Shift Read Online Free Page B

laughed.
    “What?’ she said. “You have a problem with quantum physics?”
    “No, it’s just that you’re…”
    “What? A girl? Is that what you’re saying? You think a girl can’t know about quantum physics?”
    “No, of course not,” I stuttered. It was exactly what I’d been thinking. I coughed. “What about quantum physics?”
    “Originally no one knew what was going on with Shifters. They thought it was magic or whatever. But when they started unravelling the mysteries of quantum mechanics it all started to make sense. Schrödinger’s Cat. The Double Slit Experiment.”
    I laughed again. “Sounds like an all-girl punk band.”
    Aubrey gave me her look. I stopped laughing. “Yeah, Double Slit. Go on,” I said.
    “You know light acts as a wave and a particle?”
    I didn’t. “Sure,” I said, nodding.
    “In the Double Slit Experiment they fire a light particle at a sheet with two slits in it. You’d expect particles to just go straight through one of the slits, right? Like a bullet being fired at a wall through a hole. But instead of behaving like a good little particle, it acts like a wave and goes through both slits at the same time. It’s as if it goes left and right at exactly the same time. Unless,” she said, taking another sip. “And this is where it gets really weird, unless which slit the particle travels through is being observed – then it starts to behave normally again. That’s called the collapse of the wave function. It’s as if the particle is aware it’s being watched.”
    “How can something be in two places at once?” I said, lagging behind.
    “It isn’t in two places so much as it exists in a state of probability. A state of two potential realities. One reality where it goes through the left slit. One where it goes through the right.”
    “Hang on, are you talking parallel universes?” I’d watched my fair share of Star Trek.
    “No, there is only ever one universe. One reality.” She held up a long finger tipped in chipped blue nail polish, illustrating her point. “But there are infinite potential realities.” She spread her fingers wide, as if revealing the end of a magic trick. But the only thing she’d managed to make vanish was my grasp on what the hell was going on. If I’d ever had a grip in the first place. “What quantum physics proved is what Shifters have known for millennia. That we can change the way reality behaves just by observing it.”
    “My head hurts.”
    I’d always considered myself a pretty bright guy, especially when it came to science and stuff. But this was confusing the hell out of me. Which must have been clear to Aubrey.
    “OK,” she leant forward, trying a new approach. “The Pylon.”
    I nodded.
    “You say you remember climbing to the top?”
    “Yeah, and then the strut snapped,” I said.
    “Ah, that might explain it. So you were falling? And your mind was racing through all the choices you made, right?”
    “Exactly. I was wishing I hadn’t even bothered.”
    “Well, you got your wish. You undid your choice and that’s when the Shift happened.”
    “And I ended up lying on my arse having never made it over the fence?”
    “Precisely. You Shifted to another reality, making it the reality. And the previous reality–”
    “The one where I fell,” I interrupted.
    “Yes. That ceased to exist as soon as you made the Shift. It collapsed.”
    The sounds of laughter filled the silence between us. I didn’t know what was worse, the fact that it was starting to make some kind of sense or that I was now officially a freak.
    I reached for the drink and took a glug. It was hideous. “OK,” I said, coughing from the alcohol burning my throat. “Let’s say I believe you, and I’m not saying that I do, but let’s just say I did believe you that I had this power to move from one reality to another. So what?”
    “So what?” She was stunned.
    “Yes, I mean why would the government care what I get up to?”
    “Do you