Squaring the Circle

by B K Brain

  The floor below would be a labyrinth of hallways and offices. Below that, the loading dock. According to the schematic he’d find the first generator in an adjoining maintenance room. He walked to the entrance, reached out to check the knob. It turned free.

  He looked to the agent. “Hold here,” he said. “I’m going in.”

  Room by room, Garret explored. Step inside. Evaluate area. Check corners and blind spots. Next.

  Across the second floor, toward the back stairs, a pistol and flashlight leading the way.

  Most doors stood wide, allowing a quick view of dark, empty spaces. A few pieces of furniture had been left behind - desks, chairs, the occasional table - but not much more. Nothing of interest, anyway.

  He arrived at a concrete stairwell at the outer west wall, paused, reached for a radio mic.

  “Entry level, clear,” he said. “I’m going down.”

  “Copy that. Your team is moving. The party will converge at delivery position one.”

  “Copy.”

  He began his descent to the loading dock.

  3

  Black sky. No stars.

  Streetlamps, headlights. A neon canopy at a Texaco across the highway.

  Eddie scanned an endless sea of shadowy vehicles, straining to remember where they’d parked. Damn. She never paid attention to things like that. Didn’t need to, because someone was always with her. Dark images lingered.

  That poor woman.

  She raced across the lot, to the place where they’d turned in from the highway. Rachel would just have to pick her up on the road.

  Where are you going, Ed? a voice whispered.

  What are you doing? said another.

  Who was that woman?

  “Shut up. All of you.” Eddie tried to put it out of her mind.

  Sneakers over pavement, rows upon rows of cars.

  People. Traffic.

  So many distractions to choose from, but none of it could stand against what now lived behind her eyes.

  Let’s begin, he’d said. With pain.

  What was he doing to that woman? Who was she? Too far away; couldn’t see her face. Eddie saw her reaction though, even from across that cavernous room. Her entire body contorted as if struck by lightning. The blue glow was her, wasn’t it? Or at least something connected to her. The man grabbed hold and she felt it, the pain he’d so casually announced.

  His voice was strange, empty. A total lack of emotion. To him she was nothing more than a tool to be used, a specimen to be studied. He simply didn’t care. Torment was required, but that was fine. It was her job, her obligation, to suffer.

  Eddie jogged out to the road, scanned both directions, and began walking. She hoped it would be Rachel picking her up, not the police. But at this point it was out of her hands, like everything else seemed to be.

  She couldn’t help that woman. She could do nothing about a man on a sidewalk. So why was she seeing them?

  The thread has begun to unravel. You need to focus.

  “Focus? On what?”

  The most important thing.

  “What is the most important thing?”

  That, the voice said, is the correct question.

  After a few minutes of walking a car pulled over to block her path. Her sister’s car. A distressed Rachel sat behind the wheel, waving her over.

  “Come on!”

  She got in, shut the door. Tires spun over blacktop and they were down the road.

  “I got it,” she told Big Sis, holding up season two.

  “I can’t believe we just stole that. Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said running a finger down a listing of episodes on the back of the video. Number four? Five? She had some serious show watching to do. “Can we stop somewhere for popcorn?”

  Rachel eyed the rear view. Her breath, shallow and quick, like a panting dog.

  The dog.

  Eddie spun to see Maurice chewing on a sandal. It was one of Rachel’s, so no big deal. She could’ve told him to stop but he looked happy, so whatever.

  The popcorn request went completely ignored. For the next twenty minutes Rachel did nothing but drive too fast, check mirrors every five seconds, and hyperventilate.

  4

  “On approach to your position,” a voice said over the airwaves.

  Garret finished attaching the charge to a power cable inside the generator cabinet. Reached for his radio. “Copy.”

  Wiring at the detonator, good. Payload canister, good. Battery connections, good. He clicked over a switch and a pinpoint of light at the receiver lit up. Good.

  That was it. One explosive, ready to go boom.

  The detonation wouldn’t be earth-shattering, but it’d be enough to ruin any dreams the doctor may have had about electricity tomorrow.

  Too bad. So sad.

  He’d wait until the other three charges were set, detach backup power at the machine itself, then fire all at once. No use announcing their presence until he was confident Jacobson’s quantum nightmare was offline.

  Four agents appeared at the threshold behind.

  He turned and said, “Package delivered. Begin phase two.”

  In pairs of two the men headed across the building, in route to the other generators.

  5

  The inside Sam watched a group of five walk past the control room, his invited guest in the lead.

  Cathleen stayed close behind David, clinging to him like a frightened child, her new default position. Pathetic.

  Next, the other woman, a tiny little thing that could’ve been mistaken for a child, pencil thin and too short for carnival rides. She looked no more than sixteen.

  And then her polar opposite, the giant to her pixie, the Blaster to her Master, a bear in the shape of a man. He was one big dude. Hairy too.

  Bringing up the rear walked a distressed man, a fearful man. His stature brought the gathering’s size statistics much closer to baseline.

  That was it, David’s unwitting ensemble.

  Luckily they walked right by on their way to the laboratory floor. If they’d gone inside Sam would’ve had to think fast, improvise before someone thought to damage his precious machine. As it happened, he had plenty of time to consider options.

