1 #6
“She was distressed about a personal matter. I didn’t want to betray a friend’s confidence.”
He nodded. “I believe in humanity,” he said.
Low bar, I thought, but nodded back instead of speaking.
“Nonetheless,” he said, “I do have to ask.”
“Of course. I understand. She was . . . she’s been having some marital difficulties,” I said.
“Of what nature?”
“Tension related to the balance of childcare.”
“Ah. When my wife was pregnant, she had me sign a contract,” he said.
My gaze flickered to his left hand, which was of course ringless.
The suggestion of a life outside Service was an extraordinary concession, coming from him.
“It seemed a little extra at the time, but in retrospect I’m grateful.
There’s no room for misunderstanding when you’ve got it on paper. ”
“Is Nico why you asked me to come here?” I asked.
“A case has come in that concerns her.” There was a heaviness about Alberto, a suggestion of pain in the way he hesitated.
He’d mentioned his wife because he was stalling.
“We’re trying to piece together exactly what happened, but it seems that there was some kind of accident at UCLA last night.
As best as we can determine, a small group of physicists decided to run an illegal experiment involving quantum entanglement.
” He stopped talking, and turned his gaze to the fish.
He seemed at a loss for words. “This is going to sound insane, but stay with me. The experiment began with four scientists. One of them was only there to operate the controls. The other three participated in some way, as subjects in their own experiment. Of those, two apparently disappeared into thin air, but the third . . . seemingly doubled.”
“What do you mean by ‘doubled’?” Now I was stalling too. Nico was gone.
“I mean that at the beginning of the experiment there was one man named Kareem Fayed, and at the end there were two. Two Kareem Fayeds. Both are being held here while we run testing and interrogations.”
“Kareem Fayed as in Nico’s husband?”
“Yes. Now there seem to be two of him,” Alberto said.
“I don’t know that I can explain it better than that.
They’re not exact copies. They’ve lived different lives.
There’s your friend’s husband, and then there’s the other man, and he seems to have come from, well, from some other place. The men are genetically identical.”
“What about Nico?”
“Nico Li and Saraya de Santos are missing. They disappeared in the course of the experiment. I’m sorry.”
“Can you tell me what you mean by ‘disappeared’?” The word that flitted through my mind was escaped. Nico had gotten out, I thought. She’d told me about an experiment that would transport people out of the State, and now she was gone. I was surprised by the jealousy that overcame me.
“They were testing a technology that could be used to transport people long distances,” Alberto said, “in my understanding. But in this case, because they were still in experimental phases, they tried to transport three scientists across the length of a room.”
“What happened?”
“They’re gone,” he said. “Those two, Nico and Saraya, disappeared from one side of the room, and never reappeared.”
“No one knows where they went?” I felt like I was falling.
“Correct. What you’re going to do, Detective, is you’re going to speak with both Kareem Fayeds, first the one you know and then his double, and see what you can come up with.”
“You think I’ll care more and do a better job because Nico’s a friend of mine.” I would not cry. My heart was still. I want to dive off a boat into freezing water. I want to float in the dark until I feel nothing at all. I want to dive and keep diving into fathomless deep.
“Yes,” Alberto said, “because you’re human. Your friend has disappeared. See if you can find out where she went.”
On the walk to the first interrogation, I tried to let my mind go blank and still.
An interesting challenge here was that I disliked Nico’s husband, and had always tried in small ways to avoid him.
I hated the thought of two Kareems in the world.
What I wanted to know, because this was less painful than thinking about Nico, was how similar these two men might be.
Studio Five was one of the newer interrogation rooms. It had been designed to look like a living room from some decades previous, from an unfathomably reckless era when houses in Los Angeles had been made of wood.
Two armchairs faced a sofa, with an old wooden coffee table between.
The wall art was all framed nature photography.
Nico’s husband was sitting in one of the armchairs.
He was slumped, dark circles under his eyes.
