Superposition

^{CHAPTER 24}

“That was a train wreck,” I said. Terry had come again to visit me in the prison meeting room. He sat in one of the yellow chairs, looking tired. I paced the room. “Marek looked like he was lying, because half the time, he was.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Terry said.

“I was embarrassed to put him in that situation,” I said. “He’s one of my only loyal friends, and I hate that he had to perjure himself on my account.”

“He told the truth where it counted,” Terry said. “He told the court that he saw Vanderhall alive. That’s crucial for our case, and it was important for the jury to hear him say it.”

I let out a sigh and threw myself down in a chair. “It’s only important because we’re trying to prove that Brian killed himself. Which I don’t believe for a minute. The Brian I saw in the woods didn’t know that another version of him was lying dead in the bunker.”

“He wouldn’t necessarily tell you…”

“No. He didn’t know. I’m sure of it.”

“It’s not that important,” Terry said.

I raised an eyebrow. “The truth isn’t important?”

“Look,” Terry said, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve been a defense attorney most of my career. People hate me. They think I don’t care about truth, that I just try to set criminals free because the money is good. They don’t understand when I say that the truth is irrelevant to my work, just like it’s irrelevant to the prosecutor’s work. My job is to present all the evidence and arguments that may demonstrate your innocence. The prosecutor’s job is to present all the evidence and arguments that may demonstrate your guilt. The judge makes sure we play fair, according to the rules. But ultimately, it’s the jury who decides what really happened.

“It doesn’t matter to me, as far as my job is concerned, whether you killed Vanderhall or not. It also doesn’t matter to me if he killed himself. But the fact that there’s another explanation that fits the facts; that is important. Maybe you killed him. Maybe somebody else did it. The point is, there’s more than one workable explanation, and that means the case against you isn’t proven. It doesn’t mean you’re innocent, but it does mean that, under our law, you can’t be convicted.”

I thought about it. “I see your point. It still seems wrong to try to convince the jury of something we know isn’t true.”

“I’m trying to get you out of jail,” Terry said, exasperated. “I’ll use every trick I can.”

“Why don’t you use my double as the scapegoat?” I asked. “Show him to the jury, take his fingerprints, show that the physical evidence that matches me could match him just as well.”

“It won’t work,” Terry said.

“Why not?”

“For one thing, you’re the same person. If I understand all this, you’re just momentarily following different paths. You’re not twins. He’s you.”

“But what if he killed someone, and I didn’t? Should I be held responsible?”

“For another thing,” Terry said, “you’re going to resolve again, right? Eventually? What then?”

“We should at least bring him out,” I said. “Let everyone see that there really are two of me. It would make Jean and Marek’s testimony much more believable.”

“We’ll bring him out. Trust me on this,” Terry said. “Testimony is like a fireworks display. You can’t use up all your explosions at the beginning. You have to orchestrate it, slowly gain momentum until all your points come together at the end, in a huge finish. You have to save your biggest surprises for the end. It gives the other side the least opportunity to knock your argument down or distract the jury. We’ll put your double on the stand, but not until the last minute. You’ll go first, to tell your story, and we’ll give Haviland all the rope in the world to hang himself. Then, we bring out your double. The proof that it’s all really possible.”

“As long as my probability wave doesn’t resolve before then.”

Terry yawned hugely. “True enough,” he said. “If that happens, there’s nothing I can do.”