ACT I
CHAPTER ONE
Ashes of the Mind
6 Years Before
Hartman’s house just didn’t fit in. Across the street, sleek glass condos glinted like something pulled straight from an architect’s fever dream. Next door, a perfect Victorian perched as if posing for a postcard. But Hartman’s place? A rambling old Victorian painted in a blue that might’ve had a snooty designer name like “Moonlit Lake.” All that fancy trim, the filigreed eaves, the steep roof—classic San Francisco charm on the outside. Yet step inside and it was practically a tech lab meets minimalist art gallery. It felt like two worlds had crashed into each other and decided to share a mailing address.
He’d chosen this place years ago with Eveline. They’d been younger, full of spark, laughing at the idea of blending old and new. “Why pick a lane?” Eveline had said once, brushing dust from the carved banister as if talking to an old friend. “If we can have it all, let’s just have it.” Hartman had agreed, enchanted by her vision. Now, with Eveline gone, the house felt like a memory that refused to settle into the past. Instead, it hovered in the present, reminding him daily of how different life used to be.
The house crouched on a typical San Francisco hillside, offering a killer view—on clear days, anyway. The bay shimmered out there, and you could see the Golden Gate’s burnt-orange arms stretched wide. Beyond, green hills rolled lazily away, as if inviting you to daydream. But this morning, fog had rolled in thick, muffling the world. It pressed against the windows, turning the skyline into a ghost of itself. Sunlight filtered through in a vague, diffused glow that made everything feel a bit surreal. If you squinted, you might imagine the city had slipped into another dimension, one quieter and more secretive than the one everyone thought they knew.
Inside, Hartman kept the curtains drawn. He wasn’t in the mood for breathtaking views. He sat hunched in an armchair, sipping whiskey at 9 a.m. Sure, it wasn’t healthy—who was judging? The fireplace across the room was cold and empty, the logs untouched. Once upon a time, Eveline had loved lighting that fireplace on foggy mornings, claiming it gave the house a cozy heart. Now the heart felt stopped, silent, replaced by the steady clink of ice in a glass.
He found himself thinking of Eveline again—no surprise there. She was always lingering in his mind’s corners, sometimes gentle, sometimes cruel. They’d been together longer than most marriages survive. She’d brought laughter into these rooms, a particular kind that got him smiling even when he tried not to. Now her absence felt like a persistent ache. He couldn’t count how many times he’d caught himself turning to say something to her, only to remember there was no one listening. That ache settled into his bones, making him feel older than he was.
Memory worked in strange ways. He thought of an autumn evening: Eveline at her desk, reviewing data from a neurological study. She’d tilt her head slightly when concentrating, eyebrows knitting into a shape he once jokingly called her “thinking face.” The light would catch the subtle auburn in her hair, making her glow. He’d tried to describe that look a hundred times—never got it right. Words seemed inadequate, stumbling over each other when he tried to capture something so personal, so alive.
Two years ago, a crash of reality had shattered all that. The accident took Eveline away, and no amount of skill or prayer could reverse it. He’d replayed that day in his mind too many times. It stayed sharp, each detail like a shard of glass cutting him anew. Afterward came the blur of grief: suffocating, relentless. Rage flared up sometimes, too—at fate, at the universe, at any god that might be listening. He’d buried himself in work, fringe theories, conspiracy-laced research. It was a lot easier to curse the stars than to accept that Eveline was simply gone.
Just as his thoughts threatened to drag him under again, the doorbell rang. The grandfather clock read 9 a.m., right on time. That would be Kenneth. Kenneth had become something of a fixture these last few years, insisting on these weekly check-ins like he was determined not to lose Hartman to the dark. They’d met once at a conference when Kenneth was just another hungry writer, scribbling ideas in a notebook nobody cared about. Now Kenneth was a star in the sci-fi world, with fans and royalties and all the trimmings, but he never stopped visiting.
Kenneth blew into the foyer with a flourish. He wore a tweed jacket—always with the tweed—like he was auditioning for a period drama. The man couldn’t help it. He carried his leather notebook, probably stuffed with half-crazed plots and half-finished character arcs. Kenneth’s accent hinted at a Midwest upbringing, tempered by years in coastal cities. He had a gentle way of speaking, like he was forever trying not to spook anyone. “Alex,” he said softly, eyes scanning the dim foyer. “I know this has been… hard.” His tone was warm, the kind you’d use with a wounded animal. “Eveline wouldn’t have wanted this, you know, you shutting yourself off.”
