Whoever Did It

5

"What happened?" asked Valanti when thirty minutes later I entered the Institute lobby.

He was sitting on the sofa, reading notes. His female companion was nowhere to be seen.

"What?" I asked, even though I knew what he meant.

He pointed to my face.

"Oh..." I touched my bruised cheek. "Glass door at the restaurant. I'm so absent minded. Sometimes..."

What a pathetic lie. They could check it. And they will. But I was too confused to think rationally now. Something was going on and I had no idea what it was. On my way back to the Institute I tried to reach Malik. But suddenly his contact information vanished from my messenger.

Did he block me? When he realized I had seen him through? What if he was innocent? Maybe he got offended after I stood him up?

My mind was swirling and it was not good. I needed to stay sharp.

"So... Any developments?" I asked Valanti, trying to remain calm.

"I cannot divulge that information." he replied, giving me a faint smile. "While the investigation is underway."

I nodded and looked at the glass wall over his head. Soon it will start getting dark. In December the evening begins a few minutes past 3 pm.

The sofa began to glow, its color changed from brown to amber. I like sitting here, staring at the horizon. The winter slant of light from Emily Dickinson's poem is here all year round, striking the melancholy string of one's soul.

"One thing I can tell you. We did run a simulation after all," said Valanti, standing up.

"You did?" I was so shocked by his words, all I was able to do was to echo them.

"Your colleague contacted us and offered some help. Of course, informally. But you know what they say... No risk, no champagne."

I froze. A lump formed in my throat.

"Hi there!" said a voice I knew.

I turned around. On the screen there was Lena Borkowski, a PhD candidate with whom I shared the room at the Institute. She also went to Shanghai, to attend the conference. But apparently the police contacted her and she agreed to help them.

"Hi..." I said. "What time is it in Shanghai?"

"Of course, this will be off the record." said Lena, ignoring my question. "But I was also curious what this new technology is going to tell us."

"It's too soon..." I tried to object, but she interrupted me.

"So they say. But why not give it a try? After all, who decides when history becomes archaeology?" she laughed.

She didn't like me, never did. And it was more than just a rivalry between two PhD candidates.

"So when will we have the results?" asked Valanti.

On the screen Lena looked at the tablet she was holding.

"In five..."

I knew just too well what our quantum computers were going to tell them.

"So let's go to the RR, shall we?" said Valanti and it sounded more like an order.

I was desperately trying to work out a scenario that would let me off the hook.

Should I tell them there was a malfunction? Surely Lena will laugh it off.

Why didn't I tell them all the truth right away?

Valanti and I took the elevator down. I was so scared I didn't even ask about the other officer. Maybe she was elsewhere, questioning other people who had gone to the conference. Or was she talking to a judge to secure my arrest warrant?

"So let's roll it..." said Valanti when we entered the Recreation Room.

My throat was dry. I was about to be exposed. My career was over.

The video link with Lena was patched through to one of the auxiliary screens.

"Computer, run the report." she said.

The moment of truth. I will have to pay for something I didn't do.

"Unable to determine the outcome." said the computer in a soft, male voice.

I sighed with relief, even though I knew it didn't buy me absolution, maybe only minutes, hours of freedom.

"Really?" Lena seemed surprised.

"What does it mean?" Valanti smacked his lips.

Lena was silent. Frowning, she was probably reading the report that was displayed on her tablet.

"I told you." I said. "There are still no Distinctive Markers that would allow us to know which simulation was the real one."

It was true in a way, but something was off. Skimming the report I realized, there was not a single simulation, in which the mural got stolen. The mighty computers at our disposal tried to reconstruct all the possible scenarios. But none of the simulations that made sense even featured the Futuroboros, a mural painted by Banksy. As if it never existed.

"It's weird..." said Lena. "I need to take a closer look at it, officer. It might be something with the algorithm..."

I quickly started analyzing the report myself. I focused on my timelines. It was easy to select them with the hashtag "Laquan". There was no Malik in any of them. As if my date last night did not happen at all.

What the hell was going on?

I was stunned and desperately wanted to dig into it, but I couldn't... Not with a police officer breathing down my neck.

Suddenly a shocking thought attacked me.

What if Banksy's mural was a Distinctive Marker? And it just couldn't be squeezed back into our reality? It wasn't stolen. It just... Couldn't be placed where it belonged.

That would mean... We are just a flawed simulation, one of the myriad of simulations that someone, somehow, many millennia from now, is running as a part of their quantum archaeology research.

I panicked. If it were the case, the quantum computer, or whatever it was that was "running us", would discard the simulation once it realized it could not accommodate the Futuroboros in it in any plausible way.

When the logic of the simulation starts falling apart, the computer just shuts it down in order to save resources, energy and time.

Everything just ends.

Abruptly.