An Ecology of MInd (4 page)

WENDY WENT INTO WORK a bit early. She did not sleep well the night before anyway. She passed through security and made her way to her office. Juggling a
large coffee and muffin in one hand, she unlocked her office door and went inside. She set the coffee and muffin on the corner of her desk and dropped her
purse on the floor.

Flopping into her chair she reached for the mouse. She gave it a quick move with her wrist, and the password screen for her computer came up. She entered
her password, and her home screen came up. Seeing the screen she froze for a second. There was an icon labeled Wendy in the centre of the screen. Not sure
what to expect she clicked it open.

A page came up on her screen with a blank area with a flashing cursor in it like for a word processor. Below it was the message. “Enter your first and last
name or this message will erase in fifteen seconds.” There was a timer counting down and was at eleven seconds already. She quickly typed in “Wendy
Wallchuk” and hit the enter key. The screen changed to what looked like a normal email message.

She started to read it. “Hi, the identity check was to make sure it was you. It checks a combination of name and keystroke pattern. Everyone when they type
has a slightly different keystroke pattern. It may vary in only microseconds in some parts, but it can be as distinct as fingerprints. I had a sample of
your typing pattern from when we were in school. I am sure it is you reading this. Note: If you are reading this, it is the second attempt to reach you.
This specific message will be sent only if someone tried unsuccessfully to access the message once before and failed. If an attempt was made to access this
message, and it was not you, the message would have erased itself and shown up again in 15 minutes. So if there is no reason that this is your second
attempt to read this, someone else has been on your computer and tried to access it.”

Wendy thought, Jesus! Kim really could access the NSA computer system. And even more importantly right now, someone had been snooping around her computer
and gotten by Wendy’s passwords. This was not good at all. She was even more worried now. It looked like the people that had taken Don really were keeping
close tabs on her.

She continued reading. “I checked that code you were working on. It's a portion of an operating system for a quantum computer. A useful functioning quantum
computer could dominate the computer world and the internet. From how the operating system is written, I suspect they are using liquid hydrogen for the
chip. I haven't confirmed it yet, but I suspect China is developing it and does not want anyone else to have the info or know what they are doing. I am on
the trail of your brother and have made some headway already. I found the car of the man that spoke to you at the restaurant and got a start on tracking it
on the city traffic cameras. I have moved on to the next step, and I expect to find him soon. Hang in there Wendy and continue as we discussed. This
message will erase itself two minutes after it is opened. It will leave some hyperlinks to information on quantum computers behind. You can use the links
to give yourself a better idea of what you are dealing with." The note was not signed, but she knew it was from Kim.

So Kim was not wrong. She truly could help and had already exceeded Wendy's hopes with both finding her brother and the code. Kim had also managed to
uncover that someone else actually could access her computer. She felt better already and was beginning to think there was a chance Don would be saved. She
was not home free by any stretch, but it was much better than the cycle of worry and indecision she had been in. She had real hope now.

While she had been deep in thought the note from Kim had erased.

So what the hell was a quantum computer? She had heard the term but did not really know anything about them. She figured she should look at some of the Web
addresses Kim provided. She connected to the first one and started reading.

Holy crap!, she thought, this was major computer mojo. No wonder an agent died taking the code and no damn wonder whoever he stole it from was going to
great lengths to eliminate any knowledge we have of the program. A functioning version of one of these would be totally game changing as far as computers
went. It didn't use conventional chips. It processed and stored data in the quantum states or properties of subatomic particles.

Conventional computer chips were basically miniaturized transistors and processed and stored data as one of two choices, on or off, or more commonly
recognized as a 0 or a 1. Quantum computers had not been manufactured in any sort of useful form yet and were limited to the realm of theory and leading
edge research in secure labs. Even those from what she was reading, were extremely limited, functioning for only a few nanoseconds before failing.

They used sub-atomic particles to process and store data so you could theoretically pack one heck of a lot of computing power in an extremely small space.
These particles came in a wide variety of forms. There were the more commonly known protons, neutrons and electrons, which have a property of a positive,
zero, or negative charge. However, you could go smaller yet and get a variety of different particles. Theoretically at least, the potential for handling
data using subatomic particles was astronomically larger. It was both a matter of what you could pack into a smaller space and a greater number of possible
combinations to program with.

Even if you limited which particles you used, due to technology limitations or practicality, the potential increase in computing power was enormous. The
simplest atom was that of hydrogen. In an individual hydrogen atom, the one electron had nineteen different wave functions or quantum states that it could
exist in. So a single computer processor switch could have nineteen options instead of the current two. The switch was also only the size of one hydrogen
atom. The potential increase in computer power boggled her mind.

For both technical and coding reasons, it was probably a system with only hydrogen atoms being used as the core or chip. The complexity of trying to write
a computer code for nineteen electron quantum states was something that Wendy, with all her computer knowledge, found daunting. To do it for larger atoms
was something she could not even conceive.

A platinum atom, for example, has seventy-eight electrons. Each of those electrons would have a number of quantum states, just as the single electron in a
hydrogen atom had nineteen. The number of different possible combinations of quantum states of the seventy-eight electrons within one platinum atom was an
incredibly large number. If you stretched the theory even further and postulated some sort of mixture of several types of atoms, the idea of writing an
operating code just got ridiculous. And that was only using electrons. Using combinations of other smaller subatomic particles had a complexity and
potential she couldn't even begin to imagine.

