The Quantum Connection ws-2

by Travis S. Taylor

  "Uh, excuse me," I interrupted, not sure if it was okay to do so.

  "Yes, Mr. Montana." Lieutenant Ames cocked her head and smiled. She looked surprisingly like the general when she was "trying to get Jim's goat" I noticed.

  "Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but, did you mean to say the data information, uh . . . falls through there?" I leaned forward in my chair, bumping into Larry's leg. "Sorry," I whispered to him.

  "That is what I said and that is what I meant to say." She paused for effect. "Now as I was . . ."

  "Uh, excuse me, sorry, but what do you mean falls through?" I interrupted her again.

  Lieutenant Ames turned to General Clemons, "Ma'am?"

  General Clemons turned to Phillip. "Well, Phillip?"

  "No!" he said.

  "Hold on a minute," Dr. Daniels interjected. He turned to me. "Steven, right?"

  I nodded.

  "Listen, it's just a figure of speech we've been using. Skip it. Just assume the data goes through an I/O port there in the center of the cube, okay?" Daniels was trying to give me a hint.

  "Anne Marie, please continue," General Clemons said, attempting to put the questions behind them quickly.

  "Yes, ma'am. Uh let's see . . . yes, here we are. The RAM appears to be continuously changing and we believe that it's encrypted in more than machine code. Decryption never seems to take place as far as we can tell."

  The big fat bald gentleman sitting in the back finally acted as though he was awake and that the last statement startled him.

  "It's encrypted?"

  "Yes, Senator. We believe that the data sequence here that is continuously changing is encrypted data." Anne Marie paused for his response.

  "Jesus Christ Almighty! It could be a listening device. How do you know that those damned things aren't eavesdropping on us right now?" He seemed almost frightened and looked around the room as if to see somebody hidden there that he hadn't noticed before.

  "Okay, okay," Phillip interrupted. "That's far enough for a second. Mr. Montana, would you mind stepping outside please? We will call you back in a bit when we can. Just wait outside." He nodded and an aide beside him led me to the door.

  "Carrie, see that Mr. Montana here is taken care of please. We will call for him in a bit," the aide told the young lady at the desk outside the SCIF door.

  "Sure thing, Bill," she said. The aide returned through the SCIF door back to brown-nose, uh, support his boss, and I was beginning to worry if my future was going with him. Perhaps I shouldn't have asked so many questions.

  But, there was a senator in there? Who was this Phillip fellow and who were all of those people in there? The most intriguing thing was that emerald cube that had data "falling" through it and the ever-changing continuously encrypted data. And just what in the hell did the senator mean by "those damned things could be eavesdropping on us"? What damned things? I was beginning to think that not only was I falling deeper into the rabbit hole, but that I was on the other damn side of the planet from the looking glass as well.

  I sat there in the reception area of the conference room, the SCIF, for some time and nobody came for me. After about an hour and a half I was getting nervous, anxious, and I was afraid I would get depressed if something didn't happen soon. Another hour later the door opened and the senator and his staffer came plowing through the lobby, signed out, and were out the door. But they jabbered the entire time.

  "Bill, get me a meeting set up with the 'sissy' tomorrow. I don't care if they have to fly in from the far side of the Moon. I want them here tomorrow. I mean it. Senators you hear me, not staffers."

  "Yes, Senator. I'll make sure of that."

  "I'm here to tell you, Bill, this is bad news . . . bad news. I never believed the threat was this big. The general needs more men and money and by God she better get them for all our sakes!" They finished signing out of the SCIF and trailed off down the hallway still jabbering.

  Fifteen minutes later Larry came and got me. "Okay, Steve, you can come in now, but son, please, for your own sake, just keep your mouth shut and only speak if you're asked a question. You with me on this?" He patted me on the shoulder and fiddled with his tie as he always does.

  "Okay, Larry. Sorry, I hope I didn't cause problems."

  "Only for yourself, son." He pressed his hand against my back and led me through the SCIF door.

  "Mr. Montana, we appreciate you having patience with us today. Please be seated." Phillip nodded to a chair.

  I tried to make myself comfortable.

