Coin #2 - Quantum Coin

by E. C. Myers

  “Obviously. But I think you've recruited the wrong Hugh Everett to tell you how they exist.”

  “There's no right or wrong. You are Hugh Everett, with the same intelligence, the same potential.” The same flaws. Ephraim shrugged. “And you're all we've got.”

  “Sorry to say, that may not be enough.” Hugh sucked on his cigarette thoughtfully.

  “Maybe you'll change your mind once we see whatever's in that lab,” Ephraim said.

  “Well, then, for God's sake, man, let's get on with it.”

  “We're waiting for Nathaniel and Dr. Kim.”

  Hugh scowled.

  The main entrance opened, and Dr. Kim stepped out, with Nathaniel following a few steps behind. The group assembled in front of Everett's lab.

  Dr. Kim's attention focused on Ephraim and Hugh. She brushed her neat bangs away from her forehead, then looked annoyed and shoved her hands into the pockets of her white lab coat. Something was different about her.

  She was wearing makeup.

  “What's up, Doc?” Ephraim asked.

  Dr. Kim stared at him. “I suppose that was inevitable. Good morning, Ephraim. I'm glad you made it back.” She nodded at Jena and Zoe before turning to Hugh.

  “Welcome to the Ever—uh. Crossroads,” Dr. Kim said.

  “Thanks,” Hugh said.

  “You are not what I was expecting,” Dr. Kim said.

  “I know. But I promise to do my best.”

  “No one will ever accept you as this universe's Everett,” she said.

  “I think we're beyond that,” Nathaniel said.

  “He could be Everett's son,” Zoe said.

  “And who would his mother be?” Jena asked.

  “Never mind,” Dr. Kim said. “We do have bigger concerns.”

  “What…” Hugh swallowed. “What happened to the other version of me?”

  “This universe's Everett recruited his analog—his double from another universe—to continue his work after his death. And now you're his replacement,” Nathaniel said.

  “How delightfully morbid,” Hugh said.

  “Hugh, your first task is simple. I need you to open that door.” Dr. Kim pointed to the entrance to Everett's laboratory.

  “You didn't ask me here to be a glorified key,” Hugh said. “Nathaniel explained what you've been observing about the multiverse.”

  “We need the expertise of someone more experienced with quantum wave states,” she said. “Right now you're no more qualified than Ephraim here.”

  “Hey,” Ephraim said.

  “Hugh can do this,” Jena said. “I've seen the way he thinks. He's brilliant. Give him a chance.”

  “Thank you, Jena,” Hugh said. “And with all due respect, Dr. Kim, you won't need to find another replacement for me.”

  “Doc, I don't think that's even an option. There aren't any worlds with a version of him in 1977,” Nathaniel said. “Not anymore. And, uh, the number of universes recorded in our databases has diminished by half. I was up all night trying to figure out what happened, but I can't explain it. It's as if someone deleted them all. Until we know what's responsible, I've restricted access from the rest of the team.”

  “Who asked you to run that scan?” Dr. Kim asked.

  Nathaniel blinked in surprise. “I just thought—”

  “Just keep the machine running. That's all you're in charge of right now,” Dr. Kim said.

  “Mom, Dad, don't fight,” Zoe said.

  “Zoe,” Ephraim hissed. He shook his head.

  “I can learn very quickly,” Hugh said. “And a fresh perspective might provide the solution we need. I can assure you, Dr. Kim, I'm far more experienced than I appear.” He winked.

  Dr. Kim's face flushed. “Well,” she said. “Why don't we see what you make of your predecessors' notes, shall we?”

  “So we can keep him?” Jena asked.

  “I'm not a puppy,” Hugh said.

  Dr. Kim gestured to the door. Hugh approached it slowly. It didn't look like the others in the Institute. It was old-fashioned, with a simple brass doorknob and no hand scanner.

  “The biometric sensors are embedded in the knob. Just turn it to the right,” Nathaniel said.

  Hugh gripped the knob firmly and twisted. A latch clicked, and Hugh swung the door open. Lights flickered on, revealing a vast lab space. Papers littered the floors and tables, drawers were pulled out, file folders and storage boxes were piled haphazardly, lids off. Various computers switched themselves on, and green lines of numbers scrolled vertically down their glowing screens.

  “I'm not usually this disorganized.” Hugh stepped inside. Zoe wrinkled her nose and fanned his cigarette smoke away with her hands as she followed behind Hugh, but it didn't help because the room already smelled like stale smoke.

  “Hugh Two was very private. No one's been in here since he took over,” Nathaniel said as he entered.

  “Hugh Two,” Hugh said dryly. “That's charming.”

  “I guess that makes you Hugh Everett III the Third,” Zoe said.

  “Two insisted on the security feature that would incinerate everything inside if we attempted to force entry,” Nathaniel said. He tapped at a panel behind the door. “Which I'm disabling right now.”

  “It looks like someone was looking for something,” Ephraim said, drifting into the room.

