1c: The Fifth Dimension Project
- charlesjromeo
- 1 day ago
- 43 min read
2: Metaphysics, Ch 11-20
11 Second Test
After much cajoling, Nora agrees to be their next test subject. Marhan relates that he doesn’t think the sedative was necessary. It felt to him that the cohered pulses had a sedative effect. The vibrations in the head, just quiet the body, immobilize it, like it’s deep in slumber. “It’s like the state of paralysis that REM sleep induces. We can only lie there; we cannot act on our dreams.” He also suggests that Nora focus on something specific. “Try thinking about something that happened recently, this morning maybe, if anything strikes you. Once you wake up, you’ll be able to compare the computer video to what you were thinking about.
“Happy thoughts,” Nora asks.
“Doesn’t have to be, and don’t tell us, the computer screen will hopefully show us what you are thinking,” was Marhan’s thought.
“Give me a minute,” Nora utters as she lies there focusing her mind. “Okay, I’m ready.”
They start the protocol. Wilna is at the controls, and goes through the process of slowly increasing the pulses. At 10-minutes a flash again appears on the screen, at 11-minutes, the door opens and stays open. They watch as the series of disorganized fragments get formed into an image. The image is much clearer than it was in Marhan’s case. “I’ll bet the sedative made the image fuzzy,” Marhan notes.
“We’re in a room, a kitchen maybe,” Wilna notes distractedly while studying the scene. Then “Wait, this is Nora’s kitchen, but where’s Nora?”
“Whoa!” they both jump as they see the upper half of a steaming disk fill the lower part of the screen.
“What the heck was that?” Wilna asks.
A young man Nora’s age walks in from a different room in the house. They begin to argue. There’s no sound, only his body language. His arms are folded across his chest. He screams, his arms flair out.
“Are we looking through her eyes?” Marhan asks. The image turns toward the kitchen door; and arm lifts up and fills much of the screen. “Whoa! That was an arm, Nora’s arm I’m guessing; we must be looking through her eyes.”
They can’t see her, but what they can make out from her arms and hands as they flash in and out of view shows she is clearly frustrated with him. Her head turns toward the door again; her right arm lifts up points to the door. She turns back. He is pleading; he doesn’t want to leave. The image now disengages from behind Nora’s eyes. They are looking at both of them from one side. It’s as though Nora is sending her thoughts across the room. “What is she trying to do?” Wilna asks distractedly as they remained glued to the images. The fight continues, now they can see her yelling at him to leave. He finally relents and heads to the door. The image slams back behind Nora’s eyes. The movement is quick, jarring. She raises her coffee cup as if to throw it after him, thinks better of it. He slams the door, is gone. She puts the cup back on the counter, leans on the counter. The image gets distorted, it’s as though they are looking through water.
“I think that she is crying,” Wilna says quietly.
“Is this what she is dealing with at home?” Marhan asks with a look of horror on his face. “How does she come in here and focus after that?”
Wilna knows a little of Nora’s love life. “That’s Jake. They seem to have a love-hate relationship. This morning was clearly hate. With the two of you, I think we need a psychologist in the room when we run these tests.”
Marhan nods, smiles. “Your turn is next.”
Wilna looks over a little panic stricken, shuts down the test, heads over help Nora up.
Nora watches the video, shrugs her shoulders. “When it’s good, it’s real good, but when Jake drinks too much and starts blathering for hours he just gets me nuts. I didn’t get much sleep last night because he wouldn’t shut up about his latest great idea. If he could only focus on one thing and succeed at it, that would be great, but he can’t seem to do that. As the video shows, I’ve had it with him. Hopefully, he doesn’t try to come back.”
Marhan is at the computer controls. He resets the video to the moment it moved from behind Nora’s eyes. “Can you tell us why the images went from behind your eyes to looking at the two of you?”
“I tried to change this morning’s reality when I was lying down concentrating. I rewrote the morning’s events in my head to include an axe that I tried to will to be leaning against the wall in the kitchen opposite to where I was standing. In my mind, I went over to the axe, picked it up, turned around and slashed Jake across the chest with it, killing him.”
“Whoa,” Marhan bellows, taken aback, “You wanted us to see you as an axe murderer.”
“Yes, I mean no. I mean I wanted to see if I could change reality. I couldn’t.”
Marhan interjects, “So I think we’ve learned that when we are literally reproducing images, we see them through the test subject’s eyes, but when the subject is dreaming, be it about kissing or axe murdering, we see the image as they imagine it.”
“Yes, but within limits. We can’t actually see an axe murder that didn’t happen.” Nora notes with a smile.
“From your test, that appears to be right, but the fact that you were able to shift your position is a bit concerning.” Marhan adds.
“What about you? Nora retorts, “what you showed us today wasn’t real.”
“Ahh, but my daydreams are my reality.” Marhan responds, then adds, “Sorry,” and turns away to hide his reddening face as the words finish coming out of his mouth. I can’t believe I just said that!
“Ah Marhan, it’s okay.” Nora smiles. “I guess we are going to have to get used to seeing what’s floating around in each other’s heads.”
“Enough with the angst,” Wilna chimes in. “This is the beginning of a scientific revolution. Let’s go celebrate.” They had accomplished enough for the day. It was time for beers and dinner.
12 Dinner Conversation
They clink their glasses together to toast their success while they wait for their pizza.”
“What a day,” Marhan starts. “We uncovered a daydream; we uncovered the makings of a nightmare.”
“Hey, it wasn’t that bad,” Nora retorts. “Okay maybe it was,” as she slumps forward a bit.
“This is the work of the two of you, I am just a lucky bystander,” Wilna declares as she points at her tablemates.
“For now,” Marhan interjects,” he looks at Nora, “Wilna is up tomorrow.”
“What’s on the schedule for tomorrow?” Nora asks, smiling, looking back and forth at the two of them. “Another scientific breakthrough I presume.”
Marhan gets serious, “I have an idea for tomorrow, let me know what you think. Both scenes we viewed today happened earlier on the same day.”
“Really Marhan,” Nora interjects, smacks him, laughs.
Marhan looks down to avoid Nora’s eyes for a second, mumbles, “Sorry.” Then begins, “I’d say we try and visualize an event that’s a little bit older. Say a few weeks or a month back.” Marhan turns to Wilna, “Are you up for trying to visualize something out of your not-too-distant past and see if we can show it on the screen.”
“Before we think about putting me on the table, how do we know what we saw today came from one of those folded dimensions. Couldn’t that just have been your neurons being expressed by the technology you’ve developed?”
“Good point.” Marhan considers, “Maybe we need to try and have a subject visualize something much older, something that they couldn’t have remembered the details of well. If we can reproduce that, then that may convince Wilna and others that we are reaching beyond what is readily accessible in our memories.”