  Dr. Daniels was at the screen, "So anyway, we think the material these orange things are made of is something like lithium niobate and perhaps some KD star P in the I/O port portion in the center. The black bands between the gaps are probably some sort of an optical phenomenon, but without breaking the thing open there is little way to tell. And, of course, we wouldn't want to do that, even if we knew how. The main part of the cube—well, all of our spectral analyses suggest no particularly known compound or substance, although it is possible that we are having problems making the measurements because of the quantum phenomena inside the cube."

  "And go ahead and tell us your wife's theory, Jim," General Clemons said.

  "Okay, 'Becca believes that the reason we can't find any particular spectra for the materials this thing is made of is because there is a fairly significant expansion of spacetime within the cube. And, worse than that, the expansion is not linear but following some polynomial expansion in the radial dimension from the center. Therefore, there would be no standard fluorescence spectra for any particular substance due to the nonlinear gravity red, uh, blue shifting inside the thing."

  I couldn't resist. "What do you mean an expansion of spacetime inside the thing and why would a computer have such a thing in it?" Larry elbowed me in the ribs. I ignored him.

  "Good question, Steven. Have you ever seen the ancient television show called Dr. Who?" he asked me.

  "Never heard of it."

  "Oh well, okay. Have you ever read any science fiction books by a fellow named Robert Heinlein?"

  "Which one?" I returned the elbow back to Larry's ribs.

  "It was the one where the little guy carried a pack around that was infinitely big on the inside, uh, what was that one called . . . oh man, would Anson ever kill me if he knew I couldn't remember that. . . ."

  "Glory Road!" replied Larry, Lieutenant Ames, Bill the support contractor, and General Clemons all together.

  "Ah yes, Glory Road is the one. Well, this guy had a backpack that was the size of a backpack on the outside, but the inside was large enough to place all sorts of weapons, food, medical supplies, tables and chairs, you name it. Now what if we could create a RAM chip that is expanded like that on the inside. I mean, if the RAM was the size of a normal memory chip on the outside but was huge on the inside. Wouldn't that allow you to store much more data on the inside than a normal chip? Wouldn't that be cool?" He paused for air.

  I had to admit two things: one) that would be cool and two) I hadn't read Glory Road yet. I had given Larry an unwarranted elbow to the ribs, but I would rectify that sometime tonight. He never did tell me what Dr. Who had to do with it.

  Not long after this conversation we were pretty much brain fried. All of the technology of this "cube" was way advanced and almost magical. It was obvious that these people were reverse engineering it, but then, who had built it? Did we steal it from the Russians or the Chinese? They would be the most likely candidates, but expansions in spacetime seemed too fantastic. And the biggest problem I had with this thing all day was the fact that there was only one major QCCPU. Where was its connected twin, its entangled counterpart? The board I'd worked on had to have two QCCPUs to function; it only makes sense. One fax machine just doesn't do, there must be another one . . . somewhere.

  On the way back to the hotel I made Larry stop at a bookstore and I bought a paperback copy of Glory Road. I also asked him who all these people at the meeting were.

  "Well, let's see. Genera
l Tabitha Ames Clemons is the female astronaut with the most hours in space and the leader of the W-squared group . . . don't ask . . . and the pretty young Lieutenant Ames, if you can put two and two together, is her daughter. The young lieutenant is also an astronaut, and has many hours in the Air Force's space wing." Larry paused to see if I caught that and at the same time acted as though he shouldn't have said it.

  "The Air Force has a space wing?" I fell a few feet closer to Alice.

  "I didn't say that." He shrugged at me as if to say, "Don't know what you are talking about." Then he continued, "Dr. Daniels there is the male half of the Dr. Daniels husband and wife team. They are two of the three most brilliant scientists the country has. You haven't met the third, or I guess I should say, first."

  "Who is that, the other scientist I mean?"

  "Dr. Neil Anson Clemons, astronaut and physicist and chief scientist of the W-squared group. You might recall that he and General Clemons were the only survivors of the shuttle accident a few years ago."

  "That was them, but I thought the woman's name was Ames . . . oh, I get it." A ton of bricks hit me in the head.

