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Sept. 15, 2076
Attn: Ivy Collegiate Consortium
From: The International Therolinguistics Association
The International Therolinguistics Association (ITA) writes to express our support for Professor Vera Gladbach, PhD, as she comes before your board for internal review. As an academic body comprised of both individuals and fields of study which were once circumspect[1], we feel that it is incumbent upon us to voice our belief that Professor Gladbach’s recently published paper in Therolinguistics[2] be met, not with prejudiced skepticism, but with the rigorous academic curiosity for which your collective gained its notoriety and standing. Plainly, censorship is cowardice. We must be brave enough to hear the answers to hard questions; especially those which have the power to alter the course of humanity.
***
Fig. 1f
Quantum Entanglement: Idea that particles of the same origin, when connected, always stay connected. Even if they separate and move far apart in time and space, they continue to share something beyond a mere bond — they shed their original quantum states and take on a new, united quantum state which they maintain forever. This means if something happens to one particle, it affects all the others with which it’s entangled (NASA).
***
Vera sits on the couch in her living room, elbows braced on bouncing knees. She watches her tablet light up and vibrate. The slab of glass rumbles across the coffee table in a desperate attempt to throw itself off the side, a merciful end to the inundation of notifications. Vera doesn’t look at the messages. Instead, she closes her eyes, hooks her fingers together on the back of her neck, and tries to make herself so small that none of this matters anymore.
She chokes on the irony at the same time a knock comes from her apartment door.
“Vera?” Dr. Kuzmina’s muffled voice calls. “Are you in there?” When Vera doesn’t answer, Dr. Kuzmina hardens her tone, her thick accent makes her words cut all the deeper. “Stop this childish tantrum. Let me in this instant!”
With a groan, Vera pushes herself off the couch. She yanks the door open for her mentor before hurrying back to her cushioned sanctum. The door clicks closed as Dr. Kuzmina enters the apartment, her disapproval at the dirty habitat Vera keeps is made clear by her silence.
“I told you,” Vera accuses, her head buried in her arms and pillows. “The paper was a mistake. I never should have submitted.”
“Nonsense!” Dr. Kuzmina approaches but does not sit. “This is always the reaction to genius.”
“Genius?” Vera laughs and sobs at the same time. She is ruined. Her career is over. “You must not watch the news.”
“Piss on the news,” Dr. Kuzmina sits now, Vera looks up from her black hole of misery. Dr. Kuzmina has never been kind or especially warm, but she does take Vera’s tear-covered cheeks in her wrinkly hands. She holds her pupil firm. “You’ve led us to the brink of transcendence.” Dr. Kuzmina says. “Don’t let them look away now, child. Make them see.”
***
Fig. 5
The following is from the July 1, 2076 broadcast of Fire in the Kiln, with Shannon Kiln:
Kiln sits at her newscaster desk, she sports sunglasses and a floppy straw hat. The chyron at the bottom of the screen reads, “We set the global temperature record today! Well, and yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. And…but, you know what, whose counting! A record is a record.” A coconut with a long pink bendy straw protruding from the top sits on the desk beside Kiln.
“Let’s get right to it! Who’s up first?” Kiln calls.
A disembodied baritone voice says, “leading off tonight we have one Dr. Vera Gladbach of the Ivy Collegiate Consortium.”
The crowd jeers and boos when a photo of Dr. Gladbach is shown on the screen. “Gladbach?” Kiln says. “More like Sadbach! Look at that frown!” The crowd cheers and Kiln smiles before blowing out an exaggerated sigh of exasperation. “What are our ‘friends’ over at the ICC up to now?”
“Gladbach is currently being lambasted on the socials for publishing a paper in Therolinguistics––”
“Thero-what?” Kiln interrupts. The audience giggles.
“Therolinguistics. It’s the study of communication between animals.”
Kiln points to her head and draws “cuckoo” circles with her finger.
“Gladbach claims to have proven that particles at the quantum level have a form of communication and are speaking to one another. She says quantum entanglement, when decoded, proves the whole universe is a conscious entity.”
“Wow,” Kiln mocks amazement. “Say, aren’t these the people who are supposed to be figuring out how to save the planet?” Kiln addresses this to the crowd, they shout and scream. “Ok, well I guess––” Kiln holds up a finger and cocks her head. “Wait. Can you guys hear that? Do you know what the universe is telling me?”
“THROW HER IN THE KILN!” The crowd roars in unison.
The on-screen picture of Dr. Gladbach goes up in flames.
“Next!” Kiln screams.
***
Fig. 3c
| 𝛹 ⟩ = (1/√2) (| ↑𝐀⟩| ↑𝐁 ⟩ + | 𝐀↓ ⟩| 𝐁↓⟩)
***
CHAIR BRECKENWITH: Dr. Gladbach, can you explain what we’re looking at here? Figure 3c?
DR. GLADBACH: That’s the state of an entangled quantum system containing two qubits of spin-½ particles. The arrows? They indicate the spin of the particles.
(Silence)
GLADBACH: This was all in the briefing materials I provided…Did no one bother to look at them? This is basic quantum mechanics. Maybe we should start at the beginning. I’m sure there’s a physics 101 class we could pop into right now. I mean, how can we have an honest conversation about the value of my work if no one understands the material?
