The Gemini Effect

by Scott Jarol

  Margaux had followed him. She trailed about fifty feet behind, and whenever he looked back at her, she stood still and expressionless with her arms at her sides, making no attempt to hide. Dusk was her natural habitat. The small squares of fabric from which she’d stitched her sepulchral cloak fluttered in the light evening breeze. In contrast to her blackened lips and eyes, her pale face appeared to glow in the dark.

  Zeke could have warned her not to follow him, but he knew it would have been pointless. She already knew where he was headed. Even if she was another of Cynthia’s spies, she might be useful as a decoy, so he ignored her for now.

  He crept alongside the trampled trail in the softer snow to quiet his footsteps. He stepped on a branch that snapped with a twang, and Schrödinger began barking wildly. Zeke held his breath and looked back at Margaux, afraid she would give them away, but she blended into the camouflage of gray tree trunks. Zeke sank back into the bushes to watch.

  Doc skidded down the ramp from the cargo door and skipped up the steps into the caboose. A few minutes later, he reappeared flailing a long stick with a swatch of folded, knotted cloth tied to one end as a net. He spun around, sweeping the bag through the air, while Schrödinger sniffed in Zeke and Margaux’s direction. Before Schrödinger could detect them, Doc jogged off down the train tracks, and Schrödinger sprang after him.

  With Doc out of the way, Zeke dashed the last seventy-five yards to the caboose. Inside, he tossed aside tattered blankets and toppled piles of books and yellowed papers, but found only a couple of beat-up cooking pots and threadbare flannel shirts. No QuARC. The faint warmth radiating from the methane stove tempted him to stay and thaw his nearly frostbitten fingers.

  Crunching footsteps outside startled him. He ran for the door, bumping the table on the way and toppling a jar, which rolled off the edge and crashed to the floor.

  He didn’t notice the now-liberated fly, who gave no thought to the cause for his restored freedom, nor felt any gratitude. New Fly returned, without further concern, to his usual food-seeking habits.

  Outside, Margaux was pacing back and forth like a spectral sentry. Zeke couldn’t guess whether she was watching for him or for Doc, but he didn’t care. He just needed to find the QuARC and get out of there. He rushed past her and up the ramp of the adjoining boxcar.

  In the dim light of Doc’s workshop, he nearly tripped over the jumble of electronic guts ripped from antique computers and cell phones. Parts lay scattered across the room like cyber-bug body parts ensnared in wire cobwebs spun by a deranged robot spider. It might have looked like a madman’s hoard to some people, but not to Zeke.

  The QuARC had been implanted like a heart in a pulsating electronic organism. Rugged pathways for high-voltage currents led to delicate wires tangled in braids and branches that gave only the merest hints of their hidden purpose. Red, yellow, and green lights twinkled like hovering fireflies among scattered cards embroidered with delicate circuits, an intricate nervous system controlling a rugged apparatus at its center.

  Zeke crouched down to disconnect the QuARC. Twelve violet beams silently winked on all at once, converging at a point in the air above the pedestal-shaped frame holding the QuARC. Where the beams met, a fist-sized nebula shrouded a pinpoint nucleus of piercing light. The light reflected unevenly around the room off the gleaming golden head and belly of a Buddha statue smiling from a shelf nailed to the wooden wall.

  Margaux hovered just beyond the threshold, balancing on the icy ramp. Ionized air from the QuARC had stripped electrons from her long hair, and the positively charged strands repelled each other, bristling out in all directions.

  “What are you doing? You shouldn’t mess with Doc’s stuff.”

  “This part is mine, and I’m not leaving without it,” Zeke told her before returning his attention to the QuARC, muttering under his breath as he tried to make sense of what Doc had done. “Weird. It’s like a cloud of light—frozen photons.”

  He barely brushed the nebula effect with his fingertip. The hazy corona swelled to the size of a soccer ball and wrapped itself around his arm. His fingers and elbow locked. When he pulled away, the light stretched like threads of cotton candy. He dropped to the floor and tried to scoot backward.