  “Or didn't like what they found,” Zoe said.

  “It's like a tomb,” Hugh said.

  “Independent air supply,” Nathaniel said. “The walls are reinforced and it's stocked with a decade's worth of food and supplies under the floor panels. Mostly liquor and frozen prime rib. Dr.Everett was worried about nuclear attacks and designed this room to function as a fallout shelter.” He pointed to the yellow and black radiation sign posted above the door. “He hardly ever left this room while I knew him.”

  “What a terrible way to live,” Hugh said. “In constant fear. Didn't he take any comfort in knowing that there are other versions of him in parallel universes?”

  “He was more tickled by the idea of all the dead ones,” Nathaniel said.

  “So what are we looking for?” Jena said.

  Dr. Kim stood silently by the door, observing them.

  “Anything. Everything. I think we should start with notes on the LCD, the coin, and the controller. There have to be design specs, schematics, doodles. A user manual would be nice. The previous Doctors Everett kept that information close to their vests.”

  Nathaniel picked up a stack of looseleaf pages from the floor. “Any notes on the coherence of parallel universes, any signs he might have known that things were going wrong. Data sets, research, whatever.”

  “I've read all of his published papers,” Hugh said.

  “The first Doctor published at the beginning. But the more attention his work got, the more he withdrew. He had plenty of unpublished theories. Some weren't fully developed, some were plain wacky.” Nathaniel sat at a computer station and balanced the stack of papers on his knees. “Once he recruited Two, he only spoke to him, and eventually his colleagues all left to work at other institutes.

  “After Ephraim and I disappeared, apparently Two became even more of a recluse. Eventually, he only spoke to Jena—Dr. Kim, I mean. He shut himself up in this room and we never found out what he was even working on before he died.”

  “Maybe he was just playing computer solitaire,” Zoe said.

  Ephraim sat at another computer and jiggled the mouse. The numbers scrolling across the screen vanished. He laughed. He'd thought they were related to the parallel universes, running complicated calculations. But it was just a screensaver.

  Jena guided Hugh toward another computer station and sat him down in front of the keyboard. He looked at it doubtfully.

  “We didn't have machines like this in 1954,” Hugh said.

  “It's called a computer,” Ephraim said.

  “I know,” Hugh snapped. “But the ones I've seen are bigger than this room.”

  “These ar
e PCs,” Jena said. “Personal computers. Everyone has at least one computer of their own these days. We carry them in our pockets.”

  “On our wrists,” Nathaniel corrected her.

  Hugh paled.

  “Why is all the technology in this lab so outdated?” Zoe asked. “It's not even up to 2012 standards.”

  “Everett liked what he was used to,” Nathaniel said. “He insisted on running his own computers on a Unix operating system.”

  “Never heard of it,” Hugh said.

  Jena slid a keyboard in front of him. “It's just like a typewriter,” she said.

  “My mother types all my papers for me,” Hugh said.

  “I bet that impresses the ladies,” Jena said. “You're going to become a computer wizard one day, Hugh. Your software will save lives. You can do this.”

  “How do you know so much about me?” Hugh asked.

  “I read a lot,” she said.

  Hugh cracked his knuckles and tapped hesitantly at the keyboard. Jena bent over and quietly explained how to use the wireless optical mouse to navigate on the computer, causing Hugh to stare at her instead of the screen. Ephraim felt his shoulders stiffen. He took a step toward them.

  Zoe pulled Ephraim aside. “She can handle him,” she said. “Why don't we clean this place up? We can sort the papers into piles that look promising.”

  Ephraim glanced over at Nathaniel. He was already poking into file folders on the network; he was familiar with this operating system and had an idea of what to look for, so he wouldn't need their help on that.

  Ephraim grabbed a messy mound of pages with notes scribbled on them in pencil. “And here I thought we were moving toward a paperless society.”

  “Well, the man who worked in here was the product of a different time,” Zoe said.

  Hugh didn't seem to have any trouble embracing the future. In fact, he had one arm around it—Jena. She and Ephraim exchanged a look. She seemed embarrassed, but her eyes warned him not to interfere. She was still taking care of Hugh, in her own way. Ephraim didn't like it, but they needed the man's help.

  “I knew one day I would change our understanding of the universe forever,” Hugh was saying to Jena. “But I never thought my work would shape the world this much.”

  Where was the guy who'd confessed his doubts to Ephraim a short while ago?

  Zoe blew dust off a stack of books and reshelved them neatly on a bookcase beside the desk. “He sure is arrogant,” she said.

  “Arrogance has led to many great discoveries,” Nathaniel said.

  “It isn't arrogance if he's right,” Ephraim said. “He made all of this possible. He isn't wrong to feel important. I just don't know why she's encouraging him so much.”

  “She's starstruck,” Zoe said.

  He wondered what had captured her attention so much. Most of the things attributed to Everett in his biographies hadn't happened yet for this younger version of him. They were just possibilities, made into probabilities now that he knew where his theories could lead. Maybe they had changed the course of his own reality, and all of this would happen again there when they sent him back.