Kim was likely right. The quantum computer that the Chinese or whoever, were developing had to be using something relatively simple like hydrogen as the
processor and a “chip” in a liquid form was most likely, due to the physical properties of hydrogen. Even with simplifying it down to that, Wendy had a
hard time estimating the implications.

An operating system for use with the nineteen quantum states of a hydrogen atom electron would look similar in some ways to conventional computer code.
However, instead of using a base two number system, one that was base nineteen would have to be used. In base two, all numbers used are either a 0 or a 1.
To represent the number 9, for example, in base two it would have to be written as 1001. Since there are only two numbers in a base two once you use 0 and
1 and got to the number two, you had to add a decimal place to designate the next number. The number two would be represented as 10.

Other than for computers, the number system we use is base ten, so you could write 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and then for ten, a decimal place was
added. You show one ten and nothing else, written as 10. To move on to eleven, it was one ten and one other, so 11. To write code in base nineteen you
would have to use a number system based on nineteen. In that situation, all numbers up to eighteen could be represented as a single symbol and then for
nineteen you would shift the decimal place and start adding on the symbols you designated for numbers one to eighteen. Since our number system only has ten
symbols you would have to use different symbols for the numbers from ten to eighteen. The code they had been looking at was a mixture of numbers and
capital letters, so it seemed the writers had designated letters of the alphabet to represent numbers between 9 and 18. It was very confusing and
misleading if you did not realize that the letters represented numbers in a different base system. If a section of computer code in base nineteen was
included in a written message that actually was coded, it got even more complex. No wonder they had been having difficulty figuring out what it was."

"She was sure that the code breakers at the NSA, given enough time, would have a good chance of breaking even that. She hoped that she could think of a way
to prevent that from happening for now."

How the hell did Kim figure it out so fast? Maybe she was involved in some similar type of research. Wendy knew she worked as a freelance computer
consultant but since she was rich and didn't need the money, worked only on projects that she found interesting. This sort of stuff would probably be right
up her alley.

She saved the links to the Web sites with the information on quantum computers. Then she stopped to think for a bit. As she sipped her now cold coffee and
nibbled on her muffin her mind raced through ideas of what she should do. She thought carefully about what Kim had told her to do, with this new
information thrown into the equation and realized her friend was right. There probably was a spy in the NSA that had her under some form of observation,
and she couldn't trust anyone. Her best bet still seemed to be to pretend to be carrying out their instructions. Oh Don, she thought; I hope you are okay.

She mentally made a note of people that probably had copies of the code and where any other copies might be stored. As far as she knew for sure there was
only her and her boss, who would have one. She was not sure how she could access the copy her boss, Nelson Swift, would have. This was going to take some
thought.

If she actually had to do what the people that had Don wanted her to do, she didn't know how she could accomplish it. Kim was right though, looking like
she was working on it may buy some time for Don and for Kim to hopefully do something, but Wendy had no idea what Kim could do. It was such a leap of
faith. So far, it seemed to be faith that was justified.

Well, she would try to do her part to buy time. She started thinking about the problem of how to access or destroy the copies of the code. They were not
the sort of thoughts that would endear her to her boss, or the NSA. Even getting caught planning something like this could put her in jail.

PROFESSOR CHRIS WALES APPROACHED the podium in a relaxed manner. The lecture hall was filled. He smiled warmly. He always liked to see an excellent turnout
for this particular event. There usually was a decent crowd when Michael could arrange his schedule to be here at Harvard as a special guest lecturer.

The background noise of a couple of hundred conversations lessened and faded out almost completely as he reached the podium.

"Thank you all for coming. While today's seminar is a first-year history sponsored event, I see a number of other faces in the crowd, and you are all very
welcome. We booked the larger lecture hall today to allow and encourage others to attend this event."

"I have the privilege today to introduce our guest speaker for today's particular seminar. He has lectured for us before at specific seminars and the
response has always been enthusiastic, so I think you are in for a treat."

"He does have a keen interest in history and always manages to include some historical insights in his lectures, but he does not limit himself to just
history. He is knowledgeable in many other areas as well. He holds a number of advanced degrees in a variety of disciplines, and he is the managing
director of The Redstone Foundation.”

“If you are not familiar with the Redstone Foundation, it is located locally and is the world’s largest privately funded think tank, with researchers in a
range of areas such as physics, biology, mathematics, political science, neuroscience and many others. I feel very confident in predicting that you will
find today's seminar memorable for years to come. Ladies and gentlemen, I now turn you over to the always thought-provoking Dr. Michael Pearson."

There was polite applause punctuated with pockets of enthusiastic clapping, probably people who had heard their guest speak before. Michael walked up to
the podium.

"Thank you Professor Wales. It is always a pleasure to be here.” Michael surveyed the crowd and made eye contact with a number of students. “Dr. Wales is
the reason that I do these lectures. We have a personal relationship from a long way back. I’m always surprised though that he keeps inviting me back.”