Spin State - Chris Moriarty [173]
Can we construct meaning from a universe in which anything is possible and everything that is possible actually happens? Of course we can. We do it every day. Consciousness, memory, causality are the architecture of that meaning—the architecture of the universe-as-we-see-it.
The real question is: can we construct a theory that transcends the universe-as-we-see-it and tells us something about the universe-as-it-is? Can we look into the shuffle?
—Tape 934.12. Physics 2004. Lecture 1 (H. Sharifi): Introduction to Quantum Gravity.
Shantytown: 3.11.48.
She woke up in dark water, cradled in the hot salt tears of a medtank.
She imagined she was breathing though she knew she was hooked to an umbilical line, her lungs suffused with superoxygenated saline solution. She imagined she could feel smart bugs swarming over her organs and membranes though she knew she couldn’t.
Her arm was mercifully silent for the first time since Metz, but a new pain had replaced it. It radiated from her backbrain and licked hotly at her eyes and temples.
The intraface.
She had bleary memories of Cohen explaining the process and the risks to her, but she hadn’t paid much attention. It was an equipment upgrade. Routine maintenance. You trusted the mechanics not to damage a pricey piece of technology and hoped they put you under for longer than the pain lasted. Start thinking more than that and you were well on your way to a career-ending wetware phobia.
She slipped in and out of consciousness several more times before she really surfaced. Once the lights came on. Someone in a scrub suit peered down at her and spoke to another person outside her line of vision. She tried to ask where she was, but her lungs were full of saline, useless. Later there was prodding, splashing, the cold bite of air on her skin. Then a sense of being rolled under bright lights, of warm blankets and merciful quiet.
“Catherine,” Bella said, taking Li’s dripping hand in hers. “Are you back with us?”
Only it wasn’t Bella behind the violet eyes. Bella had never looked at her that way. It was Cohen. Where were they? What had happened on Alba? Did she even remember?
“Shantytown,” Cohen said, answering her unspoken questions. “Daahl’s safe house. Arkady and I managed to pick you up after you shot your way out of there. That was, er, characteristically unsubtle. And impressive.”
“How long . . . how long was I under?”
“Five days.” He put a hand to her brow, brushing her hair back. “You were dreaming. Do you remember?”
She shook her head. Her skull was buzzing, humming, drowning out his words.
“About a man. Dark. Thin. He had a blue scar on his face.” Cohen ran a finger down Bella’s smooth cheek.
“My father,” Li said.
“You killed your father?”
“What?” Li asked, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. “Are you crazy?”
He blinked. “I saw it.”
“You—that’s a dream. A nightmare. It didn’t happen.”
“How do you know?”
“Because . . . I just do, that’s all. Sweet Jesus!” Li closed her eyes and tried to still the spinning of the room around her.
“You love him,” Cohen said after a minute or two.
“I don’t even remember him.”
“Even so.”
She shook her head again. The noise kept drumming on her ears. Like rainwater running down a spout. Like standing in a crowded room full of people speaking a foreign language.
“So.” Cohen spoke slowly, as if he were thinking through a complex equation. “How do you keep straight what’s a dream and what’s not?”
“Don’t you dream? I thought all sentients dreamed.”
“Not like that.” He looked horrified. “If I think it, even when I’m asleep, it happened. Exactly the way I remember it. But your brain just . . . lied to you.”
“Cohen,” Li asked, as the hum inside her head climbed to a higher, more urgent pitch, “how did you see that dream?”
The violet eyes sparkled. “I’ll give you three guesses.”
She started to answer, but the noise in her skull exploded, drowning out every thought but pain. She grabbed her head and curled into fetal position on the narrow bed. Red