BROKEN SYMMETRY: A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller

by Dan Rix

  Amy swam up and boosted herself out of the pool next to Damian, tilted up her chin, and smoothed water out of her sleek, blonde hair.

  “Ames, stop showing off.” Damian grabbed her around the middle and ruffled her hair into a tangle again.

  She giggled, and scooted closer to him, and to my disgust, they started playing footsy in the pool. Footsy, for God’s sake.

  I felt the stirring of something I hadn’t known for a long time. I averted my eyes from the two of them, face hot. I didn’t even know I was still capable of it . . .

  Jealousy.

  “She really likes him, doesn’t she?” I said.

  “He’s her only real friend,” said Charles, his voice filled with regret. “I’m so focused on work I sometimes forget she’s even there; I think she just wants a normal life.”

  “Where’s his family?” I said.

  “No one knows,” he said. “Damian found us, believe it or not. He’s sort of an adopted son now.”

  Amy trotted over, glowing. “Hi daddy,” she said, planting a kiss on Charles’s cheek. Without so much as a glance my way, she dipped a chip in the guacamole and pranced back over to Damian.

  And that tiny bit of affection left Charles beaming.

  And envy gnawing at my insides.

  Charles loved her as much as any father loved his daughter. It was the kind of perfect, unconditional, selfless love that I would never again be the recipient of. I bit the inside of my lip, pressure throbbing behind my eyes.

  Don’t cry . . . please don’t cry. Not here.

  Because I knew what she was doing. She was making it clear to me that this was her territory, that these two men belonged to her, loved her. And that if I ever tried to come between them—

  “Eat up, Blaire,” said Charles, spotting my untouched plate. “Enjoy the food, savor every bite. Because this is the last day you’ll be able to.”

  ***

  Josh caught up with me in the parking lot after school on Monday,

  “Blaire,” he said, grabbing my shoulder and tugging me around to face him. “What’s this I hear about you screwing a cop?”

  I glared at him. “I’m not screwing a cop, dickwad.”

  “So it’s not true?”

  “Eww. What did I just say?”

  “Other people think so.”

  I curled my lip, shot him my most hateful stare, and continued to my Jeep.

  Behind me, Josh bounced his basketball and swung it to his other hand. “So are you going to prom with me or not?”

  “You haven’t asked me yet.”

  “I tried.”

  “Look, Josh, it’s just a bad time for me.”

  “It’s that cop, isn’t it?”

  “That’s really disgusting that you believe that.”

  “Then who is it, Blaire?”

  “It’s nobody. It’s just a bad time.”

  Josh caught his ball, squeezed it between his palms until it compressed visibly, then heaved it into the street. It bounced far in the distance and rolled into the gutter. “I’m sick of this, Blaire.”

  “Join the club.” I trekked the rest of the way to my Jeep, steaming and frustrated. Why hadn’t I just said yes?

  Because I didn’t want to go to prom with Josh. And why didn’t I want to go to prom with Josh?

  Because of Damian.

  That was why. There, I’d answered the question. My face flushed at the thought of my own helplessness against the rush of emotions he stirred in me. For one thing, he terrified me. How was I supposed to quit dwelling on a boy who could haunt my dreams at will?

  ***

  “Let’s see . . .” Amy consulted a scheduler on her computer. “We’ll put Blaire and Damian in Room A at ten o’clock tonight.”

  “Schedule them in room B,” said Charles, sticking the tip of a digital thermometer in my mouth. “The mirror in room A hasn’t been replaced yet.” He threw me a reproving glance.

  Amy clicked her tongue and typed it in. The thermometer beeped, and Charles recorded the reading on a clipboard and put the device away.

  “Why do we need to schedule it?” I said, trying to work the metallic taste out of my mouth. “I can remember room B at ten o’clock.”

  “The rest of us need to be completely out of the way once you crossover,” said Charles, leaning in close and studying my irises. “Otherwise we risk unintended consequences. We try to be careful. How are you feeling?”

  “Nervous. Are we travelling back in time or something?”

  Charles finished examining my eyes and scribbled something else on his clipboard. “No, but you would do well to treat crossing over with just as much, if not more respect.”

  “I’m not sure I want to do this anymore.”

  “You don’t have to,” he said. “Amy’s going to print out your briefing, which you, Damian, and myself all have to sign before you have permission to crossover.”

  “At least Amy doesn’t get a hand in deciding my fate,” I muttered. The comment earned me a snarl from her.

  “Focus, Blaire,” said Charles. “Damian convinced me you were ready. You wouldn’t want me to change my mind now, would you?”

  Damian had done what? A wave of giddiness rushed through me—that he actually stuck up for me behind my back—followed quickly by fear. “Maybe I’m not ready,” I stammered. “I mean, I don’t even know what it means to crossover—”

  “You were born ready, Blaire.”

  “Why, because I have the forty-seventh chromosome?”

