Superposition

^{CHAPTER 35}

Elena sat up with a groan. I was by her side in an instant, as close as I could get with the bundle of wires between us.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“My head hurts.”

“I’m so sorry.”

She pressed fingers into her temples. “Not your fault.”

I wanted to hold her in my arms, to stroke her hair and press her close. My space was roughly square, with three edges made of bundled wire and one edge against the wall. I examined the spot where the wires passed into the wall, but there was no way to cross it. I started to kick the wall. The wall was made of cinder blocks and didn’t budge, but I kept kicking anyway, thinking that if I could knock loose even a small amount, then over time I could widen it, tear some of the wall away, and then get around the wire barrier to Elena.

“Use your keys,” Marek called. He was in a center square, out of reach of a wall, but I understood what he meant. I pulled my keys out of my pocket, chose the largest one, and started scraping the wall close to the floor. A little dust drifted down, and a shallow scratch appeared. I kept scraping. It was going to take a long time to make any progress this way, but it was better than just waiting for the varcolac to come back and start hurting my family again. I scraped until my muscles ached, but I accomplished little more than a small pile of dust on the floor. It wasn’t going to work.

I noticed Alex scrabbling at a round metal grating that covered a drain on the floor. I wasn’t sure what she would accomplish if she got it loose—the drain was far too small for her to fit inside, and probably didn’t lead anywhere very helpful anyway—but at the least she would have a piece of metal, a possible weapon if it came for her again. It was difficult for her to make any headway, since moving her broken arm made her gasp with pain.

“Here,” I said. I tossed my keys across the gap. They flew across the wires with no ill effect, landing on the floor at her feet and sliding a few inches. She used a key as a lever, trying to pry up the grating, but it wouldn’t budge and there were no visible screws. I wondered if it was welded to the pipe underneath, or if the concrete floor had just been poured around it, holding it fast. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t moving.

I had found my family, but now I was going to lose them again. The varcolac was going to come back and torture them all while I watched, and eventually they would all die, and still the varcolac wouldn’t kill me: it would just smile hideously and watch my reactions, and maybe kill Marek, too, just for fun.

I paced my cell. I had to do something. I couldn’t just sit here, helplessly waiting.

I started looking at the wires. Where did the energy for the electric shock come from? The varcolac must be manipulating the electromagnetic field somehow, allowing a free flow of electrons out of the wires and into anyone who got too close.

What if I could get higher? If I crossed the wires close to the ceiling, would that be far enough away not to cue the electric shock? The ceiling was wooden planking and beams, with no drop ceiling to hide the pipes and wires. There weren’t many secure places to hold on, and I realized it would be very difficult to climb around up there. Besides, I couldn’t reach it, and I had nothing to stand on to lift me higher. That wasn’t going to work either.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Alessandra asked. She was sitting calmly in her square, not doing anything. Claire had been crying more or less constantly since we’d been here, erupting into tears again just as she seemed to get under control. Alessandra hadn’t cried at all. My heart went out to Claire and her anguish, which was perfectly understandable under the circumstances, but once again, I was impressed by Alessandra. Why had I never seen it before?

“We’re going to escape,” I answered her. “I don’t know how, but we’re going to find a way.”

“I didn’t mean that,” Alessandra said. “I meant, what’s going to happen to the two of us.” She nodded at Alex. “Her and me.”

I stopped my manic pacing. “You’re the same person,” I said. “She is you. At some point, you’ll come together again.” In fact, I was a little surprised their wave hadn’t collapsed already. Their paths had converged again; their situations were practically the same. I supposed we didn’t know all the rules yet. Maybe the longer the separation, the harder it was to come together.

“That’s not quite right,” Alex said. “You keep saying that we’re the same person, but I don’t think it’s really true. We started the same, but we’re different people now. We might react the same to a lot of things, but not everything. We know different things, and we have different memories.”

“Then… one of us has to die?” Alessandra asked.

“No,” I said quickly.

“Sort of,” Alex said. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Dad. We have to become one person again. That might mean just you, or just me, or some combination of us where we remember a little of both. We don’t know for certain.”

“You don’t look scared,” Alessandra said. “How can you not be scared?”

Alex laughed. “You don’t look scared either.”

They shared a look and a subtle smile.

“I still say you’re the same person,” I said. “Who you are is constantly changing. Who you were in third grade is different from who you are now, but it was still you. Right now you’re just experiencing two different states at once. Like going back in time and seeing an earlier version of yourself.”

Alex looked sad. “I know you’re trying to encourage us, Dad. But if we converge, and I don’t remember all the time you and I spent together, then it doesn’t feel to me like I will exist anymore. Not this me, anyway.”

“Your memory isn’t everything,” I said. “You forget things all the time; it doesn’t make it not you. All of the cells in your body will be completely replaced in a few years, but you will still be here. Memories come and go. You don’t remember being born, or even being two years old, but those experiences are still important to who you are. If, when you converge, you don’t remember some things, those things will still be part of your identity, your personality, your growth as a person.”

Alex didn’t respond. Instead, she looked at Alessandra. “If I’m the one who doesn’t make it,” she said, “then get my viewfeed and post it. Let people know about me.”

“Me, too,” Alessandra said. “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“First things first,” I said. “We have to find a way to get out of here.”