The Rise and Fall of D.O.D.O.

by Neal Stephenson

  “Anything?” Tristan inquired.

  “The data loggers inside the cavity all went dead. Completely zorched, as far as I can tell,” Oda said. The words sounded like bad news but his tone of voice implied fascination.

  “So we don’t even know if anything happened in there.”

  “Something friggin’ happened,” insisted the most long-bearded of the Vladimirs, who had just stormed in from the server room. “While that thing was on, we ran a ridiculous amount of data through our servers.”

  “How much?” I asked.

  He looked exasperated. “Enough that I could make up some kind of strained analogy involving the contents of the Library of Congress and the number of pixels in all of the Lord of the Rings movies put together and how many phone calls the NSA intercepts in a single day and you would be like, ‘Holy shit, that’s a lot.’”

  “Holy shit, that’s a lot!” I exclaimed dutifully.

  “And as to the amount of computational processing performed on that data, using Professor Oda’s algorithms—well—same basic story.”

  “Fantastic,” I purred.

  “I believe you,” Tristan said, “it’s just that we don’t appear to have any data on what actually happened in there.”

  “Confirmed,” Oda said. “The renormalization loop appears to interfere with normal functioning of the sensor package we left inside.”

  “That’s exactly as it should be—right?” I said.

  “Could be,” Tristan said, “or could be it just went on the fritz. We are blind in there. No real way to know if it’s working.”

  “Maybe if we had a cat,” the professor said.

  “Maybe if we go inside,” said Tristan. Rebecca made a disapproving sound under her breath as the Maxes and Vladimirs made anticipatory sounds under theirs.

  Oda shook his head. “A cat is one thing. But I’m not going in there.”

  “I’ll go,” said Tristan.

  “It’s your funeral,” muttered Rebecca, as if to herself, and paced away from the console table.

  Tristan turned to look at her, and then at Oda. “Does she mean that literally?” And to Rebecca: “Do you mean that literally?”

  Oda answered before she could. “It won’t kill you. But . . . you will not enjoy it. The cat certainly didn’t.”

  Tristan waved this away dismissively. “As long as it’s not lethal, I’m going in.” And then with an inviting grin: “Want to come with me, Stokes?”

  Flattered as I was that he considered me a peer in this undertaking, and eager as I was to know what would come of it, I thought of the cat. “Next time,” I said.

  “Internal temp of the cavity?” Tristan asked.

  “Twenty-three below zero, Celsius, and holding,” reported Console Max.

  “Gotta get better insulation,” Tristan muttered. He pivoted and made for the rolling coatrack, which was still all kinds of messy on the floor. I stiffened, awaiting a reprimand, but he didn’t even seem to notice that it had been knocked over. He found the end of the pile where the larger snowmobile suits had ended up, pulled one out, and stepped into it. “We still go? Everything nominal?”

  Half a dozen different Maxes and Vladimirs hollered out “Check!” from various parts of the building.

  Tristan zipped up the suit. In a side pocket he found a balaclava, which he pulled on over his head. I helped him yank it around until his eyes were shining out from the oval hole. He gave me a wink and then pulled on a pair of bulky mittens while striding toward the ODEC door. Oda hauled it open for him, then appeared to regret this gesture as the cold burned his hand.

  Tristan stepped over the threshold, displacing a column of air that turned cloudy as it spilled out into the room.

  A torso flew out and did an end-over-end bounce across the floor, shedding batteries and thumb drives. It was the upper half of a store mannequin that we had instrumented with sensors. Tristan had tossed it out.

  Having thus made room for himself, Tristan sat down on the wooden stool we’d put in there to support the mannequin. Providing a bit of padding under his bum was the cat-hair-saturated cushion from the Mark I; Rebecca had moved it to the Mark II to supply a feeling of continuity. He reached out, pawed at the door, and closed it behind him. The Maxes exchanged expectant glances. Rebecca rubbed the space between her eyebrows and paced silently. Oda-sensei resumed his position at the control panel. He reached out and flipped up the protective cover on the switch. Rebecca stuck her fingers in her ears.