While Wilna contemplates whether she wants to take a turn on the table, Nora interjects, “Any ideas on how we can capture events further back in time?”
“There are two general tacks we can take: we can increase the intensity or the frequency of the pulses. I’d say we start with intensity. Let’s gain access setting the intensity at the same level we used today, but then increase the intensity somewhat once we are in. The pulses are energy. Applying more energy should move us through the brain’s thoughts, hopefully in a linear fashion back in time.”
“But we are stimulating the cortex, we need to stimulate the hippocampus to access older memories,” Nora notes.
“Everything in the brain is connected,” Marhan responds. I’m hoping that increasing the intensity of pulses will move us through the brain to the hippocampus. Does that sound possible Wilna?”
Wilna was lost in thought. “Uh, maybe. Everything in the brain is certainly connected, so yes, that might work.” Then she nods, gives an uninspiring shrug, then says, “I’ve thought of something that happened in the past. You two seem completely unaffected by today’s testing, so I’m game.”
“That’s great,” Nora smiles exuberantly, while raising her glass for another toast. Then she looks uncertain for a moment and asks her two table mates, “What do we call this? We have Marhan’s helmet and theoretical insights, and my code, and an outcome that is something like time travel, dare I say that, because I’m afraid it will make others think we are losing it if we tell them we can travel back through time.”
“We can’t travel back through time, but we seem to be able to recapture thoughts from an earlier time, at least earlier in the day,” Wilna interjects. “It’s like looking through a telescope but instead of looking into the past history of the universe, we are looking at peoples’ past experiences as they went about their lives.”
“Then maybe ‘Thought Time Travel,’ or ‘Recapturing Earlier Experiences,’” Nora offers hesitantly.
“Not real catchy,” Marhan responds. “We were so concerned that this might not work that we never came up with a name for it. Let’s bat around ideas in the coming days.”
“The Time Thought Project,” Nora says while looking up and moving her arms so as to trace the words in space.”
“Better,” Wilna replies, “But not there yet.”
Marhan suggests, “Here’s another idea. Sound. Can we add sound? I’m guessing that you were making sounds when you in the kitchen with Jake this morning. Do you think it’s possible to capture them?”
“Oh yeah, there were sounds.” And they all burst out laughing.
“But luckily no axe,” Wilna chimes in, which continues the laughter.
Nora gets serious for a moment, “If the fragment stream has sound in it, then I should be able to reproduce it reasonably well. We won’t have it for tomorrow’s test, but I’ll work on that.”
“So, no quantum entanglements or cats in boxes from today for either of you?”
“With events like we replayed today, quantum entanglements shouldn’t be much of a problem. At most I’d be my daydreaming self, but maybe Nora woke up as an axe murderer?”
They look at Nora. She raises her arms like she is holding an axe and growls, which starts the next round of laughter. Nora’s phone buzzes. It was her newsfeed.
Marhan looks over. “You keep up on politics?”
“Emily got me started, now I can’t seem to stop. There’s just so much wrong that is coming down from this new administration. It’s maddening, it’s going to affect all of our futures. Do you know that by placing National Guard troops in cities all around the country to quell riots against his policies, he is violating something call the Posse Comitatus Act, and red state governors are letting him get away with it.”
"And Congress is letting him get away with so much more," Wilna adds.
Nora nods, changes the topic, “One last question. When do we tell Professor Levin?”
Marhan responds. “Not yet. Look, what we are doing is very exciting, but we really need to understand it better before bringing in him or anyone else. There’s also the fact that the videos we have to show him so far, are not exactly going to paint us in the best light. Don’t worry though, we will bring him in. We will bring in the whole world before too long. For now, though, this is just between us.”
The pizza arrives. Nora takes a bite, “Damn I miss New York pizza.”
Wilna looks at her quizzically. “I thought you were from Seattle.”
“I am, but my nanna lives in Brooklyn. When I visit, I eat a lot of pizza. Look at this,” Nora tilts a slice on a steep angle. “Nothing. Nothing. In New York there would be olive oil dripping onto the plate.”
“At least they have pizza.” Marhan comments while munching on a slice, “They don’t have Indian food here, bad or good.”
Nora looks at Wilna, “Your turn, what do you have to complain about?”
“I’m good. I have Jeremy, the love of my life,” Wilna wistfully notes, good friends, and the pizza suits me.”
“What? There’s no olive oil on the plate. How do we eat the crust without olive oil to soak it in,” Nora exclaims while smacking the back of one hand into the other. “I have to take you to meet my nanna, then you’ll know.”
Wilna and Marhan smile at Nora’s Italian grandmother routine. They raise their glasses and clink them together once again, dig into their pizzas and head home for the evening.
13 Third Test
Wilna is on the table with the helmet on her head the next morning. “Are you ready?” Nora asks while gently gripping her hand.
“Yes, I think so,” Wilna says nervously.
Nora picks up on this. “Don’t be nervous sweetie, you’ll be fine.” She lets go of Wilna’s hand and steps over to the computer. She begins the protocol, sped up now, so that pulse increases are set to 15-second intervals. On the tenth increase, the door flashes open for an instant. On the eleventh increase, they are in. Image fragments begin filling up the computer screen. Nora increases the energy behind the pulses, and the fragments begin flying past. “The fragments aren’t organizing,” Nora notes distractedly.
“I think we are moving through Wilna’s consciousness. We or maybe she is time traveling in the fifth dimension. I think when we get to where she is taking us the fragments will organize; right now, there is too much information for even a quantum computer to process.”
“The fifth dimension. That’s it!” Exclaims Nora, but just then the fragments begin to organize. They stare at the screen. A man is coming down a flight of stairs, briefcase in his hand. A woman, likely his wife hugs him, walks over and gives him a lunch bag. Their view of them gets closer, as though the camera is moving toward them. The man reaches down, picks up the person that was running toward him, hugs her, kisses her. “I think we’re looking through Wilna’s eyes,” Nora notes. The man puts her down, opens the door, smiling from ear-to-ear, he mouths ‘I love you’ and waves. The scene moves from behind Wilna’s eyes. She is trying to follow her dad, but her mom picks her up, kisses her on the cheek. They both watch as he gets in his car, drives away.
The image turns to static for a moment, and Nora comments, “Maybe that’s it, maybe Wilna showed us a touching scene from her childhood, and we got to see it through her eyes …” These words are still hanging in the air when a new scene forms on the computer screen. Wilna’s eyes are racing toward the door. She reaches up for the door handle, turns it. The door opens, a police officer is standing there.
He bends down on one knee, takes off his hat, talks to Wilna for a moment. Then he looks up, and stands up. Wilna looks up at her mother, grabs onto her leg. Wilna is looking at the officer, he is somber. Suddenly her mother crumples to the ground, Wilna goes down with her. The officer comes in the house, helps Wilna up, helps her mother to the couch.
