Midafternoon rays played off the polished steel of a busy typewriter, bouncing from impressed letter to impressed letter, lighting their gilded edges. Fingers moved swiftly tailoring words to fit thesis and probability, to fit impossibilities and amazement, to match the technical achievements of the night. An occasional pause, various corrections with the eraser and brush, and then a sudden continuation of the scientific symphony, keeping precious time to the second. The conversations of the fascinating other lay beside her, cleanly rewritten and reformatted, yet still red markings littered the margins of particle frequencies and energies.
The typewriter ended with a soft clink. She removed the completed paper to have it laid amongst its brethren. It settled beneath the pile, the cover page showcasing the "The Possibilities of Application upon the Circumstances of Quantum Entanglement: The Introduction of Instantaneous Communication, R. Lutece." With a tumbling noise, the typewriter was reset. Another blank page was pulled nearby, its end rolled around the carriage. A quick replacement of the ink ribbon and the symphony continued flowing out the open window, joining the chorus of songbirds and the commotion of the workers below.
A cool wind blew in, refreshing her small office. The soft hands of air tugged at her curtains, rubbed against the spines of her books, and searched every tiny crevice of her shelves and desk. It stirred her papers curious to the implications but a mighty paperweight, a metal molecule, prevented its passage, holding well its owner's secrets. The door opened, a piercing creak broke through the euphony. Rosalind, none too bemused, dropped her baton and turned around in her chair to face the interloper.
Gerald bowed in apologies, an arm held out perfectly balancing a full tea tray, no china daring to make a noise, no mail daring to be spilt, and a bowl of peaches very daring to offend. With an articulate offer, he handed her a steaming cup of honeyed tea and the daily letters and inquiries. Rosalind replied with a curt recognition, taking a sip of the offer and deposing the mail elsewhere on the desk. The bowl of peaches sat besides, fully ignored. Gerald expressed an inclination for health. Rosalind rebuffed, setting the tea down by the typewriter what then clicked to life. Again without the need to be told, Gerald bowed once more and left his mistress with the creaking of a closing door.
In the midst of another sip, Rosalind came along with a certain idea. It may be very well that she could communicate with Robert for the rest of her life through Morse code yet she denied thinking that such cumbersome way was her only option, or that she was limited in the first place. She set the cup down, peering in, her face reflecting back in the waters. She had done it before numerous times for Comstock, tears through which probability was shown. It was through a tear Comstock saw a grand flying city.
Initially she thought these looking glasses only shown what could happen, a situation similar to Schrodinger's cat. Such cat would be either of two states, dead or alive, and would be both until the box was opened. The cat would be observed in only one state from then the universe would continue. The state not observed would simply collapse into nothingness. This explained why she could not look into the past. Everything had already been decided. The universe was singular. She could see the options and their consequences before they were even encountered. She could open the box and see both a dead and alive cat without affecting decisional probability.
Yet the night tossed turmoil into this theory. It was found that the universe was not singular. It was plural, a forever branching chain of different choices and occurrences. She met a male version of herself, very alive. These tears showed not only what could happen but what has happened. She saw futures that truly existed. If these realities she saw into were real, could she bring something from that reality over? Could she go to a timeline in present step with hers and take for instance a person into a timeline where such person already existed, existing? What would be the consequences? Would the universe deny duplicates and simply delete the offending paradox?
Rosalind gazed at herself through a bronze glass, suddenly feeling very lonely.
x-x
The honeyed tea did nothing to calm his nerves. Robert held the estimate for the repairs of his door and groaned. He crumpled into the settee of his parlor careful to not spill the tea in his hand.
"Why is everything so expensive these days Gerald?" Robert tossed aside the paper and took another sip.
"It is what it is, Master Lutece, unfortunately. Much more than the monthly allowance. Am I to use the funds set away for your projects?" Gerald responded, setting up the parlor table with the lunch for the day. Robert sat back up and set down the now empty cup.
