In a media-conscious display of state authority, nine city blocks were cordoned off by Texas Rangers and Harris County officials. They stopped traffic and erected barriers for the arriving reporters and freelance bloggers.
There were blurry reflections in the rain, strobe lights oscillating in the night as radio traffic issued from portable receivers. Officers in bulletproof vests hid in the dark behind whatever cover was available. In the bushes bordering an abandoned condo construction site, a SWAT team raised a ladder against the building's back wall.
It felt like the eve of a war.
    Commissioner Otto Thompson of Houston MuniPol surveyed the scene from behind a brand-new flying car, a tarpaulin-covered Saab CloudCruiser in an otherwise deserted parking lot. Beyond my pay grade, he thought.
    Nothing like a joint operation. Thompson was nominally in charge, but the command center was located at nearby Johnson Space Center of all places. Something about missile defense secrets.
A lot of aggravation to search a warehouse built in 1958. Many broken windows, the rest caked with grime. He expected the place to be abandoned, but a source claimed this facility belonged to Quantron corporation.
    Radios beeped as the SWAT team started its assault. He got up and approached the command van, listening to distant grunts and shouts.
"We're inside. This place looks alien . . . Police! Down on the floor!"
Thompson tried to visualize the scene, but elements were missing.
    Behind a dirty window flashed a concussion grenade. There were muffled shouts.
    When the federal agent in charge relaxed, Thompson spoke in his invisible mike. "Red Team, report please."
    There was a pause. "All clear! The building is secure . . . holding ten prisoners. Requesting bomb squad on the second floor."
    "The truck tracks show they shipped out all the interesting stuff yesterday," a voice said behind Thompson. "somehow they knew you were coming. Got inside your head again. Spooky, isn't it?"
    Thompson turned around. Light from a video billboard reflected off the wet pavement in blue neon. The man behind him had his hands in his trench coat pockets.
    "Arnold? Is that you?" Thompson stepped closer. "What the hell are you doing here?"
    "Just chewing the scenery."
    Thompson looked at the middle-aged former agent. "Who told you?" he asked.
    "People still owe me favors."
    Two years ago, Arnold Way had quit the FBI's Houston field office after a much-maligned boat chase during which he had allegedly assassinated a Muslim terrorist sympathizer. Since then he'd started a lucrative career as a private investigator. Rumor had it he still worked for the present administration on his own terms.
    A deputy walked up. "Boss, you're wanted in the com van."
    Thompson turned to watch the emerging prisoners. One still wore a data helmet, a new model the officers didn't know how to remove. His neck showed pale blue veins. All illegal immigrants, the prisoners looked sullen. A ticket back to Moscow was nothing to look forward to. Some preferred suicide.
    "If one of these crackers goes biohazard, shoot to kill." Thompson said. During a routine arrest last month, a homeless man had deliberately vomited on two cops, transmitting a fast-acting strain of HIV-plus.
    Thompson walked across the lot and up the steps of the com van. Arnold followed him inside. On screen was the Texas Attorney General, an erratic TheoCon.
    "The situation is under control, sir," he said.
    "Not anymore," she responded. "Quantron has just released a communiqué. In twenty-four hours they will give the world a demonstration of their technology."
    "I'm sorry to hear that," Thompson said. This meant Quantron still had a major facility somewhere. "Everything is secure here."
    "That may change. I want all agents to leave the warehouse immediately. Do not touch any remaining devices. A team will arrive from Brooks Air Force Base to handle the investigation for Homeland Security."
    "Okay Sir." Thompson didn't like secrecy, but gave the order to evacuate.

    The present crisis had started over fifty years ago during the Cold War. Traditionally, science required openness, but during that time attempts had been made to classify fundamental research. Much of the work had been unconventional, like telepathy and clairvoyance studies, and yielded no results.
However, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory had eventually found hints of a "deep level" of mathematical laws that appeared to be responsible for traditional physics. All previously known principles, including relativity and even energy conservation, were "surface illusions". The truth turned out to be much stranger.
By the early 1990s they were looking for applications. This took much longer, and required tens of billions of secret appropriations, but the promise of wonder weapons was irresistible. Ultra-powerful "Q" munitions were first used in the Cuban War of 2016, though the outcome would have been the same without them.
Now the bill had come due.

    "Some of the smartest government scientists quit before the war and started Quantron," Arnold explained. "They had the times of their lives, but now the Pentagon wants them back."
    The classified search warrant had listed "aggravated IP infringement", a Class-5 felony under the NDMCA.
    Thompson talked to his ad hoc army on the network. Everyone had pulled back from the warehouse. The fluid-filled transparent cubes inside might be harmless, or they could destroy the universe for all he knew.
    He realized that for the last few seconds he'd been hearing a rising hum. The high tone took several seconds to identify: a flying car powering up.
    He jumped from the van. How the hell did Arnold do that?
    The Saab made a banking turn over the warehouse and rose into the night past the illuminated skyline.
    "Boss, a message."
    Arnold's voice filled the van. "Sorry for the hassle," he said, "but I needed this aircar. I'll give it back."
    Thompson guessed Arnold was going after the remaining Quantron facility.
    "An Army Commanche-2 is in pursuit," a National Guard liaison officer said as if he did this every day. "It has a 30 mm. cannon and eight Stinger missiles."
    The chopper droned past, filling the van with a low rumble.
    Thompson appeared to think it over. "Tempting," he said.

