Jintao Read online

  It’s not about the research. It’s about his wife.

  “I’ll be going there again and I agree with you, having another perspective would be a good thing.” Quan paused, making a decision. “I think you should have the experience. I’d like to have your impressions, but not just yet. We have to do a few more tests.”

  Not at all surprised that the young Jintao deflected his offer, McGowen said, “I’d like to know what’s there is all.”

  “Many unknowns,” said Quan. “Speaking of which . . . we should check on Wei again . . . see how he is. Look into that, will you?”

  “Aye, I’m on top of it. I’ll check and let you know how he’s doing. Okay, then, I’ll let you go.”

  “Keep me posted,” said Quan, just before the com line went dead.

  Quan wandered into the great room and to his surprise, instead of a tranquil veranda on the California coast, he walked into a tropical rainforest. In a tree at the far side, a hornbill flapped its wings and cawed. Jungle noises came from all around and the air smelled of burning wood. A mud-and-rock oven stood where the modern fireplace had been and a trail of light gray smoke rose from its short chimney into the canopy overhead. Springing up from a bamboo bench, Lotus greeted him with a guilty look on her face. “Sorry. I found the controls and couldn’t resist. I’ll switch it back.”

  “I don’t care,” he said, rubbing his head. “Leave it on.”

  “Orbital,” said Lotus. Then, seeing Quan’s sour disposition, she asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “Everything is fine. I have work to do,” said Quan, making his way back to the study.

  Sealy passed him in the hallway and could see something was bothering him. Knowing it was better to leave him alone, she continued on to join her sister. Entering the great room, her eyes opened wide. Calumba vines hung from the limbs of a banyan tree and shafts of daylight came through gaps in the leaves, projecting random dots on the red earth floor. An elephant trumpeted in the distance.

  “Reminds me of the Jumanji game we used to play,” said Lotus. “Remember?”

  “I remember,” said Sealy. “But this is Armandorama and I’m not in the mood.” Sealy stood with her arms crossed, hands rubbing her upper arms. “Do you have plans for tonight?”

  “I called Gaston but he didn’t answer,” said Lotus.

  “Maybe he was busy. Try him again,” said Sealy. “Quan and I need some alone time.”

  “Hey, no prob.” Lotus sat down on the sofa and opened a com channel.

  As Sealy left the room, she saw the California sim return and overheard Lotus talking to von Ang.

  Sealy followed Quan to the stucy and found him sitting in his sling chair, deep in thought.

  “You haven’t told me happened in the lab.”

  It wasn’t easy for him to talk. The latest encounter with his father’s ghost was another mind-bender. He leaned forward with his arms resting on his knees, fingertips pressed together.

  “Come sit,” he said.

  Sealy settled herself in the chair across from him.

  “McGowen is willing to take my place and do the experiments.”

  “That’s great news.”

  “Sort of. He can go in to do the experiments, but I still need to understand what has become of my father. If what I saw is really him, then he’s in some sort of altered state. The voice isn’t his and it isn’t the way he would normally speak but I know it’s him. I have a feeling he’ll only appear for me. Someone else may drive him away.”

  “You must be happy that you found him. What’s the plan? Do you think you can bring him back?”

  “I’m just not sure what to do next. Maybe I’ve done as much as I can.”

  Perking up, Sealy asked, “I’m listening. What does that mean for you and me? Can we go back to England?”

  Quan sat up straight, holding up his hands. “I’m afraid it’s not over yet.”

  “I’m ready to go,” said Sealy. “It’s been more than a little strange being here in your father’s house with my sister. You’re off doing these experiments. I may as well be somewhere else.”

  “It must feel like that for you. I’m sorry. I wish it were different. This hasn’t turned out to be anything like what I expected. What I’ve gotten into here is bigger than both of us. Be patient while I sort this out. I don’t think we’ll be here much longer.”

  24.

  Von Ang’s apartment was in the Tsim Sha Tsui district of New Hong Kong. Three years earlier, when he first set foot in the space, he ignored the post-apocalyptic style that was trending at the time—the faux broken beams, ragged curtains and decaying plaster—and decided to buy it instead for its view of Victoria Harbour and its embedded sound system. He had the interior gutted, the floors refinished, and the walls sheathed in dark blue padded velvet. The wall facing Victoria Harbour was replaced with a seamless sheet of structural glass coated with a nanite layer that responded to voice command, providing various levels of opacity.

  His furnishings were minimal: a modern Scandinavian couch, three colorful graphics of quantum collisions from the old Hadron collider, two matching easy chairs and an espresso machine.

  It was Sunday morning and von Ang was lounging in bed, listening to a vintage Brubeck arrangement—delicate shuffling of a snare drum and cymbal, a low rolling piano rhythm playing against the meanderings of a saxophone. The melody floated through the air like a butterfly, flapping its wings, pausing to show its colors, then taking off again.

