Quantum (14 page)
Authors: Tom Grace
Moscow, Russia
It was late when Lara Avvakum decided to make a few notes in the project log before quitting for the night. She reveled in the excitement of this exploration and, for the first time in years, lost track of the hours as she worked.
She clicked on the word-processing icon, and her computer immediately began loading the program. The American-made Gateway that Orlov had provided was by far the most powerful computer she’d ever used, and it was so small compared with the ancient colossus that occupied an entire building at Sverdlovsk 23.
In the corner of the screen, a small window appeared containing an animated representation of Albert Einstein. The figure emptied his coffee cup, tossed it aside with a crash, then waved hello.
‘
Zdrávstvuytye
, Albert,’ she said.
As always, the words started slowly, but eventually the flow became steady and strong. It all began to come together for Avvakum, how even in a total vacuum there could not be complete emptiness. Mathematically it was one of those odd points that equations reach when they crash into zero or spiral off into infinity, where matter or energy becomes immeasurable and therefore unknowable. As a physicist, she knew that infinities were nonsensical answers that pointed to a flaw in the method of mathematically describing complex phenomena.
Yet, through the work of her unnamed predecessors, Avvakum found herself standing at the threshold of a new awareness, of a dramatic change in her perception of the universe. She was seeing the effects of something beyond the theoretical barriers of infinity, the first cracks in that seemingly impenetrable wall.
It bothered Avvakum that she found no mention of her predecessors in any of the project documentation. Zoshchenko explained that the names had been expunged as per the terms of dissolution of the original research partnership. As a scientist, Avvakum knew the importance of properly documenting her sources to provide a pedigree for her work. She felt a nagging sense of guilt that she would not be permitted to honor those whose work she was building on.
Two paragraphs into the night’s entry, she accidentally keyed in a pair of
ws.
In anticipation of her next stroke, the program offered her a string of underscored, blue text.
www.cse.nd.edu/~sand/
Even though she’d only just begun exploring the Internet after her arrival in Moscow, Avvakum recognized this as the address of a Web page. Curious, she clicked on the text, and a large window appeared as her computer connected to the Internet.
A dedicated line tied Avvakum’s computer to a remote network-administration complex inside VIO FinProm’s main office. Her request was quickly routed through the FinProm server and out onto the Net.
Seconds later a photograph of a man, possibly in his early forties, with blond hair and a red beard appeared, smiling at her.
‘Ted Sandstrom,’ she read from the text beside the photo. ‘Professor. Ph.D. physics, University of Notre Dame.’
Below the photograph, she read through a long page that described Sandstrom’s background and research interests. Avvakum gasped as she read that Sandstrom’s current work was a study of the quantum boundary between matter and energy. The page also listed Sandstrom as being on sabbatical from his teaching duties at Notre Dame for the current term.
I wonder, Professor Sandstrom, if you are the one whom I am following.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
‘That ought to about do it,’ Grin said hopefully as he saved the program file he was working on. ‘Now maybe I can get a clearer picture of how Lobo works.’
Shortly after diving into Kilkenny’s decryption project, Grin decided that a mathematical algorithm as intricate as Wolff’s cipher deserved a name, so he christened it Lobo. The program he had just created was designed to test his assumptions on how Wolff’s cipher operated.
Once he finished loading his program into Stan, he switched machines to see how many new pages the Preservation Lab had scanned into their computer. As soon as the window containing the page icons appeared, the individual icons began vanishing. The files were disappearing at a rate of one every three seconds. No doubt, someone was moving the files off the server. But who, and why?
Grin moved to the Wolff directory – which held the six separate subdirectories for each of the notebooks – and selected everything to be downloaded to his machine.
FILE ACCESS DENIED
He stared at the monitor in disbelief. ‘What the hell is going on!’
Grin grabbed the phone. ‘Please, somebody, still be there,’ he pleaded as the line rang.
He got a fast busy signal and slammed the handset in the cradle. Seven more files were now gone.
Suddenly, the window displaying his link to the Preservation Lab server closed – the connection cut.
‘Red alert! Red alert! All hands to battle stations!’ a voice clip of Patrick Stewart from
Star Trek
shouted out from Grin’s workstation. Whoever was erasing files down on campus was now attacking Grin’s machines.
Grin swiveled to view the large monitor just as the screen went blank and a new window appeared. In the upper-left corner was a white square that held a black spider graphic.
‘All right, Spyder, sic ’em,’ Grin commanded, as if the computer were listening to him.
Nested deep within the MARC network was a Spyder, a black chunk of artificial intelligence that a year earlier had nearly cost Nolan and Kelsey their lives. The device was the offspring of a similar piece of computer hardware designed by Moy Electronics to defend computer networks against hacker attacks. The Spyder carried all the tools of its parent, the Gatekeeper, and several offensive weapons designed by the CIA for use in gathering intelligence. Following the Spyder incident, Nolan and Grin worked out a deal with the CIA that allowed them to retain the device and work with Moy on improvements.
Grin watched as a graphical depiction of the affected computers appeared on his screen. From MARC, the trail led back to the Preservation Lab server on campus, through the university’s central server, and then out into the world.
‘You may be good,’ Grin said with grudging admiration, ‘but your ass is mine.’
System by system, Spyder followed the hacker’s electronic trail, identifying each step along the way. The hacker had covered his tracks well, snaking his way through dozens of Internet servers to create a labyrinthine trail that was nearly impossible to follow.
Grin reset the window view from a schematic line drawing of the hacker’s route to one superimposed over a map of the earth. The hacker blazed an impressive path across the globe, even managing to penetrate a Web server at a research station in Antarctica. Ten minutes later the trail reached Moscow.
‘Say cheese, you asshole,’ Grin said, knowing he’d nailed the malevolent intruder.
