Quantum Night Page 10

  “Travis,” said Kayla, coming up on his left side.

  No response.

  A slim and short male doctor in a white lab coat came in. “Hello,” he said. “I am Dr. Mukherjee. And you would be?”

  “Kayla Huron. His sister.”

  “Ah, yes, good. Thank you for coming. Have you been briefed?”

  Kayla shook her head.

  “Well, it falls to me, then,” said Mukherjee. “Your brother is in a coma as far as we can tell. There is no sign of trauma or injury. He has had an MRI, and there is no blood clot or tumor.”

  “How long will it last?”

  Mukherjee lifted his shoulders slightly. “That we do not know. There are varying degrees of being in a coma: we use something called the Glasgow Coma Scale to assess motor response, verbal response, and eye response. Sadly, your brother scores the lowest—the worst—on all three axes. Of course, we will do everything we can. With luck, he will wake up at some point.”

  “With luck?” snapped Kayla. “What the hell happened? How did he get here?”

  Mukherjee was carrying a clipboard. He looked at it. “He was brought in by ambulance”—a glance at his watch—“five hours ago. Apparently he was found unconscious in an empty classroom at the U of M; a janitor stumbled upon him.”

  “What are you doing to help him?”

  “We are attending to his physical necessities. But you, young lady, can sit with him. Chat. If he makes any response—speaks, turns his head toward you, or the like—let the nursing station know. Just pull that red cord there, do you see?” He turned and left.

  Kayla looked at her watch; Christ, she’d never make it to the club tonight. A chair with orange vinyl padding and a chrome frame was tucked against one wall. She scraped it across the floor. Once it was by Travis’s bed, next to the stand holding the drip bag, she sat on it. “Come on, Trav,” she said. “Wake up, damn it. It’s me, it’s Kayla. Wake up.”

  He didn’t react. She looked at him, studying his face, something she hadn’t done for ages. She still thought of him as an angular, geeky kid—but he’d grown into a handsome young man, with clear skin, a high forehead, and . . .

  . . . and, she knew, piercing blue eyes. But they weren’t visible now: his lids were closed, and the eyeballs beneath were stationary, she could see that. No rapid eye movement, no dreaming.

  “Trav, for God’s sake,” Kayla said. “Mom will have a fit. You don’t want me to worry her. Wake up, will you?” She hesitated, then took his hand; it was warm but limp. “Travis?” she said. “Travis, are you there?”

  —

  “You really effed up the helmet when you threw it across the room,” said Dom.

  “I didn’t throw it,” Menno replied. “I just—”

  “Man, you hurled it.”

  Maybe he had; he was furious at the fucking thing, and at himself.

  “Anyway,” said Dom, “if we’re going to get more work done before classes resume on the eighth, we’ve got to get that first kid who fainted—what’s his name? Jim Marchuk? We’ve got to get him to come in.”

  “Why?” Menno asked.

  “To recalibrate the equipment. He’s the only one we have previous readings from who’s still around; all of our other experimental subjects have gone home for the holidays.”

  “Why on Earth would he agree to put that helmet on again after what it did to him the last time—not to mention what happened to Travis Huron?”

  “Surely those things were because of the transcranial focused ultrasound,” said Dominic. “We won’t activate that part; it obviously isn’t working quite right. But if we don’t calibrate the helmet properly, any new subvocalization data we collect will be useless.”

  “Jesus, Dom, we should just shelve the whole project.”

  “For what reason? Nobody but you or I knows about the subjects fainting.”

  “It’s not fainting, damn it. Travis is in a coma, and, unlike Jim Marchuk, he shows no signs of coming out of it.”

  “I agree that’s really unfortunate,” said Dom calmly. “But we’ve stumbled onto something huge—huge—and I’m not going to just walk away from it. We need to get Marchuk back in here.”

  At last, Menno nodded reluctantly. “I suppose it can’t hurt to ask.”

  —

  “Sorry to bother you again during the holidays, Jim,” Dominic said. He was sitting on a lab stool, and Menno was leaning against a wall.

  As far as Menno could see, Jim looked no worse for wear despite what had happened last time. He was dressed in tan corduroys and a tattered Calgary Stampede hoodie. “No problem,” said Jim.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” asked Menno.

  Jim looked puzzled by the question. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Dominic scowled slightly and took back control. “Good, good. We were hoping you’d be willing to do another stint with the helmet.”

  “The new one or the old one? I didn’t much like that new one.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Dominic. “We’ve, ah, loosened it up; it, um, won’t be as tight a fit this time.”

  “I don’t know,” said Jim.

  Of course the boy was going to refuse, Menno thought. But Dominic pressed on. “Please.”

  Jim frowned.

  “It would really help us out,” Dominic added.

  Menno shook his head slightly. It was a waste of—

  “Sure,” said Jim, with a shrug. “Why not?”

  —

  “Okay, Jim,” said Dom into the intercom mic, looking at the young man through the glass. “Try again.”

  “I am trying,” said Jim.

  Menno pointed to the oscilloscope. “The phonemes are there, and there, see?”

  Dom nodded.

  “But there’s nothing else,” said Menno. “Ask him to try another phrase.”

  “Jim,” said Dom, “think the words to ‘Humpty Dumpty’—you know, the nursery rhyme.”

  Jim nodded, and the oscilloscope dutifully showed little spikes for each syllable.

  Dom looked at Menno. “Maybe you damaged the helmet more than I thought.”

  “No,” said Menno. “When I put it on myself, just to test, it showed the usual internal noise. But we can’t use me to calibrate because we didn’t save any of my earlier recordings.”

  Dom keyed the mic again. “Jim, can you make sure the serial cable coming out of the equipment bank is tight in its socket?”

  Jim checked the RS-232C port. “Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said.

  The boy fell silent, and Menno’s heart sank as he looked at the flat line on the phosphor screen. “Oh, God,” he said. Fortunately, the intercom was off; Jim was staring blankly into space.

  “It’s not our fault,” Dom said quickly.

  “The hell it isn’t!” snapped Menno, pointing at the flat horizontal tracing. “We did that to the boy. We shut off his inner voice.”

  13

  PRESENT

  “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 th
en, 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—