Coin #2 - Quantum Coin (25 page)

Dr. Kim leaned forward with sudden interest. “Go on.”

Hugh pulled his glasses off and looked at her. “Let's imagine that the multiverse allows for only three outcomes in this case. Three universes. Heads, tails, and edge. It rules out the universe where the coin lands on its edge because it has such an infinitesimally low probability: once in perhaps a hundred million times it will land on its edge. That leaves us with essentially two viable branches: heads and tails.”

Hugh reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out an empty pack of cigarettes. He crumpled it and tossed it onto the table in disgust.

Dr. Kim took a silver cigarette case from a pants pocket and opened it to him.

“My brand,” he said in surprise.

“We keep a full inventory of the things you like,” Dr. Kim said.

“Indeed,” Hugh said.

“These cigarettes haven't been manufactured in this universe in nearly fifteen years, but that's no consequence when you can stock up in another universe.”

Hugh took a cigarette. “Thank you,” he said.

She flicked a silver Zippo and lit his cigarette, then lit one of her own.

“Why does everyone smoke?” Zoe muttered as the lab filled with cigarette smoke.

“It may not be what you're used to. There's one hundred percent less asbestos in the filter from the brand sold in 1954,” Dr. Kim said.

“It's just fine,” Hugh said. He suddenly seemed distracted.
“Filter
…
“

“Hugh?” Jena asked.

“Shhh!” Dr. Kim said. “He's working something out.”

Jena pressed her lips together.

Hugh's eyes had glazed and he'd frozen with his cigarette halfway to his mouth. He abruptly snapped out of it and focused on the filter on the cigarette curiously.

“As I was saying.” He went on, as if nothing had happened. “Though there may be a universe where the coin landed on its edge, that lone universe is eventually erased as if it had never been created.”

“Sounds like quantum Darwinism,” Jena said. “Universes with a higher probability of occurring survive, and the others just die off.”

Ephraim waved smoke away from his face and cleared his throat loudly. “Nathaniel, you told me once that some universes don't fully exist unless the coheron drive registers some record of them.”

Nathaniel nodded. “Ephraim and the first Everett believed that even half-formed—or I suppose half-erased—universes could still be accessed with the Charon device. And once visited, they and their branches would stick around indefinitely and continue branching.”

“But that makes it sound like the multiverse is…conscious?” Ephraim said. “Intelligent?”

“Let's not anthropomorphize,” Hugh said. “I admit that's difficult to accept, but at the heart of the matter, either the multiverse is somehow choosing these realities, or another conscious entity is manipulating them—which is an even more extreme assumption and not worth getting into. I believe, and any sane man would agree: it's all determined by pure statistics.
Science.
”

“It may as well be magic,” Ephraim said. “You're saying that some of those universes I visited wouldn't have existed if I hadn't chosen them?”

In one of the universes Ephraim had been to, his friend Nathan was a football jock and was dating Shelley Morales. That reality was so improbable it might have been impossible. At the time, Ephraim had thought it had happened because of a magical wish. Now Hugh was saying that, in a way, it had.

Hugh's mouth quirked. “The coheron drive grants them stability. The user becomes a ‘super observer,’ lending those realities substance. Permanence.” He shrugged. “Coherence.”

“Fairy dust,” Zoe muttered. “If you believe in something enough…”

He and Zoe had returned to all of the universes he'd visited when he switched his analogs back to where they belonged. He wondered if there was an expiration date. Were those universes still around now, all because of him and the coin? Their coordinates were stored in the controller—chance had been removed as a factor. With the coheron drive, they were as easy to find as looking up a town on a map and driving there.

What about all the universes that had branched off from them?

“Obviously we can't confirm that a universe doesn't exist if we don't go there,” Dr. Kim said. “Just as it's hard to prove a universe exists that shouldn't have, because the coheron drive observed it. That's what the Everetts have been trying to do here: Collect data on the possibility and probability of different kinds of universes and determine how the multiverse handles them. And whether and how we affect the results.”