  But that didn't equate Hugh with the man who had developed quantum shifting. There were countless universes where his theories had been ignored, or his research led nowhere. Far more than where it was embraced so wholeheartedly, let alone accepted as real science. This Hugh was no more the man he could become than Jena or Zoe were Dr. Kim.

  “Jealous?” Zoe asked.

  “No. I trust her,” Ephraim said. “But maybe some things should remain in the past.”

  Zoe lowered her eyes and chewed on her upper lip thoughtfully.

  Three days later, Everett's office was clean and organized. Ephraim and Zoe had sorted all the loose papers into three stacks for Hugh to study: “junk,” “could be useful,” and “we have no idea what any of this means.” The last category was actually three towering stacks of its own.

  Thanks to Jena and Nathaniel's training, and his own natural ability, Hugh had become good enough with the computer to locate most of his predecessors' work. He claimed he'd already found enough to call a meeting to share his discoveries.

  “I'm all ears,” Dr. Kim said.

  Ephraim almost didn't recognize the doctor. She had ditched her trademark lab coat and changed into a flattering gray wraparound sweater with a deep neck and black slacks that were just the right amount of tight. Her usually unkempt hair was pinned up with a playful fringe of bangs that made her look ten years younger. When she walked past him, she left a strong perfume in her wake.

  Dr. Kim sat on a stool facing Hugh and crossed her legs at the ankles.

  Jena edged away from Hugh's seat and leaned against a table, eyes narrowed, staring at Dr. Kim.

  Hugh swiveled around in his chair and interlaced his fingers in his lap. “Here are the basics as I understand them, building on the work of my predecessors, who, incidentally, were complete geniuses.

  “At each moment of decision, there's the potential for more than one outcome. From an individual's perspective, when we make a choice, we experience just one of those possible outcomes. But on a quantum level, every outcome actually occurs, and each is observed by an analog in an alternate universe.”

  Dr. Kim nodded impatiently.

  Hugh reached into his pocket and pulled out a quarter. Ephraim's hand immediately went to his own pocket. He relaxed when he felt the coin there.

  Hugh held the ordinary quarter between thumb and index finger and showed it to all of them, like a stage magician about to demonstrate a trick.

  “Would you all agree that when I flip a fair coin, with an evenly distributed weight, there's a fifty-fifty chance of it landing on heads and the same odds of tails?” Hugh asked.

  “That's right,” Ephraim said. One of Jena's analogs had used this very thought experiment to explain multiple universes to him last year.

  “Not exactly,” Jena said. “The outcome is prejudiced by the person flipping the quarter. No human can flip it exactly the same way over and over again.”

  Hugh bobbed his hand in Jena's direction. “Very good. For simplicity's sake, let's say that from the perspective of a single observer, it has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails. Now consider: In a multiverse, this quantum coin has a one hundred percent chance of landing on heads. And a one hundred percent chance of landing on tails.”

  “Excellent,” Dr. Kim said.

  “I'm just getting warmed up, my dear,” he said.

  Dr. Kim actually blushed.

  Hugh flipped the coin and caught it. He held out his closed hand. “Call it. Is this coin heads or tails?” he asked. His eyes slid from Dr. Kim to Jena.

  “Yes,” Jena said slowly. “Right now, it's both. Until you open your hand and we observe which universe we're in. If we're in the one where it displays heads, our analogs in a parallel universe will see tails.”

  “A-plus,” Hugh said.

  “She's essentially correct,” Dr. Kim said. “But under our unique circumstances, this universe can't split to create any other outcome except the one we observe. That's true for any universe that contains a coheron drive, portable or otherwise.”

  Ephraim understood that this was one of the side effects of the technology; if a universe with a coheron drive could branch off like any other, then the technology would be duplicated as well. There would be countless other Ephraims and Nathans using it to visit other parallel universes. He didn't know if that was a limitation built into the device itself, or if the multiverse couldn't support the kind of exponential growth that would result from such a chaotic force in play.

  “Doesn't that create an imbalance?” Jena asked.

  “It's countering the natural way of things, that's for sure,” Zoe said. “And when does that ever work out well?”

  Hugh stood and paced in front of the room.

  “Again, for simplicity, let's say that restriction doesn't apply here. This is just any other universe. In point of
fact, upon flipping the coin, there are many possibilities beyond heads and tails. I might fail to catch the coin, causing it to roll away or even land on its edge. Perhaps it even falls into a crevice and can never be observed. Naturally, those outcomes have a much lower probability than the chance of it landing on either heads or tails. An almost negligible probability.”

  “Then why even bother considering them? Except as an academic exercise?” Zoe asked.

  “Because it's more than academic—if it's possible, it does happen. My esteemed predecessors hypothesized that the multiverse is deterministic: it self-selects the most likely quantum universes from all available possibilities, on what is called a preferred basis.”

  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.