The view through Wilna’s eyes begins to get distorted, the picture jerks up and down as does her head. She grabs onto her mom.
Nora turns to Marhan, “I think we saw what she wanted us to see. We should stop the test.”
Marhan is taken aback by what they just saw, “Yes, please stop it.”
They rush over to Wilna, remove the helmet, help her to sit up. She is crying. “I’m sorry for showing you that, but it is the most important scene in my early childhood, one that I’ve never forgotten, but my memories of that morning are mere fragments.”
Nora hugs her, Marhan rubs her shoulders. “It’s all right Wilna. You’re safe. You’re back in the lab.”
“You were able to show us more than fragments,” Marhan starts, “would you like to see what you showed us.”
Wilna nods. Still crying, gets up goes and sits at the computer, watches the images. “That’s my dad and there’s my mom,” she exclaims and bursts into tears.” Nora wraps her arms around her.
“How old were you,” Nora asks.
“I was three.”
Marhan stops the video at the point where Wilna separated from behind her eyes and started trying to go after her father. “What happened here?”
Wilna begins to regain her composure. “My current consciousness was like a bystander watching the scene just like you were. I found myself thinking, maybe I could change this scene. I tried to move my 3-year-old self to intervene, she wouldn’t move, so finally we separated and I started moving, but my mom grabbed me. I wanted to hold onto my dad for 10 more seconds. That’s all it would have taken. Then the truck wouldn’t have hit his car.”
“I tried to change something yesterday, remember, I wanted to add an axe to the scene with me and Jake. It didn’t work.”
“I know, but you tried adding a physical object. And, for you, since that had only happened that morning, there was little difference between your current and your younger selves. Neither of those selves would actually have sliced Jake open with an axe, so you couldn’t do it. Whereas for me, I could feel my older self, back there somehow connected to my younger self, and my older self desperately wanting my younger self to hold onto my father if only for a few more seconds, but I was too young, he was already beyond my reach by the time I was able to move; I couldn’t make it happen.”
“What happened?” Marhan asked.
Wilna restarts the video. She watches her 3-year-old self open the door. “The officer was there to tell us that my dad was killed in a car accident on the way to work that morning. A truck jumped the median, and landed on his car; he never had a chance.” When her mom collapses, she touches the computer screen with her fingertips, starts crying again. “My mom, my poor mom.”
Marhan steps over to a chair, plops down, stunned. “Wilna, I know that you are still in pain, and I’m sorry for changing the subject, but do you realize what we just did? We just sent you 24 years back in time, and what you just told us suggests that we may be the first people in human history that actually have the power to change the past.” Looking over at Nora he adds, “Your test may not have been an aberration. If there had been an axe in your kitchen, you might have actually been able to swing it.”
Marhan continues, “Maybe these are instances of the quantum entanglements that Professor Warner was concerned about. But, maybe it’s not that the older and younger selves become entangled in the sense of acting on each other. Maybe the direction is one way: the older self trying to alter the actions of the younger self.”
14 Professor Levin
That afternoon Wilna heads back to the ER while Marhan and Nora head over to see Professor Levin. “Come in.” They sit down and start to explain that their project is working spectacularly. They tell him about the three tests. He jumps up, “Can we go to your lab so that I can see this for myself?”
Marhan tells him that yesterday they had produced images from earlier in the day for both him and Nora. One was of Marhan daydreaming in the lab, the other was of Nora at her house that morning. Professor Levin sits looking quizzically. “Can I see them?”
Without providing any details about those images, Nora starts rolling the images from Wilna’s childhood. “This is the most interesting of the three sets of images we’ve captured. This is from Wilna this morning.”
Professor Levin watches. They explain the flash when the door opens and shuts, the moving fragments, the fragments settling into an image. Then they tell him he is watching a scene from when Wilna was three, one for which she remembered few details. It’s the day her father died. He is fascinated, but he wants to see the process in action.
Marhan has a scene in mind from a few months back. “It’s a very short scene, but it is very important to me. Nora, you know what to do.”
So, while Nora works the computer, Marhan lays on the table. She follows their protocol. Professor Levin sees the flash, then sees the swimming fragments form into an image through Marhan’s eyes. He is in the lecture hall. The last of a crowd of people are congratulating him on his talk, when Nora who is hanging at the back the whole time, walks up to him. She mouths a question that she repeats out loud to Professor Levin as they sit there, “Have you figured out how to simultaneously stimulate billions of cells?”
With that the images started to fade and Nora knows that the scene Marhan wanted the Professor to see is over. She stops the test and goes over to help Marhan sit up. She looks at him slyly, saying quietly “You had to pick a scene with me in it.”
Marhan responds, “It’s not what you think. That moment was important to me because it was the first time I thought what I had been hoping to do might actually be possible.” Then he smiles at her, and she can’t help but smile back at him.
Professor Levin is sitting, staring at the now blank screen, still processing what he saw when they join him again. He looks up at them. “I believe that this is experimental proof that string theory is an accurate representation of reality.”
“Yes,” Marhan answers, “Our experiments indicate that at least one, and likely three, of the folded dimensions can be opened, and that important moments from our past can be retrieved.”
“The potential for this to be used by psychologists to explore a patient’s psyche by actually being able to visualize key moments in a patient’s history, or by police trying to tie a person to a crime seems limitless,” Nora says excitedly.
The professor thinks for a moment, “I like the idea of exploring the criminology dimension first, as it seems the most straightforward. Suppose a person is picked up for robbery, but they left no fingerprints, and wore a hood, so the cameras couldn’t identify them. This process you’ve developed,” the professor waves his finger at the computer, wiring harness, and table with the helmet, “could place the person at the scene of the crime. It provides strong evidence of guilt where other evidence is unavailable or weak. But I expect that there are more tests you want to do before you are ready to show the world what you have created.”
“Yes, a lot of things,” Marhan jumps in. “One thing is that this process requires that the test subject focus on the event we want to visualize. How do we get a crime suspect to think about something he or she doesn’t want us to see?”
“Joanna Wilster is a criminal psychologist in the Psychology Department, I will get you an appointment to talk with her. I expect that she will have ideas.”
“Professor, there was one thing that Wilna said after her test this morning that you should know about.” Nora turns to the computer. “Here, let me show you.” She moves to the scene where they are not looking from behind Wilna’s eyes and Nora freezes the image. “She felt the urge to try to change what happened to her father. In her case, she thought that if she could have just gotten her younger self to hold him for a few seconds longer, he might have been able to avoid the accident. She tried it, but she couldn’t get her younger self to move toward her father; her two selves separate, right here, but her mom picks her up. This brings up the possibility, at least, that our process could change history in small ways,” then making an extended shrug of her shoulders, “or even in big ones. We just don’t know.”
