down here to The Forks, but whenever I did, I made a point of walking around the Oodena Celebration Circle, an amphitheater sixty meters across and 2.5 meters deep. Equidistant around its perimeter are eight steel armatures that look like cyborg lizards with long tails curving up toward the sky. Each tail has several sighting rings mounted on it, which encircle specific stars at dates and times specified on accompanying plaques. The west armature, for instance, can be used to find Altair, Betelgeuse, Regulus, and Procyon. Meanwhile, gaps between red stone monoliths frame the rising sun on the solstices and equinoxes; I’ve sometimes been on hand with members of the RASC to explain things to tourists. Here, in the dark, the place had a wonderfully spooky quality; it had often been the meeting-up point for Winnipeg’s annual Zombie Walk.

I strolled around the grassy circumference, hands shoved in my pockets, thinking.

Kayla had said I’d hit her. Me. I’d never hit anyone, not as an adult. Even as a kid, it wasn’t in my nature, not since—

Yeah.

When I was eight or nine, I’d been in a fight in the parking lot of my school, with Ronny Handler, a kid my age who’d attacked me for no good reason—really, what utter bullshit it was for the teacher to say it takes two to start a fight—and, to my surprise, in an adrenaline-fueled rage, I’d been able to knock Ronny down, and I was so furious, so incensed, so livid at the unfairness of not being able to walk to school without being picked on because of—what? My shorts? My buzz cut? My ears? Who the hell knew?

When Handler was down, I leapt up and assumed a crouching posture in mid-air, my knees together but bent, and I was ready to come down hard on his head, which was sideways on the pavement, and I knew—eight years old, and I knew—that if I continued what I’d started, if I let the trajectory run its course, my knees would smash into him, and I might well fracture his skull, and maybe even kill him.

And, in that split second, still in the air, I changed my posture, altering my course. My bare knees crashed into the asphalt right beside Ronny’s head, the impact excruciating, my skin being brutally scraped—but Handler survived. I hadn’t been worried so much about him as about the consequences for me if I’d followed through on what I’d begun, and I’d known that shouting “He started it!” would do no good at all if he were lying there bleeding. I remembered thinking this was a moment that could have changed my life, and I’d done the right thing, just in the nick of time.

That was, I supposed, one of the first times that my reason had overcome any baser instincts I might have had. And it—my reason—had held sway ever since.

Except for near the end of my dark period, apparently.

I was passing the northeast armature, a great beast hovering above me, the long tail fading up into the night. I pulled out my phone, looked at the glowing digits. It was after 10:00 P.M., which meant that the psychology department would be deserted, and so I could—

But no. No, that would be crazy.

And yet—

And yet, apparently, it wouldn’t be the worst thing I’d ever done.

I passed a couple of grad students and a janitor as I made my way down the corridor. Being assistant department head was mostly an administrative pain in the butt, but the job did come with a master set of keys. When the coast was clear, I let myself into Menno’s office.

Four avocado-green filing cabinets lined one wall. I was afraid they might be locked, but they weren’t. Menno himself probably hadn’t been in them for years; paper files were of little use to a blind man, I supposed, but perhaps teaching assistants or grad students maintained them for him. I quickly found the “L” files, but there were none about Lucidity, and so I started at the top drawer of the first cabinet, and looked at every file in turn.

I almost skipped by one labeled “DoD,” but was intrigued. Was it really the American military? And indeed it was—and related to Project Lucidity, to boot. I laid out each page on the floor and snapped photos of them with my iPhone. I thought about leaving, but there was a touch of Pavlov’s dogs in me, I guess; I’d been rewarded once, and I wanted to see if I’d be rewarded again. I continued on past D, through E, F, G, and so on, betting against myself that there’d be no X or Z files… and there weren’t; the last paper file was labeled “Yerkes-Dodson handout.”

But there was one drawer left, and so I opened it—and found it crammed with old VHS videocassettes. Seven were labeled “Altruistic Behaviour Study 1988,” one was labeled “Teaching Company Audition,” and five were labeled “APA AGM 1994.” But there was one that had me salivating: the sticker on its spine said, “Lucidity Subject JM,” who doubtless was me—the time-honored custom of referring to patients and experimental subjects by their initials, as if that afforded real anonymity. I took that cassette, headed out of Menno’s office, being careful to turn the lights back off—not that Menno would notice—and drove to my condo, five minutes away.

