As the "Summon" button was pressed, the screen of the tablet in John's hand emitted a zzzt sound, like a short circuit.
This time, there were no howling winds, no thick fog, and certainly none of the suffocating, bloody aura of a Viking raider.
The air around them simply became... unstable.
The space in front of John began to glitch like an old television set, filled with massive patches of static snow and horizontal scan lines. Light refracted weirdly in this zone; one second you could see the metal wall, the next it was a blurry, pulsating mosaic.
A strange sensation of static electricity made John’s hair stand on end, and his skin prickled as if thousands of tiny needles were poking him.
"Cough... Verdammt (Damn it), why do these coordinates always drift? Which dimensional illiterate is mashing buttons this time?"
A grumpy voice, thick with a heavy German accent, crackled out from the static snow, accompanied by the sound of pages being furiously flipped.
Immediately after, the spatial fluctuation contracted violently.
Pop.
With a soft sound, like a soap bubble bursting, an old man appeared out of thin air beside the poison gas chamber. He wore an early 20th-century suit, gold-rimmed spectacles, and had hair that was as messy as Einstein’s. He looked every bit the professor.
Erwin Schr?dinger.
Titan of the physics world. One of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics.
But his entrance was anything but composed. His left hand was clutching a heavy notebook filled with complex formulas, while his right hand... his right hand was holding a very ordinary, very orange, and very frantic ginger tabby cat by the scruff of its neck.
The cat looked thoroughly unimpressed, its sharp claws hooked into Schr?dinger’s expensive suit sleeve, leaving several distinct white scratch marks.
The moment Schr?dinger landed, before he could even register the disgusting sewer environment, he tossed the cat onto the ground with a look of utter disdain.
"Go! Raus! Stop pestering me! Every time I get summoned, someone shoves a cat in my face! I am a physicist, not running a petting zoo! This is an absolute disgrace to academia!"
He pushed up his glasses, which had slid down his nose, wearing a look of impatience. He turned his head to look at John, who was standing there dumbfounded.
"Is it you?"
Schr?dinger looked John up and down, his eyes filled with the specific arrogance and fastidiousness of an academic authority.
"You don't look like a researcher. You dress like a hobo and you're holding a cracked tablet. Speak. What boring physics problem is it this time? If you're asking how to build an atomic bomb, I suggest you go out and turn right to find Oppenheimer; he's got free time and enjoys loud noises. If you're asking about time travel paradoxes, find Einstein; he's recently been researching some... wormhole nonsense."
At this moment, Holmes, who had been listening in via the tablet's communicator, suddenly interjected. His voice was lazy, accompanied by the sound of airflow from him blowing smoke rings:
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Oh, it appears our little mage has summoned a true heavyweight. Judging by that irritable tone, this must be the genius who 'put a cat in a box and won a Nobel Prize.' A pleasure. I am Holmes. Though I know little of physics, I must warn you—this professor's temper might be more dangerous than that canister of poison gas."
Schr?dinger heard the voice in the earpiece, and his frown deepened. "Who is speaking? A detective? Hmph, an empiricist relying on induction? Do you understand what a 'probability cloud' is? Do not insult my wave function with your primitive logic!"
John hurriedly interrupted the cross-over beef between the two titans. He pointed at the poison gas chamber, which was still counting down, his voice dry. "Not an atomic bomb, and not a paradox. Professor, it's... it's also a cat."
"WHAT?!"
Schr?dinger’s expression froze instantly, as if he had heard the most vicious curse imaginable.
He slammed his precious notebook onto the sewage-covered floor and began to roar at John, pointing a finger right at his nose. The sound echoed in the narrow pipes, making John’s eardrums ache.
"A CAT?! AGAIN?! Are you future generations mentally deficient? Huh? Is your brain filled with paste?!"
"I! Am Erwin Schr?dinger! Nobel Prize winner in Physics! A founder of Quantum Mechanics! I wrote the Schr?dinger equation! I explained the evolution of the wave function! I made massive contributions to statistical thermodynamics! I even researched General Relativity!"
"And the result? A hundred years pass, and you mortals only remember my CAT!"
He got angrier as he spoke, spinning in circles on the spot like an agitated lion, looking like he wanted to kick the pipe next to him.
"Cats, cats, cats! They are everywhere! Last time, some idiot summoned me to deliver kittens for his house cat! The time before that was to catch mice! And now, saving a cat!"
"My wave equation is ten thousand times more important than that damn cat! Do you understand science?! Do you understand dignity?! My thought experiment was satire to mock the absurdity of the Copenhagen interpretation! It wasn't meant for you people to turn into a meme! I hate cats! I loathe them!"
Spittle flew onto John’s face. The level of rage exceeded even Ragnar’s earlier outburst. Ragnar got mad over food; Schr?dinger was furious for his dignity as a scientist.
In the earpiece, Holmes let out a light chuckle. "Tut-tut. Looks like I hit the mark. This isn't just a physicist; he's a misunderstood victim. John, if you don't want to be incinerated by his 'Quantum Rage,' you'd better show him that box immediately. I suspect that complex lock might make him slightly... calmer."
John shrank back from the scolding, but he didn't dare argue. The countdown on the screen showed only 30 seconds left.
"Professor! I beg you!" John pointed at the red numbers on the screen, his voice cracking with emotion. "I know you hate cats, but this cat is truly about to die! It's a Quantum Lock! Only you can solve it! It's a life! And... and it's also a very challenging physics problem!"
Schr?dinger, having vented his spleen, finally calmed down a fraction. He picked up his notebook, dusted off the ash, and walked over to the poison gas chamber with a look of disgust.
"Quantum Lock?"
He adjusted his glasses. His originally angry eyes suddenly became sharp—the instinctive reaction of a scientist encountering an unsolved mystery.
He leaned close to the screen, looking at the blinking [Quantum Lock] text, and then at the complex electronic lock structure beside it.
"Interesting."
Schr?dinger’s voice dropped low, his tone taking on a professional appreciation.
"This isn't a simple cipher. It's a dynamic encryption algorithm based on the 'Uncertainty Principle.'"
He extended a finger. He didn't touch the box but gently traced lines in the air around it. As his finger moved, strings of glowing mathematical formulas—symbols John couldn't understand at all—began to float in the air.
Ψ(x,t)=...
"The person who designed this box is a genius. And a lunatic," Schr?dinger said as he calculated. "He utilized the superposition state of microscopic particles. Currently, the interior of this box exists in a chaotic state of simultaneously 'dead' and 'alive,' 'open' and 'closed.'"
"Isn't that just the live-action version of your thought experiment?" Holmes幽幽ly (wryly) added a dagger from the earpiece.
"Silence, detective!" Schr?dinger roared without looking back, though his tone had noticeably softened. "Although I detest that metaphor, I must admit... this problem... is worth firing up my neurons."
He glanced back at John, his gaze no longer one of pure disdain, but holding a sliver of scrutiny.
"Kid, you're in luck. In a world full of illiterates and cat slaves, you actually managed to find me a real physics problem."
[Message from Singularity]
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