There's Only One Quantum by William Bryan Smith Page A

it.”
    “You’re just sitting there, looking at the screen.”
    “I’m waiting for a call,” Coe said.
    “It’ll only take a moment,” the man said.
    “Use one of the other vid phones.”
    The man looked apologetic. “They’re all out of order.”
    Coe looked at him.
    “Please,” the man said. “My wife. She’s pregnant. It’ll only take a second. I just need to call home.”
    Coe glanced down at his watch. He had two minutes. He told the man.
    “Thank you,” he said, opening the door.
    Coe stepped out and the man stepped in. He closed the door behind him. The rain was persistent. Coe stood under the canopy of the pub and waited. He watched the endless stream of humanity push by and repeatedly checked his watch. Ninety seconds letter the man exited.
    “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you very much.” He grasped Coe’s hand and vigorously shook it. “It’s going to be a boy...a boy!”
    Coe pulled his hand away and slipped back into the vid phone booth. The man lingered outside the booth for a moment, smiling and staring into the booth at Coe, before being swept away by the passers by.
    The vid phone illuminated at that moment. Coe turned his attention to the screen. A face—a silhouette in profile—said, in an electronically altered voice: “Go into the pub, approach the bar, and order an extra-dry Gibson with four olives.”
    “Gibson?”
    The screen went black.
    Coe went around to the front of the pub and entered. It was crowded. Coe squeezed inside. The place had the smell of wet fabric and stale beer and the acrid stink of too many people. He pushed his way through. A woman—Coe guessed she were a prostitute—asked him if he liked to party. He ignored her. Piano music played somewhere. He couldn’t tell if it were live or piped in. He found the bar and wedged himself in sideways between an overweight man and a woman in a white fur that Coe was certain was synthetic. He leaned in, caught the bartender’s attention. He was a short, squat, balding man with a sour expression and small mouth.
    “Can you make a Gibson, extra-dry, with four olives?” Coe asked and held up four fingers for emphasis.
    The bartender paused. His expression changed. “A Gibson? Four olives, you say?”
    “Extra-dry.”
    “You don’t want the drink, right?”
    “I’ve never ordered it before—”
    “You’re not going to believe this,” the bartender said, “but another guy just ordered that drink not a minute before.”
    “What guy?”
    The bartender looked beyond Coe, into the crowd. After a moment of craning his neck, he said, “That guy,” and pointed toward the exit.
    “Where?”
    “That one...the one with the fedora—”
    “What did you do?” Coe asked. “When the guy ordered the Gibson?”
    “Gave him the envelope like I was instructed.”
    “What envelope?”
    The bartender shrugged. “Guy came in—not one of the regulars. Gray suit like you. Gave me an envelope and told me a guy ordering an extra-dry Gibson with four olives would come by to pick it up—”
    “What was in it?”
    “A letter, I guess. It was sealed—”
    Coe immediately started pushing his way through the crowd. He saw the door open ahead, the brief flash of daylight—the fedora—and then it closed.
    “Excuse me,” Coe said, shoving people out of his way.
    “Hey!” a man in a black suit said.
    “You’re spilling my drink,” a woman said.
    “What’s your problem—”
    Coe supplanted a couple by the door and pushed it open. He was temporarily immobilized by the sudden rush of natural light. At the corner, he saw the man in the fedora—the same man who had used the vid phone booth. He had opened the envelope and was reading the note.
    “Hey,” Coe cried. “Hey! That was meant for me!”
    The man stuffed the note into his mouth and began to chew it. Coe ran toward him; the man lowered his head and ran off with Coe giving chase. “Stop!” Coe called after him.
    The man left a wake of angry bystanders. Coe