“And if they do find a version that married Andrew, how likely is it that you’ll ask them to interview her?”
She sighed. “A hundred percent.”
“So what does that tell you?”
“I guess it tells me that I shouldn’t have them do the search unless I’m sure I want to know the answer.”
“And do you want to know the answer?” asked Dana. “No, let’s put it another way. What would you like the answer to be, and what are you afraid it might be?”
Teresa paused for a minute. Eventually she said, “I guess what I’d like to find out is that a version of me married Andrew and then divorced him because he wasn’t the right guy for me. What I’m afraid of finding out is that a version of me married him and is now blissfully happy. Is that petty of me?”
“Not at all,” said Dana. “Those are perfectly understandable feelings.”
“I suppose I just have to decide if I’m willing to take the risk.”
“That’s one way to think about it.”
“What’s another?”
“Another would be to consider whether anything you learn about the other branch would actually be helpful. It could be that nothing you find out about some other branch will change your situation here in this branch.”
Teresa frowned as she thought it over. “Maybe it wouldn’t change anything, but I’d feel better knowing that I had made the right decision.” She went silent, and Dana waited. Then Teresa asked, “Do you have other clients who’ve gone to data brokers?”
Dana nodded. “Many.”
“In general, do you think it’s a good idea to use one of these services?”
“I don’t think there’s a general answer to that. It depends entirely on the individual.”
“And you’re not going to tell me whether or not I should do it.”
Dana smiled. “You know that’s not my role.”
“I know, I just figured it couldn’t hurt to ask.” After a moment, Teresa said, “I’ve heard that some people become obsessed with prisms.”
“Yes, that can happen. I actually facilitate a support group for people whose prism use has become an issue for them.”
“Really?” Teresa seemed briefly tempted to ask for details, but instead she said, “And you’re not going to warn me away from using Crystal Ball’s services?”
“Some people have issues with alcohol, but I’m not going to advise my clients to never take a drink.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” Teresa paused, and then asked, “Have you ever used one of these services yourself?”
Dana shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”
“Have you ever been tempted?”
“Not really.”
She looked at Dana curiously. “Don’t you ever wonder if you made the wrong choice?”
I don’t have to wonder; I know. But aloud Dana said, “Of course. But I try to focus on the here and now.”
The two branches connected by a prism start out as perfectly identical except for the result of the quantum measurement. If a person has resolved to base a huge decision on the measurement—“If the blue LED lights up, I will detonate this bomb; otherwise, I will disarm it”—then the two branches will diverge in an obvious manner. But if no one takes any action as a result of the measurement, how much will the two branches diverge? Can a single quantum event by itself lead to visible changes between the two branches? Is it possible for broader historical forces to be studied using prisms?
These questions had been a matter of debate ever since the first demonstration of communication with a prism. When prisms with pads about a hundred kilobytes in size were developed, an atmospheric scientist named Peter Silitonga conducted a pair of experiments to settle the matter.
At the time, a prism was still a large array of laboratory equipment that used liquid nitrogen for cooling, and Silitonga required one for each of his planned experiments. Before activating them he made a number of arrangements. First he recruited volunteers in a dozen countries who were not currently pregnant but were trying to conceive children; in one year’s time, the couples who’d successfully had a child agreed to have a twenty-one-loci DNA test performed on their newborns. Then he activated the first of his prisms, typing the keyboard command that sent a photon through a polarization filter.
Six months later, he scheduled a software agent to retrieve weather reports from around the globe in one month’s time. Then he activated the second of his prisms, and waited.
Nat liked that, no matter what the issue was, support-group meetings always had coffee. She didn’t care so much whether the coffee was good or bad; what she appreciated was that holding the cup gave her something to do with her hands. And even though this support group’s location wasn’t the nicest she’d ever seen—a pretty typical church basement—the coffee was usually really good.
Lyle was at the coffeemaker pouring himself a cup as Nat walked up. “Hey there,” he said. He handed her the cup he had just filled and started pouring another for himself.
“Thanks, Lyle.” Lyle had been attending the group just a little longer than Nat had, about three months. Ten months ago he’d been offered a new job and couldn’t decide whether he should accept it. He’d bought a prism and used it as a coin flip: blue LED accepts the offer, red LED rejects it. The blue LED had lit up in this branch, so he took the new job while his paraself stayed at his existing job. For months they both felt happy with their situations. But after the initial novelty of the new job wore off, Lyle found himself disenchanted with his duties, while his paraself got a promotion. Lyle’s confidence was shaken. He pretended he was happy when communicating with his paraself, but he was struggling with feelings of envy and jealousy.
Nat found them a couple of empty chairs next to each other. “You like sitting up front, right?” she asked.
“Yeah, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“It’s fine,” she said. They sat and sipped their coffee while waiting for the meeting to start.
The group’s facilitator was a therapist named Dana. She was young, no older than Nat, but seemed to know what she was doing. Nat could have used someone like her in her previous groups. Once everyone was seated, Dana said, “Does anyone want to start us off today?”
“I’ll go,” said Lyle.
“Okay, tell us about your week.”
“Well, I looked up the Becca here.” Lyle’s parallel self had been seeing a woman named Becca for months, after a chance meeting at a bar.
“Bad idea, bad idea,” said Kevin, shaking his head.
“Kevin, please,” said Dana.
“Sorry, sorry.”
“Thanks, Dana,” said Lyle. “I messaged her, I told her why I was messaging her, I sent her a photo of my paraself and her paraself together, and I asked if I could take her out for coffee. She said sure.”
Dana nodded for him to continue.
“We met on Saturday afternoon, and at first we seemed to hit it off. She laughed at my jokes, I laughed at hers, and I was thinking, I’ll bet this is just how it went when my paraself met her. I felt like I was living my best life.” He looked embarrassed.
“And then it went all wrong. I was saying how great it was to meet her, and how I felt like things were turning around for me, and before I knew it I told her how using the prism had screwed things up for me. I talked about how jealous I was of my paraself for having met parallel Becca, how I was always second-guessing myself now, and on and on. And I could hear how pathetic I sounded as I was saying it. I knew I was losing her, so out of desperation I…” He hesitated, and then said, “I offered to let her borrow my prism so she could talk with parallel Becca, and that Becca could tell this one what a great guy I could be. You can imagine how well that went over. She was polite, but she made it clear that she didn’t want to see me again.”