the picture frame on his desk.
Aaron followed his gaze to a photo of the deputy’s half and their kids. A normal family. Except something in the picture was off.
Aaron glanced at the other photos behind the deputy, also of the same woman, then back to the one on his desk—and he felt a chill.
In each photograph, the deputy’s half had the same blank look, like there wasn’t anything behind her eyes.
The officer saw where he was looking and twisted the picture away from him. He stood. “Let me show you out, Mr. Harper.”
***
He needed more proof.
When he was sure his parents were asleep, Aaron snuck into his house and tiptoed to his bedroom. He took a deep breath and flipped on the lights. His room was just as he left it.
Aaron hesitated in the doorway, breathing slowly, as the smell of sunscreen and vanilla floated over him—her smell. It was all over his clothes, floating out of his laundry hamper, just as strong as the first time they met.
He remembered meeting her at the bonfire. Now, on his birthday, if not for the throbbing in his lungs, if not for that smell, everything in between could have been a dream—Dr. Selavio’s machine, the body, the vial full of clairvoyance.
There was no proof.
But as Aaron watched his wrinkled, mud-smeared jeans sway on the back of his chair, a terrifying idea took hold of him.
The vial was proof.
It had tumbled off his fingers. He knew exactly where it sank . . . He could recover it.
Before he backed down, Aaron opened the bottom drawer and closed his fingers around the hem of his bathing suit. Instinct pressed against the back of his mind, screaming at him. The vial was buried in the sand under thirty feet of water. He’d never find it.
But what if he could?
Could a vial full of clairvoyance save Amber’s life? Could it give her a new half?
That was what truly scared him.
***
Entanglement
Aaron googled the word after he parked outside the Arroyo Beach Café, using their Wi-Fi and his mom’s laptop which he balanced against the steering wheel. The word was thrown around every five seconds, but he still didn’t understand it.
The sun was just rising.
He clicked on the second link, a wiki page titled “Quantum entanglement,” and read from the top.
Quantum entanglement (commonly known as entanglement or clairvoyance) occurs when particles such as photons, electrons, and even molecules as large as DNA interact physically and then become separated such that each resulting member of a pair is properly described by the same quantum mechanical state . . .
Fat lot of sense that made.
Aaron scanned the rest of the page, but none of it meant jack. Frustrated, he clicked on random keywords, jumping through page after page about halves until he ended up on a page titled “Quantum teleportation.”
Aaron waded through more dense physics, again comprehending none of it, and he was about to slam the laptop shut when a sub-heading caught his eye.
He stared at the strangest phrase he had ever seen.
Entanglement swapping
A film of dust coated the laptop’s display, catching the morning rays and obscuring the text. He grabbed his shirt and wiped the screen, and read the first thing all morning he did understand.
If Alice has a particle which is entangled with a particle owned by Bob, and Bob teleports it to Carol, then Alice’s particle becomes entangled with Carol’s.
***
At nine in the morning on Easter Sunday, Aaron peeled off his shoes and stuck his feet into the sand at Arroyo Beach. Fog whisked past him. The month-old charred logs from the bonfire had long since been broken apart and buried.
Entanglement swapping.
There was no way.
Aaron felt thunder against his back and glanced up to see a wall of white foam smash against the sand. The surf looked especially rough today.
But he had come prepared.
He threw down his backpack and extracted a pair of goggles, an underwater flashlight, and a package of eight neon dive sticks.
Aaron tore open the package with his teeth and jammed all eight of them into the pocket of his bathing suit. Then he slid the flashlight into his other pocket, took off his shirt, and stumbled toward the water.
A wave rose and smashed in front of him, stinging his eyes with mist and parting around his ankles. The water wasn’t nearly as cold as the night he swam with Clive, but it still stung. He stepped up to his knees in foam, and goose bumps rushed across his skin.
After he nearly drowned