“Kind of sounds like
we
were the experiment,” Zoe said.

“It's impossible to remove the scientist from the experiment,” Hugh said.

“I think this brings us to the disturbing phenomenon you witnessed at your prom,” Dr. Kim said.

“What phenomenon?” Hugh asked. He looked around the room.

“We have footage of the other realities merging with ours,” Jena said.

Hugh brought his fist down on the lab table. “Why didn't you mention this sooner?”

“You had enough to absorb here,” Jena said. “It seemed better to get you up to speed on the theory before we showed you how it was going wrong.”

“I need to know everything you do about what's going on, no matter how insignificant it might seem, if you expect me to be of any help.” He stabbed out his cigarette right there on the table.

“It just slipped my mind,” Jena said.

Hugh shook his head. “This is incredibly important,” he said.

“I agree,” Dr. Kim said. She stood and smoothed the back of her skirt. “I have the video in my office, if you'd like to screen it now.”

Hugh nodded vigorously. “Absolutely.”

Jena moved to join them. Dr. Kim held up a hand. “Carry on with your work here. Nathaniel, I don't want us to be disturbed.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” Nathaniel said glumly.

“I haven't found any information on the coheron drives yet, so I'd like you to concentrate your search there,” Hugh said. “We need to know how the mechanism works in as much detail as possible. And I'd like to review all the data collected on parallel universes so far.” He pointed to his monitor. “On my screen by the time I get back.”

“I'm on it,” Nathaniel said. He spun around to face his own screen and started typing. “You're starting to sound like Hugh Everett.”

“He is, isn't he?” Dr. Kim said.

“I'll take that as a compliment,” Hugh said. He followed Dr. Kim out of the lab.

“He sure
acts
like a puppy,” Zoe said.

Ephraim looked around the room. “Did anyone else find that a little creepy?”

Zoe whistled. “Hello, Mrs. Robinson.”

“What are you two trying to say?” Jena asked.

“Dr. Kim seems interested in taking a more hands-on approach to the situation,” Zoe said.

“Hugh can't stand her,” Jena said.

“Of course,
you
wouldn't see it,” Zoe said.

“What is that supposed to mean?” Jena said.

“This whole conversation was some kind of…foreplay,” Zoe said. “Nerdy foreplay.”

“Dr. Kim wants Hugh. Hugh's a sex-crazed pervert. And you're…jealous, Jena,” Ephraim said.

“Nonsense,” Jena said. “She wants you, Ephraim. Or maybe not you, but the one she used to know. Is it really only obvious to me?” She looked at Nathaniel. He put his hands up in surrender.

“Maybe she doesn't know who she wants,” Ephraim murmured.

“Or she wants it all,” Zoe said.

Nathaniel glanced furtively at the closed door and lowered his voice. “Actually, the Doc and Everett do have a history together.”

“What?” Ephraim, Zoe, and Jena said at once.

“She's, like, twice his age,” Jena said.

“Last time, their situations were reversed. Hugh Two was sixty-seven,” Nathaniel said.

“Ew. That's why she was so insistent on getting one her age this time,” Zoe said. “Though I guess she's decided to take the new model for a spin after all.”

Jena shuddered in disgust.

“It's just sex,” Nathaniel said. “Trust me, it doesn't mean much to him. You read his biographies.” He stared at his keyboard for a moment, head down. “I just don't want the Doc to get hurt. Again.”

“Regardless of Dr. Kim's motives, we needed a Hugh Everett,” Jena said. “So far, he's getting the job done. We should get back to work, too.”

They didn't see Hugh or Dr. Kim again for the rest of the night.

The next morning, Dr. Kim called for all hands on deck in the atrium. Ephraim, Zoe, and Jena gathered in front of the Large Coheron Drive, wondering what was going on.

“Maybe we're going on a mission,” Ephraim said. He threaded the coin through his fingers in his pocket hopefully.

