Superposition

^{CHAPTER 38}

Jean’s hand hovered over the Higgs projector, just moments from erasing the life of her child. The original Chance was still there, in the flesh, but the physically perfect version was superimposed over her, like a second movie projected onto the same screen.

I flicked my eyes through the projector subroutines and chose StrongNuclearForce. A selector icon appeared in my vision, and I used it to select first Jean, and then the office wall. Jean and the wall were suddenly attracted to each other by a force far stronger than magnetism. She was hurled sideways and crashed hard into the paneling.

It wasn’t enough. I ran toward her, hoping to grab her projector, but before I could reach her, I was thrown backward against the wall. I got up, ready to retaliate, just in time to see a swivel chair come crashing down on top of me. The metal base struck the side of my head, and I saw sparks. She was too fast for me, too accustomed to the interface and familiar with the subroutines.

Chance started to cry. Her face turned red, and she clenched her tiny fists while her wails filled the room. Jean rushed back to her, put a hand on her chest, and made soothing noises.

I tried to get up again, but my vision swam. I saw Elena in an underground room, and in that moment, I heard a voice saying, Turn off the power. I didn’t have time to think about what it meant. I scrambled to my feet and fumbled with the StrongNuclearForce pointers again.

“This is none of your business!” Jean screamed at me. “Just leave me alone.”

My pocket burst into flame. I threw myself back onto the floor and rolled to put out the fire on my pants. It worked, but the projector was burned beyond recognition. The message “Signal lost” flashed briefly in my vision. Just that quickly, Jean had won.

Nick tried to run for the desk and grab Chance while Jean was distracted, but she threw him aside like a rag doll.

“I was a friend to you,” Jean said to me. “I didn’t have to help you with the trial. I could have just left you to take the fall, but I didn’t.”

“You helped me because you thought I might lead you to the projector,” I said.

“It doesn’t matter. I’m finished with you. I’m going to do what I think is right, and nothing you do will stop me.”

“It’s another murder,” I said. “You’re planning to kill your own daughter.”

Jean stroked Chance’s hair and ran her finger along one cheek. “To cure her,” she said. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

An explosion echoed through the room, unexpected and deafening. Jean cried out, and Officer Richard Peyton stepped into the room, his gun raised. “Hands in the air!” he shouted. Behind him were half a dozen more police with weapons and body armor.

Jean raised her hands. Chance started screaming again, frightened by the noise. “I just need to pick up my baby,” Jean said.

“Don’t let her do it,” I said.

“Stop where you are,” Peyton warned her, taking a step forward. “Don’t move.”

“She’s the real murderer,” I said. “She’s trying to kill that child.”

One of the other policemen was training his gun on me. “All of you, hands on your head. Lie down on the floor,” he barked.

“Watch out,” I said. “She can—”

Jean attacked. Peyton’s gun flew out of his hand and his uniform burst into flame. Behind him, the other policemen were burning, too, but they were well trained. They didn’t know where the attack was coming from, but they didn’t panic or run away. They charged into the room, trying to control the apparent aggressors. Jean reached for Chance, and I knew if she touched her, she would teleport them both away and we would never find them. I reached for her, but it was ultimately Nick who took her down. He snatched a lab coat off a hook on the wall and rushed her, holding it high, blocking her vision. He wrapped the coat around her head, knocking her to the ground, preventing her from using the visual interface that controlled the Higgs projector. I reached her a moment later and tore the projector out of her hands.

Without it, Jean was just a person. She lay still under the lab coat, crying bitterly. I synched my lenses to her projector and saw immediately that it had a much improved interface, with more subroutines available and a more natural way of selecting and executing them. She must have been the intellect behind the software, not Brian, and she must have kept writing code even after he died. I imagined how furious she must have been when she killed him, only to find that he didn’t have the projector on him, and she couldn’t find it among his things.

I heard the voice in my head again: Turn off all the power.

Was my double actually communicating with me directly? The power to what? I thought.

To the whole collider, came the reply. All of it. Hurry.

I felt a sudden rush of panic, and then I could see everything my double was seeing as if I were there. I saw my family and Marek and the concrete sub-basement and the crisscrossing wires. Then I saw the reason for my double’s panic: the varcolac had appeared next to Claire.

She screamed in utter panic and scrambled backward away from it. My double shouted and waved his hands and cursed at the thing, and I shouted and waved and cursed along with him. The varcolac lifted her with one hand and held her over the wires, where she flailed and screamed and smoked in the jagged lightning arcs.

The vision disappeared. Nick was shaking me. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

I blinked and shook my head. “I have to go,” I said. “Claire’s in trouble.”

“I don’t think so,” Peyton said. “I think you’re innocent in all this, but I’m still going to have to take you in.”

“I understand,” I said. “But I’m sorry. I really have to go.”

I flicked my eyes, executing the Teleport subroutine from Jean’s projector, and disappeared.

In theory, shutting down the power to the NJSC wouldn’t be all that difficult. There was an elaborate safety code that included the means to cut off power to any local region, or to the entire accelerator at once. An electrical fire in the wrong place could have devastating consequences. There were radioactive materials on site, flammables, and coolants that, if they outgassed, could kill anyone who didn’t get out in time. There were blast doors and corridors designed intentionally as labyrinths to put as many walls as possible between people and potential accidents.

I materialized in the accelerator tunnel at a mile marker, right in front of a green-painted call station. I lifted the phone and punched the red button intended for emergencies. It was answered immediately by a professional-sounding female voice. “Fire in the tunnels!” I shouted, trying to sound out of breath. “It’s spreading fast. Shut down the particle beams; shut down everything. This is a full-site shutdown emergency. Repeat, a full-site shutdown.”

The voice on the other end acknowledged me, her voice raised in intensity but still calm. “I have you at mile marker twenty,” she said. “We see no fire alarm indicators; are you certain?”

“The smoke is filling up the tunnel pretty fast here,” I shouted. “I have to go. We’re going to need some EMTs down here.”

“How many people are with you?” I could hear the frown in her voice; she probably knew there shouldn’t be any people in that part of the line.

“Just me and Frank,” I said. “He’s hurt pretty bad. Shut it down, will you? Follow the protocol!”

The safety rules didn’t give her a choice. Anyone on site had the authority to call for a shutdown, and they couldn’t decide at the control center to ignore it. It wasn’t something that had ever been abused in the past.

“Hang tight,” she said. “Power shutdown is in effect. Help is on its way.”