He carefully handed each bird over to Lars, fearful that they had somehow been damaged in transit, but Lars did not even look at the birds before passing them on to Otik.
“Can I ask what these are for?” said Radar.
“They’re for the next bevegelse,” said Lars. “The next movement.”
“The next what?”
Lars look surprised. “Your father never told you?”
“Told me what?”
“About Kirkenesferda?”
“Kirkenesferda? What’s that?”
Otik clapped his hands. “You see? Kermin says nothing. I told you. So we say nothing.”
“My dear Otik,” said Lars. “It’s not possible—”
“Wait, what do you mean, movement?” said Radar. “What was that word you used? Bay vay ghoulsa?”
Lars looked at him sympathetically. “Bevegelse. It’s what we call our shows,” he said. “These birds you so kindly brought over represent years and years of work.”
“They are bitch to make one,” Otik agreed. “They are really bitch to make two thousand.”
“It’s true. Your father has done an exemplary job,” said Lars. “You see, about five years ago, Otik here finally figured out how to entangle particles.” He gestured toward a tube on Otik’s workbench that looked like a smaller replica of the pulse generator in Kermin’s workshop. “We place these entangled particles into a chip inside each of the bird’s heads. Once it’s in place, the birds will be forever linked.”
Radar blinked. “I’m not sure I follow.”
“The birds are puppets,” said Lars. “Entangled puppets.”
“They are entangled,” said Otik.
“Yes, you keep using that word, but I have no idea what it means,” said Radar.
“You know: entangled,” Otik said again.
“I actually don’t know. Like strings entangled?”
Lars sighed. “Of course. I apologize. We get so caught up in our little world.” He picked up one of the bird heads. “Entanglement is a quantum phenomenon. Two particles interact and become linked in perpetuity, even if the two particles are millions of light-years apart.”
“How?” said Radar.
“Yes, How? is the question. Einstein shared your skepticism. He called it ‘spukhafte Fernwirkung’—‘spooky action at a distance’—and when people proposed the existence of entanglement, he said it was impossible. But here’s the thing: entanglement does exist. Scientists have proven this to be true. They’ve managed to entangle particles in the lab, although they’re not very good at it. In fact, they’re quite clumsy,” said Lars. “But recently scientists have discovered that all kinds of quantum reactions actually happen in nature. . It’s how photosynthesis works, it’s how our smell works—”
“Our smell?” said Radar.
“Olfaction operates via quantum electron tunneling — we actually smell a molecule’s vibration and not the molecule itself. But what’s particularly interesting for our project is that we’ve discovered how birds navigate the magnetic field of the earth using a form of organic quantum entanglement inside their eyes.”
“Inside their retinae,” Otik chimed in.
“We’ve known for a long time that birds have this ability to sense the earth’s magnetism, but we haven’t known the mechanism for how they can sense this magnetism, particularly because the earth’s magnetic field is so weak. . You would need very precise equipment to measure it. Well, it turns out birds have a series of special cells in their eyes—”
“Retinae,” said Otik.
“In their retinae, in which photons — that is, light—will excite a pair of electrons into a state of entangled superimposition. These two entangled electrons then act like a very sensitive compass, and this is how the birds navigate the poles. They can actually see geomagnetism.” He paused. “So. This was the secret. Why reinvent the wheel when nature has provided the apparatus for you? We extracted the protein from the bird’s eye, modified it using a fiber-optic coupler, and then placed it into the microchip. In essence, Otik has managed to build a rudimentary organic quantum computer. The secret was to put a part of the bird into the machine. Quite elegant, yes? The bird in the machine. For our purposes, it’s really all we need. Our show relies on building a flock of puppets that all move in conversation, no matter where they are in the world. One is entangled with the next, who is also entangled with the next, who is entangled with the next and so on. It is a kind of collective consciousness. A bounded swarm, if you will.”
Radar glanced at the birds, lying inert on the table. “They can actually fly?” he said. “I mean, really fly?”
“They can. But flying’s really the least of our worries. A purely mechanical problem. People have been building flying machines for ages. Our dilemma is one of groupthink.”
“And you can control them?”
“Only initially. We control the first input, the spark—‘Tilt up 68, bearing 128, thrust 4.’ And then they’re set free and must discover their own path after that. The question will be if we can train them en masse to participate in the movement. But in the end, the birds will decide together.”
“So they control themselves.”
“There’s been much debate in Kirkenesferda over the years about what constitutes a puppet, whether we must be in constant control of the object for it to be called a puppet, whether a robot or an automaton is a puppet even if it moves under its own volition. Much has been written about this distinction — by my stepbrother and others. This is the kind of thing that keeps me up at night. We’re testing the boundaries of control. Of who controls what. About what control is. About whether control is even possible.”
Otik was slipping something small and fragile into one of the bird heads.
Lars shook his head. “Otik, let’s not do this right now.”
But Otik would not be deterred. He connected a set of wires and then snapped the head of the bird onto the body. He then repeated this preparation on a second bird. His hands were working quickly, massaging the necks of the creatures with an unexpected tenderness. Back at his workbench, he opened a laptop and began to peck away at the keys, muttering to himself.
“Otik, please,” said Lars. “Let’s leave it.”
Otik slapped a final button and raised his arms in triumph.
“Let’s dance, baby,” he said, turning to face the birds.
They waited, Radar holding his breath. Shostakovich played on in the background. Nothing happened. Radar glanced over at Otik, whose face had turned sour. They waited some more. The birds lay still on the table.
“Bem ti sto majki!” said Otik, deflating back into his seat. “I told you it was problem. I told you before: amplitude shackles are such bullshit.”
“And welcome to life at Xanadu,” said Lars. “We spend most of our time attempting to figure out how we just screwed up. It’s a game of outrunning our own failure.”
“Kirkenesferda,” said Radar, stumbling over the strange word. “Wait. Are these the same people who electrocuted me?”
Lars sighed. “First of all, I want you to know I had nothing to do with your electro-enveloping. I was only ten years old at the time, so I plead the ignorance of youth.”