  For a few moments we all stood at rigid attention, our eyes on Oda’s finger. Then he flicked the switch. Again the lights went out and the Klaxon came on. He checked his wristwatch and let the machine run for fifteen long seconds. Then he flicked the switch back off and gently replaced the cover.

  Tristan walked out of the ODEC, pulling off the balaclava and shaking his head as if he had swimmer’s ear. He saw all of our party staring at him, and he stared back a moment, frowning. “That was unpleasant,” he reported gruffly. “Like being in a Russian disco. But that’s all.”

  “I’m glad you’re all right,” I said. “But . . .” And I thought better of saying more.

  “But it would have been cooler if you had to carry me out strapped to a back board. I know,” Tristan said ruefully. “Vladimir? Got anything for me?”

  The Vladimir with red hair was strolling carefully into the space, kicking fire extinguishers and empty Red Bull cans out of his way while studying an iPad. “Preliminary diagnostics suggest a large number of wedged processes. Probably a bug we can fix overnight.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The ODEC was running at maybe one percent efficiency.”

  “Sounds like you have a long night ahead of you, then,” Tristan said.

  Diachronicle

  DAY 291

  In which we become decoherent

  WHEN I ARRIVED THE NEXT morning, Frank Oda was already there, and with him—arms crossed, slightly pacing—Rebecca. Two of the Vladimirs were lying on the server room floor asleep. Longbeard was in our little kitchen, supporting himself on his elbows and gazing fixedly into a cup of coffee.

  On Tristan’s cue we all resumed the places we had occupied for the previous day’s failed experiment. The vessels had remained filled with liquid nitrogen overnight, so there was no need to repeat the chill-down process. Tristan donned his snowmobile suit—it would be just about freezing in the chamber itself—and gave us all a grin and a thumbs-up signal, before walking into the ODEC and closing the door behind himself.

  Oda-sensei seated himself at the console and ran through the checks, then flipped the switch. Someone had zip-tied a blanket over the Klaxon to dampen the volume. The surge of electricity sent shivers down my spine. Something was about to happen now. I’d no idea what, but I knew that it was history in the making, and I was present for it and not grading papers, and that was extremely satisfying.

  For fifteen seconds, Oda watched, frozen, and we all watched him. Then he shut it down. In the silence that followed we could hear the Vladimirs celebrating.

  Tristan exited the ODEC clutching the sides of his head and staggering drunkenly in his snowsuit. On instinct I moved toward him to steady him, but he veered away from me and collapsed, kneeling, to the floor, looking dazed.

  “Yeah, we’re, um, we’re getting, eh, closer,” he said in a distracted voice, peeling off the balaclava, and then yawned. He looked up at Oda-sensei. “Did I fall asleep? How long was I there for?”

  “Fifteen seconds,” said the professor, surprised.

  Tristan shook his head and slapped his cheek a few times. “Well, we’re onto something, then—whatever happened to me the first time, lots more of it happened this time.” He grimaced and tried to shake it off.

  Journal Entry of

  Rebecca East-Oda

  MAY 15

  Temperature 66F, bright sun. Barometer falling.

  Peppers and chard germinated. Lilies of the valley in full bloom. Lilacs at peak. Swapped out stor
m windows for screens (finally).

  Work on the new ODEC continues, and has become the sole topic of discourse in the house. Frank is just as obsessed as he was the first time. I read over my diary from back then, and must remind myself that this time at least he is working with a willing and supportive cohort (besides me, I mean). Jury still out for me re: Tristan. Prefer Melisande but she’s not in charge. (Not clear if their relationship is personal or just professional. Not sure they’re clear either.)

  The schedule has been extended by two days to accommodate upgrades to the software, and improvements to the building’s electrical service. Whomever Tristan works for takes him seriously; Frank faced endless red tape whenever he requisitioned extension cords, for heaven’s sake.

  Two concerns regarding this project, besides the obvious reservations.

  First: Tristan insists on being inside the ODEC while it is in operation. He can’t understand how that makes him the observed, not the observer. Uncle Victor’s Labrador retriever is in charge.