  "And let's see who else was there . . . the senator was Senator Mitchell Grayson from Iowa, former lineman in the NFL. I forget who he played for, but did you see that SuperBowl ring? That was years ago; now he is Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence or the SSCI or 'sissy.' He is one of the most powerful men in the country."

  "What about the other guy, Phillip?" I was beginning to realize the big pond full of sharks that I had been swimming in and I was a little intimidated by it. Chum came to mind.

  "Oh, he was the Deputy Director for Central Intelligence, Phillip Sorenson. His boss answers directly to the President."

  CHAPTER 9

  I was so giddy most of the night that I couldn't sleep. The things discussed in the meeting were just so unreal and exciting. I had read a major portion of the Heinlein book that had been discussed in the meeting in case it came up again. By the time the phone rang with my wakeup call, I had gone over the day's events a hundred times. I'm not sure that I ever batted an eye. I hadn't pitched or fielded any of them either. Ha.

  I rushed through my morning ritual and was downstairs in the hotel restaurant area, in line at the omelet station, when Larry stepped out of the elevator. He motioned that he saw me there and proceeded through the waffle line. I found a quiet corner with a two-seat table and started in on the omelet and sausage.

  "Mornin', Stevo." Larry set his tray down. "Be right back. I need some more syrup."

  I just nodded and continued to press on through the first course. I was almost ready to go back for seconds before Larry had taken his first bite.

  "D'you sleep much, Stevie?" Larry asked

  "Not really. I was kind of wound up after yesterday and I got into that book a good bit. How 'bout you?" I finished off my orange juice and plopped the glass down on the table a little too hard.

  "Okay, I guess. I never sleep that great in hotels."

  "Hey, I'm going back for round two, do you need anything while I'm up?"

  "Nah, I'm all right right now," he said.

  This time I decided to go for the waffles, but I also got some potatoes and bacon to go with them. I refilled my juice and also got a soda for chaser.

  "This place is great, Larry," I told him as I sat down. "Free beer in the evenings and all you can eat for breakfast. Way cool."

  "Ha, glad you approve Steve. I stay here every chance I get. If you can't get in here, there is another one at Crystal City, one at Tyson's Corner, and a couple of them on the other side of the Potomac. I prefer to stay in Virginia if possible though. The best thing is that they have government employee rates that match our per diem."

  "I'll have to remember that," I acknowledged.

  "Hey, listen, Stevo. You need to do me a favor, okay?" He set down his fork and his left hand started doing the tie thing.

  "Sure, Larry, what's up?"

  "I need you to skip the meetings today. You can hang out here and read or you can take the Metro into the city and catch some of the museums. But I need you to skip today is all." He seemed a bit nervous.

  "Skip the meetings? Are you serious? I can't wait to go back. Why do—"

  He interrupted me. "Listen, Steve. I got a call yesterday evening about nine o'clock from Phillip requesting that I leave you behind today. No big deal, it's just that you would have to sit outside the SCIF all day anyway. You might as well take the day for yourself."

  "But . . ." What was I hearing?

  "It's not a big thing, Steve. You aren't cleared yet. Just give it time. Hey, if you want to try and catch an earlier flight back and just leave today, feel free. I thought you might like to have a day to see the city is all."

  "It's because I asked so many questions, isn't it?" I must've done something wrong; maybe I could fix it somehow.

  "I don't think so," is all Larry said. "I'm gonna get some more coffee, be right back."

  I sat there staring at my tray the whole minute and a half he was gone. Had I done something wrong? Did I fail my lie detector test? I couldn't have; I answered everything honestly, even about the times I smoked pot in high school. I was truthful when I said I hadn't done it in years. Oh my God, what did I do wrong? I was freaking out big time. Larry must have noticed this.

  "Hey, hey, Steve! Calm down, son, there is nothing happening here but standard security procedures. Things just take time all right? Relax," he scolded me.

  "Okay. You're right. Sorry. You're still flying back in the morning, right?" I shrugged and held my hands palms up.

  "Yeah, nine-thirty."