    The aircar was a streamlined oval in a segmented ring. When it switched to level flight, the ring's ducted fan rotated behind the passenger compartment. Two winglets emerged to provide additional lift.
Inside, Arnold used the car's illegal encrypted radio to call a contact inside Stringtech, Quantron's main rival. The voice he heard was electronically altered, without a clue to the owner's age, gender, or race (probably not black, he thought). It might be their CEO.
    "I offer the chance to eliminate your rivals," Arnold said.
    "We are ready for whatever it takes," the ambiguous voice accepted.
    Arnold hoped he wouldn't regret this. Stringtech possessed amazing technology that might detect Quantron's quantum sensors. Their "globes" needed to be shielded from outside interference, and this shielding made small holes in the Earth's magnetic field. The fact that Stringtech could detect these holes might return to haunt him.
The city lights receded below him in all directions like an artificial galaxy.

    A great green dome overlooked the gridlocked highway. Almost alone in the new FutureFood franchise, Arnold studied his Globoburger. The bun appeared to contain printed circuits, and the disk-shaped Tesla fries heated themselves.
    From his seat by the curving window, Arnold saw the San Diego Bustaplex rise over the almost empty parking lot. The Adscreens were off, and the mall appeared almost deserted. A few dozen RVs were stuck in the lot.
    Below him, the traffic attempting to leave town was stuck bumper-to-bumper. Cars piled with possessions were stalled in ten lanes, honking a continuous, improvised concerto punctuated by the rare gunshot. Gazing through his binoculars, he saw people abandoning their vehicles and weaving through on foot.
    He considered the implications. The sudden exodus suggested Quantron's technology really worked. Last night, they had announced to the world they possessed an extraordinary new weapon, and if the Feds didn't leave them alone, they would unleash a "quantum reassignment gun" that could basically turn people into rubber. Very shocking for the media consumers of a bored age.
    There was no rational explanation for the madness. Apparently Quantron's real invention was a tool that could manipulate the normal rules of probability, and they were using it to induce mass hysteria. Reports from larger cities in two dozen countries proved their power, as significant fractions of the populations thronged toward the exurbs in vast, disorderly evacuations. The mass psychosis was strongest near Quantron's secret headquarters. Many of the stay-behinds here expected to die.
    Arnold sipped his Plasmashake. Maybe it was just the power of rumors, a reaction to unpredictable ideas. He put down the shake. On the other side of the mall, a skyscraper towered majestically half a mile high, the fourth tallest building on Earth. A dark slab against the sky, it stood apart from the main downtown areas. He had an appointment to keep.
    A nervous trainee ambled over. "Listen, we're closed. We reversed your charges, lunch is on us. Please get out."

    They were the New Pythagoreans. Unlike the original Pythagoreans, they were all male, and led rich VR lives.
Steve Muscatel was the closest to being in charge, so he led the meeting. Gangly-looking with a thin neck, the same basic haircut since the 1980s, and a wool sweater to complete the classic nerd look, Steve adjusted his E-glasses as he watched the dozens of monitors on the walls.
Their precious Uncertainty Predictors were safe in the sub-basement. The vibration-dampened globes (like oversized light bulbs) hung in a helium-filled, temperature-controlled chamber, the pride and joy of Quantron's secret research program. The globes were all interconnected, forming a single coherent quantum state, their plasma perfectly indeterminate so long as the globes weren't disturbed.
Backwards causality worked in mysterious ways. Somehow, events always conspired so that the globes were left alone. They protected themselves, meaning Quantron was also safe. They couldn't lose.
    The mass hysteria which had emptied whole neighborhoods of San Diego showed this mysterious process at work.

