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Dr.

Smith.

He remembered being young, holding his hand out the window and letting

the moving air kick it up and down like a wing.

she said, and he remembered something else, trees that had roots in the

sky and a road where rain flashed brilliantly in front of the headlights

before striking the invisible pavement.

and he stumbled backwards, into the cave, across the purple sand.

It doesn’t mean anything.

why you thought I lost your device.

These are, after all, just dreams.

the uncertainty and desire that were only masked in obfuscation.

I forget, Keith, because reality is inconsistent with the memory of the dream.

stuff on the inside is holding you down, and holding you up.

I’m not sure.

This was how it should be: warm, unimportant, and impersonal.

And she was nobody, just another formless, beautiful idea.

Until now, at least, because she had told him her name.

It was almost as if her name brought everything else with it, a magical

word that called her into existence, medical school and grade school, first

kiss and scarred knuckle, battles and victories, her generous smile, even

the stray yellow hairs that strayed into her eyes, and the freckles, and

their secret pattern.

Like Athena leaping from Zeus’s skull, he thought, or something even older.

Not hallucinating.

Sometimes I’ve wished things I did could disappear if I could forget them.

Almost like turning back time.

Something always reminds me, though.

I guess I don’t really want to forget.

When you are dreaming, you forget how your world is organized.

When you are both dreaming and waking, you forget how your world is organized.

How you get there, I mean.

Or how I got here, either.

Words don’t work the same way.

Here they

create

When you surface, your dreams make little sense to you, yes? So I who have

When I’m awake none of it really follows.

You follow me because that’s how the dream works, because it’s the only

thing you can do.

But me you can’t

Dr.

Curtis said.

Dr.

Curtis passed him a plate of beets.

Dr.

Curtis smiled politely.

Dr.

Curtis, being a Platonist, is going to argue that it is only necessary to

know one thing, the good, and that everything follows from that.

That it’s only necessary to know one thing.

But then I’ll say that it is necessary to forget.

in a numerical sense: more beautiful than most people, less beautiful than

a few other people.

she said, and he noticed only then how warm her leg was, and small she was.

I don’t want to—I want to find something outside what someone already

She looked at his eyes gravely, the blue light from the window casting

up and down.

Why, yes: RS-23Z batteries are restricted technology.

it said, and from its face it was clear that it would have liked to have

been able to lie.

Not without recourse to technical language,

Dr.

Smith said.

He was sitting across the table with a cigarette in his mouth and a vague

look.

Yes, yes.

It’s not fair, I know.

I’m not supposed to be here.

But then again, neither are you.

You didn’t

Keith said.

Did you? And how would you know where to find me?

Hmm, hmm.

You’re no fun.

You want me to be something else?

The king smiled and poked at his fingernails with the point of a wide blade.

No imagination, either.

I can be anything.

But since you don’t seem to care, Dr.

Which is ironic, because Smith already explained all of this to you.

A little inarticulately, to be sure.

But if you had half a brain, you’d have figured it out.

You never told me anything, I’m sure.

Smith, I mean.

He had it all wrong, though.

They watched the grey smoke, and the blue smoke from the tip of the cigarette,

curling and twisting together.

You’re a quantum computer, right? An indeterminate Turing machine.

Not without recourse to technical language.

So you

do

were.

But then you know what that means: I only have to execute an algorithm

once, and—pfft—the whole set of initial conditions is solved, all at

once.

What are you?

Well, there’s cryptography.

And artificial intelligence.

You could play chess and see the whole game at once, all the possible moves,

instead of having to calculate each alternative separately.

And then you just choose the most favorable path.

If you had enough memory to describe the whole game.

It only takes two thousand forty-eight bits to describe a chessboard, and

most games only last about thirty moves.

and ten thousand quantum bits aren’t hard

to conjure up, since it’s bit depth that matters, not computation speed.

How many bits do you have?

What kind of computer? How do you communicate? How am I hearing you?

It’s restricted,

and Smith leaned back in his chair and resumed his cigarette.

Shall I continue with the second question?

Sit down, sit down.

But you’re a bright kid.

Brighter than I thought you were, at least.

You can guess.

a human at chess, and here I am, talking to you.

No.

At least I don’t think so.

Is that like the cat in the box? I think Valia was telling me about it.

Where it isn’t dead or alive until you look?

The observerless quantum theory postulates that the wave function of the

observer is collapsed upon observation of an indeterminate system.

No, that’s not any better.

Now you’re rattling off book definitions.

Just explain it.

A pigeon hopped up, presumably from the chair.

It settled its wings and shook its head.

Dr.

Smith?

You know what I mean.

Now sit tight.

You understand this perfectly.

The observerless interpretation differs from the Copenhagen interpretation

equal validity.

The pigeon bobbed its head.

And the other interpretation?

equal validity (though not necessarily of equal probability).

In contrast, the observerless interpretation, since it permits unobserved,

determined states, describes bifurcation as a process by which a determined,

measured world-line separates from an unmeasured, multi-state universe.

Like the surface of the ocean.

Keith picked the canister up again.

He said,

Like the surface of the ocean.

But what are you?

Yes,

said the pigeon.

And you exist on the surface because you are an observer.

Then what is Valia?

No,

he said.

Yes.

It shrugged.

It paused.

And what are you?

A pigeon.

Related to the dove.

From the perspective of the observer, the surface can be controlled.

Sound waves, images, even solid bodies, can be brought into existence for

anyone observing or interacting with this device.

All universes are valid.

Yet the interior variables in this device are under the control of programs that you control.

The state of the observer is controlled by adjusting the state of the hidden variables under observation.

From the perspective of an observer, from your perspective, reality can be controlled.

Like chess, Keith.

And now you can pick the results.

That’s why you’re here, by the way.

Just then he noticed the men in suits standing up, standing up to stop him

from finishing his sentence.

And that bit of time travel, too.

You’re used to my ineffectual punches, aren’t you?

And you are used to me a vaguely disturbing vision.

And you are used to me as a vaguely disturbing vision.

Things rose and fell at the edges of his vision, fever phantoms, but vanished

in confusion, powerless against the logic of his own mind, ignoring its own rules.

Your computer is a toy, and that is why it is dangerous to you.

Only you can do anything; only an observer can pick one thing and do it.

There was only the slight glance of red torchlight, but he saw the knife,

its metal and its hunger, as clearly as if it were day, and he stepped

back.

I think it’s time to go,

I think it’s time to wake up,

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