Schrodinger's Cat
Disclaimer: Noooope - not even this version of them is mine. Sadly. All TNT and Tess Gerritsen. I am simply... playing.
Rating: K
Category: General
Summary: AU - Teen Rizzles. A little exercise in Quantum Physics. One-Shot
Warnings: No cats were harmed in the making of this fic. My brain cells however...
Author's Note: Don't ask. Hope it's worthy reading :)
Schrodinger's Cat
The cacophony of voices is loud, high-pitched and feverous. Across the schoolyard Spring break is fast approaching; and with it, the adrenaline of the last few classes of the trimester, plans for the holidays, and time coordinating off-campus friendships.
Bodies mill about the quadrant, spilling down the large paved structures known commonly as 'The Steps' – in-built stands of concrete three feet wide and high – that pave a vertical zig-zagging journey down to the school sports oval.
A lone figure retreats against the edge of the second step from the bottom, concealed by the shadow of the concrete towering above her. She shuffles backward, pressing her back against the vertical makeshift wall until her entire upper body is shielded from the mid-afternoon sun. Her bag clutched in one hand and a worn book in another, she breathes a sigh to calm herself.
Only one more week.
She glances down at the page she had been reading the moment the bell had rung to indicate the lunch hour had started – the moment she had to retreat from the library that had become her second home since she first arrived. Her eyes scan the words hungrily, each one coming to life in her head as if being read personally to her by the author. It is her sanctuary amidst the craziness and destabilising presence of so many other… people… she is expected to interact with in a place like this.
'We place a living cat into a steel chamber, along with a device containing a vial of hydrocyanic acid. There is, in the chamber, a very small amount of a radioactive substance. If even a single atom of the substance decays during the test period a relay mechanism will trip a hammer, which will, in turn, break the vial and kill the cat.
The observer cannot know whether or not an atom of the substance has decayed, and consequently, cannot know whether the vial has been broken…. Since we cannot know, according to quantum law, the cat is both dead and alive at the same time.'
She ponders the text carefully, then turns her attention distantly across the field. The concept of alive-and-dead is not something new to her – she has conducted many of her own thought experiments on the same subject. What is truly fact without someone to observe it? Could she, in fact be Schrodinger's cat? Could she at this moment be either alive or dead, two different states of being - right here on this step?
A football sails above her head, bouncing onto the field, trajectory at mercy of the imperfections in the grass combined with its shape. Arms, legs and torsos fly haphazardly down the steps to the left of her, laughing and yelling and goading each other to the bottom.
She clutches the book tightly to her, like a shield.
They don't see her.
She sighs, pushing a lock of golden hair from her eyes. The school has 1278 students. She calculates that to the exclusion of the teachers it makes her zero point zero zero zero seven eight of that population. Which, in percentage terms, makes her…. Zero.
No. She couldn't possibly be the cat. Because the premise of the theory, regardless, is that someone has to have noticed the box to care whether the cat is alive or not, for it to be worth the question.
And that perfect logic both dispels her thought experiment and smothers the faint tightening in her chest… the ever-present ache in her stomach.
With a shrug, she sets the book down to her side, unfolds the napkin and places it carefully over her skirt, smoothing it down with her hands, then reaches for the neatly wrapped sandwich to her right. She gently pulls open the outer layer of foil and extracts one triangular half – bringing it to her mouth.
A sound to her right catches her attention and her eyes lock onto a small group of boys, eating potato crisps. They are laughing, pushing at each other and milling over their remaining collective lunch offerings, all pooled between them on the same concrete step only yards away.
She bites down softly on her sandwich – of course, so as not to create unnecessary crumbs.
The taste of smoked salmon, capers and cream cheese spills into her mouth.
One boy shouts out "Peanut Butter and Jelly is mine!", another – "I'll trade you for the sprinkles!", and- "Screw you, Jackson! I had that first!" Before a slightly hoarser, more gravelly voice declares "But I have the good stuff – and I am willing to trade… for your Cheetos."
She swallows her mouthful awkwardly, and her eyes dart down to her sliced apple.
The thought springs to her mind that in medieval times, apples were a sign of fertility – of crops and of the womb. A ripe apple would surely have been a more than adequate bartering tool….
She looks away from it, down at the concrete at her sandaled feet. Then she glances back to the half-dozen pairs of scuffed running shoes... Mottled with activity and games and dirt and the unpredictable outdoors.
It occurs to her she doesn't even know what bartering is.
Her thoughts return to the cat.
Both here and not here at the same time….
"What you got there?" A voice husks suddenly close by her – and she starts immediately, recognising it as the deep boorish bartering voice from moments ago. She looks intently down at herself, desperately attempting to resolve what this individual might be referring to – preparing for something to be snatched away from her. She is clothed, she has shoes, a skirt, a blouse, a bag… books, remnants of a smoked salmon sandwich and-
A long finger pokes at the plastic snap-lock in her vision. A line of dirt is visible under the neatly clipped fingernail.
She steels herself, and she answers.
"A hybrid of the Red Delicious and the Virginia Ralls Genet apple."
The finger retreats. A curious voice punctuates the air above hr head. "Come again?" She doesn't look up.
"It's – a – a Fuji, apple."
She feels the whoosh of air displaced beside her, and watches a shadow inch across her knee, followed closely by an elbow, connecting to the forearm resting on its owner's lap.