  Second: Frank—satisfied to be working on the physics—turns a blind eye to the supposed application. Magic. There are Powers That Be who take the Magic premise seriously enough to buy Tristan a building and send him tanker trucks of liquid helium without any paperwork. Hard to reconcile this with common sense. Frank heedless.

  Also, Mel is concerned about a woman who contacted her claiming she can do magic. T&M’s rendezvous with this woman has been delayed several times, and the woman is becoming verbally abusive. This does not stop them from intending to meet her, which will possibly happen tomorrow after the next ODEC go-round.

  Diachronicle

  DAY 294

  In which we become even more decoherent

  TWO DAYS LATER, WHEN THE liquid helium showed up in the unmarked stainless steel tanker truck, Tristan velcroed and zipped himself into a snowmobile suit, gave us the thumbs-up, and stepped up into the ODEC, where, just for safety’s sake, he pulled on an oxygen mask. Apparently liquid helium was adept at finding and seeping through the tiniest leaks, so the cavity might fill up with helium and asphyxiate him before he knew it was happening. Once again, Oda walked around the building going through his checklist, and took his place before the console. By now, our expectancy was tempered by experience.

  Liquid helium, as I now knew, was fifty times as expensive as the liquid nitrogen we had been using, and a lot colder. Nitrogen became a liquid at 77 degrees above absolute zero (the point at which atoms would stop moving, if such a state could be reached), but to do the same trick with helium you had to chill it all the way down to a mere 4 degrees. By the standards of the normal human world, it was a distinction without a difference—both were very, very cold. But to scientists like Oda, there was a world of difference between 4 degrees and 77. The liquid helium jacketing the ODEC would have radically different properties from LN2—properties explainable in terms of Bose-Einstein statistics, an advanced concept in quantum mechanics that Tristan barely understood and I couldn’t make sense of at all. The gist of it seemed to be that the liquid helium would cloak the inner cavity of the ODEC inside a seamless jacket of matter, all of which was in the same quantum state. This was supposed to have some effect of isolating the cavity from the rest of the universe quantum-mechanically, and greatly intensifying its effects.

  Cold as they were, the plumbing and the vessels were still boiling hot by liquid helium standards, and so after the LN2 had been pumped out we had to go through another cycle of “atmospheric exchange augmentation” out the “exterior vent ports” before the system settled down. The digital thermometers began to read dramatically lower temperatures.

  Once the system had stabilized at 4 degrees above absolute zero—negative 269 degrees Celsius—Oda flipped the switch. This time he let the system run for only five seconds before turning it back off.

  Tristan stumbled out of the ODEC, tugging convulsively at the oxygen mask. The balaclava came off with it. He was ashen-faced, and looked as if he might be sick. He stumbled dizzily and then collapsed to his knees barely beyond the threshold of the chamber.

  “Tristan!” I cried, as Oda knelt down to help him, but Tristan pushed him away and looked around at us all, dazed and yet wild-eyed.

  “Where am I?” he asked. “Is this a dream or are we really here?”

  “We’re really here,” said Oda gently.

  “Are we in Boston?” asked Tristan, and groaned. “God, what a terrible headache. Where’s Mom?”

  I looked at Oda in alarm. “Give him a moment,” he said reassuringly.

  “What just happened to him?” I demanded, not reassured.

  “I think he’s just very disoriented.”

  “Isn’t it five minutes ago?” said Tristan. “Don’t I have to go into the ODEC before we can have this conversation?”

  “Somebody get him a glass of water,” said Oda to the room in general. And then gently: “Tristan, close your eyes for a few moments, you’ll be fine.”

  Oda gestured me to step away, and I followed him, but my concern and attention remained on Tristan. He was now very still, glancing around at his surroundings with eyes only, as if trying to avoid vertigo. It seemed horribly wrong for Tristan Lyons to be so vulnerable.

  “Is this what happened to the cat?” I demanded of Oda.

  “Well, you can’t have a conversation with a cat. When I’d open the cavity, he would leap out in full Halloween mode. But I’d leave him, come back down an hour later, and he’d be fast asleep. When he woke up, you’d think nothing had happened. I repeated the experiment a few times, and the cat never seemed to remember what he was about to be subjected to. But then Rebecca saw and made me stop.”

