Coin #2 - Quantum Coin (14 page)

“I thought the future would be shinier,” Ephraim said from the passenger seat of Nathaniel's old Ford convertible.

The top was down, and the spring day was warm but not unpleasantly hot. They were driving down I-275 South in the year 2037 in order to get to Princeton, New Jersey, 1977. It was better to get there in this universe before shifting with the Charon device; if they did it the other way around, they'd have to get a car or find some other means of transportation from Summerside.

In at least one universe, Dr. Hugh Everett III had been a professor at Princeton University, where he had a lab dedicated to discovering proof of parallel universes. If all went well today, Ephraim and his friends would be the proof he'd been looking for.

“You expected flying cars or something?” Nathaniel snorted. “We still have paper books, you know. And television. Unfortunately, we also have reality TV.”

“I was promised flying cars and jetpacks,” Ephraim said.

“You got alternate universes. Don't be greedy,” Nathaniel said.

Ephraim glanced in the passenger-side mirror. Jena's nose was buried in an eReader she'd borrowed from Dr. Everett's private library in Greystone Manor. She hadn't said a thing since she'd gotten in the car.

Jena had sworn that she'd never give up paper books, but she'd been won over by the eReader's light weight, its inexhaustible power supply (like the controller, it drew power through the air from electromagnetic sources all around them), and the 3-D holographic display that simulated real pages—for the reader. To Ephraim, she seemed to be turning invisible pages, which looked kind of ridiculous.

The real selling point was that Everett had a wide selection of books acquired from hundreds of alternate realities.

Hoping to get her attention, Ephraim twisted around in his seat, pulling against his seat belt.

“What are you reading?” he called over the roar of the car engine.

“Everything!” she shouted.

“I meant, what are you reading now?” Ephraim asked.

“What?” Jena leaned forward.

“Hold on,” Nathaniel said. He pressed a button and the engine cut off.

Ephraim grabbed the dashboard and armrest in panic, but they continued at a steady eighty-eight miles an hour. Nathaniel had only cut off the sound of the engine. It was running on silent now. The only sound came from the wheels on the paved highway and the wind rushing by them.

“That's better,” Nathaniel said.

“What did you do?” Ephraim asked.

“The sound of the engine is just a recording. When I converted the car from gas to electric power, I added it. The law says you need to have it on while you're driving in residential areas so people know a car is coming.” He patted the dashboard affectionately. “Shiny enough for you?”

“This thing's electric?” Ephraim asked. “Sweet.”

That explained why the skies were a clear blue and the air smelled fresher than any Ephraim had ever breathed. It reminded him of the camping trip to Bear Mountain that his dad had taken him on just before he left.

“I'm curious too,” Nathaniel said. “What's so interesting on that screen, Jena?”

“The collected works of the collective Hugh Everetts.” She paused. “Or is it Hughs Everett? At the moment, one of his biographies. You've probably read it already.”

“I'm waiting for the movie,” Nathaniel said.

“It seems like his favorite topic aside from parallel universes was himself,” Jena said. “He has every book about him from multiple universes.” She shoved her windswept hair out of her eyes. “Not that I blame him. He was a fascinating man.”

“Let's hope he still is, somewhere,” Nathaniel said. “And that we can find him and bring him home.”

Nathaniel gunned the engine silently and swerved around a bullet-shaped BMW in front of them, which also drove quietly on the highway. Ephraim found it disturbing how all he heard now were tires on the pavement and the wind rushing past their heads.

Ephraim put his hand on the dashboard and felt the reassuring vibration of the motor. He wondered if that was faked too.

“Thanks for bringing me along for the ride,” Nathaniel said softly.

“You're the one who's driving,” Ephraim said.

“You know what I mean.”

“Who else would I ask?” Ephraim said.

Nathaniel smiled. “You would have made things easier on yourself if you'd picked the girls.”

“I don't think so.”

“Maybe not.” Nathaniel smiled.

“You have more experience at this kind of thing. And a car,” Ephraim added.

Nathaniel glanced at Jena in the rearview mirror. “Zoe was pretty pissed, huh?”

Ephraim nodded. “I know Dr. Kim is your friend and all, but I don't trust her. She's up to something.” He didn't see why Nathaniel was so loyal to her after she'd left him stranded in another universe for more than a decade.

