Page 4 of Flickerstate

She holds up a hand. “Defineflickerstate.”

Jeez. She’ll have me definedefinitionnext. “Flickerstate is where the future comes from. The space between nothingness and the real. Possibility space.”

“If the future comes from flickerstate, where does flickerstate come from?”

I laugh nervously. “That’s like asking where existence comes from.”

“And?”

I’m guessing she doesn’t want a religious credo or philosophical speculation. Her oatmeal pantsuit screamsjust the facts, ma’am.“No one knows for sure. Anyone who claims to is talking a load of—um, nonsense.”

Mom’s forehead scrunches, but my near miss with cussing doesn’t bother Dr. Langmore. She smiles. “It’s good when students accept the limits of their knowledge. But back tonavigation.”

“Navigation is when you enter flickerstate and change the probabilities associated with the possible futures you see,” I rap out.“Like, if I draw a card from that deck, I can use navigation to change the probability of drawing the two of clubs from one in fifty-two to almost one in one.”

“Correct,” Dr. Langmore says. “Now show me.”

I walk to the table and pick up the cards. “I’ll draw the queens. In order. Clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades.”

“I’ll be waiting.” Dr. Langmore’s gaze unfocuses. That’s all an outside observer can see when a navigator enters flickerstate—a vagueness around the navigator’s eyes.

I feel for my navigation. It’s like trying to flex a muscle whose location in your body you can never quite remember.

Until you find it. There. Andflex.

Flickerstate rises around me.

Everyone manifestsassomething in flickerstate. These manifestations express a person’s possible futures, I guess. Like a visual personality test.

Me? I’m fire.

Flames sheathe me. When I look up, they separate into red and orange tongues, every tongue something I might do or be. Right now, fifty-two Norahs dance in fifty-two flames. Each Norah flips a card onto the table with afwip. When I find the Norah who draws the queen of clubs, I focus on her, perceive another fifty-one Norahs above her, and search for the one that draws the queen of diamonds.

The farther I peer into the future, the more energy it takes to ignore the Norahs I don’t want. There are thousands, no, millions of possibilities. And when I say millions, I’m not counting the flames where I never draw a card, where I drop the deck, vomit,seize…

I rein in my attention. When I’ve found the four-branch journey I need, I navigate it with a hot, internal wrenching. That section of my fire burns brighter, as if splashed with gasoline.

Once I’m back in the real world, a salty metal flavor coats my throat. I swipe my upper lip. My knuckles come away red.

Dr. Langmore looks unbothered. I hope she takes the nosebleed as a normal side effect, not evidence of a weak constitution. I spy tissues on the table, wipe my hand and nose, and drop the reddened wad in a nearby trash can.

There’s a bucket under the table too. In case of puke, I assume. Ew.

I shuffle, cut, shuffle. I draw a card.Fwip.Queen of clubs.

Queen of diamonds.

Queen of hearts.

Queen of spades.

I turn to Dr. Langmore with a triumphant grin.

“Four choice-points achieved.” Dr. Langmore sounds blasé, like what I managed was nothing special, though I’m the only student in my local Navigation Department who can navigate more than one choice-point at a time. “After simple navigation, students usually learn occlusion. Defineocclusion.”

“Occlusion is when a navigator in flickerstate hides possible futures,” I say.

“Why might a navigator do that?” Dr. Langmore asks.