  There was one simulation he’d been anxious to test, but hadn’t gotten around to it yet. Leon worked out the equations months ago, in preparation for the Graviton experiments. It had been designed in Chicago, at the doomed Norritech facility.

  A single copy of the code lay dormant on the hard drive of a powered down computer on the counter. Problem was, the cable had been disconnected. And he wasn’t back, physically at least. He strained with all that was in him to force his way back, but it was no use. He’d figure it out. He had to.

  Until his time came he had mere expectations in place of a body, vision in lieu of hands. Could he make do?

  If he could shut down the simulation at the front doors, if he could send messages to his past self, then yes, Sam was reasonably confident he’d manage this. It only required a bit of concentration. The Gravitons’ influence would take care of the rest.

  He gazed into a black screen, imagining glowing text, an indication the computer had begun its boot sequence. He looked to the other five monitors, one to another, not just picturing them coming alive, but expecting them to.

  The moment he became sure, positive beyond the shadow of a doubt his machines would find power, they did.

  Six beeps chimed in unison.

  Hard drives sounded.

  Cooling fans hummed.

  Operating systems loaded into memory.

  An invisible grin overcame him. Almost too easy.

  A sense of dominance flooded, satisfaction. He’d become a God. Not of lies, no, not anymore. Of very specific untruths. Pre-truths, if you will. Nothing could stand in his way. Nothing.

  Reality now looks to me for approval.

  Once the computer finished loading, Sam found the program and willed it to life. A wor
mhole, a twisting distortion of time and space, leading from the control room doorway to some distant location, perhaps the end of the known universe. Who knows? The destination wasn’t important, and hadn’t been clearly defined in the simulation.

  Away from here is all that matters.

  Anything, or anyone, that got too close would be swallowed up. Maybe they’d eventually drop him a line to explain where they’d gotten off to. Probably not. Either way, they’d no longer be anywhere near his quantum miracle.

  Two simulated inputs served as detectors A and B, not comparing video, but gravity distortion. The particles in the nearby cabinet believed each concocted value, every specific untruth.

  Sam’s wormhole sprang to existence just as David and his crew started up the stairs.

  6

  David found Cathleen and Susan sitting on cots in a shadowy corner, both of them eyeing a little table, the unlikely birthplace of a magic baseball. The pistol, still in Cathleen’s grip, hung lazily over one knee, aimed at nothing.

  She looked up, saw him, managed a weak smile. God she was beautiful. Even now, all droopy-eyed and fading. She’d been on watch for hours, throughout the evening and into the night. Way too late had become too damned early nearly an hour ago and it was time for her to get some much-needed sleep. He’d take it from here.

  He put a hand over hers. “I got this,” he said. “Go get some rest.”

  “You said you wouldn’t take too long. You promised.”

  “Sorry.”

  “You know I have a gun, right?”

  “I was trying to find a way out.”

  “Did you?”

  David’s vision fell to the floor. He shook his head.

  She passed him the pistol. “You can have this, but I’m staying here. Sit down.”

  He took it, checked the safety, and then claimed a warm spot next to her.

  She placed a hand over his arm and a cheek on his shoulder. “There is no way out, is there?”

  “I don’t know,” he said, almost too low to hear. “Maybe not.”

  The volume of her voice matched his. “We’re gonna die here.”

  He wanted so much to say everything was going to work out, that they’d find a way, somehow, to survive this. But optimism took energy he no longer had. Truth was, he needed sleep as bad as she did. And anyway, Cathleen was right. They were going to die in this awful, empty place. Perhaps in ways unimaginable.

  His mind drifted to the mysterious girl, Eddie. Could she help them? If so, how? She was young, no more than twenty. There were things wrong with her. Mental things. Things that required therapy and medication. Too many vowels, whatever that meant.

  She’s on her way, he thought, whether she can help or not. He could feel her getting closer. Her presence was…growing? Yes. She wasn’t just coming because of him - she was coming for him.

  The immediate question, which likely meant it was the most important, was this: If he couldn’t get out, how the hell was she going to get in?

  He worried the front entrance wouldn’t be as welcoming as it had been with his crew. But maybe it would… Maybe anyone could just walk right in as they had. Who could know for sure? Could David afford to let her take that chance?

  A thick shadow appeared at the far doorway, in the shape of a professional wrestler. Doug.

  David looked to Cathleen, saw that she’d fallen asleep. He leaned forward, careful not to disturb her. Susan, in the next cot, was sleeping too. Doug stepped up, still occupied with his phone.

  “Any luck with a signal?” David asked.

  “Screw this place. There ain’t no service to be had anywhere.”

  “Where’s Steve?”

  Doug scowled. “The dude’s lost it, man. I left when he started poking at that bullshit at the front doors. So far, he’s torched a couple brooms and some desk lamps.”

  “He’s going to get somebody hurt.”

  Doug rubbed at his eyes. “No shit. That’s why I got the hell outa there.”

  There was nothing to be done with Steve. At least not now, in the middle of the night.

