The Universe According to Jenkins

Jenkins punched his timecard at 8:47 AM, seventeen minutes late as usual, and nobody cared. In fact, Mrs. Kowalski from Human Resources—if she was still human, which was debatable since the neural implant retrofits—actually smiled at him. A real smile, not the synthetic ones they’d been issuing to middle management.

“Congratulations on the Phobos Project, Jenkins!” she chirped, her voice carrying that peculiar harmonic distortion that suggested either joy or imminent psychotic break. “Another stellar achievement!”

Jenkins nodded and smiled back, the way you do when someone congratulates you for something you’ve never heard of. The Phobos Project. Right. That thing he’d apparently done. Again.

His office was on the 47th floor of the Stellar Dynamics Corporation tower, a building that existed in seventeen dimensions simultaneously, though only three of them were visible during normal business hours. The elevator played Muzak versions of songs that wouldn’t be written for another decade, which was either a clever marketing strategy or a side effect of the temporal displacement field in the basement.

Jenkins sat at his desk—real mahogany, or at least it had been before the molecular restructuring—and stared at the plaque that had appeared overnight. “EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH: MARCH 2387.” It was February 2387. Jenkins made a mental note to check the calendar, then forgot to make the mental note, then remembered that he’d forgotten, then decided it didn’t matter because time was probably subjective here anyway.

His computer screen flickered to life without him touching anything. This was normal. Everything at Stellar Dynamics was automated, including the employees, though nobody had gotten around to telling the employees this yet.

“JENKINS, MARTIN Q.” appeared on the screen in letters that hurt to look at directly. “QUANTUM EFFICIENCY RATING: 847.3%. EXCEEDS BASELINE HUMAN PERFORMANCE BY FACTOR OF 12.7.”

Baseline human performance. Jenkins wondered what that meant. He’d never performed anything baseline in his life. In fact, he was pretty sure he’d never performed anything at all. His job description, when he’d bothered to read it, was “Quantum Liaison Specialist,” which sounded important but meant nothing. Like calling a janitor a “Sanitation Engineer,” except the janitor actually cleaned things.

The intercom crackled. “Mr. Jenkins, please report to Conference Room Ω for your commendation ceremony.”

Conference Room Ω was the one that existed only on Wednesdays and during staff meetings. Jenkins had never been there, but his feet seemed to know the way. This was either muscle memory or the nanobots in the carpet fibers guiding him. Both explanations were equally plausible.

The conference room was full of people he didn’t recognize applauding him for things he hadn’t done. Director Hennessy—the one who might have been replaced by a sophisticated AI last Christmas, or might have been an AI all along—stood at the head of the table holding a crystal trophy that pulsed with inner light.

“Ladies, gentlemen, and non-binary colleagues,” Hennessy announced, “we are here to honor Martin Jenkins for his extraordinary work on Project Lazarus, Project Pandora, and the recently completed Jupiter Mining Initiative.”

Jenkins had never heard of any of these projects. He was reasonably certain Jupiter was still there, unmined, doing whatever Jupiter did. But everyone was looking at him expectantly, so he stood up and walked to the front of the room.

“Thank you,” he said, because it seemed like the right thing to say. “I couldn’t have done it without… without…”

“Without the quantum entanglement protocols you developed!” someone shouted from the back.

“Yes,” Jenkins agreed. “Those protocols. They were very… quantum.”

The applause was thunderous. Someone started crying. Jenkins accepted the trophy, which was surprisingly heavy and warm to the touch, like a small animal. He hoped it wasn’t a small animal.

Back in his office, Jenkins tried to remember what he’d done that morning. He’d arrived late, walked to his office, sat at his desk, and then… nothing. A blank space where his work should have been. Yet somehow, in that blank space, he’d apparently revolutionized three major corporate initiatives.

He opened his desk drawer and found seventeen more trophies he didn’t remember receiving. A certificate from the Galactic Commerce Commission for “Outstanding Innovation in Temporal Logistics.” A medal from the Martian Colonial Authority for “Excellence in Theoretical Impossibility.” A small plastic trophy from the company bowling league, which was weird because Jenkins had never bowled in his life and wasn’t sure Stellar Dynamics had a bowling league.