I’d been entertaining wild thoughts—perhaps the experiment had been successful, actually?
Perhaps Nico had staged her own disappearance and the technology had in fact worked as intended and she was perfectly safe somewhere, outside of the State?
—but when he looked up at me, that last flicker of hope was snuffed out.
He looked devastated. He looked like a man who’d just lost his wife.
“Ibari,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“I’m Service,” I said gently.
“I didn’t know.”
“No one did. I have a convincing cover story.” When had I last seen him?
At Nico’s holiday party, months ago. Did Service know that I disliked him?
Possible but unlikely, I thought. What I’d come to understand over the years was that although Service was extensive, Service was fallible, because Service was people.
“Why were you assigned to me?” He wasn’t just tired, I realized. He was dazed, which meant this was an important time. A state of shock can be useful for interrogations.
“Because Nico’s one of my closest friends.” I sat across from him, in the other armchair. “But I’m also here for strictly professional reasons. I’m good at my job.”
“Where are my children?”
“Samir and Marlowe are right where you left them,” I said. “They’re with Nico’s parents.”
“I’d like to see them.”
“I talk to Nico regularly.” I couldn’t help myself. “My understanding is that you often go days at a time without seeing your children.”
“I mean, I work late sometimes, sure,” he said. “I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
“Oh, my point is just that Marlowe and Samir are used to not seeing you for a few days at a time,” I said, “so I wouldn’t worry about them too much, for the moment.”
“I’m tired,” he said.
“I know. Walk me through it again,” I said, “from the beginning. I know you’ve discussed this before, with different people, but sometimes details can emerge with the fourth or fifth retelling.”
“Or ninth or tenth?”
“Or eleventh, or twentieth.” You have no power, that was the thing I didn’t need to say to him. He glared at me, then deflated.
“Okay.” He sighed. “Fine. From where?”
“The last time you saw your wife.”
4
TRANSCRIPT
I don’t know where my wife went. But there was a lot of joy, in those last minutes before Nico disappeared.
On the day we decided to run the experiment, we’d hardly slept.
Nico and I lay awake most of the night before, just talking about how our lives were going to change.
Saraya told us she’d done the same. We knew how much this technology could benefit the State, potentially, and we were terrified of our technology falling into the wrong hands.
There are no records of our plan, written or otherwise, because we’d been careful to only discuss it in person.
We were convinced of the safety of what we were doing.
What can you tell me about your technology?
Respectfully, you’re not a physicist.
Give me the nontechnical version, as best you can.
We’d developed a technology involving quantum entanglement, by which we’d been able to teleport mice, rabbits, and a dog across the length of a room.
Obviously a very short distance, but the point was proof of concept.
Our setup was fairly simple. There were three platforms at one end of the room, and three at the other.
So we’d transported objects and then animals from the A platforms to the B platforms. Over a hundred experiments.
Were there any anomalies in the experiments? Any reason to believe something might go wrong?
None.
Did you consider seeking official permission?
Something of this nature, the university would’ve had to get permission from the State, and you know what the State bureaucracy’s like, Ibari, no disrespect.
Even though teleportation is of obvious benefit to the State, getting official permission to teleport ourselves would have taken a decade or longer, just endless paperwork, so we decided to short-circuit that.
Let’s pause for a moment. You saw the technology as being beneficial to the State?
Absolutely. Absolutely. It’s a powerful tool.
Describe a potential application.
Imagine if officials could instantaneously be transported to far-flung corners of the State. It’s a big country. Imagine if a problem arose in, say, Montana, and an official from Washington, DC, could arrive there within seconds.
Could you imagine an application that could work against the State?
I could imagine it, I suppose, but any tool can be used as a weapon.
A hammer is a weapon in the wrong hands, isn’t it?
If you look at me, Nico, Saraya, Len, none of us have the slightest history of subversion.
None. We have never criticized or undermined the State in any way.
We love the State. Our intent in creating this technology was to serve the State.
Please continue.