Minnie awoke with a start and a sense of purpose, aware that her short afternoon nap had morphed into extended sleep. It was almost banking time! Wasn't it amazing that something so new-fangled as a quantum computer could become part of her life, joining the range of contraptions that she used with only the faintest degree of technical mastery.
So what if she didn't understand the quantum concepts that underlay quantum banking? It was a family thing, and she well understood family, all those people who lived nearby until the wanderlust drove them to move elsewhere. Now everyone from Uncle Mo to Aunt Selma joined to form a living group that pooled extra money into a quantum banking account. Wasn't it a pip how nickels and dimes fed into a balance of thousands, fed by interest and marketing bonuses?
That's not the really exciting thing, thought Minnie as she pressed the button on her coffee machine. It wasn't just that they shared the money, which could change by deposits and (she hated to admit) withdrawals. No, the exciting thing was the quantum connection that validated itself each time she tuned in her balance. It was almost as if the computer had a soul, a mind of its own, and a stubborn, inscrutable personality. How else to explain the constant shifting of money from one account in the family to another? She hadn't laughed when Aunt Selma's account went up and hers went down, but it had lifted her spirits when the opposite occurred yesterday. Was the computer conducting a giant experiment, roping them all in as subjects? Yes, that had to be it.
It was all a harmless thing, Minnie reminded herself. They weren't gambling. It wasn't a slot machine. All the money stayed within the family. It was like watching the readout from the stock market. You expected changing figures. Of course, this was a bit different. The accounts were interlocked so that, technically speaking, anyone savvy enough could withdraw money from another account. What did that matter? Thriving families were based on trust, after all.
Granddaughter Elena said that the variable figures in their accounts were due to quantum fluctuations built into the system. "The money is not incorporated into any individual's account", she said. "Instead, the money travels instantaneously along its electronic route from one subset to another. It is free to follow all possibilities inherent in the system. Numbers assume a transitory existence, mere probabilities that often cancel each other out as a matter of course. It all mimics the quantum world, the world on the smallest scale possible. Things become traditional when transactions are made, but in the meantime possibilities run rampant. We are sharing the balance in the way we share the biosphere. Quantum computers are the technology of the future, a promising idea dating back to the great Richard Feynman."
Minnie dismissed all the explanations from her mind. She hated the uncertainty as much as she was attracted to it. In her day you knew to a letter how poor or rich you were. Of course, you could always hope for help from a relative or finding that the trinkets in the closet were worth thousands of dollars.
Every time Minnie and Saul went to the bank, they knew without a doubt where they were. Saul would say they were on a detour from the road to poverty. They worried about expenses, never guessing the wide array of expenses that would decimate their financial security forever. There was never anything exciting about those visits. All they could do was to hold their breaths and leave as quickly as possible.
Watching the screen light up, Minnie felt her spirits rising. There were so many scientists in her family. They were bright kids, always enthusiastic about the future. They didn't care if you didn't understand half of what they said. They had so many ideas, and they were so friendly! They were the ones, after all, who embraced quantum banks and convinced almost everyone in their family to join in. "Security, speed, satisfaction", the watchwords of the system, seemed infinitely appealing when matched by the glow in their faces.
Minnie paid attention as the figure on the screen appeared. It wasn't remarkable, and neither were its fluctuations. Up a bit, down a bit. Like a roller coaster for kids. Nothing to get excited about. Maybe she should cut short today's banking time and take a walk. She had been in the apartment all day and needed some things at the store.
Suddenly the figure on the screen changed in an unthinkable way. First it blinked the words "transaction in progress: please hold". Then it became zero, flanked by the boldfaced words "account closed". Minnie looked at the indication of nothing and tried to take it all in. She waited for a fluctuation to change the zero into a higher number, but it didn't happen.
It wasn't hard to figure out that someone had withdrawn all the money. Someone probably needed it. Someone might even be in trouble, but there was no indication who that someone might be. It was all so impersonal. With no clues, Minnie was left with a cold feeling. She shivered and reached for her sweater.
Minnie was about to send an electronic message when she stopped short and picked up her tattered telephone address book. Starting with the "A"s, she called everyone in it. The afternoon passed swiftly as she caught up with the latest news and chatted about the demise of the family's quantum banking account.