Chapter 9: Queue Concert
Location: GIG/Apex R&D Campus, Agonwood
Lonna's T-Shirt Slogan for Today:
SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT IS ALIVE (MAYBE)
A week had gone by and my morning run had become a habit. The early mornings both cleared my head from the noises of the previous day and jump-started my personal processing power for the day to come. I would sometimes see Julian or Alex, so I adjusted my start time earlier and earlier until I had the morning to myself.
It was still dark, but the Agonwood R&D Campus was locked down by Alex's GIG and with Julian's Apex running security. My headphones were on, and I had picked an anime theme songs playlist for the day. I hadn't found a preferred running route, yet, so I ran based on the time I needed to get back and get ready for the workday. And it was still fun to explore areas I hadn't seen.
In many ways, I thought of it like a camp for a bunch of weirdos.
The one consistency I had on my run was to stop by the chain-link fence that overlooked the cul-de-sac on my way back to my rowhouse unit. The thing I always knew I could find was right there, just waiting for me to figure out how to show it off to the rest of the world.
"Dave said the laser maze was ready to go last night," Alex said, appearing beside me. Or, at least that was what he had said after I turned off my music and asked him to repeat himself.
"You know, I don't think I ever asked you why you wanted to bankroll this whole thing, Alex. I kinda feel like a big jerk for not even wondering before now."
"Magic."
I giggled. "You're saying that with a straight face."
Alex ran his fingers through his hair and chuckled softly. "Not the rabbit out of the hat kind. I mean, the foundation of a new field of science or business or both."
The face that had been in tech and business magazines—even a People Magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" edition—suddenly looked childlike with wonder.
"We can't really know unless we open the box," he said as he looked over at me.
I smiled at him and said, "I have just the right t-shirt for that."
At 07:55, I stood in the driveway of Unit 6 wearing a black t-shirt that read "SCHRÖDINGER'S CAT IS ALIVE (MAYBE)" in neon green letters, paired with dark jeans and my trusty Converse.
"I see you interpreted the dress code liberally," Julian said, walking up the driveway behind me.
I turned to face him. He wore a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my student loan debt, sans tie, with the top button undone. He projected the image of a man working, yet retained his effortless wealth, so he only had to work when something interested him.
You say that even as you are obviously peacocking, right now, Mr. Julian. Not that you'd need anything but that stupidly handsome face.
Out loud, of course, I said, "I compromised." I gestured to my legs. "Denim offers structure. And the shirt is relevant to the field of study."
"It features a cartoon cat," Julian noted, eyeing the neon graphic.
"It represents a superposition of states," I corrected. "Besides, Alex gave it to me."
Julian's jaw tightened. I'd come to understand that meant he was unhappy about something.
"Anyway," I continued. "Dave and Marcus started setting up yesterday morning and finally finished up at six. It should look pretty cool, at least."
He pushed the front door open without a word.
Inside, I saw that tripods filled the living room, each one mounted with a high-precision laser emitter or a mirror. For some reason, the air hung heavy with theatrical fog, visualizing the red and green beams as they crisscrossed the room in a complex web.
"Welcome to the Laser Maze," Marcus said, grinning from behind a laptop setup on the floor. He wore a tight black t-shirt with the word SECURITY in white block letters across the chest.
I covered my mouth to keep from laughing. "I see you raided a costume shop," I said, stepping carefully over a cable. "However, the particulate matter will scatter the beam coherence. This introduces massive signal noise."
"I mentioned that," Dave sighed from the corner, where he aligned a mirror. "He argued that visibility equals 'cool'."
"I wrote a filter algorithm to subtract the particulate noise," Marcus defended, typing away. "We achieve style and data simultaneously. Also, Alex is watching the feed, and he claims the fog adds a cinematic quality."
"Alex is watching?" I asked, looking around for a camera.
Alex's voice came through the speakers setup on the floor, smooth and crystal clear. "I'm in The Barn monitoring the ZBLAN block. If you guys manage to catch a ghost, I definitely want to see it in high-def."
I giggled. "Kids and their billion-dollar toys. Am I right?" I turned back to Marcus. "The equipment is here and set up already. Just expect that we'll have to run it all again once the 'cool,' has aired out of the room and every surface has been thoroughly cleaned."
"Worth it," Dave and Marcus said at the same time.
Julian ignored the banter, walked to the edge of the grid, and pointed at a spot on the floor. "Come here and justify the lasers," he ordered.
I found myself moving toward his side without even thinking. So I stopped short of where he pointed in a small act of defiance.