"An apple, huh?" The voice says, more softly this time. "And sliced and everything."
"It's… cleaner to eat that way."
Just take it. Her mind screams. Just pick it up and take it, and leave me in peace.
"W-would you like to have it- " Her voice echoes, weaker, less resolved. "I- wasn't hungry anyway."
There is a pause, a definitive pause, and she finds herself calling on the Uncertainty Principle as she tries to discern the immediate context of the conversation as well as where it is going. Just as Heisenberg predicted, she could do neither.
Until finally the silence breaks.
"Ohhh no. Nu-uh. Fair trade's a fair trade… I have this –" a triangular shadow extends from the shadow of the knee. Her eyes stare resolutely forward.
"Rizzoli!"
"Piss off, Grant!" The voice booms, directed away from her. "I'm in negotiation here!"
"I bet you are-"
"Fuck you!"
The girl can't help but flinch – she is not used to the language, not used to the interest. Not used to the confidence. Certainly not used to the proximity.
A shoulder leans in and bumps against hers.
"Hey, You in there?"
She turns, wishing she could squint against the sun to hide the surprise on her face when a decidedly female face looks back at her. Dark hair, chocolate eyes and perfectly chiseled features, lean but muscular arms extending from a faded blue t-shirt, hair pulled back tightly underneath a cap with 'R' and 'S' emblazoned on it…
And the most brilliant smile the girl has ever seen.
The stranger tilts her head, the new angle of her face casting a different and intriguing set of shadows over her face.
The girl grips more tightly to her book, suddenly afraid she'll be called out for… anything. Everything.
But all that comes back to her is the same outstretched hand, and a question.
"You ever had peanut butter and fluff?"
Gulping around the lump in her throat she shakes her head, altogether too quickly. If it were even possible, the smile broadens across the stranger's face.
"Well, you have to try it. It's – a Boston requirement. Come on, I know you haven't been at the school long. You can't live here without having tried it at least once." She pokes again at the snap lock bag. "I'll trade it for two slices of that apple."
She is frozen in place. …unable to rationalise how it could be possible for anybody to know when she had started at the school. They would need to know… they would need to look – they would need to… want to know if the cat was alive or dead.
The half a sandwich flaps in front of her.
"You know you want to-"
Almost unconsciously, her hands reach for the zip-lock bag and she deposits it, complete, by the stranger's denim-clad leg. Now she is looking, she can see a tear across each knee, framed by thin white strands of remnant material.
She is greeted by a look of surprise .
"Hey, I only said two slices, you don't need to give me-"
"Please…" She says, unsteady and unsure of her own voice. She wills certainty into it. "It's…at least worth half of – a Boston requirement." She smiles, feeling the muscles tentatively agree with her instruction, just enough for it to be convincing.
Another pause, before slender fingers curl around the bag and the smile is returned. "Well it is peanut butter and fluff." The words are punctuated by a confident huff. "That thing is gold on the bargaining table."
The sandwich is deposited onto the skin just above her knee, teetering in precarious balance. She picks it up it carefully, peering at it.
She takes a cautious bite. Her eyes involuntarily widen at the sensation of sweet and salty dancing over her tongue, clashing harshly with the dill/salmon/cream cheese combination that was already settled there, warring with it until only sugar and peanut pieces and a hint of bread crust remained.
A decisive victory indeed, the girl notes to herself.
She takes another bite.
The shadow extends over her body and she realises the stranger is leaning over, inspecting the item still clutched in her hand. "Whatcha reading?"
Her mouth is still full of… interest. She tilts the cover forward, and glances up again.
Dark eyes graze the title once, twice.
'In search of Schrodinger's Cat.'
A brow knits, then the eyes flick back up.
"Is it about a lost cat?"
She waits for the impulse to run, to escape, that commonly comes with questions like this – questions that are jokes veiled by feigned earnestness, traps to be fallen into at her great expense. Her eyes search the face in front of her, looking for the tell-tale signs of mockery in its reflection….
And find nothing. If anything, there appears to be only a … genuine interest.
She shakes her head and swallows.
"No, it is a book about Quantum Physics." She halts a moment, then continues, "I-It is a theory, a… thought experiment… where a cat is.. placed in an opaque box with a radioactive substance and- after an hour passes the theory is… that it is possible that the cat dies, or is alive, -"
"What's the point of the experiment?"
"It suggests that… it is possible there are no absolute outcomes. It defies the idea that Quantum physics – that the world – is… one-directional."
There is a long pause, one in which the girl worries over and over again that she has said just enough to send the stranger racing back to her friends at other end of the quadrant. She can see the lines of thought creasing the stranger's face, as if contemplating what will be the next words, and she sees the twitch of lips in preparation to speak-
And in that one, suspended moment she realises she truly does feel like the cat, possibly alive, possibly dead …
She braces herself for inevitability.
"Why would anyone do that do a cat?" The voice finally says, and the softer tone to it makes it sound almost like… the taste of her sandwich. And before she can answer a hand brushes her knee and the shadow retreats to a standing position on the bottom step. "Well, come on then, Schrodinger's cat-"
Hand outstretched. "-lunch is over. Let's go back to class."
She thinks about correcting her -
"Pretty sure we take biology together."
- But doesn't.
Because whether Schrodinger's cat or Maura Isles,
"I'm Jane, by the way."
She's alive, and she exists.