“Oh come on brother, don’t press any charges, ok?”

“Thalassia, this isn’t your place, why don’t you go back to cl“

“She is my sister, principal.”

The principal quickly closed his mouth.

“Yes, brother, yes?”

“Ugh, she’s your friend?”

“My only friend since I transferred in!”

“The heck? You transferred in like third grade, wouldn’t you have had an abundance of options other than that wreck of a life?”

SMACK.

“Ah, ok, ok! Now go back to class.”

“Really? You promised, ok?” Thalassia grinned.

“Yeah!”

Lev sighed.

“I’m not going to press any charges, Sir. No reprimand or detention too.”

“A-are you sure? What if word gets out to your parents-“

“My parents will hear nothing of it.”

“And your clothes? At least let me pay for-“

“$1099 for the shirt and $500 for the pants, Sir, you think you can pay for it?”

The poor principal closed his mouth again.

“Well then, I’ll take my leave.” Lev bowed and left.

***

“ Mira  Rivenmere. Come in.”

 Mira ’s heart missed a beat. If they called her parents, what should she do? She’d obviously prefer calling Casian than Lucian or Dilvei, but will Lucian and Dilvei found out?

“Ms, it’s not my fault! He started mocking me first-“

“It is your fault  Mira , since you started physical violence first. Now, sit.”

That’s… right. Mira pouted and sat down.

“I- I don’t think I caused any harm other than the clothes tho-“

“He didn’t press any charges, and didn’t want us to escalate further too.”

Wait, what?

 Mira  looked at the teacher blankly.

Well… that’s good…

“However, for the sake of the school and the principal’s personal concerns, we as, you to sign this contract, saying that you will never cause harm, nor offend, Lev again.”

“What?” Mira cried in protest, “But what if he started it? Like today! Yes, I was the one who shove first, but Lev had been nothing but a condescending jerk this whole day! He called me names too!”

The teacher sighed. She opened her glasses.

“I personally understand,  Mira . I know you since first grade, and you were never the type to cause troubles. This stays between you and me, but we can’t afford to displease, let alone offend, Lev’s family. They’re our biggest sponsor, and well… their family has real influence.”

Real influence? Are they in the government or something?

 Mira  stared at the paper absent mindedly.

“Or, we can always call your parents. Casian isn’t it-“

“No no! I’ll sign!”

***

 Mira  walked through the corridor with her lips flat. Yea right that asshole. Dead af asshole.

Family influence? Pfft, what could it be?

She sat inside the empty classroom. It’s her elective class – Dilvei ambitiously picked quantum mechanics for her – so the class is a mix of mostly senior high schoolers and a bit of junior.

 Mira  put her backpack down. When she meets him, when she meets him-

Students walked into the classroom and sat down. Lev walked in too, but the only sit empty was next to her. He sat down.

 Mira ’s blood boiled.

A short, stubby teacher walked in. He smiled.

“Good afternoon students!”

“Good afternoon professor!”

“How are you doing?”

“Good!”

“First day of school, huh?” The teacher chuckled. “I’m George – call me Mr. George or Sir George, whatever. Let’s see- why don’t we start with a question. I want to see how you think.

A single electron is fired toward a screen with two slits. The electron is not observed at the slits. After it hits the screen, we see a single dot. Which slit did the electron go through?”

Lev’s hand shot up.

“That’s easy. It went through one slit or the other. We just don’t know which. The dot on the screen tells us the electron arrived, but not which path it took. So the answer is: It went through slit A or slit B with 50% probability each.”

The class ooh’ed with amazement.  Mira , however, rose her hand.

“You’re easily wrong. In the double-slit experiment with no measurement at the slits, the electron doesn’t have a definite which-path reality. It exists in a superposition — both slits at once — until it hits the screen. The single dot is the measurement outcome, but the path before measurement isn’t just unknown. It’s undefined.”

“That’s philosophical. The math just says we don’t know. Superposition is just a way of calculating probabilities,” Lev grinned. How stupid.

 “No — that’s the hidden variable view, which has been largely ruled out by Bell’s theorem,” Mira snapped, “But we don’t even need Bell for this. If the electron really went through one slit or the other, you’d see a different pattern on the screen — a sum of two single-slit patterns. But we don’t. We see interference. You can’t explain that by saying ‘it went through one slit but we don’t know which.’”

“Correct!” Mr. George bellowed, clapping his hands, “This fine lady got it – this is the first trick, quantum vs classical!”

Lev’s face went red. Mira grinned. Hehe, this is fun.

And the rivalry continued. At least on Lev’s end. Every second, every question, his hands would shoot up, desperate to get a comeback.