The phone rang. It was his mother.

“Marty, I saw you on the news! Something about solving the energy crisis?”

“I solved the energy crisis?”

“Don’t be modest, dear. They said you invented a new type of fusion reactor that runs on pure mathematics. I don’t understand it, but it sounds very impressive.”

Jenkins looked out his window at the city below. The streetlights were glowing with a soft blue radiance he’d never noticed before. The cars were floating six inches above the ground. In the distance, he could see the new power plant—a gleaming tower that definitely hadn’t been there yesterday, pulsing with the same blue light as the streetlights.

“Mom, I have to go.”

“Okay, honey. Don’t work too hard. And remember to eat lunch!”

Jenkins hung up and walked to the window. The city was transforming before his eyes. Buildings were growing taller, sleeker, their surfaces rippling with energy patterns. The sky was a deeper blue than he remembered, and there were two moons where there used to be one.

He was changing the world, one unconscious moment at a time.

His computer chimed. A new email from the CEO, someone he’d never met who might not exist.

“Jenkins – Outstanding work on the Mars project. Humanity’s first successful terraforming initiative couldn’t have happened without your innovative approach to atmospheric manipulation. The red planet is now blue, and it’s all thanks to you. Next week, we’ll need you to tackle the heat death of the universe. Nothing too ambitious – just something to keep you busy. – CEO”

Jenkins stared at the email. Mars was blue now? He’d changed the color of an entire planet? By accident?

He opened his web browser and searched for “Mars blue planet.” The first result was a news article from this morning: “MARS MYSTERIOUSLY TRANSFORMS OVERNIGHT: Scientists Baffled by Sudden Atmospheric Change.” The accompanying photograph showed Mars as a brilliant blue marble, swirled with white clouds, indistinguishable from Earth except for the slightly smaller size.

The article mentioned a “breakthrough in quantum atmospheric manipulation” developed by “an anonymous researcher at Stellar Dynamics Corporation.”

Jenkins leaned back in his chair. He was the anonymous researcher. He was changing the fundamental nature of reality, and he didn’t even know how he was doing it.

The trophy on his desk began to hum. It was a low, pleasant sound, like a cat purring, if cats were made of crystallized spacetime. Jenkins picked it up and held it to his ear. Inside the crystal, he could see tiny galaxies swirling, stars being born and dying in accelerated time.

“You’re not supposed to be aware of this,” the trophy said in a voice like distant thunder. “The process works better when the subject remains unconscious of their actions.”

“Subject?” Jenkins asked.

“You are our quantum probability anchor,” the trophy explained. “Your complete ignorance of your own capabilities allows you to accomplish impossible things. Knowledge would constrain you to the realm of the possible.”

Jenkins set the trophy down carefully. “So I’m changing reality because I don’t know I can’t?”

“Precisely. You are the most powerful force in the universe, precisely because you are unaware of your power. The moment you truly understand what you are, you will become ordinary.”

“But I’m aware now.”

“Are you? Or are you simply having a very realistic dream brought on by the stress of receiving another award for something you don’t remember doing?”

Jenkins blinked. He was sitting at his desk, and Mrs. Kowalski was standing in his doorway, smiling that synthetic smile.

“Congratulations on the Phobos Project, Jenkins!” she said. “Another stellar achievement!”

Jenkins nodded and smiled back. The Phobos Project. Right. That thing he’d apparently done. Again.

His computer screen flickered to life. “JENKINS, MARTIN Q. QUANTUM EFFICIENCY RATING: 847.3%.”

On his desk, seventeen trophies hummed softly in harmony, creating a song that sounded like the universe dreaming of itself.

Jenkins picked up his coffee mug—when had he gotten coffee?—and took a sip. It tasted like starlight and possibility.

Outside his window, three moons hung in the sky, and the city below pulsed with the rhythm of a heart that beat in seventeen dimensions.

He had work to do. He just didn’t know what it was.

Which was exactly the point.