"No. Doors are not a necessity." Robert rubbed his hands in anxiety. Gerald handed him the mail. Robert sifted through the colored papers as Gerald refilled the tea cup and collected the estimate. Robert idly grabbed a cucumber sandwich in his reading.
"Yes, yes, go ahead." He motioned. Gerald nodded and left his master alone. Robert quickly finished the meal, discarding the letters on the table. He leaned forward, hands clasped together. Closing his eyes, he ruminated on the night before. It seemed so much like a dream, a wanting of the subconscious for wonderment and impossibility. What seemed to make sense so well before became foggy and too fantastic. Robert huffed, a thought stating he would not have been surprised if he had checked and all he saw were blank sheets of paper.
He entered his laboratory, still in immense disarray. Papers lingered on the floor, lethargic to cleanliness, mooring themselves over grey tiles and black cables. Morse code conversations draped the aluminum desk from corner to corner, hanging over the edges, tired and limp. No, not a dream, a new reality. A small smile formed on his face. The laboratory was moderately sized and decently stocked. Some devices were in need of repair and other slept underneath a thick layer of dust. The wooden cabinets that dotted the room were chipped and stained. Their glass fronts showcasing medals and textbooks, dissertations and small devices, and hidden in the corner a little stuffed eagle toy. It bemused him, really, to imagine this other Lutece with the same childhood memento.
Yet imagining the other Lutece proved a monumental difficulty. His premonitions about the ultimate conclusion about this construct left him ending the thought immediately. He coughed and readjusted his tie. No Robert, he chastised, a heat arising in his throat. A gentle wind stirred the papers around him, upheaving them from their slumbers. He stepped back surprised as the papers caught flight and wrapped themselves across his pant legs. He frowned and turned to face the wall beside him, clear of cabinets and tables. The rows of windows were still open from the morning.
"I hope nothing got in," he worried as he shut them one by one. The panes slid easily enough until the last. He fought harder on the wood. It creaked in return but offered nothing more. Robert huffed and walked away. Across the line of windows on one wall was an imaginary partition in the floor plan that housed his personal office marginally equipped with only a few file cabinets, a desk, and a typewriter. Robert approached the area, brushing off some of the dirt and dust that had come in with the wind. He checked under the desk but found more piles of books and misplaced instruments. He swept around overturning the occasional folder and crate.
At last, Robert found hiding between the filing cabinets a rusty toolbox. With some effort, Robert managed to pry the toolbox out, the old metal grinding against the aluminum walls. With a click of the latch Robert opened the top and began rummaging for a screwdriver. The tools clanked about his efforts and bit back his hands as he searched. Robert flinched back, his thumb pricked by an ornery nail. He scrutinized his digit but thankfully found no drawn blood. He turned back to the toolset deciding it better not to offer his whole hand again. Robert carefully excavated the nails, nuts, and bolts until he found the screwdriver.
With finally the tool in hand, Robert went back to the stubborn window. The pane clattered against the wind and the view outside showed the busting populace on their daily rounds past his building. Robert made no attempt to appreciate the view however as he set the screwdriver between the pane and the jam. Again, he forced the wood and the pane jerked from its holdings and slid down somewhat before catching itself despite Robert's momentary triumph.
"Damn," he muttered. The gap was still a few inches open. Robert went about settling the screwdriver in a different position as a little bird landed on the windowsill. It hopped, once, twice around, pecking the wood in its notches and holes. It watched a man grunt and hammer a stuck window, then sigh, then run a hand through his hair with the other carefully probing the seams. It chirped, breaking his furious intent. Robert noticed the little bird as it kept chirping and singing, calling for his attention. He gave it a passing glance, observing its solo and dance. The light reflected off its black plumage as it hopped to and fro. If it wants food, it is going to have to go elsewhere, Robert concluded.