  “Because you have two. Breathe normally—” He measured my heart rate and blood pressure, followed by my respiratory rate.

  “What’s all this for?” I asked, the length of our prescreening beginning to worry me. In my mind, I listed off things that took this much preparation: brain surgery . . . space flight . . . deep sea scuba diving . . . All dangerous.

  Did I even trust them?

  “We’d like to measure your vitals before and after to get an idea of how well your body handles crossover.” Charles unplugged the stethoscope from his ears. “Heart rate’s a bit high. Outstanding blood pressure though. You’re in great shape.”

  “I run.” And where was Damian? I was starting to feel scared without him.

  “That’s good. The healthier you are, the less damaging the effects of crossover.”

  “Wait—did you just say damaging?”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute.”

  “Now I definitely don’t want to do this.”

  “Don’t worry, you haven’t agreed to anything. I’m going to explain crossover to you first and then you get to choose whether or not you’re ready.”

  “What kind of damage?” I asked.

  “Nothing serious. Not after a single crossover. It’s the accumulated effects we worry about.”

  All this talk only added to my nervousness, and Damian still hadn’t shown up yet. Somehow, I felt like he was abandoning me.

  This was supposed to be our crossover.

  “So what am I going to do?” I said. “Crossover into outer space?”

  Charles closed his medical kit. “We’ve gotten all your vitals,” he said. “I think it’s time we told you that we don’t do interior design here.”

  ***

  I blinked. “Yeah, that’s kind of obvious.”

  “Not that obvious,” he said, straightening up a little. “At least not to anyone outside. We’ve done a good job building up this company as a cover for crossover activity.”

  “Which is what?”

  “You might say we leverage a genetic mutation that allows us to cross over the quantum boundary between symmetries to . . . er . . . accomplish things that cannot be accomplished within the existing con
ditions of reality.”

  “Can you maybe try not to confuse me?”

  “I think everything’s going to be a lot clearer after tonight, after your mission. Here—” he handed me a packet which included plans of the Immunology building at Scripps, photos, and the report I myself had done on Friday. The report of the Institute’s security measures.

  I stared at the briefing. “You want me to crossover into the quarantine zone?”

  “It’s not teleportation, Blaire.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “It’s something . . . something different,” he said. “You’ll experience it tonight. Right now, just memorize the briefing. You’re the expert on security now. Your first mission is to steal enough security clearances to get us past the south security checkpoint.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  He smiled. “You wanted the internship.”

  I lowered my eyes to the briefing, and dread settled in my stomach. “How would I even do all this?”

  “Damian’s going to be with you to help you.”

  “He still hasn’t trained me . . . he’s not even here.”

  “Just think of this as on-the-job training.”

  Suddenly, I understood. “I’m going to die, aren’t I? That’s what crossing over is—”

  Charles shook his head. “No, no, no . . . this is nothing like that at all.”

  “No way,” I said, forcing the brief back into Charles’s hands. “Absolutely not. First of all, it’s illegal. Second of all, I’ve heard it’s not actually a drill. Who knows what kind of virus they’ve got down there.”

  “The military would be wearing gas masks if there was anything infectious,” he said. “No, the quarantine zone is perfectly safe.”

  “Still illegal.”

  “Only during the crossover itself,” he said. “Afterwards, what you did will be erased.”

  “It’s going to take quite a demonstration to make me believe that,” I said.

  “That’s why we’re having you experience it firsthand.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “They’re going to launch missiles at me.”

  “They won’t even know you’ve been there.”

  “Am I going to be invisible?” I asked.

  Charles was about to dismiss this one too, but he paused. “Actually, that’s not a bad way to put it. Invisible, but not at all in the way you’re imagining.”

  Okay, we could play twenty questions. So crossing over wasn’t teleporting or dying or going back in time, but it was something like going invisible. Except not.

  “No, I don’t want to do this. Period,” I said, my tone final.

  I heard the door shut behind me. “She’s backing down already?” Damian strode in and leaned against Amy’s desk, his leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He popped a cigarette into his mouth. “I told you she would.”

  My relief was instantly overshadowed by irritation. “I’m not backing down,” I said, my face hot. “I’m just not doing something that’s stupid, illegal, and dangerous.”

  “Dangerous? Explain,” he said, like he’d never heard the word before.

  “Duh, they have helicopters and tanks and a freaking phalanx close-in-weapon system—and a destroyer.”

  “You’re neglecting one thing,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  He glanced at Charles. “Have you told her?”

  “More or less,” said Charles.

  “You haven’t told her.”

  “I explained it. Briefly.”

  “In English.” Damian shook his head and lowered his brooding eyes. “Start with her dad.”

  “Fine,” said Charles, rubbing his forehead. “Blaire, I think it’s time we explained what really happened to your father—and who it was exactly who showed up eleven days ago.”

  ***

  “Huh? You mean that wasn’t my real dad?”

  “No, he was,” said Charles. “But he also wasn’t.”