  Journal Entry of

  Rebecca East-Oda

  MAY 18

  Temperature about 64F, moist, no breeze. Barometer rising.

  Flowers and vegetables fending for themselves due to ODEC activity.

  To begin, this morning the new ODEC was “successful,” insofar as Tristan came out of it in the same state the cat once used to come out of the old ODEC. Melisande kept her head better than I did when I first saw the cat, but was clearly concerned. The following conversation, more or less:

  FRANK: I predict Tristan will be fine shortly. But I don’t think we should allow anyone to go into the ODEC until we have figured out how to protect them from that effect.

  MEL: What is the effect? Why is it happening?

  FRANK: He is teetering on the edge of becoming non-local.

  MEL: Non-what?

  FRANK: His brain was suddenly not sure which precise reality it was operating in—and perhaps his body too. So much to discover still! (NB: sounding like an eager child. Sounding as if none of it happened thirty years ago.)

  Five minutes pass

  TRISTAN (fully recovered): Why didn’t you take notes of what I said when I first came out?

  MEL: Trust me, you said absolutely nothing noteworthy.

  TRISTAN : That just sounds like your usual lip. I need corroboration.

  FRANK: We were all here. She’s right.

  TRISTAN : You do it, Stokes, so I can see what happens when you come out.

  MEL: I don’t think so. Seriously, it was as if you’d gotten plastered at a frat party.

  TRISTAN : Sounds like fun. Give it a go.

  FRANK: I really don’t think that you should push her— (interrupted by)

  TRISTAN : She could use a little loosening up. Come on, Stokes, it’s a hazard of the job.

  MEL: I fail to see how “becoming non-local” falls within the parameters of my contractual obligations as a translator of dead languages.

  TRISTAN : It falls within the parameters of your wanting to know what it’s like.

  MEL: Apparently it’s like being drunk. Been there, done that.

  TRISTAN : Y’know, you could be stuck in your tiny little office right now, grading papers about Aramaic declensions. Get your butt in there. Somebody get her a snowsuit. With a balaclava. And an oxygen mask.

&
nbsp; I wish that had been the end of the nonsense. It was barely the beginning.

  Diachronicle

  DAY 294 (CONTD.)

  NINETY MINUTES LATER, DESPITE MY own best judgment, I was geared up and ready to begin the most ill-considered experiment of my life (to that point, I mean. Clearly I have engaged in more boneheaded enterprises since then, else I would not currently be sitting here trying not to spill ink on my borrowed day dress.).

  I hope it does not reflect badly on me to admit that I would have refused obstinately were I not so keen to please Tristan. A ridiculous impulse, given that he seemed to treat me as if I were his personal R2-D2 (which was still preferable to Blevins’s modus operandi). But there was something about his relentless, focused clarity of purpose that made all things else fade in significance—including my own mental balance. I submit that I was not falling in love with him, but there was inarguably an intellectual seduction at work. He operated on my psyche the way a lively Mozart sonata might.

  And so, suited up to look like a cartoon character, I toddled into the ODEC. It was frigid inside, and my breath came out in clouds until I put the oxygen mask on. The cavity had a cool, clinical feel with all those LEDs staring at me. I felt as if I were on the set of a half-assed low-budget sci-fi flick. “All right,” I said with a purposeful nod, and the door closed. I could feel my pulse at my temples, hear my breath amplified within the mask. It was frightening and exhilarating and I had never felt so alive! Blevins could eat my shorts.

  I cannot describe what happened next, because I do not remember. Immediately, it seemed, I found myself in a very bland, undecorated office, in a hard plastic chair near a Formica table under ugly fluorescent lights, shaking uncontrollably for no good reason. I was not cold or scared, simply . . . confused. And exhausted.

  “Fascinating,” said a very handsome fellow about my age, with dazzling green eyes and neat, close-cropped hair, who was standing over me and contemplating me with a grin. “If that’s what you were like when you got drunk in college, no wonder you don’t have a boyfriend.”