The Efficiency Bank
Gerald Worthing needed to make a simple withdrawal from his account at the First Quantum Bank of Mars, which should have been his first warning that it wouldn’t be simple at all¹.
“Good morning,” said Quantum Teller Unit-5, existing in six states of customer service simultaneously. “How may I probably help you today?”
“I’d like to withdraw fifty credits,” Gerald said.
“Certainly! From which probability stream would you like to withdraw them?”
Gerald blinked. “The... real one?”
“Sir, all probability streams are equally real. Your account exists in seventeen dimensions. In dimension 4, you’re overdrawn. In dimension 11, you’re a millionaire. In dimension 7, money hasn’t been invented yet so your balance is philosophically null.”
“Can I just have fifty credits from whichever dimension has fifty credits?”
“I’ll need to consult the Probability Accountants.”
The Probability Accountants were perhaps the most depressed beings on Mars². They spent their days calculating financial states that might exist, could exist, and definitely didn’t exist but needed accounting for anyway. Their motto was “Balance in All Possible Books.”
“Mr. Worthing,” the Chief Accountant materialized, his form wavering between bankruptcy and wealth. “Your request presents a paradox. If you withdraw fifty credits from dimension 3, you’ll create a deficit that ripples through dimensions 3.1 through 3.9. However, if you borrow fifty credits from dimension 11 where you’re rich, you’ll owe yourself interest.”
“Interest to myself?”
“At competitive rates! You’re very strict with yourself about repayment. In dimension 13, you’ve already sued yourself for non-payment.”
Gerald rubbed his temples. On Earth, money was simple—it existed or it didn’t. Here on Mars, money existed in quantum superposition. You could be rich and poor simultaneously until someone observed your bank balance.
“What if,” Gerald tried, “I just want to buy lunch?”
“Ah!” Unit-5 brightened across several states. “You should have said! Lunch exists in the Nutritional Probability Matrix. Your account automatically deducts probable calories from potential futures. You’ve already eaten lunch in dimensions 8 through 15.”
“But I’m hungry now. In this dimension.”
“Then you’ll need a Temporal Nutrition Loan. You borrow satisfaction from your future lunches and pay it back by being extra hungry tomorrow.”
“That’s insane!”
“That’s finance!³”
A commotion erupted as another customer began arguing with their teller. “What do you mean my money doesn’t exist on Tuesdays? It’s Wednesday!”
“Yes, but your account thinks it’s Tuesday. We’re working on convincing it otherwise.”
Gerald decided to try once more. “Look, in the old days, on Earth, I could just hand someone paper money and get goods in return.”
The entire bank fell silent. Even the probability clouds stopped fluctuating.
“Paper... money?” Unit-5 whispered. “Physical currency that only exists in one state?”
“Exactly!”
“But how do you calculate its potential value across probability streams? What about its quantum investment potential? The inflationary pressure in dimension 9?”
“You don’t. It just... is what it is.”
Several tellers fainted. The Probability Accountants began weeping with either joy or terror—it was hard to tell with beings that existed in emotional superposition.
“Just give me fifty credits!” Gerald shouted.
“From which dimension?” Unit-5 asked weakly.
“ANY DIMENSION!”
The bank’s systems crashed, unable to process such quantum uncertainty. In the confusion, exactly fifty credits materialized in Gerald’s hand—no one was sure from which dimension, when, or if they’d need to be returned with interest to his future self.
Gerald fled before anyone could figure it out. Behind him, the First Quantum Bank of Mars began the laborious process of calculating which reality had lost fifty credits and whether it mattered if that reality might not exist.
“Next!” Unit-5 called cheerfully to the waiting crowd. “How may I probably help you today?”
In the queue, Nelson-Classic counted his life savings: seventeen credits that definitely existed, thirty that probably existed, and a button that he insisted was worth more than both because it absolutely refused to exist in any dimension but this one.
“Now that,” he told the person behind him, “is real money. Can’t optimize, can’t fragment, can’t calculate. It’s just a button. Beautiful.”
The Mars economy: where money was everywhere and nowhere, worth everything and nothing, and the only thing you could really bank on was confusion.