  Margaux skipped over the electronic brambles. One of the beams sliced off a lock of black hair. She grabbed Zeke under his arms and dragged him away from the effect until she tripped backward over the wires and fell just as his arms broke free.

  Zeke landed in her lap. He untangled himself from Margaux’s hair, pulling out a few strands in the process.

  “Ouch!” Margaux shouted, rubbing her scalp. “Watch what you’re doing.”

  In the distance, Zeke could hear Schrödinger barking instructions at Doc.

  “They’re coming back,” said Margaux. “We should go.”

  “I didn’t invite you,” said Zeke. “You can leave whenever you want.”

  “I thought you could help us.”

  Zeke rubbed his hands together and wiggled his fingers to wake them up after the nebula’s grip. “Why would I want to help Cynthia?”

  “Not Cynthia—the rest of us. The Aggies.”

  “You mean that cheating deal you’re running?”

  “We’re not running it. Cynthia is. She’s convinced the Aggies she’s helping them, but she’s just using them. And Bruder’s in on it.”

  He remembered seeing Margaux manipulating something inside her coat earlier that morning. “Is that why you’re mixing up the test sheets? Sabotage?”

  Margaux nodded.

  Huh. Maybe Margaux wasn’t working for Cynthia, but he had no time to get involved in a scheme to save the Aggies. Sure, Cynthia had turned them into brain slaves, but he had his own problems. Time to disengage.

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s too dangerous here. We’d better go.”

  Relieved, Margaux headed for the open freight door. As soon as she stepped over the threshold, he rolled the door shut behind her and locked it. Taken off guard, Margaux lost her balance and tumbled down the loading ramp, slamming into the frozen ground.

  Zeke commando-crawled back to the QuARC, reached under the shimmering cloud, and felt for the wires connecting the QuARC to Doc’s machine. As he scooted closer, a loose strand of Margaux’s hair clinging to his coat came loose and rose into the charged air. It drifted into the nebula, which followed the hair back to Zeke like a dynamite fuse.

  Before he’d noticed, the cloud had wrapped itself around his torso. It swelled again, not gradually but in a jump, and filaments of light rolled up and over his arm. He tried to pull free, but this time, it held like solid concrete.

  Panic spurred his heart to full gallop, but he felt no pain, no pressure, no heat. The violet light spread, first paralyzing his arms, then his back, then his legs, head, and neck. Tingling like an army of fire ants raced across his skin and then diffused throughout his body. He thought he could feel the shape of his internal organs—his lungs, kidneys, stomach, and his beating heart.

  What’s happening?

  It was a good question, but who was asking? And from where?

  Doc, are you there? Am I dreaming?

  * * *

  Cold and bruised, Margaux tugged her cloak more tightly around herself. Without any cloud blanket to trap them, the day’s infrared photons fled into the night sky, smuggling away the heat absorbed by the Earth during the day.

  The light bleeding between the workshop car’s weathered wall planks had intensified, projecting violet stripes on the snow. She pulled her feet under her cloak and wrapped her arms around her shins, trying not to imagine what all that energy was doing to Zeke. Not that she cared much, but she hoped she wouldn’t have to see what was left of him. She sank her face deeper into the winding folds of her scarf and waited for Doc to return.

  A larger beam, wider and more intense, shot from the end of the workshop car and passed through a hole into the other car, which had been completely dark. Light now streaked from every gap a
nd crack in both railway cars.

  Margaux climbed back up the ramp and tried the door. It wouldn’t budge. She pounded on it with her mittened fists, and it boomed like a huge drum. Maybe she could annoy him enough to let her in.

  He didn’t.

  * * *

  At first, Zeke thought he had x-ray vision. Then he decided that looking through walls was more like being in two places at the same time. He recognized everything in this room, but just as clearly, he also saw everything in a second, similar room. Same shape and size, different contents. Lots less stuff.

  How did I get here?

  Oddly, he answered himself.

  I came to get the QuARC.

  Who said that?

  The two voices were speaking clearly from within him.