“This could be an example of quantum entanglements,” Marhan starts. “Here though, it may be that the entanglements are unidirectional: the older self has influence over the younger self, but not the other way around.”
Professor Levin sits quietly for a moment. “It is exciting to have a real, even life-sized example of a quantum entanglement, but it is also disturbing. Powerful, but extremely dangerous if it’s true. We’ll have to figure out how to test if the entanglements are strong enough to actually change something in the past. Physicists have theorized about time paradoxes. Some have argued that reality is indelible, that that it will not allow a time traveler to actually make different decisions than were made when the past was the present, but no one has ever gotten this close to actually facing the possibility. Yes, we need to test this, but it has to focus on the smallest possible change. It is frightening to think where this might lead if this process …” the professor again looks around, “What are you calling it anyway?”
Nora jumps in, “I have the perfect name.” Marhan rolls his eyes. “No, it’s good this time. It came to me earlier today based on something you said.” Both Marhan and Professor Levin now look at her expectantly. “The Fifth Dimension Project.”
They both nod. “I like it,” they both offer simultaneously.
Professor Levin looks at both of them. “I know that you are both excited, but please don’t tell anyone what you are finding, at least not yet.”
“Not even Professor Wilster?” Nora jumps in.
“Not even her, if you can help it. We need to have a better sense of the capabilities of this project before we let folks in, including other physics grad students and professors.” Nora and Marhan nod. Then the professor heads for the door, opens it, then turns around with a smile, “Please keep me abreast of everything you find lurking around in the fifth dimension.”
15 Nora
With Professor Levin gone, Marhan is exuberant. “My wildest dreams for this project are coming true.” But Nora settles into a kind of funk. “What’s going on? Why are you not excited?”
Nora looks at Marhan. “I need to see something from my past.” She pleads, “Please don’t judge me, I was only 17. I remember it; it has haunted me for years. I want to see it.”
“Okay, of course. Do you want to tell me about it?”
Nora shakes her head no. “I’d rather just relive it.”
“I think we should call Wilna. This sounds like you might need emotional support that I might not be able to provide.”
Nora nods. “I’ll text her.”
Nora was already up on the table ready to go when Wilna arrives wearing her hospital coat. Wilna looks at Marhan, “I don’t have much time. What’s this about?”
“I don’t know, but it seems that there is something from her past that she needs to face.”
As the fragments form into an image, a pair of eyes, Nora’s eyes, are walking down a hallway filled with teens. “Looks like we’re back in her high school,” Wilna notes.
Through the crowd of teens moving around her, Nora’s eyes keep returning to a boy at his locker who is looking over at her. He keeps looking down, then looking back up at her. He closes his locker and steps into the crowd to stand in front of her as she approaches. He mouths words to her. He is shy, nervous maybe. Her eyes lift up toward the ceiling, the view shakes a bit. When she looks back in front of her, the boy is racing away. She turns back from the direction she came from; the view gets distorted.
“What just happened?”
“I don’t know,” Wilna responds. They follow Nora as she steps outside, sits down, the distortions get worse. “I think she’s crying. That’s probably what she wanted us to see. Let’s stop the session.”
They go and help Nora sit up. Wilna asks, “Do you want to see what you just showed us?”
Nora nods. She goes over to the computer, plops down. Marhan plays the scene. Nora narrates. “That’s Josh. It was springtime in senior year. We were math buddies. We sat together in classes; we competed for top grades. But he was shy, nerdier maybe even than I, and he wasn’t athletic. This morning, he finally got the nerve up to ask me to a dance. And right here, she pointed at the screen,” when her eyes lifted up and her head shook, “that’s when 17-year-old me laughed in his face.” Nora starts crying. “Nora DeLuca was head cheerleader; she only dated jocks; she was a bitch.”
Wilna and Marhan are standing behind Nora, look at each other, then Wilna points in front of Nora at the screen, “But then you started crying. You knew you did wrong.”
Through her tears, Nora recounts. “When I got to class, Josh had moved his seat away. Josh never spoke to me again, and I never did anything to try and fix it. I just let him go.”
A moment of quiet follows, then Marhan speaks up. “Maybe you should call him. Just to say hello, just to say you’re sorry. As a skinny nerdy boy myself, I know that I would appreciate an apology.”
Nora nods, stands up, hugs Wilna and Marhan.
16 Hyalite Peak
Nora is excited to tell Sam that her thesis project is working amazingly well when she picks him up for their next trail run. “I can’t yet tell you exactly what we are accomplishing, but I can say that we have experimental proof that string theory is an accurate representation of reality.
He smiles, says, “I wish I had some sense of what that means.”
“You’re a policy guru, I’m a math nerd. We’re both steeped in our own worlds. I wouldn’t have too much to add to the question of,” Nora thought for a moment, “optimal tax policy, or optimal drug use policy,” she said as she pulls out a joint, and smiles.
“I can’t Sam replied as he lifts his hand to indicate no. Didn’t sleep well last night. That might just take too much out of me.”
Nora nods, “Maybe we’ll save it for after we get to the top, the run downhill is always easier.”
Sam wants to change the subject away from weed for now. he asks, “What exactly is string theory? I mean, are these like guitar strings?” He asks while playing a few air guitar notes, then adds, “Physicists show that the world is made up entirely of guitar strings.” As he paints the words across the windshield. “Is that it?”
Nora laughs. “You nailed it! Except I think they’re violin strings.” Then continues, “This isn’t my expertise, but here’s my best answer. Do you know how physicists use particle accelerators to slam bits of matter into each other?”
“I’ve heard that, but I don’t have any idea why they do it.”
“They do it to find the fundamental particles of matter.” Sam gives her a questioning look. “Fundamental particles are ones that are not composed of anything else. Here’s an example. Atoms of composed of protons, neutrons and electrons. So, atoms themselves are not fundamental. But are the three components of atoms fundamental? To determine this for say a proton, physicists slam protons together at speeds approaching the speed of light,” she says as she takes her hands off the wheel and smacks her left fist into her right palm. Sam jumps. “They do this to try and locate other particles in the debris of these collisions.”
“Have they found anything?” Sam asks.
“You bet, all sorts of quarks, muons, neutrinos, and things I can’t remember. The evidence physicists have collected indicates that these are the fundamental particles.”
“Okay, this makes some sense,” Sam notes. “Ahh, so this is what violin strings are made of?”
“Yes, exactly, at a fundamental level.”
“You just agreed with what I said, but I still can’t visualize it.”
“Here’s the key point. Suppose these fundamental particles aren’t particles at all, but are actually vibrating strings.”
“Okay, I get that. Are they?” Sam asks.