  Lotus stood naked in the kitchen galley, staring at two cups, waiting for the Italian roast to finish brewing. Totally relaxed without clothes, her perfectly proportioned body left nothing to apologize for. Her tanned skin was the color of toasted almonds, except for three pale triangles where the Caribbean sun was forbidden to touch. Glancing at von Ang, she smiled. This kind of freedom wasn’t normal in his life and she was being intentionally disruptive. Extending her arms above her head, she stretched, arching her back slightly, letting him enjoy the view while she gathered her hair into a ponytail and secured it with a band.

  Gaston von Ang was a straight arrow—without the conceits and deceits Lotus put up with from boys her own age. He was established, sophisticated, brilliant, and only a few years her senior. They shared music in common and he could make her laugh. He was the kind of guy she could fall hard for, but she was playing it cool, catching him by letting him pursue her.

  Von Ang caught himself staring too long. His eyes averted to the window and he refocused his thoughts on the Jintao project. His laudable contribution had been acknowledged. The compensation was more than adequate, he was going to be author of the discovery papers, and he had grown to like Quan, a smart and brave young man with the same noble values as his father. Where he found most Chinese industrialists to be rigid, consumed by the pursuit of profit, Quan and his father had proved they were equally concerned with respect and building long term relationships.

  Lotus walked back to bed with two steaming cups. “You know, I’m becoming addicted to this Italian roast,” she said, setting a cup on each night table.

  Walking around to the other side of the bed, she sipped from her cup, set it down, then slipped under the covers next to him. “Tell me about the project you’re working on with Quan.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. I’m under contract,” said von Ang, taking a careful sip from the steaming cup.

  “Oh, come on. I’m part of Quan’s family.”

  “It would bore you.”

  “If I were your banlu, you’d tell me, wouldn’t you?”

  “If that was a proposal, it needs work,” said von Ang with a snicker.

  Lotus wished she could have pulled her words back as they left her mouth. So clumsy, she thought. She placed a hand on von Ang’s chest and slid her leg on top of his. “I can find out from my sister.”

  Feeling her skin next to his, he said, “You always feel a few degrees warmer than me.”

  Head against the pillow, Lotus lifted an eyebrow. �
��I have a high metabolism.”

  “I suppose you’ll be going back to university soon. What’s your major?” he asked.

  “Physics.”

  “That’s a surprise. You should have told me. Which university?”

  “Peking.”

  “Very competitive. Must have been difficult to get in.”

  “Not really. My GPA was five point oh.”

  Von Ang’s eyes opened wide. He coughed and almost blew coffee out of his mouth.

  “A five point? In physics? Wow. Higher that mine was as an undergrad.”

  “To the world!” said Lotus, propping herself up on two elbows. “It’s because of the way I look, isn’t it? Boy, isn’t that typical. Did you think the cover was all there was of this book?”

  “No, of course not,” said von Ang, squirming.

  Von Ang had know other Chinese women, but most were of ordinary intellect. Lotus, by contrast, outclassed of all of them. She was stunning and razor sharp. “I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

  Flipping the covers back, Lotus sat up, took the cup from his hand, and set it on the nightstand next to hers. She swung herself over on top of him and extended her arms on either side of him. Smiling, she said, “I forgive you. Now, show me how sorry you are.”

  25.

  Quan was in his cyber cocoon, a space where he could be alone with his haunted thoughts. He was surrounded by the Long website and his impressions of the Braneworld. Leaning back in his sling, he gazed at the collage, trying to wrap his mind around it—the reciprocal theory, the fables, the animations and equations, a world springing from nothing. There were too many ways to look at the phenomenon. Maybe the human brain in its current state of evolution just wasn’t capable of grasping something so complex. It all seemed go weird. Weird in the same way the idea of chemicals spontaneously jumping together and becoming life was weird—so incomprehensible.

  Infinite consciousness and infinite manifestation. That’s what the ghost said to him.

  It sounded like magical thinking—like what people referred to as God—a word that Quan wasn’t comfortable with. The idea of a celestial being breathing life into matter and single-handedly creating everything in the universe was something he always found too conveniently simple. For him, it was like throwing your hands in the air and saying, “I give up.” Instead, Quan pinned his faith to the underlying physics of matter, a complex but predictable system of cause and effect. The only transcendence he believed in was the precision of mathematics. Nonetheless, what he had seen in the last few weeks called his beliefs into question. He was at the doorway to a completely new science and struggling to understand it.

  At the end of the twentieth century, Higgs defined what some called “the God particle.” It explained atomic mass. Now there was proof of other dimensions . . . then an idea struck.

  The rhythmic exchange of particles in and out of the Braneworld is in me—baked in. But it must also be baked into everything that exists. All of matter is recycling constantly. By extension, perhaps everyone has an intrinsic connection to the Braneworld.

  In his recent sortie, what he had witnessed was a wellspring. It reminded him of what eighteenth-century philosophers called the élan vital: a life force pushing its way into the material world. Life and death, a duality, one of many dualities to be understand on more a profound level. Maybe that was what his father was doing.

  Maybe I’m not the only one of my kind. Perhaps there are others. Perhaps I can find them.