  You seem to be in two places at the same time, Zeke explained to himself. You must be in a state of superposition.

  You mean when a particle is in two places at the same time? Ezekiel answered himself. That’s impossible. It only happens to subatomic particles—

  Like electrons and protons, Zeke finished. Doc’s machine—it must be doing something to our atoms.

  It feels weird, but we kind of like it.

  You mean, you like it.

  Yes, you do.

  * * *

  “It worked, Professor,” Doc said. “Willis isn’t as smart as he thinks he is. He walked right into our trap.”

  Startled by the sudden appearance of Doc and Schrödinger behind her, Margaux nearly lost her balance again.

  “Margaux,” said Doc, “what are you doing out here?”

  Schrödinger scrambled up the ramp and sniffed under the door.

  Margaux could tell that Schrödinger, already better informed by his nose, didn’t share Doc’s enthusiasm.

  “I followed Zeke,” said Margaux. “Who’s Willis?” she asked.

  “I know you don’t understand,” said Doc, “but it’s for his own good.”

  This wasn’t making much sense. She stood back as he tried the door.

  “Locked. He must have latched it from the inside.” He ran to the other freight car and rolled open its door with a metallic screech that ripped straight into her brain. Schrödinger shook his head, as if he could throw off the noise.

  She peered around Doc. A fuzzy shape had formed inside the freight car: two arms, two legs, and a head, all projected into the air.

  “That’s not right,” he said, edging closer while carefully avoiding contact with the corona surrounding the figure. “A foot and a half too short. That must be . . .”

  “What’s happening?” asked Margaux. “Is that a hologram?”

  Doc turned and pointed back toward the workshop car. “Margaux, who’s in there?”

  “I told you, Zeke. I think he came to get that thing he made. He thought you stole it.”

  “I did steal it. No time to explain.” Doc’s eyes swiveled around in all directions, as if he were watching an imaginary scene unfold. He took off his cap, and despite the extreme cold, wiped sweat from his scalp with one end of his scarf. “Okay, okay, we just need to be cool. We can reverse it as soon as they stabilize. You keep an eye on this one.”

  “Which one what? What is that?”

  “That is not a that. It’s a who—I mean, a Zeke. Could be either one.”

  Either one? Every time he answered one of her questions, she became more confused.

  “Just keep him here.” Doc jumped down to the ground and rolled the door shut with another grinding screech, a rumble, and a final bang.

  Inside the second boxcar, Margaux sidled into a corner as far from the ghostly figure as possible. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be locked in with whatever or whoever it was. Schrödinger sat calmly beside her, which comforted her a little.

  Chapter 8

  Triton Control Room, North Star Laboratory

  “It’s happening again.” Howard frowned at the computer display in the main control room.

  “Must be playing back the last run,” said Gary, without even looking up.

  “I don’t think so. This is no archived file. This is live data streaming from the Omega detector, and it’s not exactly the same as last time. Huge plasma surge.”

  “That’s impossible. The ring power is totally shut down.” Gary stabbed a few buttons to show him the power consumption monitor. “The cryo team is still recharging the helium loop.”

  Sprays of lines on Howard’s monitor traced the paths of subatomic particle fragments. “So where’s it coming from? What could be generating enough energy to kick off that many pions?”

  Gary glanced over and shrugged. “The thermal data is random.”

  Howard sat back, a worm of panic uncurling in his stomach. “It’s as if the system is running itself.”

  Gary sighed and pushed back his chair. “It doesn’t make sense. It’s got to be a computer problem. I don’t think it could be Doc. He doesn’t have anything that powerful up there.”

  “All I’ve got are numbers. Let me see if I can map it.”

  Howard stabbed at the keyboard, typing with just his two index fingers. A blueprint of the entire facility appeared on the large main screen, including the three interlocking accelerator rings and extensive local power grid. Several technicians came over to study the diagram but only shook their heads.

  A growing certainty dawned on Howard, and he typed another command. “Let’s bring up the other detectors and see if we can triangulate.”

