Title: Strange Attractors 3/6
Author: K.V. Wylie
Disclaimer: Permission to use these characters relating to BtVS & AtS, has not been given. Joss, Twentieth Century Fox, UPN, WB & Mutant Enemy own TM and copyrighted them. This is purely for fun, and no copyright infringement is intended

They returned home late-morning to find twenty messages on the answering machine. All dead air. Their bedroom looked like a whirlwind had come down.

"Mr. Rayne got in?" Ira asked, stunned at the mess.

"No," Giles said. "Your incubus did this. These entities don't like being alone. They're rather like cats having tantrums."

"It did something a cat wouldn't do," Ira said uncomfortably.

Giles straightened the bed covers. "Some people enjoy sex with incubi."

"Would 'some people' have included you once?"

"Uh.....where's the pen?"

Ira handed it to him, then went downstairs so he wouldn't have to see what Giles would do. As he rewound the answering machine tape, his thoughts turned to his daughter. Was she capable of summoning incubi? Or worse? Did Mr. Rayne's words have some validity to them?

Smashing sounds overhead interrupted his thoughts. Giles came downstairs and dumped pieces of the gold pen into the trash.

"Contained, banished, destroyed," he said. "Time for a tea."

Ira followed him into the kitchen. "Could Mr. Rayne have left other spells in here?"

"I'm sure he did," Giles said as he spooned tea leaves into the pot.

"Would you look?"

"It wouldn't do any good, Ira. A spell doesn't 'live' until it begins. There's nothing to sense until then."

"I don't like waiting."

"I know."

"What about that mathematical equation he wrote?" Ira asked.

"I called Sheila. She told me it was a mixture of Quantum physics and Chaos theory."

"Chaos?"

"Ethan's especial joy."

"Did you write it down?"

Giles nodded. "On a paper by my laptop. Do you want a cup?"

Ira shook his head as he went to the dining room. He found the equation and the book Giles had taken from the university library. Giles looked in on him once, went up to take a nap, and came back a couple of hours later to find Ira in the same position.

"Did anything happen?" Giles asked cautiously.

"I read the book you borrowed from the library."

"I meant, did a spell trip?"

"No." Ira glanced around. "At least, none that I noticed. Do you know anything about Chaos theory, Rupert?"

"I've tried to avoid it."

Ira finally looked over at Giles. “You’re angry at him, so you’re rejecting him and everything about him."

"I'm not angry at him."

Ira gave him a stern look.

"I've let the past go, Ira," Giles said. "This last year, I've done something Ethan hasn't. I've forgiven myself. He's still carrying it around, but I'm not."

Ira considered Giles. "But, once, you must have believed in the same things he did.”

"I didn't believe in Chaos."

"The religion or the science?"

Giles rubbed his forehead. "Are they separate?"

Ira picked up his notes. "There are several interpretations of Chaos in physics, but most theories agree that Chaos does not mean the hell Milton put his devils into. Chaos is not disorder. Rather, it is a rich and intricate tapestry of cause and effect, perhaps too intricate for human understanding. Chaos does not transgress the laws of nature, but there are so many variables that it is conceivable a butterfly flapping its wings in China could cause a hurricane in Brazil. The butterfly causes a reaction, which causes a reaction, which causes a reaction, and so on. An event in one place can affect something in a remote place because everything is part of one tapestry. Einstein called it spooky action at a distance. Edwin Schrodinger--"

"The nerve ridden," Giles cut in.

"Was he?" Ira asked, taking Giles seriously. "Dr. Schrodinger tried to overcome Chaos. He attempted to create certainty. His most famous experiment, which he never actually carried out by the way, used a photon of light and a cat in a box. The intent of this experiment was to narrow down all possible outcomes to two." Ira raised an eyebrow. "A live cat...or a dead one."

"Excuse me?"

"A photon of light, a beaker of cyanide gas, a gun, a slivered mirror, and a cat. All in a box, and all based on there being only two single outcomes. The photon triggers the gun and the gun goes off. The bullet will pass through an open place in the mirror, or it won't. The beaker of cyanide gas will break open, or it won't."

"And the cat will live, or it won't," Giles read, peering at Ira's papers.

"The philosophy side of Chaos claims that Schrodinger's experiment does support them. Until you lift the lid of the box, all possibilities are still open. There could be no cat. Or two. Or a thousand. The atoms in the cyanide could break down. The gun might move until it is no longer facing the mirror. This is where Chaos comes in with the question, is it possible to find certainty in a perpetually uncertain universe? Is the attempt to create certainty a sin? Perhaps there is a divine order which will not allow us to comprehend it so easily, and every attempt to find certainty can only eventually drive us mad. On the surface, Schrodinger's cat seems simple, but it isn't."

"To begin with, the cat may refuse to get in the box," Giles muttered.

"Yes," Ira said. "The religious element of Chaos theory says that we are not allowed to create inevitability, though the more stubborn of us will keep trying to put the cat in the box."

Giles flipped through a couple of pages. "Ethan's equation also had to do with light waves. He was in our bedroom and wrote it while looking at us, rather, he wrote it while looking at you."

"What is the difference?"

"There are a lot of Jewish things in this house. Whatever door he came in, he would have passed a mezuzah. He knows I'm not Jewish, so it's you. The wave equation is about light, and the Judaic belief is that light is what God used to create the world. Ethan came for me, but was sidetracked." Giles tapped the paper on which the equation was written. "Ira, this message is for you. And with the ward around the house, you're figuratively the cat in the box."

"Waiting for the cyanide gas," Ira said slowly.

"Ethan is a follower of Chaos, but you are not," Giles said. "For you, the Schrodinger equation means live cat or..."

"Dead one," Ira finished. "But for Mr. Rayne there are more than two possibilities."

"He wants you to come out of the box before the gun goes off. He wants you to go to him."

"And...join with him?" Ira sighed. "Rupert, I am a realist and the reality is that I am a middle-aged man who spends his days with dusty fossils and bored students. I am nothing of interest to him."

Quietly, Giles said, "Ira, if Ethan hadn't sensed power in you, we wouldn't be in this position. He'd be after me alone."

"He couldn't honestly expect that I would give up what we have made together, our lives together, our home, a happiness I have found, to simply walk off with a stranger."

"No, he wouldn't expect that, Ira. He'd help the process along."

"Rupert, he is wrong. Even if there is something in me, it is not what he claims."

"You did push the incubus off you," Giles said.

"Anyone would have."

"Not anyone," Giles said. "These entities paralyze their victims. People who have been subject to them cannot move during the visit. You had no such paralysis. Ethan is a jaded sorcerer, but an astute one. If he thinks there is power in you, then it is power worth his while. I'll give you a worse thought. Willow's magic is formidable, and Ethan has never been interested in her." He stood and walked to a window. "Ethan would know I'd put up a ward. He could only be sure of having the one chance in here. I've no doubt there's one hell of a spell. Waiting."

"To force me out."

"Or to push you to respond with all the means within you. If you have the potential he thinks you do, well..." Giles turned around and studied Ira. "We're in for a wild ride."

In a soft voice, Ira asked, "How bad is this, Rupert? Tell me. Is Mr. Rayne a murderer?"

Giles took a moment. "He won't deliver the final blow, but he'll deliver every one leading up to it."

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