"It's a take on the Fabry-Pérot interferometer," I said, pointing to the web. "We bounce light back and forth between mirrors thousands of times. If space remains flat, the light travels a known distance in a known time. However, if space is curved—if a pinhole creates drag on the photons—the phase of the light should shift."
I pointed to a dense cluster of beams passing directly over the kitchen island. "So to justify, we made a photon mouse trap. If a lag exists, the interference pattern on the screen will shift. We won't see the pinhole, but we should see the turbulence it creates. And we're still collecting the atomic clock data to compare."
"Show me." Julian commanded.
"Queue concert?" I said, attempting to match the theme in appreciation for the hard work Dave and Marcus put in.
The room hummed as the lasers brightened. On Marcus's laptop screen, a series of flat green lines appeared.
"Variance looks nonexistent," Dave reported. "The noise floor is high because of the fog—thanks, Marcus—but the signal remains flat."
"Move the focal point," Alex said over the speaker. "Center it over the island. About three feet up."
The motorized mirrors shifted with a collective whir. The web of light tightened, focusing into a dense knot of red and green directly above the white quartz counter.
We all watched the screen. The lines remained flat.
"Still stable," Dave said. "Variance remains at zero."
"Perhaps the pinhole requires complexity," Julian said.
He stepped into the maze. He moved with a predator's grace, stepping over beams and ducking under others until he stood right next to the island, bathed in the red glow of the lasers.
"Julian, clear the field," Dave warned. "Your body heat will warp the mirrors."
"We have data from your configuration. Now, I'm introducing a variable," Julian countered. He looked at me through the web of light. "Let's give it more entropy."
He reached his hand out.
"Julian, stop. I don't like this," I said.
"Don't break the beams," Marcus warned quickly. "If you block the light, we lose the signal."
"I know," he said.
He slid his hand carefully into the hollow center of the cylinder—the ten-centimeter void we had left empty. His hand hovered there, surrounded by walls of light but touching none of them.
On the screen, the flat lines spiked.
"Whoa," Marcus said. "Variance! That looks like a massive phase shift!"
"Did you make contact?" I asked, rushing forward to the edge of the grid.
"No," Julian said, his eyes wide, holding his hand perfectly still inside the cage of light. "I'm in the null space. I'm not touching a single photon."
"Look at the pattern, Lonna. It would be a flatline if he was just blocking the beam. But this has a waveform" Dave said, standing up.
I looked at the screen. The variance formed a rhythmic pattern. A sharp spike, a decay, a sharp spike.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
"That resembles coupling," Dave whispered, the blood draining from his face.
"Coupling?" Julian asked, looking at his hand.
Dave explained. "It's like… the lasers aren't hitting your hand, but the anomaly could be. In which case, it's reacting to your bio-electric field... the heat... the pulse."
"Lonna," Alex's voice cut in from the speakers, sounding sharp. "I'm watching the ZBLAN block. The distortion isn't a smudge anymore. It's condensing and wrapping around his hand like a glove."
I looked up at Julian. The red laser light washed over his face, casting deep shadows.
"The anomaly mirrors your heartbeat," Dave said. "It amplifies your biological data. Instead of consuming the light, it observes the observer."
Julian looked at his hand, then at the pulsing wave on the screen that matched his own heart. He smiled, a hungry, satisfied expression of a man who had just found the lock to a door no one else could open.
"Schrödinger's Cat," Julian murmured, glancing at my shirt. "The act of observing the system, changes the system. The box is finally open."
"Remove your hand," Marcus said, his voice dropping to that low, protective register I knew well. "Now."
"DO IT, JULIAN!" I echoed loudly.
Julian hesitated for a second, savoring the data, before pulling his hand back. The screen flattened instantly.
"We have a trigger," Julian said, turning to us. "Now we just need something more complex than a hand."
"Like what?" Dave asked.
Julian looked at me. "Like a mind."
"I appreciate your enthusiasm, Julian. But, let's walk before we run," Alex said over the speaker. "Marcus, shut it down. Dave, we need a full work up on Julian. We don't know what that exposure did to him."
I looked at Julian, who still looked proud despite the uncertainty of effects the anomaly had. The anger… the fear… it just welled up inside of me, and I started yelling at him. "You idiot! Did it even occur to you that you could have been folded or shredded?!"
Marcus stood up and took a step toward me. "Lon…"
I held up a finger toward him. "Don't, Marc. Give me some space."
I walked out of Unit 6 and kept walking.