“Without any warning?” Jena said. “I bet they're sending us home.” She twisted her fingers together and stared at the door to the LCD control room.

“You sound disappointed. I thought you wanted to go home,” Zoe said.

“I do. But…I felt like I had something to contribute, you know?”

“Oh, I
know
,” Zoe said.

“Are you implying something?” Jena asked.

“You've, uh, been spending a lot of time with Hugh,” Ephraim said.

“So?” she asked.

“Forget it,” Ephraim said.

He squinted at the LCD. The golden disc in the center was still horizontal, what he now associated with lockdown mode. It was ablaze with light, reflecting the morning sun from the skylight. Bands and speckles of sunlight danced on the drab walls of the courtyard as its second and third rings circled it steadily.

The middle ring wobbled, and there was an audible grinding sound each time the outer ring completed a circuit. Ephraim smelled the distinct odor of hot metal. How long could it labor like this?

The door at the main entrance opened, and Nathaniel came out, carrying a folded tripod over one shoulder with the camcorder slung over the other.

“Nathaniel!” Zoe called. “Do you know what's going on?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” he said.

“They didn't tell you what this is about?” Ephraim asked.

Nathaniel pushed out his lower lip. “I'm only an engineer, and today, a cameraman. Hugh's putting together some sort of demonstration. I'm sure it will be very impressive.”

Nathaniel assembled the tripod directly in front of Atlas, about twenty feet away from the base of the LCD. He started screwing the camcorder into the tripod mount.

“Why do we need that?” Zoe asked. “There are cameras all over this courtyard.”

“Dr. Kim ordered it.” Nathaniel shrugged.

He opened the flip screen of the camcorder and checked the framing of his shot, just as the door to the control room opened. Hugh stepped out. Jena headed to meet him but stopped short when Dr. Kim appeared just behind him.

Hugh sauntered toward them. Something glinted in his right hand.

“Is that your controller?” Zoe asked Nathaniel.

Nathaniel pressed his lips tight together and nodded once.

“Good morning!” Hugh said. His voice bounced around the atrium. Dr. Kim didn't acknowledge them at all, as though they weren't even there.

“All set here, Mr. Everett,” Nathaniel said. “You want me to start recording now?”

Hugh positioned himself between the camera and the LCD and flashed Nathaniel the thumbs-up.

Nathaniel tapped the camcorder's screen, and the red light on the front of the camera blinked on. Hugh was framed in the center of the tiny display. Atlas crouched over him, as if shielding him from an unseen danger above them. Dr. Kim stood just behind Hugh and to his right.

“Now then.” Hugh swept his right hand back dramatically behind him and smacked Dr. Kim in the chest. She yelped.

Jena and Zoe snickered.

“Sorry, dear,” Hugh said. Dr. Kim backed up a couple of feet.

Hugh cleared his throat. He gestured more carefully at the LCD behind him.

“The Large Coheron Drive is currently generating quantum interference patterns, dynamically adjusting to the superimposed wave functions of other universes. As long as the machine operates in this configuration, this universe will behave as a ‘node,’ a place of zero wave propagation. Essentially, we're preventing other universes from merging with this one by sending out equal and opposite quantum waves that cancel them out.”

He glanced back at Dr. Kim. “My compliments to Jena for conceiving this ingenious stopgap, and to Nathaniel for his superior engineering skills. I couldn't have done it better myself.”

Dr. Kim beamed.

“That's the first time any of the Everetts has shown any appreciation for me,” Nathaniel murmured. Jena shushed him.

Hugh turned to face the machine, raising his voice. “However, inspired as it may be, this cannot be a long-term solution to what is happening to the multiverse. The problem is still out there, affecting all the other universes, but for the moment we're being spared its influence. Eventually, the drive will cease to function, as man and machine must, or we will encounter a universe that we can't cancel out, and something will make it through. The odds say this will likely happen soon.”

He paced in front of the LCD with his arms clasped behind his back. Nathaniel hastily zoomed the camera out to keep him in frame.