  Desperation alone had been keeping them conscious for hours, but fear and adrenaline couldn’t last forever. They had to get some rest.

  Sit down or fall down, Doug’s eyes seemed to say. His thick frame swayed like a rickety tower in the wind. David said, “Grab yourself some cot. I’m sure Susan won’t mind.”

  “I am pretty tired.” He sat next to the blonde, squinted to see if he’d woken her. She was down for the count. He leaned back against the wall and was snoring less than five minutes later.

  David tried to get comfortable as well. The ache in his back wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. The sciatic still burned throughout his hip and right leg. A massive headache throbbed. Bad part was, of all the time that remained this might be the closest to normal he’d ever feel.

  We’re gonna die here, she’d said.

  Yeah, probably.

  He tried to focus on the gun in his hand, the little table, the hockey stick, anything to keep him focused, but at a certain point the body always assumes command. It says to hell with everything and takes what it needs.

  7

  Eddie watched episode four.

  Then five.

  The credits rolled and she paused the video, confused. There’d been no interview with the doctor on either. How could she have been so sure? She rubbed the back of a hand over weary eyes.

  The highway ahead disappeared beyond the headlights, a black road pulling them across a void to an even blacker place. What would she find there? The old guy, sure. But what else? Would there be any answers? Would the nothingman’s warnings suddenly make sense? Would she be sorry she went?

  A big, gaping yawn.

  Ten hours sounded totally doable in Indiana. But now, in the wee hours of Bum Fucked Ohio, it was beginning to feel much different.

  Eddie looked to her sister.

  She was hanging in there like a trooper, as Dad might’ve said between complaints about ungrateful children and unsatisfying weather conditions. Mom would’ve had some choice comments as well. Like find a motel before Rachel wraps the car around a tree. Good thing they weren’t here. There was no time for caution, no matter how sensible.

  Rachel slurped cold coffee, chewed gum, ate sunflower seeds. And sang along with classic 80’s hits, doing her best to hold steady between white and yellow lines.

  The weight of her eyelids had increased with every mile. Occasionally they went full wide as she tried to shake life back into herself. It was funny every time. Eddie felt guilty for thinking so, probably because Sis was doing all the work.

  She would’ve gladly taken the wheel if she’d had a license.

  Eddie adjusted her butt in the seat, one cheek to the other. Snugged headphones over her ears. Settled in for number six. The damned interview had to be here somewhere.

  The moment the episode began she knew she’d hit the jackpot.

  The opening shot was of Brickman, as always, standing among neon columns in the center of the futuristic set. Behind him, an image of thousands of subatomic particles, spiraling, zipping, and crashing into one another over a backdrop of starless space. The camera zoomed in on the host, slow and steady, as he spoke.

  “One hundred and eighty-six thousand miles per second, the speed of light. It is the speed limit of the universe. Nothing can travel faster… Correct?

  “It seems that pairs of entangled particles would beg to differ. Information can pass from one to another instantaneously, defying all known limits. How can this be? Scientists across the globe are working on that very mystery as we speak.

  “What is entanglement? How does it occur? And what kind of information are we talking about?

  “Buckle your seat belt, my friends. We may be headed for a ticket on this episode of…Squaring the Circle.”

  Opening credits. This was the one. Eddie was positive.

  Rising music, title shot, back to Brickman.

  “The pho
ton. A singular unit of electromagnetic radiation, or as it’s normally described - light. It has zero mass, it’s always in motion, and it operates as both a particle and a wave. It can be visible, or in the case of ultraviolet, gamma, and x-rays, invisible. It can have interactions with other particles, such as electrons or other photons.

  “An experimental physicist at the Norritech Research Center in Chicago, Dr. Samuel Jacobson, has been working with entangled photons his entire career.”

  A shot of the building with Jacobson standing, hands in his pockets and smiling, at the front doors. Strange. The last time she’d seen Norritech was on Channel Six News, engulfed in flames. The last time she’d seen the doctor he appeared quite different as well. Crazy, but not like her.

  For the interview, he looked almost normal.

  Normal? What’s that, Ed?

  Switch to Jacobson in the lab, where he began to explain the process, in layman’s terms, naturally.

  “When two subatomic particles interact, they can become entangled. That means their properties have been linked, a measurement on one instantaneously affecting the state of the other, no matter how far apart they may be. An inch, a mile, or opposite sides of the universe. It makes no difference. The influence from one to the other is immediate, even faster than the speed of light.

  “How do we create pairs of entangled particles? Allow me to show you.”

  It was nearly sickening how nice he looked. No bags under the eyes, hair combed, friendly demeanor. You’d never guess the same man, four years later, would be inflicting such horrors.

  Let’s begin, he’d said. So cold.

  What were you doing to her, Doctor?

  Jacobson walked over to an elaborate collection of equipment on a large table. “It’s quite simple, actually. You only need a laser and a polarized crystal. Input a horizontal photon into the crystal and it will split into two verticals. Then split a vertical photon, producing two horizontals. These can be combined to create what we call diagonal light, a mixture of the two. Shoot that through another set of crystals and you will eventually get a pair of entangled photons. It might sound a bit complex, but really, it’s not.”