Read Online Caine's Law by Matthew Stover - Free Book Online

related somehow to my being here.”
    “Yeah. But not in the way you think.”
    “So: granting it’s broken, how do we fix it?”
    “That’s what I meant.” A chuckle harsh and inhuman as the scrape of bricks. “Who said it can be fixed?”
    Duncan finds he has nothing to say.
    “We’re not here to fix anything. We’re here for me to ask a question, and you to answer it.”
    Duncan coughs the clench out of his throat. “All right.”
    “It’s a simple question. A simple answer.”
    “Isn’t it you who likes to say that when someone tells you a matter is simple, he’s trying to sell you something?”
    “Sure. I just usually put in
shit
and a
fuck
or two. The question’s simple. The situation isn’t.” He shifts his weight and draws breath to speak, only to sigh it out without words.
    And does so the second time he tries, and the third.
    “It’s all right, ah, Caine. I can see this is difficult for you. Take your time.”
    “It’s not difficult. It’s fucking terrifying. Look, you’re hip to Schrödinger’s cat, right?”
    “Quantum superposition, yes. I recall you referencing that thought-experiment during the climax of
For Love of Pallas
Ril—and incorrectly, in fact; Schrödinger’s quantum-mechanically threatened cat is alive and dead at the same time. In the context you meant it, a more appropriate metaphor would have come from chaos science, as you were adding energy to an unstable resting state in a chaotic system—”
    “Yeah, yeah, sure. My early education suffered a little from my only teacher being batshit insane twenty-three hours a day. Except when it was twenty-four. Fucking sue me.”
    Duncan lowers his head. “If words could only express how—”
    “Forget about it. It’s not like it was up to you. It’s not like it was you at all.”
    “I still don’t understand what you mean by that.”
    “Look, where we are—what we’re doing here … it’s more like the
real
Schrödinger’s fucking cat thing. You and me—and about fifteen billion other people—we’re alive and we’re dead. We’re plucking harps in Heaven and getting ass-raped with red-hot razors in Hell. At the same time. Right now, right here, you and I, we’re inside the box. We kind of
are
the box. So as long as nobody opens us, all consequences are only potential.”
    “But opening it—us—makes everything real.”
    “Yeah.”
    “What kind of consequences are we talking about?”
    “Dunno.” He frowns. “We can’t know. That’s kind of the point.”
    “Because we’re the box. Your question and my answer—that’s what opens us?”
    “Pretty much.” He shrugs irritably. “It’s just a fucking metaphor.”
    “A metaphor.” Duncan looks down into the fire. His frown is identical to Caine’s. “None of the rules of this place preclude me taking time to think it over, do they?”
    “No. And don’t worry about what you say. This isn’t one of your goddamn culture hero sagas. There’s no trick. No trap. I just want to know.”
    “Uncommonly forthright.”
    “There’s no advantage in deception.”
    “Interesting.”
    “Imagine for a second that you could take back the worst thing you’ve ever done.”
    Duncan’s heart curdles, and his response is only an empty echo.
    “The worst thing I’ve ever done …”
    “Yeah. What if you could? Make it unhappen. Vanish it into the time-stream of shit nobody ever did.”
    Duncan jerks upright. “Do you mean it?”
    Across the campfire, all Duncan sees in Caine’s eyes is flame.
    “I am serious as a knife in the nuts. This isn’t a place for jokes. Or for lies.”
    “Worst on what measure? Worse in what terms? Do you mean sin? Evil? Regret? Harm to others? Harm to myself?”
    “It’s not that complicated.
Worst
is just a figure of speech. Pick something you wish you hadn’t done, or one thing you wish you had. You don’t even have to tell me what it is. One choice you wish you could reverse. If you could, would you?”
    “At