Hartman grimaced. He turned his head away, not interested in hearing what Eveline would or wouldn’t have wanted. Kenneth sighed, and Hartman could practically feel the writer’s gaze drifting around the room, taking in the disarray. Chalkboards scribbled with complicated equations leaned against walls. Dust motes drifted where Eveline’s laughter used to. Kenneth adjusted his glasses, clearing his throat. If empathy wasn’t working, maybe imagination would.
“So, picture this,” Kenneth said, voice livening up. “A mobster with freaky powers—teleportation, phase-shifting. He’s always one step ahead of the cops. They try to corner him, but he’s slipping through walls, appearing behind them. It’s chaos.” Kenneth waved his arms as he spoke, carving scenes out of thin air. His voice rose and fell, changing accents as he portrayed various characters: the gruff detective, the nervous rookie, the mobster himself snarling threats. The whole performance was absurd, like a circus act in a haunted house.
But it did the trick. Hartman felt a reluctant smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Damn Kenneth and his energy. No matter how low Hartman sank, Kenneth’s enthusiasm had a way of pulling him back, at least a step or two.
They moved into the study, where old science awards glinted from shelves and photos of Hartman shaking hands with Nobel laureates reminded him of his past self—the brilliant physicist who saw patterns in chaos. Kenneth flipped open his notebook. “I’ve got a new idea,” he said, voice hushed like he was sharing a secret. “Astronauts find a portal to parallel dimensions, each with a twist on reality. I want to bring quantum computing into it somehow.”
Hartman lifted an eyebrow. “Quantum computing in a love story? You always surprise me.” He reached for some humor he didn’t quite feel. “Alright, think of a coin: classical computing says it’s heads or tails. Quantum computing lets it be both at the same time. Superposition.”
Kenneth scribbled like a man possessed. “Superposition,” he repeated. “And entanglement is the other one, right? Two particles connected, no matter how far apart.”
Hartman nodded, slipping into teacher mode. “Yeah, entanglement means what happens to one particle instantly affects the other, even if it’s light-years away. This could let quantum computers handle enormous amounts of data instantly. Problems that take classical machines years might be solved in seconds.”
Kenneth’s eyes widened, the gears turning in his head. “So, if I apply that to my story… maybe my characters are entangled, connected across dimensions.” He tapped his pen against his lips. “It’s not just a physics trick—it’s a metaphor for love, right?”
Hartman almost laughed. The idea of quantum love entanglement sounded corny, but Kenneth had a knack for making corny sing. “Sure, if anyone can make it work, it’s you.”
They talked for hours, the morning slipping by without either noticing. The dim study felt warmer somehow, as if Eveline’s ghost had drifted closer, listening quietly. Kenneth piled on more ideas: maybe the lovers can sense each other’s thoughts through quantum linkages. Maybe they solve riddles no one else can crack. Hartman offered technical tidbits, corrections, and a few gentle nudges when Kenneth got carried away.
Eventually, Kenneth’s voice quieted. He took in the slump of Hartman’s shoulders, the lines etched deep into his friend’s face. “Alex,” he said, soft again. “You can’t keep this bottled up. It’s not healthy.”
Hartman stared at his empty glass. He’d refilled it once, maybe twice, he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know how,” he admitted quietly. “Everywhere I look, I see her. She’s… she’s in the silence, you know?”
Kenneth reached out, placing a hand on Hartman’s arm, just for a second. “You don’t have to let go of Eveline,” he said. “Just learn to carry the weight differently. She’d hate seeing you like this.”
Hartman closed his eyes, a tear slipping free. “I know,” he whispered, voice cracking. “I just… need more time.”
Kenneth nodded, understanding. “Take all the time you need. The world’s still turning out there, waiting for you, whenever you’re ready.”
After Kenneth left, the silence returned. Hartman sat staring at the empty chair, replaying the conversation in his mind. “Quantum immortality,” he’d once called it—a wild idea that maybe death in one universe meant life in another. After Eveline’s death, he’d clung to that notion, tossing it around like a desperate prayer. It hadn’t fixed anything. His colleagues started dodging his calls. Grants vanished. The respect he once enjoyed dried up faster than he could blink. He became the “poor bastard who lost his mind,” the genius who’d sailed off the map.