“No one knows for sure.” Sam again looked over questioningly. “The particles or strings are smaller than 10-30. They are simply too small to be analyzed with currently available technology.”
A light bulb seemed to go on in Sam’s head, “Hence, String Theory, not Visible Strings or something.”
“That’s right!” Nora smacks him and smiles.
“One more question, if it can’t be tested, why does anyone care?”
“Because having strings instead of particles as the basis of matter makes the equations of physics work a lot better. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask Marhan, my research partner.”
Sam nods, takes it in, adds, “So violin strings are themselves composed of strings.”
Nora laughs, “Now you’ve got it.” Then she switches the subject. “Let’s talk about your world. Did you see what Nichols did this week? He got a Congress dominated by his party to vote to cut Medicaid and he accused the opposition of forcing his hand.”
“It’s not as surprising as you think,” is Sam’s reaction. “The country is distracted by continuing riots, building economic malaise. His party, my old party, has wanted to cut Medicaid for a long time, decades maybe. This is the time to do it, when everyone’s eyes are focused elsewhere.”
“But he blamed the opposition. How does he get away with that?”
Sam looks over at Nora. “I’m glad to see that you are engaging, but you are new to this game. The right has developed a propaganda machine that will spew anything Nichols tells them to.”
“And people believe it?”
Sam nods, “Yes, because they are scared. He makes it a point of scaring them. Few people pay enough attention to have any idea what is going on. Most engage for a few hours or days to vote, and then disengage for two or four more years.”
“So how do we fix this?”
“It’s not obvious that we can. Unless the electorate is willing to stay engaged and sort through the endless reams of mis- and disinformation they won’t figure out what is being done in their name.”
“That’s bleak.”
Sam nods. “You know, Nichols’ party talks a lot about how great America was in the past. There is one aspect of this that I agree with. In the 1950s and 60s, other countries were still recovering from the Second World War. The US’s dominant economic position was uncontested. Television was new, there were only a few stations, so everyone received the same information. There was no internet, no social media, no right-wing news channels. Just the facts, as Walter Cronkite used to say. It’s not that people knew or understood more then, it’s that there was no one with media megaphones out there spewing lies nonstop.”
Nora just keeps glancing over at him, stressed look on her face.
“The best we can hope for is that a new leader who is operating in good faith is able to swing the electorate in the other direction for an election, maybe two.” They enter a forested canyon of tall pines with high ridges standing 1,000s of feet above them visible through breaks in the trees. Sam takes this in. “Okay, so where you taking me?”
“You liked Mt Blackmore so much last time that I figured I would take you up the canyon next to it this time. I think you’ll find this equally, if not more stunning,” Nora says with exuberant flair as she pulls into the parking lot at the end of the road.
While they are getting their gear ready, Nora queries Sam, “But people didn’t vote for Nichols’ policies. They voted for the version of Nichols that you sold them. Why so bleak?”
“Because, there are things that I’m seeing that I hadn’t seen before. It’s a lot easier to scare people than it is to unscare them, and he is putting everything he has into fear. Then there’s the fear itself, which metastasizes into hate, and which they are doing everything they can to propagate. The electorate that voted for my version of Nichols has changed, is continuing to change.”
Nora, nods, looks stressed. “In some ways, string theory is easier to grasp than politics.”
“Time to clear our minds, eh?” They start jogging up the trail. As they do, Nora takes off on side trails every mile or so to show him a waterfall. “How many waterfalls are along this trail?” Sam asks.
Nora smiles. “A lot,” and she takes off again.
At one point after they had been climbing up a long series of switchbacks Nora stops at an opening in the trees that gives them a view into the valley they had just run through. The opening shows that they had run up a glacially carved U-shaped valley. “Welcome to Hyalite Canyon,” Nora says with a smile.
Sam needs a minute to catch his breath, but then, looks out at the view and over at Nora, “I didn’t think anything could top the last run you took me on, but this is next level.”
“There’s more.” And Nora takes off running again.
The switchbacks end as they enter the upper basin. Nora leads the way to a lake at the base of a long tall wall that that curves around behind it. “This is Hyalite Lake. It’s one of my favorite places around here, and that up there is Hyalite Peak,” Nora says while pointing at the triangular peak that rises above where the wall peters out. “It’s our final destination for the morning, if you have it in you.” Her nose was dripping. She turns, blows it out on the grasses below her, and then makes use of her sleeve.
Sam smiles taking this in along with a quick snack on the lakeshore then says, “Let’s go!”
He gets the jump on her, but she kills it on the race to the top, while Sam drags up a few minutes behind her. She is sitting, texting when he starts to come over the final rise then says “smile,” as she holds up her phone to take his picture.
He raises his hand to block her view of his face. “No pictures please, and please don’t text your friends about me.” He sits next to her. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be a jerk; I just don’t want the world to know I’m here. If a picture goes up on Facebook or Instagram, or word gets out that I live here, things could get ugly for you and me both. I would likely have to leave, and for now at least, I like it here.” Sam says as he gives Nora a long look.
Sam was quiet for a moment as he and Nora sit looking south and Nora explains to him that the ridge connected to the peak they were on extends all the way to Yellowstone Park, some 50 miles away by trail. He turns to Nora when she stops speaking. “I’m stuck. The life that I knew has disintegrated, I’ve been hiding out here for a few months, and I don’t know how to get myself back out in the world.”
Nora scooches over right against Sam. “I’ve read a number of your articles, and a few of the speeches you wrote for Nichols. The ideas you expressed were important, you were doing your best to help others. Even if our country is as messed up as you believe it to be, at some point, probably sooner than you think, the world will want to hear from you again, will need to hear from you again. You’re a good man Sam; the world needs good men who are willing to stand up for what’s right.”
Sam looks over at her, starts to speak with palpable sadness in his voice. “I’m a good man. Those were Sarah’s last words to me before she asked me to throw away the speech I was holding, the one that put Nichols over the top. The one that got us into this mess. I may be a good man, but I am also a blind man.”
Nora pulls out the joint, lights it. Passes it to Sam. “Here, hopefully this will quiet your mind for a while.”
Either that, or I’ll be so exhausted I won’t be able to think by the time we get to the car,” Sam says, finding his smile.
“Watch this,” Nora says as she jumps up after a few tokes. “I’ve been practicing in the lab when I need a break.” She puts her feet together on uneven ground, and starts to moonwalk backwards. Is halfway through, catches her heel, starts falling backwards, twists in midair, lands on her hands and bounces back up as though she has springs on her hands.
“That was amazing! It was even better than if you had been able to finish the moonwalk,” Sam says as he jumps up, and does his best robot dance in return. They both enjoy a fit of laughter before starting back.