 Mira , however, whose initial goal was to madden Lev, forgot about the whole ordeal and shoot out debates out of pure enjoyment. Yes, she always struggle with B’s, borderline C’s. But  Mira ’s a big nerd.

So this is quantum physics. It’s very fun!

“You want to measure the position of an electron as precisely as possible. You shine a photon at it. The shorter the photon’s wavelength, the better your position resolution. So why can’t you just use arbitrarily short wavelengths to get infinite precision?”

“Because shorter wavelength means higher photon energy. That energy will kick the electron and change its momentum. You can’t know both position and momentum exactly — Heisenberg uncertainty.”

“Misleading. You can’t get infinite precision because ‘position’ and ‘momentum’ are complementary properties — they don’t co-exist in a classical sense. The limit is in the wavefunction, not your equipment.”

“Nice, the lady got it again! What’s your name?”

“ Mira!”

“Nice Mira , you’re very critical!”

 Mira gleamed. Lev’s face crumpled even further.

“Schrödinger’s cat — famous paradox. A radioactive atom has a 50% chance to decay in one hour. If it decays, a hammer breaks a vial of poison and the cat dies. If not, the cat lives. After one hour, before you open the box, is the cat dead or alive?”

“Alive or dead — we just don’t know which. The atom either decayed or it didn’t.”

“That’s the ensemble interpretation answer. Any other takes?”

“Before measurement, the cat is in a superposition — both dead and alive simultaneously. Not ‘unknown.’ Actually both.”

“Bingo!”

“Last one for today. You have an unstable particle that will decay in one minute on average. If you measure whether it has decayed every microsecond, what happens?”

Lev this time rose his hand carefully. He hesitated.

“It decays faster because you keep disturbing it?”

“Opposite. Frequent measurement freezes the decay. It’s called the quantum Zeno effect. A watched quantum pot never boils. The trick? Classical intuition says observation might perturb the system randomly. But quantum mechanics says repeated measurement can prevent change — it projects the system back to its undecayed state each time. So ‘measurement disturbs’ isn’t always random — it can actively maintain the status quo.”

“Ding ding ding, correct!! Welcome to quantum mechanics! That closes our class for today, read chapters 1 and 2, and see you all Thursday!”

 Mira was over the moon. Maybe she can really get A’s this time! She walked cheerfully out the class, pass Lev.

“Hey, thanks for not pressing any charges! Good debate today, btw!”

Wtf??

Lev’s face was folded over folded, the darkest and stroke-nearest expression you could think of. Is this girl mocking him?

“Aww, are you guys friends already?”

“SHUT. UP. JAY.”

“Rude! I promised to introduced you to a friend!”

“You can tell that friend to go home.”

“She paid me, tho.”

Lev turned around, pissed. Why are the people in his life like this??

“How much?”

“Sponsor my dad’s events for next month, please please please? Oh and talk to him about the recent contract too, maybe he got some info.”

“Ok, you got it!”

“Yipee!” Jay grinned.

Casian was home when Mira returned. Newspapers were scattered on the ground.

“Hi da-”

“ Mira ! Lev goes to your school?”

“W-what?”

“Lev Vane. He enrolled today?”

“If we’re thinking of the same guy, y-yes, he just enrolled today, why, dad?”

Casian’s eyes widened.

“Why? He’s –“ he paused, “Nevermind, just keep a distance from him, ok?”

Before she could say anything, he gasped.

“Your wrist! What happened?”

“Oh, I fell down, hehe.”

Casian looked at his daughter doubtfully.

“Do you want me to stay at home more often? I’ve been thinking, I was always out working and rarely spend any time with-“

“No, no, I’m happy and proud to have such a hardworking dad!” Mira quickly waved her hands. If he found out about the child espionage, she’s cooked! “We can always chat like this, right?”

“Hmm, maybe…” Casian hesitated. But his thoughts were quickly interrupted by a call. He frowned.

“Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Yes!”

“Then eat dinner and get some rest, ok? Call me if you need anything.”

“Ok!”

 Mira  sighed in relief as she closed the door. She pursed her lips. Lev Vane… what was that about? Maybe it’s in the newspapers?

She carefully pulled them out her father’s desk and glared.

Lev Vane, heir of the Vane family, transferred school.

Her blood ran cold.

The Vane.

That Vane.

The largest enterprise in the Eastern faction, with claws deep in government, finance, tech, security, entertainment, and many more. They were known for several things, such as their huge government support, sponsorships, annual fashion runaways, luxury, but mostly two things:

A said underworld enterprise of guns for hires, consisting mostly of ranked entities, and

Lev Vane, the heir, who rose through the entity ranks from the age of 10, killed dozens, and is the strongest entity of his age.

The same Lev.