Kenneth’s star rose in the meantime. The kid he’d met at that conference, who once begged him for an autograph, now churned out bestsellers. “Entangled,” the one about quantum-linked lovers, soared up lists. “The Chronos Paradox” explored time travel and human longing, another hit. Kenneth took Hartman’s old theories and spun them into human stories—ones that won awards and made readers cry. The irony stung, but Hartman couldn’t bring himself to resent Kenneth. The man had never stopped showing up, never stopped trying to pull Hartman back from the brink.
Yet, no matter how often Kenneth tried, he couldn’t break through the walls Hartman built. Hartman doubled down on fringe ideas, pushing theories that made respected academics cringe. He ranted about government cover-ups, alien technologies, quantum consciousness. Each new rant pushed people further away. Even Kenneth couldn’t hide his concern.
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They argued more than once. Kenneth would show up with a hopeful smile and leave with hunched shoulders, after hearing one too many conspiracies or half-baked physics metaphors twisted to fit Hartman’s grief. Eventually, their visits tapered off, replaced by occasional calls that always ended too soon. But Kenneth never cut him off completely. He still came by when the guilt and worry gnawed at him enough. He still tried, even though every attempt felt like tossing a line to a drowning man who refused to grab it.
Hartman remembered one such attempt—a sunset visit months ago. The sky had been ablaze in oranges and pinks, while inside the old Victorian, dust motes drifted in silence. Kenneth brought a photo: Eveline smiling beside Hartman at some awards gala. He wanted to remind Hartman of what they’d achieved together, back when the world seemed limitless. Hartman reacted with anger, lashing out, refusing to be comforted. He flung accusations, said cruel things he regretted immediately but wouldn’t apologize for. Kenneth left with tear-filled eyes, and Hartman stood at the window, shaking with fury and shame.
Now, sitting alone, Hartman thought about that moment. He hadn’t flipped the photo back up since he’d turned it face down. He couldn’t bear those eyes. Couldn’t bear remembering that once, people called him a visionary, and Eveline believed in him with unshakable faith.
The world outside continued its business. The fog would lift eventually, revealing a city still humming with life, people still chasing dreams. Hartman’s home remained caught between worlds—Victorian charm and tech minimalism, past and future, love and loss. He ran a hand through his hair, stared at chalkboards full of equations that led nowhere, and thought about what Kenneth said. “You don’t have to let her go,” he’d said. “Just learn to carry the weight differently.”
If only it were that simple. But maybe Kenneth was right. Maybe all this time Hartman had been trying to outrun grief, to solve it like a problem, when it wasn’t something to solve at all. Maybe it was something he had to live with, like a scar or a limp, something that would always remind him of what he’d lost but not necessarily destroy him.
His gaze drifted across the room. Stacks of old research papers, overdue library books, half-finished code on a paused terminal. He’d made a fortress of clutter, a rampart of complicated theories and impossible ideas. All to keep reality at bay. The whiskey bottle on the side table gleamed dully in the dim light. He’d been using it as an anesthetic, a tool to numb the day’s edges. But nothing really dulled the ache—it only postponed it.
A distant car horn filtered in, muffled by the thick walls and the drawn curtains. The city went on: people commuting, hustling, loving, losing. Hartman sat in the quiet, feeling time slip like sand through his fingers. He touched the place on the shelf where Eveline’s favorite vase once stood—he’d put it away, couldn’t stand seeing it empty. He wondered if he’d ever be ready to look at it again.
The day would stretch out, as days do, and eventually he’d have to eat something, maybe pick up that project he’d abandoned. The world didn’t stop for grief. Kenneth was right about that, too. Still, acknowledging this truth and actually facing it were worlds apart.
He exhaled a long, shaky breath. No new answers came. He was still stuck, still wounded, still not sure how to move forward. But maybe—just maybe—he could sit with that uncertainty a little longer, not run from it. Maybe he could let memories of Eveline wash over him without fighting back. Maybe, in time, it wouldn’t hurt quite as much.