  In all the ages, he thought, there must have been at least a few who experienced the same thing. Maybe even a few who understood the whole of it. There were stories of the unseen lands and accounts of others who might have traveled in and out. He read about shamans who could vanish at will. There was the rabbi named Jesus who scribes of the first century wrote about. They said he walked on water and through walls and healed the sick and transcended death. To transcend the bonds of a finite world, he must have understood the meaning of infinite consciousness and infinite manifestation.

  Focusing on what was inside him, Quan began feeling that part of him that was in the other realm. He felt the boundary separating him from the two worlds. At a level deeper still, he could feel the random exchange of particles, the constant flux, pushing and pulling every atom. A potential was welling up inside . . . a feeling so strong it scared him. Pushing fear aside, he allowed the feeling to become more intense.

  Without knowing why, he rose from his chair and walked to the wall of the study, as if being drawn to it. Reaching out his hand, he felt the wall. It was made of steel and xynite, solid and impenetrable. Pressing against the surface, he could feel the true nature of it—a wall of vibrating particles—still firm, but an illusion—not really solid, mostly empty space. He stood back, reflecting on what he was feeling, concentrating on his connection to the reciprocal flux. Particles began to dance in the space in front of him. He could feel the quantum exchange rushing back and forth, in and out of the space he occupied. Particles were filling the space—the Braneworld was becoming visible.

  Matter is an illusion . . . not solid . . . just an illusion.

  His body bristles with energy. A surge is building . . . he can feel it . . . the same feeling he has when the machine powers up. Without expectations, he leaves himself open to any outcome.

  Surrender to it. Go where it leads. No fear.

  He lets the impulse drive him forward, propelling him into the space inside the atoms—the essence of matter.

  There I go . . . I can feel it . . . the cycling . . . the path between this world and the other. There it is . . . particles moving in and out . . . pushing . . . pulling . . .

  His arm rises as if it has a mind of its own. This time the resistance is gone. His arm slides through the wall, particles moving past other particles, space moving through space, slipping past boundaries, through the emptiness within matter. Sliding through a wall of shimmering specks, he takes three steps forward. He is standing in the hallway. The air is thick with multicolored particles. Looking around, he can see indications of walls and doorways. A mixture of excitement and fear comes over him. He steps back one pace, then another, and another.

  How is this possible . . . without the reactor . . . without the stabilizer . . . without the tuned energies? How can it be?

  As doubt and fear took hold, the Braneworld faded.

  His thirst for answers had taken him across a threshold, into a new reality. Ever since his first transference, he had felt subtle changes inside him. Like training wheels on a child’s bicycle, the machine had shown him the way and now the changes were magnified tenfold. He was able to transport himself by will alone. Like waking from a dream, his view of the world was made crystal clear.

  Hard edges and static surfaces came into view, yet he could still feel his connection to the phase shift—it had become an accessible part of him, a memory indelibly imprinted in his mind.

  Quan managed to get back to his workstation and slide into the sling chair. He was enthralled. What he had just done was extreme.

  So much more than flesh and bones—neural networks are learning—epigenomes are recording. Connections are forming that weren’t there before. I’m evolving—changing with each exposure to the flux.

  ~~~

  Morning came and Sealy padded into the great room in her robe and slippers looking for Quan. He was resting on his side, sprawled out on the sectional, quietly watching the simulated waves lapping against the cove. She sat across from him, where prismatic reflections from the fireplace danced on the wall.

  “How was your night?” she asked.

  He didn’t respond, gazing at the waves, looking for a repeat pattern in the animation. He was continuing to feel the effects of what he had done. With all he knew of physics, it was impossible. Yet, somehow nature allowed it. He wondered if Wei was capable of the same thing.

  Perhaps it has a purpose. Perhaps all of us will be able to . . .

  He looked across to where Sealy
sat and felt an urge to share his revelation, but he knew how grounded she was in her notion of reality. There was no way that he could demonstrate what he was capable of without frightening her.

  “Lotus went out to see Gaston last night,” she said. “She must have stayed with him. She’s not back yet. Have you had breakfast?”

  No reply.

  “Quan, I’m talking to you.”

  He sat up and words came forth with such clarity, they surprised him. He told her it was only a matter of time before the project on Kau Yi Chau Island would be discovered and the government would try to requisition the project.

  “Why would they do that?” she asked.

  He continued explaining that was inevitable and the only way to safe guard the project was to relocate it to a secure place, a place where the research could continue without interference.

  “Nowhere in China is safe,” he said. “We’ll have to move the equipment.”

  “Would we go back to England?”

  “England would be just as insidious.”

  Pointing to the sim she said, “How about what’s right in front of us . . . California.”

  Waves continued to surge against the SensoReal cove. Quan watched for a moment, then said, “There are no coincidences. It’s perfect, isn’t it?”

  “We’ve never been there before,” said Sealy, “and we don’t know anyone there. It sounds exciting.”

  “We need to make plans as soon as possible.”

  “What about your father?” she asked.

  “What I’ve seen of him is only a vestige of what he once was. I think Father would want this. He’d want me to protect the discovery. That’s what’s important now.”