With a swift motion of the hand, he brushed the bird away, pushing it to the edge of the sill. The bird stopped its chirping in response but refused to move on preferring instead to sit in the corner watching the people below. Robert kept observing the black bird as it observed the people, more often than not, the people right below it. Robert, curious, followed suit and peered out his window.
There were people of all sorts as they went about their business. Set up nearby was a flower peddler. The rows of blossoming flowers, bursting rainbows, in various pots and baskets attracted the ladies and their husbands as well as the lucky suitor hoping to impress. A newsboy took business to the street corner, announcing the daily headlines, trading papers for coin. Dozens of people entered and exiting the shops across. Some left with parcels of butchered meat, some with candies, and others with papers and books. It was a sort of reverie, he felt, to simply watch the world pass by. Robert set the screwdriver down and continued his distraction. He leaned on the pane, his arms crossed across his chest.
The little black bird chittered and Robert with a fancy reached out. The little head bobbed under Robert's fingers. It chittered again poking its beak between his digits before suddenly dropping off the sill and spreading its wings. Robert watched as it sauntered the skies before dipping and disappearing out of sight. Robert scanned the street below in wonder.
Dread smothered the pleasure. In front of his building door sat waiting a black carriage, the chestnut horses panting and snorting in their leather bridles. Beside them stood three men, two of whom he had recognized. The third was the carriage driver Robert presumed noticing the driving whip. The men seemed to be in the midst of an argument. No doubt about the fare, he hissed, but a worry started to grow. It was nowhere near the end of the week.
His lips curled to a sneer. Robert snatched the screwdriver and drove it into the side of the pane. With one fell blow, he shut the window with a mighty clatter. He abandoned the tool on the windowsill and attended to the coded messages on the aluminum table, collecting them in his arms.
He made his way to the wooden desk of his office and stuffed the messages in the red leather folder. He opened one of the drawers and hid the precious information. He opened one of the file cabinets. A sick feeling of apprehension corroded him from the inside. His eyes flickered to the open arch repeatedly as he sifted through his work. Various projects and other patentable matters were pulled and placed atop the wood desk.
A slam of the aluminum and Robert checked the amount laden before him. Perhaps enough to tide them over, he hoped. He brushed through his hair and sighed. A knock on the door frame alerted him to their presence. Gerald, brow shining with sweat, was at the head, the two men behind him. Robert narrowed his gaze and replaced his hands in his pockets. The butler opened his mouth to speak only to be interjected by Robert.
"Yes, I know Gerald, Mr. Lappet and Mr. Polemaetus,"he spoke forcing nonchalance. He bit his lip to further hide his disdain. Gerald nodded and allowed the men in before bowing to Robert then leaving. Robert watched the vultures enter, neglectful of the papers beneath them. The cane tapped on the floor, mimicking the taps of claws on stone. The larger body trampled onwards, clumsily holding a worn Gladstone bag.
"How do you do, Mr. Lutece?" Mr. Lappet announced, tipping his crushed bowler hat in a greeting dripping with all but niceties, a pretense for business. His pencil mustache twitched always over his crooked half smile. As if I would deign to accept the deceit, Robert condemned. Robert simply gathered the files on his desk and marched toward the hungry predators. Just like the day before, he found himself facing the maw of hunger and greed. Yet not like before will he allowed them to break his progress.
"As stalwart as ever." Mr. Lappet idled on his cane, eyeing the offering Robert had. Robert noticed the missing head on the cane. This observation entertained a cruel delight but Robert knew better than to act upon it.
"Quite sooner than the end of the week," Robert chided, laying the projects on the aluminum table. Mr. Lappet frowned and shrugged.
"My watch might've run fast." Robert glared at the mustard fronted vulture scavenging for sustenance, picking at the remains. The vulture clawed with aversion, only willing to touch the most delectable parts. The claw dropped the papers. Mr. Lappet turned to Robert with a raised eyebrow, his eyes searching for dishonesty. The cane pointed to the machine. "Why nothing on that?"