***
Hartman slumped at his desk. The lamp’s glow felt unnatural, too bright for a room that seemed to prefer a duskier light. Dust mites drifted lazily in the beam, tiny specks floating in their own quiet cosmos. The radiator in the corner hissed softly, its steady warmth wrapping the room in a sleepy haze. Kenneth’s face lingered in his mind, a reminder of what he’d sacrificed. Years of friendship, snuffed out. He’d pushed too hard, demanded too much. Now this study felt like both a shield and a cell—safe enough, but stifling. The old wooden chair beneath him complained with every shift of his weight, as if judging his restlessness. He realized he’d been sitting there for hours, maybe more, shoulders aching.
He tried not to relive that last conversation with Kenneth, but it kept sneaking back. “Damn it, Hartman, you’re just not listening!” Kenneth had said, voice taut and low, his coastal accent curling the words into sharp little hooks. Kenneth had once been the kind of friend who could steady a ship in stormy seas, ready with a wisecrack or a gentle nudge. But that night, humor had drained from him completely. Every word now sounded heavier, more fragile. On his desk, academic journals piled up like grim sentries, each one slamming his recent work. He’d once been admired for seeing patterns no one else could see. People had said: “Hartman’s got an eye for the invisible.” Now he was a cautionary tale, the sort whispered behind closed doors, a name that turned friendly chats sour. He ran a hand through his unwashed hair and grimaced at the cold coffee in his mug.
But that ordinary evening—when he’d stumbled across an old quantum mechanics paper—something sparked. Hidden under coffee stains and a smudge of ink, he’d found a line about so-called “errors” in quantum computations. Everyone else treated these errors like roaches scurrying through pristine circuits, a mess to exterminate. But what if these seemingly erratic outputs were clues instead of pests? What if there was a way to let quantum uncertainty do what it did best—produce rough, probabilistic guesses—and then hand these guesses off to classical hardware for refinement? Maybe error correction wasn’t a burden; maybe it was the key to a whole new approach. This was his discovery, the quiet revelation he’d been circling for years: a hybrid quantum computing model where quantum systems generated a cloud of possible solutions, messy but insight-rich, and then classical processors sifted through that cloud, honing in on the right answer. It wasn’t about pure quantum supremacy or brute-force classical logic. It was about a partnership, each side playing to its strengths. That was the idea that sent him digging through old notes, nearly toppling a stack of papers as he muttered, “Focus,” under his breath.
His gaze landed on Eveline’s leather-bound notebook, that elegant volume with gold initials. He lifted it carefully, recalling the faint perfume that still lingered inside—bergamot and open windows. Eveline had once charted neural networks in here, graceful loops and lines that felt like choreography on a page. She’d understood beauty in complexity, where he’d only counted data points. He flipped through and found fragments of their life: dinner plans scrawled in the margins, ticket stubs flattened between pages, half-sketched circuit designs beside grocery lists. Among these scraps of everyday history, he found his own hurried note from years back—some quick scribble on error correction. If only he had seen it then. The hybrid model flickered in his mind: quantum guesses refined by classical sense-making. A way to harness the messiness of quantum states without demanding purity from a system that thrived on uncertainty. It was as if he’d discovered the right lens to bring a blurry landscape into focus.
Work swallowed him whole after that. He set a strict routine: dawn coffee, then endless calculations. He buried himself in notebooks, walls, and whiteboards, chasing the idea that quantum computing and human intuition weren’t so different. Both spat out messy hints—partial truths, educated guesses—that needed a stable frame of reference to become useful. Maybe the mad rush for pure quantum might had missed the point. Maybe the future lay in blending quantum’s scattered whispers with classical’s steady reasoning. Quantum would narrow the field, produce a short list of candidates, and classical steps would polish those results into something solid. The office felt cramped, chalk dust lingering in the air. He sneezed quietly and ran an ink-stained hand over his face. The equations piled up and circled back on themselves, forming something intricate and strangely beautiful.
He imagined Eveline peering over his shoulder. “You’re getting closer,” she would have said, her warm tone curling gently around each syllable. She’d probably tap the page and note some subtle structural symmetry he’d missed. Late at night, he pictured her nodding as he worked through each line of math, a ghost of approval in an empty room. Without her, his triumphs felt muted, but at least he could try to honor her by finishing this journey. He paused to stretch his neck and listened to the old floorboards groan beneath his pacing. The outside world existed as a distant hum—a siren fading down some distant street, the neighbor’s dog barking once, then going silent.
