Welcome to Schrodinger's Giant Floating Science Sphere

A popular interpretation of quantum mechanics is delivered through the paradox of Schrodinger’s Cat; the living or dead state of an unfortunate feline sealed in a box is considered to be a superposition of both states. The cat is simultaneously alive and dead until it is directly observed. The thought experiment was popular as a baseline for comparing the different interpretations of quantum mechanics and as a simple metaphor for pseudo-intellectuals to repeat so they could feel smart amongst their peers.
Neil always wondered what the Cat was thinking of the world outside.
The United States-Mexican border that bisected the cities of Brownsville and Matamoros was now nonexistent, an arbitrary relic of a dead age in the annals of human history. To the wanderer stumbling across the twin cities it would help to explain the different languages on the billboards and street signs when the buildings looked so similar. Both had squat stone or brick houses and places of business that were never more than two stories high give or take the random chapel or government building (all of which were smeared with grime and dirt from lack of maintenance), wide asphalt roads that cracked and greyed under the unrelenting sun (upon which no car had traveled for several years), and rugged vegetation that stubbornly marched (up, around, and through) the remains of 21st century civilization.
If the desolate border city was foreboding, then the humongous orb which hovered above it was absolutely alien. Exactly one half of a mile in diameter and reflectively shiny, the sphere was punctured by the slightly conical tube of a massive telescope and was belted by a hovering particle collider that was modified for power to compensate for its small size (one fifth the diameter of what was once the Large Hadron Collider). If anyone watched the sphere for any length of time they’d notice that it never opened or closed, that no one came or went. If anyone was inside they could be alive or dead or both.
But what was inside?
Within the orb Neil slaved away at his latest and what he was sure would be his greatest project; an even more efficient nuclear fusion reactor. Combining hydrogen isotopes was never easy, but Neil still thought his colleagues aimed too low. When he was addressed as Dr. Higgs, Astrophysicist, nuclear engineers thought he was speaking out of his ass when he said that deuterium-deuterium fusion was immediately possible. Now Dr. Neil Murray Higgs had several deuterium-deuterium fusion reactors powering his levitating laboratory-observatory hybrid. The reactor he was building now would be even more advanced.
The high ceilinged laboratory seemed more like a massive wind tunnel that the interior of an alien ship, and all of it was dominated by advanced machinery. Spectrometers sat aside tables cluttered with test tubes and beakers which were canopied by webs of cables hanging from the ceiling. Dr. Higgs himself was clad as always in his glowing helmet and old flight jacket. He hovered several meters above what passed for the floor in this place.
BAM BAM BAM!
A noise in the distance. The figure turned his head to follow the direction of the sound. The blue glow coming from the multiple visors of his helmet cast shadows against the technological landscape. For a heartbeat he waited for a repeat of the far off racket for what felt like the millionth time. Nothing. He thought. The brief noise was like the sound of his knuckles rapping against a plastic storm doorframe…
Back to work. With a wave of his hand the man lifted several supermassive solenoids into the air, telekinetically shaved off some excess titanium on the housing, and induced a voltage in each coil as he attached them to the reactor. Instead of generating the plasma himself he would be heating some of the raw material he had procured. If his research into gravitons bore any fruit then he could eventually incorporate that into a newer fusion reactor.
The scientist spent most of his days and nights in this fashion: research, experiment, build. Time and money were no longer objects to him, and his not-quite-human-anymore physiology did not require food or rest. Though, to be fair, that could just be starvation and exhaustion induced lunacy that made him think that.
Time to begin: Neil pulled the pool table sized control console to where he floated midair. The astrophysicist had to be careful around his machinery; without his helmet everything in a fifty yard radius would be awash in electromagnetic waves of flux and low level radiation. Several switches flipped in sequence released a stream of deuterium into the reactor which was immediately compressed and directed by waves of magnetic flux. The machine hummed with energy as the hydrogen isotopes were heated to several times the core temperature of the sun.
Eureka! Within two minutes the fusion reaction was self-sustaining and hydrogen was changing into helium atoms. With a satisfied smile Neil lowered himself and the console to the floor. The power output on the control interface read 120 megawatts. The most advanced fusion reactor humanity ever produced was now sitting in front of him. A dozen of these could power New York city during a summer heat wave and do it more efficiently than a hundred hydroelectric dams or wind farms. A few years ago, before The Virus ran rampant and changed the order of the world, a lot of people could have benefitted from such technology.
BAM BAM BAM!
“Who’s knocking?” He spoke, his voice rough and dry from disuse. The words were eaten up by the solitude of his laboratory, the equipment regarding his question with stoicism. There was no one here but him. The man exhaled exasperatedly, his breath hissing through his nose and through the reverse filters of his helmet. He needed to relax was what Neil told himself. He could still feel the echoes of the knocking in ricocheting off the foundations of his mind. He left behind the humming machinery and drifted towards the far side of his laboratory. As he approached in incredible solid looking wall peeled back like stage curtains in some grand theater and shut behind him as he passed through. There were no doors in this abode for Neil did not need them.
On the other side he was in his personal library, tastefully furnished with polished wooden shelves leaning against earthy red walls. An ornate looking fireplace that was never used was bordered by a semicircle of comfortable leather chairs and couches and dead potted plants. Neil tut-tutted the brittle looking leaves before collapsing their atomic structures to dust with an annoyed wave of his hand. Even the once brightly flowering cactus was on its last legs. Less nurturing than a desert. He thought sardonically. The astrophysicist plopped gracelessly into a chair, the leather creaking and groaning under his weight.
Bam bam bam!
 
The forever insistent knocking was drowned out slightly by the hiss of pressurized air from Neil’s helmet as he peeled it from his head. The air inside the library was slightly stale but it was heaven compared to the environment within that metal brain case. He set the mass of metal on the small end table aside a now unoccupied pot of soil, the dry color of the dirt making his helmet look heavier than it was.
BAM BAM BAM!
 
Ponderously he gazed around the room at the expansive collection of books. Was this what his life had come to? Isolation in a floating sphere with a hundred different science experiments and a room full of books he read only a handful of times?
They had decided that this was what was necessary. This was necessary.
Shakespeare and Hawking and Dickens and Einstein lined the shelves, impressive in their subject matter and the condition of the books themselves. However, it was a Pratchett novel that he pulled from across the room toward him. The Color of Magic. The book hovered and opened to the first page before him.
In a distant and secondhand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part…
He was asleep by the time Twoflower introduced himself to Rincewind.
End Part One