Coin #2 - Quantum Coin (37 page)

“Are there any side effects?” Nathan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Any
other
side effects?”

“I wouldn't eat anything for a couple of hours, which is good because the food here's terrible, unless you like Meals, Ready-to-Eat. Oh, and you're probably sterile now,” Scott said.

“What?” Ephraim asked.

“You don't even want to have kids,” Scott said.

“I've changed my mind recently,” Ephraim said.

He'd never wanted to be responsible for disappointing a kid the way his parents had so often disappointed him. But meeting Doug had given him a different perspective.

Scott shook his head and walked away.

“No, seriously. Are we sterile?” Ephraim asked. He jogged to catch up with his older self.

“Hey. Is anyone going to clean this up?” Nathan almost slipped on the wet platform as he climbed down from it. He was pale and still a little shaky.

Scott glanced over his shoulder and considered the vomit dripping through the grating. He shrugged.

“No point,” he said.

Nathan walked backward, recording the giant gyroscope turning slowly over the platform. Ephraim realized the bubble was slowly descending, like the crystal ball in Times Square at New Year's. Rainbow patterns swirled over the surface of the globe, and sometimes he caught flickers of cities and faces.

“If we're underground, what's topside? Zombies? Dinosaurs?”

“Toxic levels of radiation and an atmosphere you wouldn't want to breathe for more than ten minutes. And billions of rotting corpses. For humanity's last trick: mass suicide.”

Nathan blanched.

“So people went underground to survive,” Ephraim said. “Where are they now?”

“They escaped to other universes,” Nathan said. “Right?”

“Some people did,” Scott said. “They went to younger universes like ours. Or they migrated to worlds where they could start all over again on unspoiled land. But plenty of people refused to give up their technology. They'd made it this far, and they wanted to keep moving forward, not go backward.

“As the universe ages, there are fewer choices for how things can go,” Scott continued. “The multiverse is like a balloon—it expands, and then it contracts. New universes replace old ones.” He spread his hands wide. “And all roads lead here.”

“You're saying there are no other universes in this timeline?” Nathan said.

“Quick study,” Scott said. “You're close. All the universes in this timeline are just like this one. So the minds of this universe decided to share their technology with younger worlds, in the hopes that this would lead to a better future for humanity. That's what they told me, anyway.”

“I'm guessing they had an ulterior motive,” Ephraim said.

They walked in silence for a short while, Ephraim impatient for Scott to continue with his story, Nathan busy recording their surroundings. The cavernous room they'd been in had narrowed to a corridor barely wide enough to accommodate the three of them walking side by side. Lights came on just ahead of them as they walked and switched off behind them, giving the impression that they were moving through an endless dark void.

“So if they didn't leave, where is everybody?” Nathan asked. His voice echoed ahead, then seemed to creep up on them from behind, reverberating against the walls.

Scott stopped abruptly. Ephraim and Nathan walked past him a few steps, then turned to look at him.

“All around you,” Scott said, wild-eyed.

Nathan coughed, covering his mouth with one arm. “We're breathing them?”

Scott laughed, the echo effect adding a maniacal quality to it. “The walls are a multiplexing storage matrix for a quantum computer the size of this entire arcology.”

“We're inside a computer?” Ephraim said.

“We're surrounded by it.
They're
inside the computer. They uploaded themselves as bits and bytes. Boots and bots.” Scott giggled. “Bats and butts.”

Ephraim looked at his other self, wondering if he needed to smack him. “Okay.” It sounded like Scott had been alone here for too long.

“So everyone transferred themselves into what, a simulation?” Nathan asked.

“You got me. They were gone when I arrived and there's no way to communicate with them once they've crossed over. I've tried. They thought they were saving themselves, but personally, I think they're dead.”

Scott walked on, brushing past Ephraim and Nathan.

“What about the rest of the world?” Ephraim asked.

“Maybe they have their own computers,” Scott said. “Some of them went to space stations before things got really bad.”

“What's the point of living without their bodies?” Nathan asked.

“So their minds would still be around when humanity reaches the next, and final, level of evolution: pure mental energy. Incorporeal consciousness. They won't need bodies then.”

Ephraim stuffed his hands in pockets. “He's kidding us,” he said.

Scott laughed. “Am I? It took me a while to piece it all together. Maybe I've gotten it wrong, but I don't think so. I've thought of almost nothing else for the past ten years. It was their master plan.”

Scott's face was drenched in sweat, and he was panting. The last thing they needed was for the guy to keel over from a heart attack before they found out what they were supposed to do here.

Scott grunted and moved ahead of them, walking more quickly now.

They finally emerged into a smaller space than the one they'd just left, which consisted of a video screen embedded into the wall and a large flat console.

“This is like the Batcave. You even had a giant penny back there, sort of,” Nathan said.

“More like the Fortress of Solitude,” Ephraim and Scott said at the same time. They stared at each other.

For a moment, Ephraim saw himself in that older man, but then the moment was lost and he was looking at a man with unsightly wet patches under the arms of his baggy gray jumpsuit. He had to stop himself from becoming…that. Scott had given up on everything.

No—he hadn't given up. He was still fighting to protect the people he loved. That realization allowed Ephraim to sympathize with his older self.

“What?” Scott asked.

Ephraim blinked. “When did you start going bald?” he asked.

Scott ran a hand through his thinning hair.

“Junior, we have bigger problems right now.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Scott tapped the onyx console with three fingers, and it lit up. It was a touchscreen with multicolored icons and a virtual keyboard. Scott pressed one of the panels, and two egg-shaped chairs rose out of the floor on either side of his cushy recliner.

“Have a seat,” Scott said.