The map of the world faded and was replaced by the image of a black IBM server tower. Just as the window containing the machine’s schematics and serial numbers started to appear, the window went blank.
‘What the fuck do you mean the connection has been lost?’ Grin screamed as the Spyder reported its status.
Grin instructed the Spyder to show him a network diagnostic. A graphic depiction of the MARC network appeared, followed by one of the university’s network. The Spyder showed him every machine it could touch. Both networks appeared fine, except for the hole in the picture where Grin knew the Preservation Lab server should be. The server was physically in the basement of the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library on main campus but, from Grin’s point of view, it was gone.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Leskov looked down at the broken remains of the beige network server, its thin metal shell stripped open to reveal the delicate circuitry. Five minutes into their assault of the Preservation Lab, he’d received a panicky report from Orlov’s electronics group in Moscow about some difficulty they were experiencing with the MARC network. Apparently, their attempt to penetrate that network had met with an effective resistance and retaliation. Leskov answered their request to break the connection by destroying the lab’s network server.
‘Moscow confirms that contact with the MARC network has been terminated,’ the young man in charge of communications reported.
‘Obviously, Misha,’ Leskov said, laughing. Although his solution to the possible security breach might be considered crude, it was decidedly effective. ‘Hand me the magnet.’
Misha, a lanky twenty-five-year-old with ice-blue eyes, slipped the backpack off his shoulders and extracted the electromagnet.
Leskov kicked several pieces of broken plastic away from the exposed metal supports to reveal the server’s stack of hard drives. He flipped the switch on the powerful magnet and began slowly waving it over the stack. A strong electromagnetic field bathed each of the sealed drives, obliterating the organized patterns of information stored on the thin disks within. In seconds, the drive stack was wiped clean.
From the rear of the lab, Josef, the thickset Georgian who’d been part of the team that struck Sandstrom’s lab a month earlier, walked quickly toward Leskov.
‘I have the notebooks,’ Josef said as he zipped his backpack closed and slipped it over his shoulder. ‘The technician was very helpful.’
Leskov glanced back at the small room that Josef had just left and saw a pair of legs lying on the floor. The technician was either unconscious or dead. Leskov checked his watch – in a few minutes he would know for certain.
‘Time, everyone.’
Josef and two other men, Kiril and Grigori, moved out into the hallway where Evgenii, the point man, stood watch.
‘Burn it.’
Misha nodded, held out a plastic squeeze bottle, and squirted a clear golden fluid throughout the room. When he reached the door, he capped the bottle and slid it into his pack.
‘Ready,’ Misha announced.
Everyone backed away from the door as Misha, using a handheld spark igniter, set a nearby puddle of the fluid aflame.
Ann Arbor, Michigan
As he reread the message that the Preservation Lab server was off-line, Grin remembered that Nolan was in town with Kelsey at the Art Fair. Two of the annual fair’s three venues bordered the university’s main campus and were a short walk from the lab. Grin punched in the number of Kilkenny’s phone.
‘Kilkenny here.’
‘Yo, Nolan. It’s Grin. Something bad is happening down at the lab where they’re keeping those notebooks.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I was just loggin’ on to download the latest pages and I waltzed right into someone swiping the Wolff directory. I tried to grab what was left, but they locked me out. When I called the Preservation Lab to find out what was happening, the phone line went nuts. Then somebody tried to take a run at my machines.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah. The Spyder slammed the door, then went after ’em, but that’s why I think you need to check on the lab. I was just about to nail the hacker when the lab’s server went off-line. I got a funny feeling about this. I think somebody’s trying to ace us out of those notebooks. Are you anywhere near the Grad Library?’
‘Kelsey and I are down near West Engineering. We’ll head over and take a look.’
Nolan ended the call and located Kelsey at a nearby booth haggling with an artisan over an inlaid wooden box.
‘We’ll have to come back,’ Nolan announced as he put his arm around Kelsey’s shoulders, guiding her away from the booth.
‘What’s going on? Who was that on the phone?’ The words raced out of Kelsey’s mouth.
‘Grin. We need to check on the Preservation Lab, right now. It looks like somebody’s after Wolff’s notebooks.’
They moved as quickly as they could through the crowd and passed through the West Engineering arch into the Diag. To their right was the fenced-off pit where Johann Wolff’s body had been discovered. They broke into a run, weaving their way through the crowd toward the Diag. Ahead stood the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library.
Kelsey followed Nolan up the granite staircase to the portico of the library. A welcome rush of cool air greeted them as they passed through the bronze-and-glass doors into the building’s ornate vestibule.
Moving quickly, they reached the far end and turned the corner into a side hall where the elevators and the basement stairs were located. They noticed one of the old elevators preparing to descend and slipped through its closing doors.
A moment later they exited the elevator car into the basement lobby, followed by a librarian carrying a small stack of books. The footsteps of several people quickly climbing up the wide staircase echoed off the marble treads and smooth plaster walls.
‘It’s around the corner,’ Nolan directed as he ran toward the Preservation Lab.
Nolan saw that the hallway was empty, which wasn’t unusual during summer months and almost expected for a building surrounded by the madness of the Art Fair. Then he noticed the temperature rising around them.
He signaled for Kelsey to hang back and carefully approached the lab. As Nolan reached out to place his palm against the door, the frosted-glass sidelight erupted from its frame, expelled by a shock wave of superheated gas. The shattered pane narrowly missed Nolan as it hurtled down the corridor, its imbedded wire mesh barely keeping the hundreds of pebble-sized fragments together. A second explosion thundered from the lab as containers of volatile chemicals exploded in the heat.
‘Let’s get the hell out of here!’ Nolan shouted.
Kelsey was halfway down the corridor before the words were out of Nolan’s mouth, and he was just a few steps behind her.