The combination of weed and exhaustion has them mostly quiet as they run down the canyon and ride back into town. As Nora is driving up to Sam’s house, he desperately wants to ask her out. He doesn’t want to lose her as a friend, he could sure use to have her as that and more. But he can’t do it. He can’t drag her into his funk. He can’t put her at risk of having to deal with hate focused her way if he gets discovered. She pulls over. He looks at his bold young friend with her electric smile and thick brown curls, says, “Thanks for today, maybe we’ll get to do this again sometime.”
She yells, “Text me,” as he walks away. He turns, waves, keeps going.
17 Wilna
Nora and Wilna go to “Spicy Seoul,” for some tasty Korean food. After ordering, they sit down with their dinners. Wilna asks, “Did you call Josh?”
Nora nods. “He’s happily married. He lives near where we grew up. He’s finishing his PhD at University of Washington, in math in his case. It was pleasant. It felt good to reconnect. He invited me over the next time I am back in Seattle. What I did was so cruel, but he forgave me,” the sadness palpable in her voice.
“Maybe you’ll get to be friends again.” Wilna starts, “And, you know what you showed us, could be a whole set of applications for your technology. People could choose to relive all sorts of things.”
Nora nods, “Or, be forced to. Women who are raped could use such images in court to prove that the sex wasn’t consensual.” Nora then caught Wilna up on their conversation with Professor Levin and on Marhan’s demonstration which again showcased her. “He had a good reason to do it, but it still makes me uncomfortable.”
Wilna notices that Nora turned away just a bit as she recounted the episode, as though she is afraid she might reveal her feelings if she looks Wilna in the eye, “Are you starting to like him?” Wilna asks.
“I don’t know, maybe. He’s just not like any of the other men I have dated. They’re always athletic, brawny.”
“And you want to slice them open with an axe.” Wilna says laughing.
“Yes, well there is that,” Nora laughs in response.
“Is this why you needed to go back and see Josh? Is Marhan just like him?”
Nora stops eating. “Huh, I’m not 17 anymore, but ...”
“Nora DeLuca still likes what she likes.” Wilna finishes her sentence. “And, Marhan is causing this past turmoil to resurface.”
Nora sits back, looks perplexed. “Holy shit! You might be right. How could I not see that?”
“Your subconscious saw it.”
Nora nods, responds thoughtfully, “Maybe it did.” She looks over at Wilna crossways, gesturing with her hands, “Am I starting to like him?” Wilna just smiles, shrugs. Then Nora says more intensely, “I don’t have this figured out, can’t think about this right now. Ugh!” Then she changes the subject. “The scene you showed us the other day. The day your dad died. Are you all right?”
Wilna sits quietly for a moment gathering her thoughts and then starts, “I was only three. I was so young, I don’t have any memories from my life before then, but that day, at least fragments of it, got etched into my memory. I’ve never forgotten my mom crumpling to the floor. And after that, our lives changed completely. My mom quickly realized that she couldn’t afford to keep the house without dad’s paycheck; she was a stay-at-home mom. So, right after the funeral, our house went up for sale, and my mom sold most of our belongings at a yard sale. I remember the looks from all the people who came by to wander around our stuff. The ones who knew us, who knew what had happened, were just sad. Some of them bought things they probably didn’t need to make sure my mom sold enough. The ones that didn’t know us, just leered at my mom, their talk was harsh. I didn’t understand what they were saying at the time, they just scared me. I held on tighter to my mom’s legs whenever I’d hear a voice that sounded disdainful. As I’ve thought back to our yard sale over the years, I’ve come to believe that they just thought we were a family who got in over our heads, and it served us right to have to sell stuff we hadn’t earned. They judged us as failures, as spendthrifts. They didn’t know our story, but they judged us anyway.”
Nora places her hand on Wilna’s arm, and sounding woeful, says, “I’m sorry. But they were wrong, your family made it through didn’t they. Look at all you are achieving.”
Wilna sat there for a minute just getting sadder. Nora tries eating quietly, letting Wilna gather herself. Then Wilna starts to speak. “That was only the first step in the downfall of my family. Mom did sell the house fast enough to beat foreclosure, and we moved into a small apartment in a poor section of the city. But mom had me and my younger brother Malik to raise. The only way she could earn any income was to take in more children to watch until we were old enough to go to school and she could find a better paying job. Malik didn’t respond well to our changed circumstances. He was only two when our dad died. He didn’t know where daddy went and he resented these other children occupying our mom’s time.”
“He never recovered from the shock of our circumstances. He was always angry, always getting in fights at school. At 12 years old, he got into a fight with a kid who stabbed him. Malik bled out on the street before help could arrive.”
Nora looks at Wilna in disbelief. “There’s more,” was all that Wilna said when she saw Nora’s expression. Wilna takes a deep breath, “I was 16, mom and I were doing all right. Mom was making enough money so that we weren’t constantly on edge about making rent every month. With Malik gone, home life was quiet. I could study; mom could just be mom. We found happiness in our lives even with all that we’d been through. I’d do my homework at the kitchen table while she cooked. We’d talk or she would hum to herself.”
“One night when mom was putting me to bed, the door to our apartment suddenly burst open; two guys had smashed through it. We both jumped with the shock of the sound, then mom grabbed the closest thing she could lay her hands on, my science textbook. She walked out of my bedroom, screamed ‘Get out of my house,’ and flung the book at the closest one. I doubt she noticed that they were carrying pistols. I couldn’t see anything, but from what I could hear, the shot was unintentional. When mom hit the floor, the one guy screamed, ‘I didn’t mean to shoot her,’ and they turned and ran. Asshole still shot my mom. Mom died from a gunshot wound to the chest that evening.”
Nora sat there, open mouthed, unable to speak. After a moment, she slid her chair over next to Wilna and just hugged her as tight as she could. Wilna burst out in tears. “Jeremy is the only other person who I’ve told this to. I’m sorry, it just poured out once I got going. And the worst thing is that the police never found her killers. I never saw them, they didn’t leave any fingerprints, the police never had any leads.”
“It’s okay sweetie. Just let it out.” People sitting at the tightly packed tables all around them, stopped eating to stare. Not having heard Wilna’s story, they have no idea what had just transpired. Nora and Wilna just sit holding onto each other until Wilna starts to regain her composure.
18 Professor Joanna Wilster
Nora knocks on Professor Wilster’s office door. She and Marhan have divided labors; she is to learn how to get crime subjects to focus on the events surrounding a crime, Marhan is to design a test to determine whether they can change the past.
“Come in,” Professor Wilster calls melodiously.
“Nora walks in to find Professor Wilster sitting in Lotus position in a corner of her office, while calming music plays. “Would you like to join me?” the professor asks Nora, motioning at a pillow on the floor near her.
“Uh, sure,” Nora responds. She puts down her computer, sits on the pillow, tries to get herself into Lotus position, but can’t.
“Try taking off your shoes.”
