T.O.R.N.: There's Only Right Now

Chapter 22 The War Part 2

Emily Argueta was fourteen years old and alone. She knew that she was lost on the path she had chosen. Her perfect family would never understand the torment in which she experienced in loving him. He was her physics teacher at Babylon High School. He was brilliant, he had noticed her wit on the first day of school.

"Newtonian versus Quantum?" He asked the class with his piercing blue eyes behind his tortoiseshell glasses. Ezra Farraday's reputation as a thought-provoking hard-ass teacher had preceded him, but Emily was no slouch. She raised her hand but waited until their eyes met to begin speaking.

"A bike versus space travel. They both have their purpose, dependent upon what you are aiming to experience along your journey. I personally want to see the stars, but I also can appreciate the beauty of a flower on my way to school." She said without a hint of intimidation or doubt as she stared into his eyes.

He smirked more to himself, "A clever analogy, Miss..."

"Argueta." She said coolly. Their question and response dance began that day and would continue all year. Emily was way ahead of grade level and would only turn thirteen at the end of her freshman year where she held a 4.0 in all of her Advanced Placement classes. Despite himself and better judgment, Ezra Farraday was struck by her brilliance and beauty. Her olive reddish skin was radiant juxtapose her natural strawberry blonde hair. She was the perfect blend of her mixed Anglo and Latin heritage. By the end of the year, their classroom banter grew into an after class, in-depth discussion, and study.

They agreed to keep each other abreast of any news articles on physics over the summer. But their extracurricular affair began after their first meeting once the school year had concluded. By the time they had got to the door of the hotel room that night they were all over each other, kissing deeply and exploring the feel of each other's bodies which they had longed to touch for so many months. The next morning Emily woke up next to the man she hoped to spend the rest of her life with. The room service and half-empty glasses of wine adorned the room--evidence of the epic night they just had. Emily was in love and Ezra Farraday finally belonged to her. He was the only one who really understood her. He saw all of her being and not just the parts that suited him. She adoringly ran her fingers through his hair while he slept. She stared at him for a few moments, then got up to use the bathroom and freshen up. On her way there she nearly tripped over his pants. She picked them up and his wallet fell out and laid open on the floor. Emily bent down to pick it up and her breath caught in her chest as she stared down at a picture of Farraday with what appeared to be his family in his wallet. Farraday looked straight ahead while in his arms was a short-haired blonde woman who looked up at him with a baby in her arms of no more than three to four months of age. Emily pulled the picture out of the wallet and turned it over: 5.26.84, Home Sweet Home. Last Month. She then looked at the address listed on his license in the opposite flap. The room around her started to spin. A moment later Emily fainted.

* * *

"So what is a quantum computer exactly, I could sense some of its properties, but how does it work?" Asante asked Brad in the middle of their discussion about what she had experienced with Chelo. She had sought out Brad as she remembered his propensity to understand how things work from when they were first introduced.

"The easiest way to explain it is that standard computers process information in a series of zeros and ones. Well, instead of computing linearly, in a quantum computer the zeros and ones are in superposition of one another so the relationship is exponential. The filter or range it's encoded with selects the most probable answer with the least amount of error considering a quantum amount of possibility. Which is far more possibility than standard computers can even factor," Brad stated as a matter of fact.