The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria by Carlos Hernández Read Free Book Online

me. That’s some trick. Is this a movie set? Is this reality T.V.?”
    “Science is full of tricks,” I said. “This trick allows us to translate information of Chases from other universes and bring it here, into the ClassAgg. We call it superportation.”

    Some Chases joined the army but were never deployed. Some Chases were, but were never hit by the IED. Some were hit by the IED but made a full recovery. Some died in action. Some Chases never joined the army at all; they became poets and classical violinists and waiters and civil engineers and started businesses that failed and businesses that succeeded and were arrested for tax-evasion and became congressmen. Some Chases died when they were kids; some became the richest men in the world. Some married Karen, but most didn’t: they died virgins, or married other women, or were gay and moved to other states to marry men or stayed here and lived with men out of wedlock, or lived in universes where Pennsylvania allowed gay marriage at this point in the local history.
    But the most important thing I explained to Chase is that, out in the cosmos there were innumerable, luckier Chases who had perfectly functioning lower halves. I could sneak him into the ClassAgg a couple of Sundays a month and—using his love for Karen and Karen’slove for him—find other Chases. Then I could superport information from those other universes onto his own body.
    The upshot was, through an enormous expenditure of energy, and only while he remained in the ClassAgg, for a couple of hours every month I could give him mercurial legs. For as long as it lasted, Chase would be whole again.

    If you want to know what happiness is, give someone his legs back. Even if it’s temporary or incomplete. Even if it helps heal the marriage you wished every second of every day would fail, because you want Karen for yourself, even after everything that’s happened. Tell the love you feel for her to go fuck itself. Bring happiness back to a body the world has ravaged, and some of it will vicariously trickle down to you. You will rediscover what agency feels like. Agency, you will suddenly remember, feels good.
    If, on the other hand, you want to feel like a lovelorn teenager, drive into a cornfield and lie on the hood of your car next to someone who: 1. has already betrayed you once, but; 2. you want more than anyone else in the world, yet; 3. is utterly forbidden to you, and thus; 4. is even sexier because of it. Just lean back on the windshield with your hands pillowing your head and listen to the rustling stalks and look up at the stars. Try to be honorable. Try to be a good friend.
    “Thanks for dessert,” I said to Karen. She and Chase were constantly finding ways to thank me for sneaking him into the ClassAgg forthe past four months. That night’s thank-you had taken the form of a homemade four-berry pie. It sat on the back seat now, untouched, tepid.
    “It was the only excuse I could think of to see you tonight,” said Karen, her eyes locked on the moon. “I have to tell you something.”
    “You couldn’t text me?”
    “No.”
    “Okay. What?”
    She swallowed. “Chase wants a baby.”
    I thought this through for several seconds before I responded. Then: “He figures there are some universes where you are pregnant right now. He thinks I can superport that information to our universe, the same way I’ve been superporting legs.”
    She laughed joylessly. “Our very own immaculate conception.”
    I waited a few seconds to make sure what I said next I could say completely without affect. I said, “Is that what you want?”
    “First I want to know if you can do it.”
    The last thing I wanted to do in any universe, ever, was to help Chase and Karen have a baby together. Because that would be it. Karen would be gone forever.
    Only thing is, the scientist in me wouldn’t stand for it. I’d betrayed my professional ethics more than enough for the sake of my stupid, stupid heart. Being good at