“The future is just like I imagined it.” Nathan put a hand on the back of his chair reverently.

“Me too,” Scott said. “Everyone's dead or dying.”

Ephraim sat in his chair. It was as uncomfortable as it looked, and when he leaned back, he could only see Scott leaning against the console in front of him.

“How did you get here?” Ephraim asked. “Nathaniel had your coin.”

Scott smiled. “You should know by now that there are two sides to every story, just as there are two sides to every coin.” He held out a hand, and something flashed. He rolled a silver coin down his knuckles, then brought it back around and did it again. Light glinted off the shiny metal. Scott expertly flipped it to Ephraim.

Ephraim caught the coin and studied it. It was a blank silver disc, which should mean that it was drained of power, but it was warm and tingling. It felt alive.

“You had two coins?” Ephraim asked. “That's why there were two controllers!”

“Do you remember eighth-grade science class? When we used a magnet to turn an ordinary paper clip into a weaker magnet?”

Ephraim nodded.

“This works on a similar principle. That's a master token. If you place it in a controller along with a second disc of similar properties, you can make a functional duplicate of the original.”

“So this is kind of a template, and that state quarter was a copy of it?” Ephraim asked.

“That was my Dad's quarter. He gave it to me on the first day of high school. For luck. If you use an object from your own universe, it makes shifting easier since you both have the same quantum wavelength.”

“Naturally,” Nathan said. “Everyone knows that.”

Ephraim weighed the silver token in his hand. It was heavier than his coin, but it still felt very familiar and comfortable in his hand. Like it wanted to be there.

He shook his head. It wasn't a living thing.

“Why didn't you tell Everett that you could make more coins? Or Nathaniel?” Ephraim asked. Then the answer came to him.

He squeezed the disc, staring at his older self. “If they'd known they could make copies of the coin, for any other user, they wouldn't have needed you,” Ephraim said. “Is that right?”

Scott didn't respond.

“I'll take that as a yes.”

“Does it matter?” Scott's voice was pained.

“Tell me you didn't want to burden Nathaniel with your secret,” Ephraim said.

“That's true!” Scott said. “If I'd told him, he might have told the others.”

“That's not the same thing,” Nathan said. “That sounds more like you didn't trust him.”

Ephraim glanced at his friend uncomfortably. He'd shut Nathan out in the same way—he hadn't trusted him enough after seeing what his analogs were capable of. That was another thing he had in common with Scott, and it wasn't an encouraging resemblance.

Scott shook his head. He was retreating more and more into the mental world that had been his reality for ten years. All that time, alone here, surrounded by ghosts in the machine. Buried deep underground. It was a perverse coincidence that Dr. Kim had nicknamed the portable coheron drive the Charon device—for this other Ephraim Scott, the coin had paid his passage to a very real underworld.

“I didn't trust
Everett,”
Scott said. “He was out of control. He ignored everything I told him about this universe. He was only interested in taking credit for the invention and collecting more data. He made me program the coin so he and Jena could find another version of himself.” Scott laughed. “But I configured it so the trip would make him sick, every time. He couldn't go on using it.”

“Jeez,” Nathan breathed. “We're depending on this guy to save the multiverse? We're doomed.”

Ephraim held up a hand and waved it. “Scott,” he said. His other self didn't look at him. “Eph,” he tried. This time he responded.

“You stranded Nathaniel in another universe,” Ephraim said. “Why?”

“I tried to ditch him to come here, but he tracked me with the controller. I realized the only way to escape was to use the token he didn't know I had. I left him the coin where he would find it, in the park fountain in another universe, and disappeared.”

Ephraim flipped the token. Scott's eyes followed it.

“Why didn't you just use the token to leave from your own universe?” Ephraim asked. “Then you wouldn't have jeopardized your best friend.”

“The LCD would have detected that I'd shifted. If I ever went back, they would want to know how I did it,” Scott said. “I checked first—my analog and his family were living in Summerside, so I knew he would be able to find another version of me to get him home.”

“The only problem was that our analog was five at the time. Then when he was finally old enough to help, he ended up using the coin selfishly instead.”

“What?” Scott asked.

“Then my analog tried to pull the same disappearing act you did, only he was accidentally killed in a hit-and-run in my universe. That's kind of where I came in.”

“How long was Nathaniel trapped there?” Scott asked.

“Ten years,” Ephraim said. “He waited for ten years.”

Scott groaned. “I never meant for that to happen.”

“Scott, why did you really leave?” Ephraim asked. “I heard the tape. You nobly wanted to find out the truth from the transhumans. You got what you came for, yet you're still here. So what happened?”

“Jena got…close to the second Everett.”

“Please tell me you didn't leave because you were
jealous
,” Ephraim said.

“I loved her. We'd been dating off and on since high school. I thought she was the one.” He laughed. “The
one.
I know how ridiculous the idea of that is, now.”

“Unbelievable,” Nathan said. “Eph, I'm sorry, but your analog is a total loser.”

“I asked her to come with me,” Scott said. “I told her my suspicions about the transhumans and Everett's intentions, but she refused to leave. She believed in Everett—both of them—too much. She was more in love with the idea of working at the Institute than she ever could be with me.”

“But she was with you,” Ephraim said. “You threw it away.”

“I wanted her to come after me,” Scott said. “The controller worked for her. Every time I tried to get away, I thought she would find me. But it was always Nathaniel.”

“You drove her and Everett together. You left, then Nathaniel left and couldn't get back. Dr. Kim tried to hold up the Institute with Everett, but he didn't know what he was doing and he couldn't build his own coheron drive.”

“I wish it could have turned out differently. But as it happens, it's a good thing I left.”