I hadn’t used my VHS player in years, and was relieved to find it still worked. I looked so young! And so did Menno—and it was startling to see him back before he’d lost his sight; I’d forgotten how expressive his eyes had been. “Let me just identify this recording,” he said in a sibilant voice that was a tad more energetic than it was today. He cleared his throat. “January sixteenth, 2001. Subject JM.”

My heart skipped a beat: footage of me from the beginning of my dark time! Still, that made sense: yes, I’d been involved with Lucidity in 2000, but I couldn’t recall doing any interviews, or, for that matter, why one would bother to interview people about fairly boring hearing tests, or whatever the heck it had been? I wondered what had moved Menno to start doing them at this point.

He leaned back in his chair. “Thanks for coming in, Jim.”

“My pleasure.”

“So, I’m just going to ask you a few questions, if you don’t mind.”

“Be my guest.”

“How have you been? How do you feel?”

“Fit as a fiddle,” I said. “Right as rain.”

“Good, good. Your classes are going okay?”

“Yes. I’m enjoying them all.”

“And what about participating in this study? Have you been enjoying that?”

“Sure. And, you know, as a student, I can always use the extra cash.”

“I’m sure,” said Menno. He moved his chair closer to mine. “And how do you feel compared to before you became one of our experimental subjects?”

I saw myself blink three times rapidly. “The same,” I said. “Why? Shouldn’t I?”

There was something flat in Menno’s tone. “Yes, of course.”

The interview lasted seven minutes, according to the timecode running along the bottom of the screen. It was followed by the next one, exactly one month later, on February 16, 2001, which was pretty much the same, although my birthday had passed two days before, meaning I was now twenty.

The one for March 16, 2001, was similar, too. Kayla and I had recently started dating. I talked about how we’d gone to Pop Soda’s the night before and listened to some live jazz; not fancy, but within our student budgets. Other than that, my response to all the questions he asked was the same mixture of clichés, platitudes, and banalities that had filled the previous interviews, and, as I soon discovered, filled the next two, as well. I was fine, chugging along, keeping my head above water, hanging in there.

But the final monthly interview, conducted on Monday, June eighteenth—the sixteenth having fallen on Saturday, it seems—was radically different in tone.

“This is just like the other times, okay?” said Menno. “A routine evaluation; same questions as always.”

I had arms crossed in front of my chest. “Yeah, okay. Let’s get it over with.”

“Tell me how you feel today, Jim.”

“Fine.”

“You’re happy?”

“I’m okay, yeah.”

“Healthy?”

“Sure. Yeah.”

“How are things with Kayla?”

I—the one here in 2020—shifted on my living-room couch; the other me, back in 2001, sat motionless. “They’re fine.”

“You’ve been going out for over three months now.”

“Yeah.”

“And how do you feel about her?”

“She’s okay.”

“Just okay? Do you love her?”

“Sure. She’s great in bed.”

“I mean, do you have feelings for her? Romantic feelings?”

“She’s a good lay. And she looks good, y’know? Impresses the other guys, me being with her.”

“And that’s important?”

“Course. Gotta be seen to be on top, man. The king. Gotta be in control.”

I paused the playback and looked at the image of myself frozen on the screen. I would have sworn up and down that I’d never talked about a woman that way before in my entire life; I wouldn’t have believed it if—well, if it wasn’t right here, on video, in front of me. My stomach was knotting, and I tasted acid at the back of my throat.

I let the playback resume. There was silence for a long moment—I thought I must have accidentally muted the sound—but it was just Menno digesting what I’d said, apparently, because at last he spoke again. “What about your sister? Heather, is it? How do you feel about her?”

“She’s all right.”

“Anything else you want to say about her?”

“I keep in touch. Make her think she’s important, y’know?”

“Why?”

“She’s a soft touch.”

“For money, you mean?”

“Yeah, for money. She’s a lawyer now. Deep pockets.”

I sagged back into my couch, numb. What the hell had happened to me back then?