“That's just the way she is,” Nathaniel said. “She finds it difficult to trust people too, but she has good intentions. I'm sure of it. Is that why you asked Zoe to stay?”

“She trusts the Doc even less than I do. She'll keep an eye on her, and she'll watch our backs.” They needed someone there who had their interests in mind if anything went wrong; if this universe's history was an indication, Dr. Kim wasn't that person.

Ephraim watched Jena in the mirror. “Besides, if I didn't bring my girlfriend with me, I'd really be in the doghouse,” he said.

Nathaniel laughed. “You're smarter about women than my Ephraim ever was.”

Jena suddenly leaned forward between the seats, her brow creased with concern.

“Jena, what are you doing?” Ephraim asked. “Put your seat belt back on!”

“Stop the car!” she said.

Nathaniel slowed the car. He half-turned toward Jena in his seat.

“What? What's wrong?” he asked.

“I just realized: We have the wrong coordinates,” she said.

“But we got them straight from the computer,” Nathaniel said. He turned his head back to the road, the wind whipping his hair back. It was starting to thin.

Jena's own hair fanned behind her. “Think about it. We started from the same coordinates the original Hugh used in this universe. He retrieved his analog from a 1977 running on a parallel track, right? And that was when? About twenty years ago, in subjective time?”

Nathaniel nodded thoughtfully. “Oh, shit,” he said.

“What am I missing?” Ephraim asked.

“It's been almost a year here since you and Zoe brought me back, right?” Nathaniel asked.

“Yeah. It'll be a year in August,” Ephraim said.

“Same in this universe. Even though it's twenty-five years ahead of yours, time doesn't move any faster or slower in either. Twenty-four hours here is the same as twenty-four hours there. It's even the same time and day of the week.

“So we're just on separate tracks,” Nathaniel continued. “Imagine: If shifting from one universe to another is like moving up or down to parallel layers, overlapping with one universe, then going to another timeline is like taking a jump to the left.”

“Or a step to the right,” Jena said wryly.

“It's all the same to the Charon device,” Nathaniel said. “It's like a friend of mine used to say: ‘Other times are just special cases of other universes.’”

“Shelley said the same thing,” Ephraim said. “I get it. So?”

“If we use very similar coordinates to Everett's, like we planned, then we'll arrive in 1997,” Jena said.

“Crap,” Ephraim said.

“Damn!” Nathaniel said. “I'm really rusty at this. I know how the device works, I should have thought of it right away. Good catch, Jena.”

“Yeah,” Ephraim said.

She smiled.

“Hugh Everett might be alive in 1997,” Ephraim said.

“Survey says…no,” Jena said. “The Everetts I've read about died pretty young.”

“How many have you read about?” Nathaniel asked.

She wiggled her eReader. “All of them. All the ones Everett had information on, anyway. He collated all their biographical information, as if he were trying to work out his own future from the data points. How's that for morbid?”

“That sounds like Dr. Everett,” Nathaniel said.

“So what do we do?” Ephraim asked. “Abort the mission?”

“Not after we've driven all this way.” Nathaniel looked at Ephraim. “I say we improvise. You think you can ‘wish’ us to a reality with a living Everett, Ephraim?”

“Didn't Everett and his team try that before? They went through dozens of realities before they found one of him.”

“But no one's better at handling the coin than you. Not even your analog, and he was the first. You're like the coin whisperer,” Nathaniel said.

“I don't know. Trying to influence the outcome with my thoughts is kind of imprecise. Almost random,” Ephraim said.

“
Almost
,” Nathaniel said.

Jena reached behind his seat and squeezed his arm. “You can do it, Eph.”

“If you think so…why not? I'll give it a try.”

“Good man. Our exit's coming up,” Nathaniel said. He maneuvered the car toward the right lane. “Better start thinking about your wish, E.”

“Yeah.” Ephraim slouched back in his seat, the joy of the car ride lost. He had been ready for an adventure, assuming all he had to provide was their transportation between universes. But now he had to manage navigation too. The weight of their impossible scheme pressed down on him.