  “He either is, or he isn’t,” I said. “He can’t be both.”

  “Well, that may be true in high school philosophy, but in the real world things can get a little sticky.”

  “No,” I said again, more forcefully. “He either is or he isn’t. Which one is it?”

  “Blaire, we’re going to be getting into a lot of gray area,” he said. “You’re going to quickly learn that he can indeed be both.”

  “Because of crossover?”

  “Because of quantum optionality. Crossover just lets us experience optionality directly.”

  “English, Charles,” said Damian from where he stood, arms crossed.

  “What are you talking about?” I said.

  Charles shook his head, as if to clear it and start over. “That man is what we call a reflection. He wasn’t real. Your actual father was lost on a mission eleven months ago. He’s . . . long gone.”

  “So he wasn’t my father.”

  “No, he was,” said Charles. “Just not the one you remember. He was from a world that broke symmetry with our own a long time ago, we think twelve years ago. That’s why he doesn’t remember.”

  “Charles—” warned Damian.

  “You’re a carrier,” said Charles. “You have the forty-seventh chromosome, and that’s why you got this internship. I’m a carrier. Damian is a carrier, and Amy is a carrier.” He paused. “Your father was one too.”

  “What does that mean?” I said, “To be a carrier?”

  It was dark outside, the sunset already dimmed to a dull greenish bronze hue. Gone, like the light on my heart that made me feel like I was guided in the right direction. Everything felt weird and uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be here anymore, I didn’t want to do any of this. I was in way too far over my head.

  “It means you can break symmetry,” he said. “Essentially, you have the ability to cross over into parallel quantum states—”

  “God damnit, Charles—” Damian’s head snapped up. “Just tell her.”

  “Quiet,” he said. “She needs to understand.”

  “She does understand. You’re just confusing her.”

  “Just give us five minutes—”

  “Blaire . . .” Damian locked eyes with me. “What Charles is trying to say is you can walk through mirrors.”

  Chapter 8

  “Nuh-uh,” I said, shaking my head as my heart sank. And I had already gotten so excited. “It must have skipped a generation. If I could walk through mirrors, I would have known by now . . . you know, accidentally fallen through.”

  Charles smiled. “Thankfully, it’s almost impossible to discover your ability to break symmetry by yourself—which is why there are only a handful of active carriers instead of thousands. Here, I’ll explain—”

  “Charles calls it breaking symmetry,” said Damian. “It’s still just walking through a mirror. He likes the nerd lingo.”

  “You’re not helping,” said Charles.

  “I’m just saying take it easy on her,” said Damian.” She’s been here a week.”

  “Fine. I’ll start from the beginning,” said Charles. “The term breaking symmetry comes from a phenomenon in quantum mechanics . . .” He trailed off, seeing my blank expression. “Actually, let’s back up even more. When you hold a ball in your hand, it feels like it’s made of stuff with a consistency . . . something solid, right? Well, it turns out that’s an illusion. It’s actually made of billions and billions of tiny particles called molecules, which in turn are made of atoms—”

  “Okay, okay, you didn’t have to back up that much,” I said. “I took Chemistry last year.”

  Charles looked relieved. “Think of breaking symmetry like this,” he said. “If I shine a single particle of light—a photon—at
a piece of glass, there are two choices, right? It could pass through the glass, or it could be reflected. In other words, one set of initial conditions can cause two radically different outcomes. In physics, the moment it chooses one of those branches and not the other is knows as breaking symmetry. And you get a split.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “What does this have to do with walking through mirrors?”

  Charles sighed. “I told you, Damian, you should have let me explain it to her first. Now she’s lost her focus.”

  Damian just smirked.

  “I have not lost my focus,” I said. “Geez, sorry I don’t have a PhD in quantum mechanics.”

  “Blaire, it’s just high school physics,” said Charles. “Please tell me you’ve heard of the double-slit experiment?”

  “I vaguely recall it,” I lied.

  “Good. So you know that every time a subatomic particle has a choice between two paths—that is, every time it breaks symmetry—it actually takes both paths simultaneously and you have a split.”

  “What’s a split?”

  “It’s when the universe splits in two. In one universe, the photon passes through the glass. In the other, it gets reflected. You’ve heard all this before, right?”

  “The idea that there are parallel universes? Isn’t that just science fiction?”

  “Actually, it’s pretty easy to prove,” he said. “In the double-slit experiment, you shine a single photon of light through a pair of slits, and you get a pattern of interference that indicates the photon is being influenced by photons in parallel universes. It’s pretty well-documented, in fact. This interference is happening constantly, every time there’s a break in symmetry. Every time there’s a split.”

  Silence followed.

  “And you, like our subatomic friends,” said Damian, uncrossing his arms and standing up straight, “can break symmetry. And it’s time for me to teach you how.”

  ***

  “There are three rules.” said Damian, once I’d signed the briefing (Charles still assured me I could back out at any time) and Charles and Amy had left us alone in room B.