Superposition (30 page)

It wasn't illegal for prisoners to have smartpaper, so at first I wondered why my double had gone to the trouble of concealing it. Then I realized what it must be. A copy of the Higgs projector. My double must have come to the same conclusion I had—that the jury was unlikely to find me innocent of the charges. If I wanted to get out of prison, I would have to accomplish it another way.

When the lights dimmed on the cell block at nine o'clock, I climbed into my bunk, but I didn't sleep. Using my body to block what I was doing from casual view of any guards that might walk by, I experimented with the Higgs projector, figuring out what it could do. I didn't have much time. I had to act that night, while I still could.

It wouldn't be easy. The walls of my cell were metal, and beyond them were other cells. There were armed guards and locked gates and video cameras and fences with razor wire. I waited until the midnight shift change, wanting to act during that confusion, however slight an advantage that might give. I stood right next to the door of my cell, watching. Prison is a predictable place, with strict schedules and discipline. The advantage to the guards is that it reduces stress and complaints and fights among the inmates. The advantage to me was that I could know exactly what would be happening at any given time.

I held the Higgs projector against the door. It had an electromagnetic lock, not a mechanical one, controlled from a central switchboard in the guards' room. In general, this type of lock was more secure, because it was immune to picking. But magnetism, however strong, was driven by the exchange of subatomic particles. I ran a small subroutine I had discovered during my experimentation and heard a satisfying click. The door drifted subtly ajar.

I couldn't turn invisible or walk through metal bars or teleport outside the prison. What I could do wasn't much, considering, but I hoped it would be enough.

“Hey!” I shouted. “Hey!” I banged on the bars. “Guard!”

The guard was a big white man gone to fat, and not the most conscientious of the staff. His name was Leary, or Leavy, or something like that. He came lumbering over with a sour expression on his face. “What's the problem, Kelley?”

I pushed the door open, showing him. “Some idiot forgot to lock my door,” I said. “I'm getting out of here tomorrow; I don't want any trouble on my last day.”

Leavy's face went from annoyed to astonished in a moment. He slammed the door in my face and rattled it to make sure it was secure. “Musta left it a little open,” he muttered.

“What, no thanks?” I shouted at his receding back. “I'm going to tell the shift manager how ungrateful you were!”

I hoped that would be enough incentive to make him report the incident, or better yet, to go find a maintenance guy to check the door, so he could pass off the problem to someone else and still be able to say he'd done everything he could. Regardless, though, I had to act now. I popped the lock again.

This time, however, I walked straight out and over to the next cell. I popped that lock, too, and opened the door. “Time to party,” I said. I didn't wait for a response. I ran from cell to cell, unlocking them all and swinging open the doors. These weren't hardened criminals; most were either awaiting trial or in for less than five years. Being caught trying to escape would add a lot of time to their sentences. For many of them, it wasn't worth the risk, and they stayed in their cells, or shouted at me to get back in mine before I got somebody shot. There were enough mischief-makers, however, glad for a chance at freedom, or even just to relieve some boredom and cause some trouble, that the block was soon full of prisoners. My ruse had already gone unnoticed much longer than I'd been expecting, so when a siren started wailing, I wasn't surprised.

“Let's go!” I shouted. The door to the cell block was also electromagnetic, so I popped it and held it open while the others rushed through, yelling and whooping war cries. Once they were all out, I quietly walked back to my cell and shut the door.

It took the prison guards almost an hour to round up all the escaped inmates. A few of them had been pepper sprayed, a few were bruised or bloody, but nobody had been shot, and nobody had actually escaped. Before they could figure out who to blame, however, they needed to find another place for the prisoners on my cell block. They couldn't very well leave us where we were, since there was clearly something defective with the locking system. I only hoped they did so before anyone studied the security cameras too closely and saw what I had done. The place was in chaos, with Leavy pompously telling anyone who would listen how he had followed the proper procedures.

The problem was, the prison was already overcrowded. They couldn't just move us to another wing, because the other wings were all crowded, too. In fact, prisoners were sleeping in the gymnasium and on the floor in classrooms, since the dormitories weren't large enough to house the population. It was a statewide problem, and the prisons didn't have the budget to build new wings. I thought I knew where they would put us. In fact, I was counting on it.

After another half-hour of deliberation and several arguments between angry officials, they made the decision I'd been waiting for. They decided to house us in the temporary modular jails they had just had shipped in. The new jails were like trailers—mobile plug-and-play units that were apparently a lot cheaper than permanent structures. They were completed and supposedly secure, but had not yet been officially approved by the security committee. Best of all, they stood at the very edge of the prison compound.

The decision was made. We were shackled, shouted at, and told to leave our personal belongings behind, since we'd be returning to our usual cells the next day, once they sorted out the lock problems. Some of the prisoners, still riled from the near-escape, gave some trouble, but I went along meekly.

They took us five at a time, three guards pushing us in the right direction, while a fourth checked our names off a clipboard. One by one, we were unshackled, led into a tiny, one-person cell barely larger than a bathroom stall, and locked in. The guard with the clipboard yanked on each to make sure it was secure.

Once I was locked into my cell, I waited until several more groups of five had come and gone, to make sure I had the rhythm down.

Elena
.

I blinked, suddenly distracted, certain I had seen her. Was I going mad? There was no one here, just me and, outside my cell, the guards and the other prisoners. The sensation had been strong, not so much a visual cue, as if I had actually seen her in the flesh, but a mental one, as if I
knew
I had seen her. I shook it off. I couldn't be distracted by such things right now. When the guards left the next time to get another group of prisoners, I popped the lock on my cell, slipped through, walked out the back of the modular prison . . . and nearly collided with a guard.