  "Well, if it's all the same to you, I'll just go back as planned. I wouldn't mind seeing the Natural History Museum and the Spy Museum. And another evening of free beer would be all right with me also." I was hiding my concerns. Maybe I was just overreacting.

  "That's the spirit." Larry smiled. "Look, I gotta get going, so I will see you at happy hour." The persistent tie fiddling continued.

  "Okay. Have a good one, Larry." I waved him off. Then I mumbled to myself, "Well hell, if I'm in no hurry I might as well have a third round at the breakfast buffet."

  I changed into normal clothes, you know, jeans and a T-shirt. Did a few other morning and midday rituals, brushed my teeth, and headed out across the street to the King Street Metro. Larry showed me how the thing worked the other day and I was fairly certain I could handle it. The hotel lobby also had a rack of tourist maps that showed all the attractions and how to see them from the Metro. I took the blue line to the Smithsonian stop and walked out right into the middle of the Mall. The whole ride cost about a dollar and thirty-five cents. I walked out into the middle of the Mall and looked up Capitol Hill to the east and then turned around and looked back west and took in the sight of the Washington Monument. It was such a pretty day I decided to just sit on the park bench under a shade tree there at the Mall and read some. When I first sat down on the park bench I began to think about Lazarus and how much he would enjoy this place. There was a young lady jogging around the dirt track that makes the Mall perimeter and she was pacing along with a cute cocker spaniel, about as old as Laz I guessed. My poor buddy was in a kennel—a good one mind you—but still a kennel and not home. Missing Laz almost overwhelmed me enough to go to the airport and fly home early, but I talked myself out of it. "He will be okay for one more night," I said.

  "Excuse me?" I hadn't noticed but the young lady had stopped for a breather right in front of me and she must've thought I was talking to her.

  "Uh, oh I'm sorry. Your dog, uh, reminds me of mine back home. He's in a kennel 'til tomorrow and I just miss him is all," I said sheepishly.

  "Hey, that's kinda sweet. What kind is he?" she asked.

  "Oh, he's a one hundred percent purebred mutt," I laughed.

  She led the leash over in my direction and her pup sniffed my leg. I held the back of my hand down for him to lick. Once he realized I was no threat he
let me pet him and tug his ears.

  "You get along with dogs pretty well it appears. Reagan seems to like you." She smiled and stood straight, stretching her neck and arms. "Well, it was nice meeting you. I'm going to finish my run now."

  "Oh, sorry to interrupt, bye Reagan," I called to her as she and Reagan trotted off. "That tears it. Damn it all to hell." I stood up, ready to go pack and head to the airport. I walked about five steps and then stopped. "Damn, what should I do?" I decided to call and see if there were any flights back to Dayton, so I found the nearest pay phone. One of these days I've got to get a cell. Fortunately, I had been using my itinerary for a bookmark and the travel agent one-eight-hundred number was on there. It turned out that I couldn't get back to the airport in Dayton until five-thirty, which was about the same time the kennel closed. No way I would make it to Laz tonight. "So that solves that," I told myself.

  A post-Rain storm came through about one p.m., so I took in the Smithsonian Museums along the Mall and then went to the Spy Museum. I also hailed a cab and rode up Capitol Hill to the backside of the Capitol building and saw the Supreme Court and the Library of Congress. Then I had the cabby drop me at the closest Metro and I went back to King Street and the hotel.

  Later that evening Larry and I had the free beer and then walked down King Street all the way to the river. We stopped and ate dinner at one of the seafood shops along the way. I asked Larry about the meetings and my status and so on. He just told me not to ask. Then we talked about the sights that I had seen. The Library of Congress specifically intrigued Larry. He said he had never been there before.

  I finished Glory Road on the plane back to Dayton and went from the airport straight to the kennel. I'm not sure who was happiest to see whom, but Laz and I hugged each other dearly. He licked my face and whimpered at me a time or two.

  "Good boy!" I told him. "I missed you, buddy, d'you miss me?" I tugged at his ears and stroked his back. "Sit fella, sit." He sat and allowed me to put his leash on. Then we loaded up in the SUV and were off to the apartment.