Nathaniel drove through the streets of Princeton, New Jersey, until he found parking in a garage on Hulfish Street. Jena excitedly directed them on foot to the main entrance to Princeton University, a large wrought-iron gate on Nassau Street. When they crossed through a side gate onto the campus, Ephraim felt like they'd already traveled back in time.

“This place hasn't changed much in twenty-five years,” Jena said, panning Nathan's camcorder over the college walk.

“Old universities like this have a way of holding onto the past,” Nathaniel said. He kicked a loose cobblestone on the walkway. “How do you know it so well?”

“Jena's going to Princeton next fall,” Ephraim said. He had tried not to think about the difficulty of maintaining a long-distance relationship with her, since he was planning on going to the community college. But Summerside to Princeton wasn't as insurmountable as his universe to Zoe's.

And where had that thought come from?

“Congratulations,” Nathaniel said.

“Whoa. I've never seen
that
before,” Jena said. She aimed the camera at a building that didn't quite fit with the classic, red-brick architecture of the university. It was a tower of glass and steel, like the Everett Institute, only smaller, with more windows.

“That's the science center Hugh Everett donated to the university. It has his name on it, naturally. He often talked about coming back to be president of the university one day and whip it into shape.”

Nathaniel looked around and pointed out a nearby building. “Let's shift from over there to attract less attention,” he said. “That building's been around for nearly a century.”

Nathaniel pulled out the controller. It looked brand-new. He had replaced the casing with a sturdier black alloy, carefully cleaned all the circuit boards inside, and replaced the missing screws.

Ephraim palmed the coin. It was warm against his clammy skin.

Jena capped the camera and slung it on its strap over her shoulder. She pulled out a smartphone and spoke to it: “Dial Crossroads. Speaker on.”

The line rang, and a moment later someone picked up. “Hello?” Zoe answered.

“It's us, Z,” Nathaniel said. “We're just about ready here. Start the shutdown procedure, just like I showed you.”

“Aye aye, captain. No problems on your end?” she asked.

“There's been a slight change in plans,” Nathaniel said. “Jena pointed out that the coordinates we have are twenty-five years off.”

Zoe cursed. “Because it's a parallel timeline that's been progressing respective to our universes. I should have thought of that.”

“Me too,” he said.

“Yes, you should have.” Dr. Kim's voice broke in over the speaker.

“I'm an engineer, not a quantum mechanic,” Nathaniel said.

“We'll discuss this later. How are you going to correct for the temporal drift?”

“Ephraim's going to guide us to the correct universe. The old-fashioned way.”

Dr. Kim drew in a sharp breath. “Are you sure you can do this, Ephraim?” she asked. “There's very little room for error.”

Nathaniel rolled his eyes.

“I guess,” Ephraim said.

She sighed. “I suppose that's the best we can hope for. We're nearly ready here.” Dr. Kim's voice muffled. “Zoe, watch the calibration. The gyro is listing. Correct it! No, the other lever. The
other
other lever. Better.”

“What if the coin lands on tails?” Jena asked.

“What?” Dr. Kim asked.

Ephraim leaned toward the phone and raised his voice. “When I used the coin before, heads would take me to a ‘good’ reality, and tails would take me to a ‘bad’ one.”

“Are you serious?” Dr. Kim asked.

“I know that isn't really what's happening, but she's right. It still might influence my thoughts,” he said.

“I suggest you don't let that happen,” Dr. Kim said.

Nathaniel clapped a hand on Ephraim's shoulder. “Eph, this is science. The coin functions based on its relative position in space and the parameters you set for it. That's it. Because you had a negative context for a coin that lands on tails, the coin adjusted according to your expectations. You have to not only understand that intellectually, but you have to believe it.

“Remember: There are countless realities where the year is 1977, where Dr. Hugh Everett III is studying multiple worlds at Princeton University,” Nathaniel said. “We only need to find
one
of them.”

Dr. Kim's voice blared from the speaker. “This is very important. You have to focus on filtering down to that specific subset of all the realities in the multiverse, and the coin will choose the best one at random based on its orientation when it makes contact with your skin.”

“You can do it!” Zoe shouted from the phone.

Ephraim swallowed and nodded.

“We're ready here,” Zoe said. “I'm reviewing footage from the surveillance cameras around the atrium now. I don't see any phantoms.”