Again with the fizzing sound.  Her white satin still looked good.  A little travel-worn, but on her that looked even better.  Her voice still sounded like molten silver — “Hello.”

“Hello, Anne.  Where you been?”

“You wouldn’t believe.  I don’t believe.  I’ve got to get some control over this.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I never know where I’ll be next.  Or when.  Or even how it’ll look when I get there.  We’ve met before, haven’t we?”

“Yes, we have, and you told me your memory works in circles.  We figured out that when you ‘push,’ you relocate to a reality with a different probability.”

“But it could also be a different time.  Future, past, it’s so confusing.  Sometimes I meet myself and I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.  We never know what to say to each other.  It’s horrible way to be.”

“It sounds awful.  Here, have a tissue.  So, how can I help you?”

“You do theory stuff.  Can you physics a way to let me steer through all this?”

<fizzing sound> Another Anne appeared, next to my file cabinet on the far side of the office.  “Don’t mind me, just passing through.”  <more fizzing>  She flickered away.  My ears itched a little.

“See?  And she always knows more than I do, except when I know more than she does.”

“I’m beginning to get the picture.  Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Anything, if it’ll help solve this.”

“When you time-hop, do you use the same kind of ‘push’ feeling that sends you to different probabilities?”

“No-o, it’s a little different, but not much.”

“We found that you have to ‘push’ harder to get to a less-probable reality.  Is there the same kind of difference between past and future hopping?”

“Now you mention it, yes!  It’s always easier to jump to the future.  I have to struggle sometimes when I get too far ahead of myself.”

“Can you do time and probability together?”

“Hard to say.  When I hop I mostly just try to work out when I am, much less whether things are odd.”

“Give it a shot.  Try a couple of ‘nearby places’ and come back here/now.  Just use tiny ‘pushes.’ I don’t want you to get lost again.”

“Me neither.  OK, here I go.” <prolonged flickering and fizzing> “Is this the right place?  I tried a couple of hops here in your office, and <charming blush> stole some of your papers.  Here.”

“Perfect, Anne, objective evidence is always best.  Let’s see…  Yep, this report is one I finished a week ago, looks OK, and this one … I recognize the name of a client I’ve not yet hooked, but the spelling!  The letter ‘c’ isn’t there at all — ‘rekognize,’ ‘sirkle,’ ‘siense’ — that’s low probability for sure.”

“Actually, it felt like higher probability.”

“Whatever.  One more question.  I gather that most of your hops are more-or-less good ones but every once in a while you drop into a complete surprise, something you’re totally not used to.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ll bet the surprises happen when you’re in a jam and do a get me out of here jump.”

“Huh!  I’d not made that connection, but you’re right.”

“I think I’ve got the picture.  When you ‘push,’ you somehow displace yourself on a surface that has two dimensions — time and probability.  You move around in those two dimensions independently from how you move in 3-D space.  I take it you’re comfortable dong that but you want more control over it, right?”

“Mmm, yeah.  It’s kind of my special superpower, you know?  I don’t want to give it up entirely.”

“Good, because I wouldn’t know how to make that happen for you.  Best I can do is give you some strategy coaching, OK?”

“That’d be a big help.”

“Stay calm.”

“That’s it?  Where’s the physics in that?”

“Ever hear of the Drunkard’s Walk?”

“I’ve seen a few.”

“Well, you’re doing one.”

“Beg pardon?”

“It’s math talk for a stepwise process where every step goes in a random direction.  Your problem is that some of the steps are way too big.  Keep the steps small and you’ll stay in familiar territory.”

<molten silver, coming closer> “Like … here?”

“Stay calm.”

~~ Rich Olcott