On Christmas morning, it all clicked. Not like thunder and lightning, but like a patient gardener finally seeing the first blossom on a tree he’d tended for years. The hybrid model—a quantum engine feeding raw insight into a classical filter—took shape clearly. He’d found a method to let quantum computations do what they did best: generate a realm of plausible answers. Then, classical algorithms could pluck the truest solution from that quantum fog. No need for perfect coherence across a gigantic, fragile set of qubits. No need to run colossal algorithms like Shor’s all the way through. Instead, let the quantum portion narrow the search space, hand off the problem, and let the classical side apply the final polish. He rang Eveline’s flea-market brass ship’s bell, listening to its single note echo through his quiet house. Then he raised a dusty glass of Scotch and whispered, “To the future,” a salute to an empty room. Maybe he wasn’t crazy after all.
Reality, of course, came knocking. His name didn’t have the shine it once did. Submitting this theory to the usual journals—no matter how elegant the math—invited laughter or silence. Self-publishing screamed desperation. And what if he was right? That would mean well-funded labs chasing pure quantum supremacy were off-track. Nobody liked hearing that. He remembered old conferences where strangers had flocked to him after talks: “Dr. Hartman, fantastic work!” Now he pictured them rolling their eyes and shaking their heads. Funding committees would hate a truth that cut against the grain, and rival theorists wouldn’t appreciate a newcomer’s paradigm shift, especially not from someone already labeled a cautionary tale.
So he paced and worried over how to present it. Too technical, and readers would drown in math; too simple, and they’d accuse him of hand-waving. Meanwhile, flashy research groups kept pumping out press releases full of “unprecedented scalability” and “revolutionary algorithms.” His careful, quiet approach might vanish under the roar of hype. He pressed his forehead against the window’s cold glass and watched headlights scythe through the darkness. No one looked up at his lighted window; no one knew what he’d found.
Eventually, exhaustion got the best of him. The mirror in the hallway reflected an older, wearier man than he remembered—grey at the temples, new lines around the eyes, as if knowledge had carved them there. He’d spent so long chasing truth, and it had cost him friends and pride. “I’m done, Hartman. I’m sorry,” Kenneth had said, voice tight. The click of that latch closing still echoed in his head. Yet he couldn’t stop now, not after pulling this delicate idea from the quantum haze. Eveline would have told him that truth, once glimpsed, deserved to be nurtured. Even if the world sneered at him, the math still stood on its own feet.
For now, he had his proof. Stacks of derivations, Eveline’s old notes, pages crammed with careful logic—they were a stable foundation, even if nobody believed him yet. Later, he could worry about journals, politics, and salvaging his reputation. The radiator hissed again, and he settled deeper into the chair, determined to keep working.
Yet, a gentle electronic hum snapped him from his thoughts: his tablet’s notification chime. He frowned slightly—targeted ads again? He navigated to the feed and found something that made his heart skip a beat. CerebriTech’s SynapseSync interface flickered into view, the promotional video so polished it almost felt sterile. A child with a prosthetic arm playing piano as flawlessly as a seasoned concert performer, an artist painting with her eye movements alone, each stroke translated into digital brushstrokes. This was neural integration brought to life, proof that human minds and machines could dance in harmony. He re-watched it three times, paying attention to tiny details. The underlying approach synced perfectly with his theories. He felt his chest tighten. Maybe this was it—tangible evidence that he wasn’t just playing with theoretical sand castles.
His coffee went cold while he studied the specs, their neat columns and numbers hinting at capabilities he’d only dreamed about. The sheer sophistication validated every hunch he’d had about blending quantum and classical computation with something more organic—something rooted in the complexity of the human brain. He could practically feel the equations rearranging in his head, adjusting to this new data point. It was too perfect, almost suspiciously so, but he didn’t have the luxury of cynicism right now.
He needed a spark of confidence from someone who believed in impossible ideas. Corporate routes were closed, and another dead end. That left only the fringes—people like Van Meer, Hayashi, Morozov. He shuddered at their reputations. Then there was Vivek, the elusive figure who read the market like a mystic reading tarot cards. Maybe Vivek would see the value. Maybe not.