Nora pops off her sneakers. This helps a bit, but she is a runner with tight hamstrings, and can’t quite make Lotus work. Professor Wilster sees this, stands up and offers Nora two foam blocks to put under her bum to take the strain off her hamstrings. It works. Nora is in position, Professor Wilster settles back in.
“Now try and focus on your breathing and relax.”
“Professor Wilster I am here to learn how to talk with criminal subjects, to get them to reveal thoughts about crimes they may have committed.”
“I know dear, Mark Levin told me why you were coming. He told me that you cannot tell me what it is you are doing, but that it is of great importance that I assist you.”
“Thank you,” Nora said, head slightly down because she felt awkward that she couldn’t tell Professor Wilster any details of her project.
“If you want to talk to a criminal and get them to reveal anything to you verbally that is in their thoughts as I understand it from Mark, you first have to get out of your own headspace. Mindfulness helps you clear your mind, so you can see into their world more clearly without preconceived notions. Now listen to the music and try to focus on your breath.”
Nora tries, but keeps fidgeting. After about five torturous minutes, Professor Wilster stands up and says “That’s your lesson for this afternoon.” Then she hands Nora a thick file. “This file gives you background on a hardened criminal who is suspected of murdering a restaurant owner. He is also an illegal immigrant. He was picked up by ICE a few days ago.”
Nora stands holding the file out in front of her, unsure of what to do, “Professor Wilster I’m not a criminology student, I’m a quantum computer science student.”
“To accomplish what you want, you are going to have to learn to be a bit of both. Do you think if you go to the prison to talk to this criminal that he will even look at you. The only way you have any chance of getting his attention is by understanding him. Reading his history, but also allowing yourself to see the world through his eyes. Understanding how he got to where he is in life.”
“You want me to learn to connect with a murderer?”
Professor Wilster looks at her. For a moment it seems that she not sure how to reply to Nora, but then says, “Not exactly connect with, but study and empathize with.”
“Empathize with a killer.”
“He was someone’s child once. He was likely on the receiving end of gross miscarriages of justice before turning to commit them. There is anger and hatred locked up inside him, but there is also the person he once wanted to be. That anger and hatred will block you from learning what you need to learn from his thoughts. It is said that ‘there is honor among thieves.’ If he feels that you understand him, he may not be able to block you out so easily.”
“So, we are working to gain his trust in order to use it against him. Isn’t that just another miscarriage of justice from his point of view.”
“Your point is well taken. It is something we all wrestle with in this line of work, but” and Professor Wilster looks Nora straight in the eyes, “if he is a killer, we need to keep him off the streets.”
Holding the folder in front of her, “What if the images and story are more than I can take, what if I can’t do this?”
Professor Wilster slides her glasses down her nose, gives Nora a once over as though she was seeing through her. Then in the gentlest of voices, says, “You can and you will. Developing your mindfulness skills will help you cope with your anxiety.”
“Professor did you just read me?”
“Of course, dear.” she says, a mystical feel flowing with her as she glides back behind her desk, “Oh, and to develop your mindfulness skills, I welcome you to attend the evening classes that I teach across campus. I’ll expect to see you tonight.”
19 Marhan
“Time loops are freaking me out,” Marhan blurts out to Nora the next afternoon when she stops by the lab to see how he is doing. “I mean, suppose we send you back to breakfast yesterday morning and try to get you to choose a different cereal. If you had chosen oatmeal and we get you to choose Frosted Flakes, then you would have chosen Frosted Flakes and we would be trying to get you to choose oatmeal. What if we get you caught in an infinite loop where you spend the rest of eternity choosing breakfast cereal.”
“Not to worry Marhan, I don’t eat carbs for breakfast,” Nora says with a sly smile.
Marhan is not impressed. “I’m sure you see what I mean. When you change the past, there is the possibility of getting caught in a time loop. Whatever you changed shifts back-and-forth in perpetuity. Physicists have argued that time paradoxes cannot happen, but there is no science to rely on to be sure.”
“Can the experiment be done with mice or monkeys?” Nora asks. “This way if a time loop happens, we could legally put the animal out of its misery, hopefully closing the loop.”
Marhan looks vacantly at Nora, he is at a loss for words. “How do we set up a test for a mouse or a monkey?”
“We know that exciting the cortex in humans provides an entryway; I think it should be the same for other species.”
“But what would we be looking for? What visions of its past does a mouse’s brain produce?”
Nora thinks for a minute. “It would have to be a very simple experiment that doesn’t require us to see the mouse’s thoughts, but there would have to be an outcome whose change we could observe.”
“We’d still have to be able to see through their eyes. Is it possible for us to look at the world through a mouse’s eyes? How does a mouse see the world?” Marhan asks rhetorically.
Nora is at a loss. “At least they aren’t flies.”
Marhan looks over at Nora, he gestures moving his arms up and down, not knowing how to respond. “Very funny, yes, but I need ideas, not comic relief.” Then he plops down in his chair, looks at her. “How do I get engineers to help me build a mouse-sized helmet without explaining what we are trying to do and without becoming a laughingstock?
This time Nora just smiles. “You’ll figure it out. You always do.”
Marhan paces around the lab deep in thought, suddenly he says distractedly, “I have an idea. There’s a mouse breeding center near campus. I’ll pay it a visit, learn what I can about the little rodents and see if I can formulate a mouse test.” Marhan then put the back of his hands to his chin, wiggles his fingers and his nose, while showing his teeth and chewing, making Nora laugh. “Let me figure out what, if anything, is feasible. I’ll get back to you.”
20 Nora
Carlos Rojas, is the name on the front of the file. The pictures showed a fierce, muscular, heavily tattooed man in his early 20s. His eyes reflect no light. The hatred they expose at his surface seems to consume him. Is there pain bottled up inside, Nora wonders as she stares at the pictures. Paging through the folder, is like paging through a tragedy. He is from Mexico. Drug gangs fought on the streets of the village where his family lived and owned a taco shop when he was a boy. His dad was killed by a local gang because he wouldn’t pay for protection and he wouldn’t inform on the activities of one gang to the other. The family struggled. When Carlos turned 14 his mom took flight to the US, with him and his younger brother. Border Patrol chased them through the desert in southern California. She tripped, cut open her leg, had to stop with his brother, implored Carlos to go on, to find his Aunt Suanna. She would try again soon, and they would meet up there in a few months.
Notes from an ICE agent state that his mom felt that they had to leave. Fourteen was the age at which the gangs started trying to recruit members, and his mom knew that she couldn’t protect him; if Carlos refused to join the gang, they would likely kill him.
There was nothing in the record of his ever finding his aunt. The record stated that Carlos has been on the streets of LA surviving on petty thievery from when he hid from the Border Patrol until an informant mentioned his name as a new member of the Cripps, four years later. This information came from an informant embedded in the Cripps.