They had placed one of the guards on the back door. I liked the man, too; his name was Jerry, and he had a steady, calming manner with the prisoners instead of keeping control with curses and insults. I didn't have time to do anything with the Higgs projector, so I took care of the problem the old-fashioned way. In the half-second of surprise before he could reach for his gun, I punched Jerry in the face as hard as I could. He dropped without a sound. I took his gun from his holster and kept running.

I wondered how long it would take them to notice. If not for Jerry, they probably wouldn't have detected my absence until they had all the other prisoners secured, and possibly not even then. Hopefully, no one would try to call Jerry soon. I still had a lot of other problems—my orange prison jumpsuit, for one—but for the moment, I was free.

I broke into a run, since no one seeing me walking would mistake me for anything but a prisoner anyway. I was nearly off the prison grounds when the electric shock knocked me off my feet.

It came straight out of nowhere. As my head cleared, I saw my daughter Alessandra crying out in pain, and then just as quickly the vision was gone. I thought I had run afoul of some new prison security measure, but no prison guards came running. They were still focused on the prisoner transfer, and seemed unaware—so far—of my escape.

I got up again, wary now, but no new shock came. I was outside the prison walls, but not off the grounds. A razor-wire fence circled the prison and the visitor parking lots, with a vehicle check center. There was a maintenance pickup truck in sight that I could conceivably steal, but I didn't know how to hotwire a vehicle, and even assuming I could find some clothes to replace my jumpsuit, I didn't know the protocol at the gate. That meant I had to go over the fence.

It wasn't electrified, and I reached the top easily. It was a barrier meant more for keeping the public out than keeping prisoners in. I was in the shadow of a large maple tree, mostly blocked from sight from the prison itself, but I still had to hurry. I didn't know how much time I had before my absence was discovered.

I had often looked at the tops of such fences and wondered how hard it really was to avoid the sharp parts. Now I found out. This was the kind with large loops of steel, cut to create many sharp points, rather than twisted wire. I found it was a lot more difficult than it looked, and by the time I made my way down the other side, my arms were bleeding from a dozen places, I had several cuts on my legs, and there was one deep gash along my ribs.

The cuts burned, and I was starting to wonder if this had been a good idea. I didn't think I was bleeding enough to worry about, but I had certainly left some blood on the fence, which meant they would know exactly which way I'd gone once they realized I was missing. I had to get a vehicle, and I had to get some clothes, and I had to do it fast.

As I ran down the hill leading away from the prison, I heard the sirens begin to blare.

CHAPTER 33

UP-SPIN

I didn't know if she was real; I didn't know if she was my Elena or some other version; I didn't know if this were some quantum heaven or hell where we were already dead, but it didn't matter. I had spent so long missing her, wishing for this moment, and fearing it would never come. I had imagined it a hundred times, how we would run together and collide in an embrace. I jumped to my feet and ran toward her.

I made it about two steps before I remembered how the wires in the bunker had become electrified when the power was on and we saw the varcolac for the first time. I stopped, windmilling my arms, as the hairs stood up on the back of my neck.

“You can't cross the wires,” a voice said from behind me. “They're electrified.”

I turned to see Jean, in her own space, only she was awake and interacting with the Higgs projector in her lap.

“Are they all asleep?” I asked.

“Sort of,” Jean said, not looking up from what she was doing. “I just brought you out of it, and I'm working on the others. He has each of you in a kind of bubble where time stops, or at least slows way, way down.”

“I was like that, too?”

“Yes. As I said, I brought you out of it. I'll have the others out soon.”

I looked around in astonishment. “It's as if the varcolac is putting us on ice for later experimentation.” I remembered how the varcolac had assimilated Brian after killing him, incorporating his knowledge into its own. “Or for something worse,” I added.

Marek stirred and opened his eyes. I warned him about the wires and filled him in on where we were. The others woke one by one, and I told them the same thing. I greeted Elena, Claire, and Sean with tears in my eyes.

“You're alive!” I said. “I can hardly believe it. I've been so worried for you.”

“Where are we?” Elena asked. “Do you know what this place is?” I could see she was rattled, but she kept her voice steady.

“I think we're in some part of the accelerator's electrical backbone, where the electrical system connects with the grid,” I said. “It's way out along the circle, miles away from the Feynman center.”

“How long have we been here?”

“It's March,” I said. “You've been down here for four months.”

Elena got to her feet, angry, astonished. “What are you talking about?”

“What's the last thing you remember?” I asked.

“I remember walking toward Brian's office to find you. We asked a girl from the front desk, and she was leading us to the right spot. Halfway there, this man arrived. He just appeared out of nowhere.”

“He's not a man, really. It's hard to explain,” I said.

“And you're saying it's been months? We've just been asleep down here all that time?”

“Not exactly.” Jean spoke up for the first time. “You were in a kind of slow time bubble. You weren't asleep; you've barely aged at all.”

“I was falsely accused of murdering Brian,” I said. “There was a trial. We've been looking for you all this time.”

Silence. It was already too much information, and I'd only begun to scratch the surface. Claire and Alessandra and Sean were still sitting on the floor, looking stunned. Elena's eyes darted from place to place.

“Are we trapped?” she asked.

“We're prisoners of that man who kidnapped you,” I said. I looked from one frightened face to another, seeing their panic rise. I wasn't doing this right. I was scaring them instead of reassuring them. I took a deep breath and stood up.

For the moment, convincing them that several months had passed wasn't important. In fact, considering the alternative—spending several months awake in a varcolac prison—the fact that they had somehow lost the time seemed like a blessing.

I looked at Sean, noting that this living version of my son had his short arm on the left side, just like I remembered. This was
my
Sean. I tried to put a confident tone in my voice. “How are you doing, Sean?” I asked. “Are you holding up?”

He gave me a brave smile. “I'm okay, Dad.”