"Because it is of no importance minor work for a future thesis on some quantum construct. Nothing that you can patent Lappet. That is solely for the scientific community." Robert retorted. Lappet held his head to one side and narrowed his gaze, his cane tapping all the while.
"Then where is all the funding going?" Lappet asked, taking his hat off and placing it on the other projects. Robert indicated to the neglected offering. Lappet's grin dropped a slight shade and the tapping stopped. He replaced the hat on his head and took the seat by the table. The vulture, desperate in its need, cannot afford to be so picky, Robert mused. "Just to have it out there Lutece, I am disappointed. Now you won't mind a punishment then; it's just a little thinning out."
The implications were clear. Robert scowled openly. Lappet scoffed with that arrogant turn of his lips. He watched Lappet thoroughly examine the work then the brute, still tipping occasionally, oddly. Yet it meant much for his funding, Robert understood. It was drying up in the face of new prospects. Robert eyed the machine in disgusted worry. He needed Lappet as Lappet needed him. His chances of getting a new funder so quickly were too slim for attempt, particularly on the eve of great discoveries. Rage simmered underneath. To be at the whim of money, he inwardly winced.
As he watched the brute in its strange frolic, he noticed the Gladstone bag was opened if only slightly. The lean man missing his crown jewel and the bag, full of what? He questioned. It must still be the problem of debt. Robert in his curiosity edged towards the brute, attempting not to arouse the attention of the vulture in meal. The brute shrugged his shoulders and leaned back on the counter, obviously bored with the waiting. Robert pretended to be engaged in cleaning up the laboratory, observing the brute on the edge of falling asleep yet then again, the only times he saw the brute ever active was in the act of violence or destruction. A feeble mind cannot take such lack of savage excitement, he mocked.
Robert collected the last of the trampled papers, ending near the jaded beast that only begrudgingly moved for the pieces he had stood on. It snorted at Robert's presence but made no attempt to dislodge him. An overwhelming stench of alcohol emanated from the beast. Drunk by midafternoon, how pleasant, Robert rolled his eyes. He checked the innards of the bag yet no surprise came over him. It was just cash after all, exactly as expected. However Robert did wish he could have seen the gambling match to have provoked such sum.
He glanced back to the beast, disgruntled and weary, slowly working off the poison of the pub. On a good day, Robert would have been nowhere near the beast and on this day, the very beast did not care. What harm could a stringy small man do? All he needed was another drink, preferable after this visit to this stringy man's strange place. Lappet always made him wait for so long. Just take it all he thought.
A desperate thought startled Robert's mind, funding, moreover, the lack of it. Theft, he considered with aversion, would theft be worth it? Yet he could not help but to glance ever so to the cash, guarded so poorly. For science, he rationalized, for the good use of it. Yet would he really fall to such pettiness? Rage still roasting under the surface, he hissed underneath his breath, he was not jealous.
Robert placed the load of papers on the counter to which the beast in boredom shoved back to the floor. The papers floated each way in their new freedom, back to the lethargy of before. Robert glared to the beast's cruel smirk.
"On your knees for your precious words," it growled. Robert bit his tongue to avoid remark. He hesitantly dropped to the floor, gathering the lost. The beast threw his head back and groaned. Robert saw the beast turn to the windows, watching the outside go. Robert steeled his outraged mind and slipped his hand into the bag. He lifted the bills by a moderate stack and drew them out without a single flutter. The beast had not noticed. The vulture still occupied. Robert not bothering to count the amount hid the bills in the shelves under the counter. He just needed enough to tide him over Lappet's end of days.
He dared another chance. His hand was in mid act as Lappet called to his beast. It lurched forward, knocking Robert back. The bills in his clutch dropped to the floor to which he hastily covered in the papers. The beast kicked Robert away in annoyance, his body thrown against the shelves; various instruments unsettled crashing to the floor. Lappet faced the uproar yet cared only to spot some loose bills nearby.
