[How to explain Robert? An impossible task. Who could ever understand? They're so unique, so brilliant, so far past anyone else in the world, in all worlds-- how could anyone understand them?
She's never tried to explain it before. She's never wanted to. But she will for Javert.]
. . . we were teenagers when we met. Seventeen.
[She says it slowly, but her mind whirls desperately, trying to figure out how she'll make him understand.]
It was an accident, really. We had no idea the other existed. We were . . . I told you I could make doorways in universes? This is how it began. With an atom. I was experimenting with an atom, trying to suspend it, and so was he. By fortune, or fate, or mere chance, we picked the same atom.
I woke up one morning to find my atom suspended, when I'd known for a fact I had left it in a different state. The oddness continued over the next few days: the atom would fall and be resuspended at odd intervals, on and off. It took Robert and I less than a week to realize what was happening: that the atom itself was caught between universes, and that he and I were both experimenting with the same methods. Rather like two people fiddling with two switches that are connected to the same light.
Well. Once we realized, we began to communicate. It was dreadfully slow, but we were fascinated by one another. Who wouldn't be? A person like and unlike you . . . you, if you'd made different choices. We were infinitely different thanks to our sex; we wanted to understand how that single chromosome of difference affected us.
We wanted to meet. And eventually, we found a way. But in the meantime . . . oh, it took years. Years of letters in Morse code, transmitted by a single atom, flashing on and off. But--
[Mm. This is a lecture full of science, and that won't help. Rosalind glances away for a few moments. The tips of her ears are red, because she really isn't used to talking about this, not at all, but it has to be said. He has to understand.]
1/2 im sorry its a novel
She's never tried to explain it before. She's never wanted to. But she will for Javert.]
. . . we were teenagers when we met. Seventeen.
[She says it slowly, but her mind whirls desperately, trying to figure out how she'll make him understand.]
It was an accident, really. We had no idea the other existed. We were . . . I told you I could make doorways in universes? This is how it began. With an atom. I was experimenting with an atom, trying to suspend it, and so was he. By fortune, or fate, or mere chance, we picked the same atom.
I woke up one morning to find my atom suspended, when I'd known for a fact I had left it in a different state. The oddness continued over the next few days: the atom would fall and be resuspended at odd intervals, on and off. It took Robert and I less than a week to realize what was happening: that the atom itself was caught between universes, and that he and I were both experimenting with the same methods. Rather like two people fiddling with two switches that are connected to the same light.
Well. Once we realized, we began to communicate. It was dreadfully slow, but we were fascinated by one another. Who wouldn't be? A person like and unlike you . . . you, if you'd made different choices. We were infinitely different thanks to our sex; we wanted to understand how that single chromosome of difference affected us.
We wanted to meet. And eventually, we found a way. But in the meantime . . . oh, it took years. Years of letters in Morse code, transmitted by a single atom, flashing on and off. But--
[Mm. This is a lecture full of science, and that won't help. Rosalind glances away for a few moments. The tips of her ears are red, because she really isn't used to talking about this, not at all, but it has to be said. He has to understand.]