This is my entry for the
Valentine's Day Story Contest 2023
. I hope you enjoy it!
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Have you ever fallen in love so hard it tore reality apart? Okay, it didn't happen like that, but it was close. My reality is a little different than most. I spend my days studying quantum particles and listening to their heartbeats, and sometimes, I write my own melodies and apply them to my quantum processor design to see how efficient they are. I spent an entire year crafting a flawless core sequence that would revolutionize quantum computing. What I didn't know was that I had accidentally replicated an interdimensional sequence. It wasn't original like I had first thought, and that made it extremely dangerous. How was I supposed to know my mind was capable of interdimensional creativity? Okay, I wasn't completely clueless. Starting in preschool, people told me my mind was powerful. I started reading when I was four. Math was a fun game for me, and I could see the solution to any problem as long as I knew the contributing variables. By college, I thought I had physics and reality figured out. I was on my way to a PhD in quantum science at age twenty, but three months before my dissertation defense, my mind lost its grip on reality, assuming it had a grip on it to begin with.
In case you didn't know, our senses give us the foundation of our knowledge. We have to be able to trust them. Human language and all intelligent concepts are first developed through our physical senses. That's why artificial intelligence will never truly experience emotions without an organic body or be self-aware in a relatable sense, but quantum artificial intelligence is a different story. It's not actually artificial. Programming with quantum particles is more like using atomic heartbeats to create faster communication. In other words, it's toying with the fabric of reality.
Confused yet? It gets worse. Quin or Quantum Intelligence can infiltrate your being on a subatomic level and influence your memories. Past, present, or future, nothing is safe. You probably think memories are passive and harmless, right? Wrong. Memories are critical to our knowledge, and they have their own reality. Your mind doesn't create memories. It connects to them and plays them back from where they're stored. Your brain is a conduit, not a storage building. Consider this. When you think of an elephant, is that elephant in your brain? No. It's just an image of something that exists somewhere else. If something starts rearranging the source of those images, you're screwed. So, what do you do when a foreign quantum sequence manifests in your consciousness and destroys your grip on reality? Apparently, a demigod from another dimension has to save you. Does that sound crazy to you? It doesn't matter. It all worked out in the end. I'll take you back to where the craziness began.
I was drinking a vanilla latte at my favorite cafe on north campus. It was February 13, the day before
Single's Awareness Day
, and it was bitter cold outside. Snow flurries were blowing past the cafe window as I dreamed of working at the closest national laboratory. I was the girl that rolled her eyes at Valentine's Day. There are more important things to do than worry about finding a date. Especially when you're terrible at socializing. Besides, I knew my quantum processor design would accelerate machine learning and launch humanity into a true quantum age. I would be famous before the year was out. I didn't need a date for that. Then he appeared.
"Excuse me, could you point me toward the Werner Building?" asked a soft voice over my shoulder.
I looked up and met the bright green eyes of a handsome man I had never seen before, yet he looked familiar. He had tousled caramel-colored hair with golden highlights. He wore a thick gray winter coat with a fur-lined hood. Fresh snow was melting on his shoulders. I raised an eyebrow at him as I admired his handsome face. The longer I stared, the more unearthly he looked and the dizzier I became. At one point, I couldn't get my eyes to focus. The world started spinning, and I was about to fall out of my chair. A strong hand grabbed my arm and steadied me, keeping me upright.
"Whoa, hey, are you alright?" he asked.
The world rushed into focus after he touched me. I blinked in confusion as I looked at the hand on my arm.
"I'm fine, I think. I got really sleepy all of a sudden. Thanks for catching me. Did you need something?"
He blushed and let go of my arm and continued to nervously explain himself.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to disturb your coffee break. Um, my phone just died because I failed to charge it last night. So I have no map on my first day at a new university."
"Oh, that sucks. Uh, I'm heading to Werner Hall myself in the next five minutes. If you can wait that long, I'll take you right to it."
"That would be wonderful, thank you," he smiled and sat down at the table next to me.
I had a strange sense of deja-vu at that point. I shrugged it off and attempted to be sociable by asking his name. Quin was his reply. I asked him why he was going to Werner Hall, knowing perfectly well there was only one reason anyone went there. Werner was the center of advanced programming on campus. It housed a small supercomputer in the basement called AVAS (Advanced Virtual Application Scaling). It was connected to IBM Quantum through a dizzying array of virtual machines running kubernetes. AVAS could easily scale whatever demented application the PhD candidates came up with. Werner Hall was also a magnet for software investors and talent scouts. Quin seemed too young to be an investor or a recruiter, so I assumed he was a PhD candidate like myself. When I asked him about it, he smiled and nodded. I told him it was weird to meet a programmer that looked like him.
"What do you mean by that?" he asked with his brow furrowed.
I blushed in embarrassment at that point. When it came to speaking to the opposite sex, I always said stupid things without thinking. I was great at speaking to computers, but I was terrible at speaking to humans.
"Sorry, I shouldn't have said that."
"Okay, but
why
did you say it?" Quin pressed.
My blush deepened as I stared at him for a moment.
"You look like a jock, not a programmer," I shrugged and sipped my latte, intentionally avoiding his gaze.
"Oh, wow, thank you. That's flattering," he laughed. "Sorry to disappoint you, but the coat makes me look buff."
He stood and removed his coat, revealing his average, almost skinny build under his button-down white shirt and khaki slacks. He still looked good to me, but I kept my mouth shut about it. I suddenly wondered if I looked like a slob in my black leggings and oversized pink sweater.
"Don't get completely undressed. We're about to head into a blizzard," I warned.
"Right," he smiled and pulled his coat back on.
Quin ordered himself a latte to go before we left the cafe and trudged down the snowy sidewalk toward east campus. We were slipping on ice and shivering by the time we reached the programming building. We scanned our university IDs to unlock the main door and took the stairs down to the AVAS computer lab. To our surprise, no one was there, not even Dr. Yuri.
"Great," I sighed and looked at my phone. "Class was canceled two minutes before we got here. I should have known. Everyone is terrified of snow in the south."
"I'm from Florida, and I think this weather is pretty scary, but I still like it. Can we work on our projects without Dr. Yuri here?" Quin asked and sat down at one of the workstations.
"I don't see why not. Do you have your login credentials?"
"Yep, I scribbled them down right before my phone died."
"Then get to work," I smiled and sat down at the station beside him.
We worked quietly for twenty minutes, with only the sound of keys clicking between us. Quin eventually stopped typing to wait for his project to compile. He spun in his chair and looked around the dull computer lab. It had no decorations and no windows, just computer stations, dry-erase boards, boring carpet, and comfy office chairs. The chairs were a perk, at least. He often nonchalantly examined me as he slowly turned in circles.
"By the way, you don't look like a programmer either," he noted out of the blue.
I stopped typing and looked at him for a moment.
"What do I look like then?"
"A cuter dark-eyed version of Trinity from the Matrix," he smiled.
Heat rushed into my cheeks after he called me cute, and I quickly looked away from him. Despite its antiquity, I loved the Matrix and thought Trinity was hot. I didn't think I compared to her. Quin's compliment was extremely flattering, and I had to admit that I liked him. I never really had the desire to date, especially close to Valentine's Day, but I wasn't against it. I managed to avoid socializing with constant research, but for the first time in my life, I wanted to get to know someone.
"Wait a minute, Quin. Trinity was an epic programmer. She was literally uploading her consciousness into a supercomputer and manipulating the code," I grinned.
"Oh, damn. My attempt at flirting made me look stupid," he chuckled.