    He took a Pad from his pocket to run some equations. Easy to get lost in the graphix. Quantum matrix theory, when applied to information systems larger than human brains, could lead to madness. Mathematical proofs became less meaningful when they got too large, and truth became elastic . . .
    Steve saw their reflections in the panorama window behind them. Everything they had worked for was threatened. In the early days, Quantron had analyzed the stock market using chaos theory. They had succeeded spectacularly, buying the top floors of this tower. The IPO could have made everyone in this room a billionaire. But their other research had seemed so much more alluring . . . or was it the power that had attracted them? Of course it was.
    The globes were not fully operational yet. Losing the Houston facility had been the biggest blow.
Steve believed the universe had been designed to allow intelligent minds to become permanently embedded in its laws and eternal structure. He still hoped to become the first mind so privileged.
    "We need a paradigm shift," Lesley Colfan suggested while twitching his suspenders. "Perhaps we can share the globes with the UN."
    "I won't give all this up," Bryan Lockey barked, waving at the luxury boardroom.
    They were exhausted by their long calculations. For the past week they had been "teasing" the globes, forcing them to defend themselves in small ways. Anyone who learned the globes' location would find themselves in all kinds of trouble.
Using the globes to influence world leaders was much harder. It could probably not be done directly: either the leaders or the globes would strike back.
    Across the room Kev Oram said "Take a look at this."
    A reflecting telescope stood beside the window, tilted upward. The Pacific view was spectacular from here. Kev pointed at the sky.
    Steve studied the eyescreen. Against the dark blue sky, a hair-thin stripe was barely visible. No contrails or apparent movement. A very wide flying wing.
    "A solar powered spyplane," Kev said. "They found us." Consternated glances as someone slammed a fist on the mahogany.
    A chime sounded, and a sexy voice spoke. "An intruder has been detected. Automatic countermeasures proceeding."
At that moment they felt the pressure change in their ears. It seemed slightly colder. A 3-D map rotated across the Hitachi holoscreen, centered on a blinking dot.
    On the screen, a black-clad figure rappelled down an air duct, carrying a large device.
    Arnold's flying car had approached at high speed on automatic, with the sun at his back. Barely clearing the tower, he'd used the car's ejection seat to decelerate gently onto the roof without even opening its parachute. All programmed in advance with scary competence by Stringtech. The stunt had not been much rougher than riding a rollercoaster.
Breaking the rooftop pressure seal had been harder. It would be a long way down.

    Steve thought the intruder's mask was suitably intimidating, as was the man's camouflaged body armor. Descending fast, he was already fifteen levels below them.
Then the man pointed a metal tube downward.
"What is that thing?" Lesley asked.
    "At that angle, he appears to be aiming directly at the globes."
    "Motion detectors are picking up many disturbances. His device is not emitting electromagnetic radiation. The building's framework would detect it."
Then they felt what could only be a small earthquake.
    "An improvised decoherence beam," Lesley said. "By pure luck the frequency slightly affects our globes. The government will own us forever unless we make him disappear."
    Kev pressed a thumbprint button on the wall, and grabbed a chlorine laser that looked rather like a fire extinguisher. The others took their own customized weapons, developed at high cost.
They ran to the private elevator, not quite bumping into each other. Unusually competent today, this must be what destiny felt like. In the hallway, the lights turned red.
    Steve slammed the doors-closed button, and the sleek crystal elevator sank down the multitrack central atrium along the building's spine.
    The piercing tone began without warning, rising to an impossible crescendo. The glass walls became opaque and cracked. The partners fell to the floor, pressing their hands against their ears. The elevator ground to a halt between floors.
Through the cracks, they saw Arnold's outline on a nearby balcony. He was aiming the strange device directly at them.
    Lesley typed to his partners through a splitting headache.
    "It was a trick," Kev texted back, trusting the Autocorrect. "He wants us exposed. He used ultrasonics to set off the motion detectors, not decoherence. The whole tower is a resonance cavity."
They were at the focus, feeling the sound in their bones.
    "Can we wait him out?" Steve queried. The noise had become more nauseating than painful.
    "Frequency shifting," Lesley replied. "No simple ratio between notes. We'll go mad before we go deaf."
    Steve removed his hands from his head and raised them, waving at Arnold through the smoky glass. The noise stopped.

    "Listen hard," Arnold's amplified voice thundered through the sonic laser. It was impossible to resist.

    Fifteen minutes later the people in the dark suits arrived, right after the partners had answered Arnold's strangely detailed technical questions.
Who did he really work for?
    As they were led away to their new lives as State property, Kev realized Arnold hadn't asked them to reveal the globes' location. No one else would ask either.
Some knowledge was just too dangerous to have.
Strange thoughts occurred to him then. The globes' chamber was almost two hundred meters deep, below the building's foundation. No one might ever look there. They might remain undisturbed for a millennium! He sensed sudden leverage, a wealth of bright opportunities.
You didn't have to be able to visit the globes, or even interact with them, to be able to use them. Merely the potential of threatening to expose them would be enough.
As he was led through the parking garage, he staggered to a halt, a look of terror on his face as he suffered a massive heart attack.

    That night, Arnold visited Steve in his holding cell in a government basement. Steve somehow understood they could speak freely.
    "Smart of you," he said. "You decided in advance not to disturb our globes in any way, so there would be no major probability shifts. It was the only way we could be defeated."
    Arnold shook his head. "Your magical spheres had nothing to do with it. Brute force carried the day." He cocked an imaginary trigger.
    Steve tried to penetrate Arnold's reality wall. "You really don't know," he said. "Nothing that happened was under your control."
    Arnold laughed. "The only reason I didn't ask about your secret location was to protect a favored client. I may yet have to destroy your spheres."
    "You can't," Steve said. "If you try, something will go wrong, and you will end up like Kev, Bryan, and Lesley."
    He sat up on the steel bench. "Let me save you some time and describe your next case. You're going to keep Stringtech away from our globes at all cost. They can't handle them anyway. I believe the only way to do that will be to destroy the company."
    Steve got up and pushed his face between the bars. "And you know what?" he went on. "You can't lose." He cackled obnoxiously and sat back down.
For the first time since his dismissal from the FBI, Arnold couldn't think of an ironic reply.
    "You want to make me an offer?" he finally asked.