The Cripps wanted to know if he had it in him to become part of their family of brothers. That sounded good to him. They brought him in, showed him a picture of what his life could be like: a place to sleep at night, brothers, sisters, food, drugs and booze. Everything an 18-year-old with no family and no prospects outside of the world of crime could want.
The cost though was high. His initiation required that he kill a Blood who had killed a brother Crip he’d never met. It was to be pre-meditated. It took days of stake-outs to find the Blood far enough away from his brothers so that they couldn’t see who made the hit. Carlos was still unknown among the gangs, he was able to walk right up to his target, shoot him at close range and flee before other Bloods realized what had happened and started to canvas the area looking for the killer.
His first kill made Carlos sick. He drank and threw up that night. The informant even wrote that he heard him wailing. But, in the days and weeks that followed, he noticed a change in Carlos. He seemed to go dead inside. He was bottling up his anguish.
The informant also noted that no one saw Carlos take the shot, that Carlos stayed far enough away from the victim to avoid blood spatter, and Carlos never admitted to the kill. The pistol he allegedly used was discarded before he came back to the house that night, so the informant couldn’t actually be certain that Carlos had made the kill. All circumstantial evidence pointed in that direction, but he had nothing concrete.
Carlos followed this same pattern for every other killing that was attributed to him. He’d go off on his own, sometimes for days or even weeks, typically take a single shot, come back without the weapon, but with another tear in his soul.
Other gang members didn’t like that they couldn’t pin any specific killings on him, as it tied him less tightly to the gang. But no one dared challenge him on this point and his tactics earned him ‘Silent Enforcer’ as his street name. He never embraced drive-by shootings or bragged about killing. His gang knew that he must have done each one, but he remained enigmatic; he wouldn’t talk about anything related to killing. With each one, though, he turned inward more and more, the informant noted, he took less joy from the brotherhood, from the family, and started to swear off drugs and booze.
The gang dealt drugs, robbed homes and demanded protection money from small businesses to fund itself. One day when a plan was being hatched to kill the owner of a small Mexican restaurant who wouldn’t pay. Carlos just sat sullenly. Pedro, one of the gang leaders, saw Carlos’s reaction, asked what was up?
The informant wrote that Carlos’s discomfort was obvious, but he had his reputation to consider. “Nothing is wrong. Everyone has to pay.”
“That’s right!” Pedro said as he went over and stood behind Carlos and put his hands on Carlos’s shoulders. It was a threatening move. He wouldn’t likely break Carlos’s neck in front of everyone, Carlos was too important to the gang, but it was not a democracy. “If we let one business owner off then others will refuse to pay. Now who can I count on to do this job?” He asked as he patted Carlos’s shoulders. The room was silent; no one said a word.
Carlos’s expression slowly changed from distressed to fierce. He stood up, shook off Pedro’s hands and gave his usual signal that he would take the lead and do the killing. He stood up, pulled out his weapon, gave one headshake yes, then put the weapon away and walked out of the room. That was the signal that Carlos would disappear that night and wouldn’t be seen again until the deed was done.
This time, though, Pedro quietly approached Julio, a new member of the gang and told him to stake out the restaurant while staying out of sight of Carlos. He wanted Julio to see Carlos make the hit.
The hit was made, but neither Carlos or Julio ever returned. They simply disappeared. Gang members thought that one among them had leaked word about the hit, and the Silent Enforcer was silently taken down and maybe Julio with him. It was surprising, though, that no one had claimed responsibility for the hit. In their world, silent hitters like Carlos were a rarity. Most everyone needed big splashy hits to burnish their image. Still, a hit seemed the only possible explanation.
Carlos reemerged two years later when ICE stopped a car that he was in along with some Mexican coworkers. The men were traveling home from work. He had been living right in Bridger. The ICE officer told them he expected immigration violations and asked for their IDs. Everyone except Carlos had their work visa at the ready. The officer let the others drive away, but brought Carlos to the ICE detention center. His fingerprints and photo matched ones in the database linking him to the Cripps gang in LA. This exposed the fact that he was a suspect in the murder of the restaurant owner. He was also a suspect in the murders of five members of rival LA gangs, though nothing but circumstantial evidence tied him to any of these killings.
After reading all this, Nora found herself simultaneously feeling both empathy and revulsion. It was like Professor Wilster said: if Carlos hadn’t experienced injustices early in his life, he might not be who he had become, a killer, at least allegedly. The pictures of the restaurant owner were graphic. Nora wasn’t sure she had it in her to deal with such violence. Quantum computers were things of beauty, designed to help solve previously unsolvable problems, but the problem that one helped her to solve led her here, she had to see it through.
Professor Wilster sits in Lotus position at the head of a circle of students. A calming music track plays which the professor intersperses, in a calming voice, with instruction about breathing to quiet one’s mind, and to open oneself to understanding others.
Nora can’t calm herself during the mindfulness session. Her mind is swimming with the discussion she needs to have with Professor Wilster. She walks up to her after class. “Professor, we need to talk. I’ve read the file, and yes, I think I can help, but there’s a catch. We have to get Carlos to cooperate. To get him to cooperate we are likely going to have to offer him something in return.”
The professor listens, then asks, “How exactly can you help me? I know that I’m not supposed to ask, but to get a deal, I have to get ICE to back off and for the murder case, I will have to get the DA’s office involved and they are going to want to know how exactly you can help.”
So, Nora tells her about her and Marhan’s ability to use string theory and quantum computing technology to see into the past. “If Carlos killed the restaurant owner, we can likely see the murder happen, then see where he stashes the weapon. In its current form, our technology requires that the person undergoing a test be thinking about a specific event. If Carlos isn’t thinking about his actions, we won’t be able to see them.”
Professor Wilster looks skeptical. Nora cuts in, “I know this is difficult to digest, but we will be able to show you, sometime soon. We can set up a demonstration for you and whoever else needs to see it in order to convince the DA that this is worth doing.”
The professor nods, “I’d like to see a demonstration.” Then adds, “You need to gain his confidence, get him to open up to you. Go and talk to him.”
Nora starts heading for the door, but then stops. “You know professor, every killing that Carlos is suspected of was of a gang member who were themselves suspected of murder. Until the restaurant owner, what Carlos did could be thought of as vigilante justice.”
“We don’t condone vigilantism Nora,” the professor responds.
“I know, but it is at least a form of justice. He might not be the cold-blooded killer that he is thought to be. Maybe he didn’t kill the restaurant owner.”
Professor Wilster looks over at her, and says, “I believe we have the right woman for this job. Go and talk with him, see what you can learn. I’ll call the DA and see if I can get him interested in seeing a demonstration. Have your lab prepared to do one on short notice.”
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