  They watched the screen as the computer correlated data from all four detectors and plotted the trajectory of the incoming energy stream.

  Howard leaned closer to Gary to murmur privately. “It’s definitely up at ground level. Doc’s got something up and running. It has the right energy signature.”

  “We better tell Willis. If we don’t, he’s definitely going to think we screwed something up.”

  “Too late,” said Dr. Willis from behind them. “I already do.”

  Howard pushed back from Gary, who was shrugging dramatically, and straightened his ID badge.

  “Oh, this has nothing to do with that crackpot friend of yours,” Willis continued dismissively. “There cannot possibly be a source of high-energy particles coming from the surface. Either something is interfering with the instruments, or it’s a serious bug in the detector. Or perhaps you’re thinking Freeman has miraculously cobbled together his own Triton from landfill scraps. Imagine how much time and money he’s saved us and the trustees.”

  He gave them a stiff, sarcastic smile. “Figure it out. Now.”

  Howard cleared his throat. “Dr. Willis, sir, based on the sensor data, it looks like it’s coming from an external source.”

  Dr. Willis held up one hand, and work across the big control room froze as he listened to the signal with hawk-like focus. “Nonsense. Something that powerful could originate only within this facility. Find it.”

  But the signal was faltering. Howard pounded out system commands on his keyboard, searching frantically for the pattern.

  “It’s just . . . gone.”

  He turned to address Willis, but he had already left the control room.

  “Do you think he knows it really is coming from Doc’s place?” Gary asked.

  Howard ignored the question. Of course Willis knew everything. He was practically psychic.

  Chapter 9

  Doc’s Workshop

  Ezekiel lay on the floor, still trapped in the fading particle field. Doc was bending over him with a concerned frown. “It’s okay, Zeke, I’m going to help you.”

  “What’s happening?” Ezekiel whispered. “I can’t move.”

  The extra voice inside his head had vanished.

  Doc pulled up one of Ezekiel’s eyelids to examine his pupils. Ezekiel winced. He could feel sensation returning to his arms and legs. But Doc . . . Something wasn’t right here. What had Doc done to him? It was some kind of trap. Doc was using Ezekiel’s own invention against him. But why? No time to find out.

  “H
elp me,” Ezekiel whispered, almost inaudibly. “I can’t move. I’m paralyzed.”

  “It’s temporary,” said Doc, keeping one eye on the indicator lights and gauges. “You’ve had a little shock. Your nervous system is still misfiring like a broken pinball machine. Lay still for another minute.”

  Ezekiel mouthed something indistinguishable.

  “Eh? I can’t hear you.” Doc leaned in close, putting his good ear near Ezekiel’s mouth.

  “Liar,” Ezekiel whispered into his ear.

  He grabbed Doc’s ankle and yanked, dropping Doc flat on to his back. Before Doc could reach him, Ezekiel used his other hand to uproot the QuARC from Doc’s machine. The lights flickered like guttering candles and then winked out.

  “Zeke, stop!” shouted Doc. “You can’t leave here like that!”

  Ezekiel grabbed the strap of his backpack and jumped off the edge of the freight car into the night with the QuARC tucked under one arm. He hit the frozen ground hard, tipping forward on to all fours.

  “And my name is Ezekiel!” he shouted over his shoulder.

  He steadied himself, stuffed the QuARC into his backpack, and limped away into the cover of the trees.

  * * *

  Moonlight seeped in through gaps in the other railroad car, casting a faint gray patchwork through the slats. Zeke opened his eyes to see Margaux inching forward toward him.

  “Weird dream,” he said.

  Margaux teetered backward on her heels and scuttled away like a four-legged crab on her backside. She kept her distance while he rose to sway on bent knees.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?” Zeke felt like he’d just missed something interesting.

  Margaux pointed toward the hole in the wall where the beam had passed through, and Zeke peered into Doc’s workshop as if looking down the tube of long telescope. He recognized fragments of the jumbled equipment and wheeled around to face the nearly empty boxcar they were in.