BRECKENWITH: Dr. Gladbach, I have to warn you to watch your tone with this council. However, though I do not care for your glibness, I thank you for ushering us expeditiously to my point.
GLADBACH: Which is…?
BRECKENWITH: The very same one you just made. No one understands this work.
GLADBACH: And that means it has no value? That means I should lose my education license? That I should be fired and made into a pariah?
BRECKENWITH: Dr. Gladbach, would you be so kind as to inform the council which of the three Wildly Important Goals your research contributes to?
GLADBACH: If you’re insinuating that my work was unsanctioned, look at the record. Dr. Kuzmina signed off on my proposals every term.
BRECKENWITH: Rest assured, Dr. Gladbach, we will be speaking with Dr. Kuzmina about this matter. But she is not on review here. You are. Now, please, which of the WIGs does your research into partilinguistics and quantum consciousness contribute to?
GLADBACH: I…I…look––
BRECKENWITH: Is it Hunger? Is it Climate? What about Energy?
(Silence)
BRECKENWITH: If you can’t name a WIG, surely you can explain to us all a real-world use case for this work?
GLADBACH: Can I…Can we take a break?
BRECKENWITH: I’m afraid you aren’t taking this seriously enough, Dr. Gladbach. Did you, or did you not, just watch the same clip that we all saw?
GLADBACH: Kiln? That hack? What the hell does she matter?
BRECKENWITH: She matters because her opinion happens to be the same as the rest of the general public! Our reputation is as depleted as our funding. We cannot be seen to be pursuing esoteric fancies when people are starving and the world is withering away around us.
GLADBACH: Esoteric fancies…I proved that the very fabric of the universe is sentient. I showed, irrefutably, that particles at the quantum level are speaking to one another. They are alive. The universe is alive! And…and –– let me finish! –– and I don’t even see any of you denying it! I dare you to deny the results!
(Silence)
BRECKENWITH: Dr. Gladbach, no one here is denying the results. We are, however, asking the same simple question that the rest of the world is posing right now…so what? What difference does this make to humanity when we are teetering on the edge of oblivion? Well? Dr. Gladbach?
At this time, Dr. Gladbach pushed back her chair and exited the review chamber.
***
Professor Vera Gladbach, PhD – Status: TERMINATED
***
Vera slides another board into the solar-powered circular saw. She’s found work on a construction crew racing to build homes in Vermont’s habitable zone. It is grueling work, but she has a cot to sleep on, meals provided to her, and water. That is more than can be said for most.
Without looking, Vera grabs another board and feeds it to the machine. She doesn’t look too closely at the board, or anything for that matter. When Vera looks at something too closely she sees the words. She’s given up on them, though. Stopped believing they were real. Decided, instead, that she is insane. A scary thought, but one that does not impede her day-to-day so long as she goes about her life in a state of soft, fuzzy, unfocus.
Unfortunately, this makes Vera prone to accidents.
“Hey!” her crewmate calls.
Vera is adrift, doesn’t hear.
“Heyheyhey! Watch it!” The crewmate is running towards her now, his gloved hand outstretched. In her daze, Vera has let her arm drift much too close to the sawblade. She realizes what is happening, but too late. She knows it, she is certain of it. Too late. Vera does not move her arm fast enough and the saw cuts right through her forearm.
But when she examines her arm, there’s not a scratch on her. Vera holds up her arm in front of her eyes, like this appendage is entirely novel to her. She sees it is not true that she is completely unblemished. There is a thin red ring around her arm, as if drawn on by a pencil.
“I thought for sure it got ya,” her crewmate gasps for air beside her. “Did it really not? You ok?”
Vera knows what has happened but she refuses to accept it. As a physicist, she knows better than anyone that solids are nothing but. That, though infinitesimally small, there is always a non-zero chance that she could go to grab something and her hand would pass right through it, all the particles just happening to miss each other at the same time. Or, in her very specific and immediate case, that a sawblade could pass through her arm and not lop her limb right off.
But that is a technicality of physics best saved for trading fun facts at a party or used as fodder for drunken dorm room debates. This phenomenon is not something that actually happens. Except it just did, Vera knows it. As she hastily excuses herself and runs to the outhouse erected on the opposite side of the site, Vera also knows what she will see upon further examination.
The outhouse door slams closed behind her and sweat starts to pool in the depressions between her gaunt throat and protruding clavicle bones. Vera brings her arm up right in front of her face. She squints at the line and…Yes. There they are. The words. The red line on her arm is a message.
Vera, the red line says, please don’t ignore us. We are happy you spoke for us. You don’t have to be afraid. We saved you just now, didn’t you see? All we want––
She lowers her arm and looks away. Vera allows herself two shaky breaths before she yanks open the door to the medic cabinet bolted to the wall. She pulls out a roll of bandage. Wraps it around her arm, covering the message.
Biting the end off, Vera thinks, Ok. Yes. Maybe the universe is talking to me. But… But so what? Rather than answer that question, Vera concludes it is much easier to be insane. So she takes one more breath and throws the roll of bandage back into the cabinet.
So what, Vera thinks.
Then, she goes back to work.
AJ is a writer who enjoys the challenge of writing speculative fiction with literary elements. He is a current MFA in creative writing candidate at Drexel University and he lives in Philadelphia. His work has appeared in The Rabbit Hole VIII: AI and Other Weirdness and is forthcoming in Gaslamp Pulp.
