The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

His face grew serious. “You are certain?”

“Yeah.”

“In that case, do not worry.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Sometimes the boat just gets sink, my friend.”

I thought about this for a moment. “Did you just tell me that you win some and you lose some?”

Satish considered this. “Yes,” he said. “That is correct, except I did not mention the win part.”

During my fifth week at the lab, I found the box from Docent. It started as an e-mail from Bob, the shipping guy, saying there were some crates I might be interested in. Crates labeled “Physics,” sitting in the loading dock.

I went down to receiving and looked at the boxes. Got out the crowbar and opened them.

Three of the boxes were of no interest; they held only weights, scales, and glassware. But the fourth box was different. I stared into the fourth box for a long time.

I closed the box again and hammered the lid down with the edge of the crowbar. I went to Bob’s office and tracked down the shipping information. A company called Ingram had been bought by Docent a few years ago — and now Docent had been bought by Hansen. The box had been in storage the whole time.

I had the box taken to my office. Later that day, I signed for lab space, Room 271.

I was drawing on my marker board when Satish walked into my office.

“What is that?” he said, gesturing to what I’d written.

“It is my project.”

“You have a project now?”

“Yes.”

“That is good.” He smiled and shook my hand. “Congratulations, my friend. How did this wonderful thing happen?”

“It’s not going to change anything. Just busywork to give me something to do.”

“What is it?”

“You ever hear of the Feynman double-slit?” I asked.

“Physics? That is not my area, but I have heard of Young’s double-slit.”

“It’s the same thing, almost; only instead of light, they used a stream of electrons.” I patted the box on the table. “And a detector. The detector is key. The detector makes all the difference.”

Satish looked at the box. “The detector is in there?”

“Yeah, I found it in a crate today, along with a thermionic gun.”

“A gun?”

“A thermionic gun. An electron gun. Obviously part of a replication trial.”

“You are going to use this gun?”

I nodded. “Feynman once said, ‘Any other situation in quantum mechanics, it turns out, can be explained by saying, You remember the case of the experiment with two holes? It’s the same thing.’ ”

“Why are you going to do this project?”

“I want to see what Feynman saw.”

Autumn comes quick to the East Coast. It is a different animal out here, where the trees take on every color of the spectrum, and the wind has teeth. As a boy, before the moves and the special schools, I’d spent an autumn evening camped out in the woods behind my grandparents’ house. Lying on my back, staring up at the leaves as they drifted past my field of vision.

It was the smell that brought it back so strong — the smell of fall, as I walked to the parking lot. Joy stood near the roadway, waiting for her cab.

The wind gusted, making the trees dance. She turned her collar against the wind, oblivious to the autumn beauty around her. For a moment, I felt pity for that. To live in New England and not see the leaves.

I climbed into my rental. I idled. No cab passed through the gates. No cab followed the winding drive. I was about to pull away, but at the last second spun the wheel and pulled up to the turnaround.

“Is there a problem with your ride?” I asked her.

“I’m not sure. I think there might be.”

“Do you need a lift home?”

“I’ll be okay.” She paused. Then, “You don’t mind?”

“It’s fine, seriously.”

She climbed in and shut the door. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s a bit of a drive.”

“I wasn’t doing much anyway.”

“Left at the gate,” she said.

She guided me by stops. She didn’t know the street names, but she counted the intersections, guiding me to the highway, blind leading the blind. The miles rolled by.

Boston. A city that hasn’t forgotten itself. A city outside of time. Crumbling cobblestones and modern concrete. Road names that existed before the Redcoats invaded. It is easy to lose yourself, to imagine yourself lost, while winding through the hilly streets.

Outside the city proper, there is stone everywhere, and trees — soft pine and colorful deciduous. I saw a map in my head, Cape Cod jutting into the Atlantic. The cape is a curl of land positioned so perfectly to protect Boston that it seems a thing designed. If not by man, then by God. God wanted a city where Boston sits.

The houses, I know, are expensive beyond all reason. It is a place that defies farming. Scratch the earth, and a rock will leap out and hit you. People build stone walls around their properties so they’ll have someplace to put the stones.

At her apartment, I pulled to a stop, walked her to her door, like this was a date. Standing next to her, she was almost as tall as me — maybe 5’11”, too thin, and we were at the door, her empty blue eyes focused on something far away until she looked at me, looked, and I could swear for a moment that she saw me.

Then her eyes glided past my shoulder, focused again on some dim horizon.

“I’m renting now,” she said. “Once my probationary period is over, I’ll probably buy a condo closer to work.”

“I didn’t realize you were new to Hansen, too.”

“I actually hired in the week after you. I’m hoping to stay on.”

“Then I’m sure you will.”

“Perhaps,” she said. “At least my research is cheap. It is only me and my ears. Can I entice you in for coffee?”

“I should be going, but another time perhaps.”

“I understand.” She extended her hand. “Another time then. Thank you for the ride.”

I turned to go, but her voice stopped me. “James said you were brilliant.”

I turned. “He told you that?”

“Not me. I talk with his secretary, and James has spoken about you a lot, apparently — your days in college. But I have a question before you go. Something I was wondering.”

“Okay.”

She brought her hand up to my cheek. “Why are the brilliant ones always so screwed-up?”

I said nothing, looking into those eyes.

“You need to be careful,” she said. “The alcohol. I can smell it on you some mornings. If I can smell it, so can others.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No. Somehow I don’t think you will.”

The lab.

Satish stood in front of the diagram I’d drawn on my white board.

I watched him studying it. “What is this?” he asked.

“The wave-particle duality of light.”