"Marshal, careful with the load, it's enough with you gallivanting everywhere," Lappet scolded, specifying the dropped hundreds. The beast bent down on command and replaced the seemingly careless matter of missing bills. Lappet gathered a few of the folders and shouted. "Have you had that open the entire day?"
"So what," the beast grunted in return. "I've been careful."
"You've been drunk. You still are drunk. You tried to pay off the fare using that." Marshal clicked his tongue in annoyance and took effort to latch the Gladstone bag properly. Lappet still not reassured went on to decry, "I shouldn't have paid that damned heeb. You probably left a few hundreds in that carriage, always getting a hand in there, wanting to be important."
Robert started at the new turn of events. Lappet was riled beyond precedence. The shadow over Robert moved on to face his accomplice. Lappet pointed and yelled, grabbing the bag from Marshal. "If this bag ends up a lot lighter than it should be-"
"Yeah, yeah. No worries. I'm in the same goddamn boat you are. We done yet?" The beast brushed him off. Lappet huffed in anger.
"We're done." Lappet walked up to Robert on the floor clutching his bruised side. The vulture towered above its prey. Lappet sneered as if to say something to assert his control but the words died on his lips. Lappet muttered to the beast some unintelligible command and they left him without a single suspicion. Robert was amazed, now realizing the magnitude of pressure that was on Lappet. A lighter bag was no if, it was a reality. Robert did not want to know how it ended.
His heart throbbed painfully. Would he be suspect or would Marshal the beast take the fall? Robert rubbed his side. What did he just do? He let his body collapse to the floor, his hands covering his face. He thought in paranoia until the paranoia burned away to a fury. What did he care? Two loan sharks getting their comeuppance, not him. What did it matter? The consequences did not apply to him.
Truly it was jealousy, he now admitted, sorting the cash from the papers and collecting the hidden sum. He wondered what turn of events occurred to prevent the creation of a man by the name of Comstock. Everything was accounted for on the tables and put away; the linoleum floor finally rid of the paper infestation. Robert fell onto his office chair, exhausted, wondering what could be done to make his mind at ease. He failed to notice Gerald setting tea on the table and the receipt of the doors.
"At my expense, Robert."
x-x
Late afternoon rays shimmered off the steel workings of the dancing typebars, each working their instrument to perfection, every letter, every stroke, a note in a beautiful masterpiece. One by one, each word appeared on the white plane, culminating into the venerable prospect he had before him. Starting slow and jagged, soon the wonder flowed through, a smooth and constant enlightenment that drove him on, a mind's escape.
"Quantum entanglement, the concept of objects becoming symbolically inseparable, the result of physical interaction then separation to create the exact same quantum mechanical state. Once entangled, a singular object cannot be truly described without consideration of the other." The writings continued, page after page of hypothesis and query. "During observation, particle 47 has shown evidence of quantum entanglement, acting as a transceiver to another exact particle…"
His symphony ended in sudden silence. The ever darkening laboratory felt colder by the second. He swept around. He was alone here. Robert swallowed hard, a lump in his throat refused to remove itself. A pang of paranoia blew through him. Nervous eyes darted to the hidden cash in the drawers. He needed it, Robert tried to assure himself. It would have been used for much better acclaims than whatever the vulture planned for it. He rubbed the back of his neck, the hairs pricking up in anxiety. There were no consequences for him.
Yet in the midst of darkness, a light dared cry out a proposition or a fancy but a theory without a thought of consequence. Robert stared at the particle. No, not exactly alone. For what did it matter, imploring once more, progress was his answer.
"For the sake of progress."
x-x
Even more words, much more than I had anticipated. I debated whether or not that this was acceptable. I just wanted to fulfill a need for history. Updates will come slower now that spring break has ended for me. Hopefully even with school I can continue this story. I would like to thank everyone for the time, the reviews, the favorites, and the follows.