The Pike: Ships In The Night (7 page)

I saw four heads poking around a corner in the room beyond.  Lenny and three other men, ranging in ages from around twenty to forty.  I tried hard not to smile, the poor guys were so awkward, and it would probably break their hearts if I did.

I tilted my head at her, trying to catch her deep brown eyes, and asked, “Schrodie?”

She blushed even more if it was possible and she shot a warning look back at the men. “That's my nickname here, because even when I'm not here working the math, I'm... still here, working the math.  Are you familiar with Schrodinger's cat?”  The men tittered.  Are men supposed to titter?

I nodded and smiled at her,. “Yes, I'm familiar with Schrodinger's cat.”

This got a little smile from her, and she chanced looking up at me.

I pointed at the tape over the room number and prompted, “Heisenberg Squad?”

She grinned and met my eyes fully now and just wow, you could see her intelligence burning in her eyes, it was almost a physical thing you could reach out and touch.  She said cutely, “We're pioneering new trials in our field.  So we have no idea where we are, but we're making good time!”

This caused the men to burst into giggle fits and she gleeped out a giggle of her own before composing herself.  She tilted her head. “Umm... why are you here, Miss?”

Oh...  I looked down at her and said, “Oh, sorry.  I'm Allison, and you left some papers at the Pike.”  I dug them out and offered them to her.  “They looked important so I tracked you down to return them.”

Here eyes went wide, and it looked like relief flooded through her as she almost snatched them out of my hands and held them tight to her chest like they were precious cargo.  “I was in a panic not knowing what I had done with these.”

Then she paused and narrowed an eye at me and asked in an almost accusing tone, “You didn't look over the calculations on theses did you?”

I nodded and teased. “Yes, I used them to solve a time travel problem I have been working on.  I've come back from the future to get these back to you.”

She blinked at me, twice.  Then asked carefully, “You did?”  The men were suddenly quiet as they seemed to be studying me.  Oh dear lord.  I guess you don't joke with a physicist.

I held my hands up. “No, I didn't.  It was a joke.”

She studied me a moment like she was digesting my words.  Then her smile brightened, and she said, “That is humorous, as none of my calculations bordered on temporal mechanics.  Your supposition that the utilization of my postulates contained in them could be used in such a manner makes it funny.”

The men were nodding and smiling.  She leaned in closer to me with a bright smile and said in a conspiratorial tone, “I know some jokes too.  My dad is always telling jokes.  Want to hear one, Allison?”  She blushed a little at my name.

I nodded at her.  There was an almost excited look on her face when she asked, “Why can't atoms be trusted?”

I shrugged, and she said in a voice quaking with humor, “Because they make up everything.”

The men burst into giggles, and she started giggling too, it was about the cutest damn thing I had ever seen, and I had to chuckle a little at it.  The group seemed to get such pleasure from such a simple joke.

Then they quieted down, and I suddenly felt self-conscious just standing there leaning on my cane.  I looked back down the hall then at her, and she shot a quick glance back at the men who all looked away, trying to look innocent as they wandered away to do whatever they did.

I asked as I scratched the back of my head with my free hand.  “So just what is it you do here?  I recognized some of the superposition of eigenstates, but your work is so far beyond me it's just silly.”

She blinked and smiled in mild surprise,  I almost snorted, I probably sounded like a gibbering baboon to her.  Then she looked past me down the hall and whispered, “You want to see?”

I nodded and then before I could react she was pulling me through the doorway to the short hall beyond.  She shut the door, leaning her back against it, and she held a finger to her lips and whispered, “Nobody is supposed to be back here.”

I nodded and assured the woman who looked like she was brimming full of mischief.  “My lips are sealed.”

She started walking past me, nudging her chin toward the room beyond and I trailed behind her.  It looked like a spaceship from the future had thrown up all over the place.  There were gadgets strewn about that I wouldn't be able to identify if my life depended on it.

Two of the men who were eavesdropping on us earlier stopped what they were doing and just stared at me.  She chastised, “Stop staring boys, you've seen a girl before.”

Lenny shook his head. “Not in here.  Is she supposed to be here?”

Liya grumped at him, “Hey, I'm a girl.  I'm in charge so yes, she can be in here.”

The man I assumed was Hachi, cocked his head and asked Lenny, “Schrodie's a girl?”  This got the two men snickering.

She rolled her eyes, blushed, and smiled at them, then led me toward one end of the lab.  One corner of the room had a thick plexiglass partition and one of the men I had seen earlier was inside by a large tank the size of a bathtub.  He had a what looked like hospital scrubs on, and a hair cap like you'd see in a cleanroom.  I realized the brightly lit room was just that, a cleanroom.

She moved a hand palm up like an offering and said, “Taa daa.”

I smiled at her and moved to the barrier and just looked in as the man adjusted something that looked like a laser in the tank, judging by the laser radiation warning stickers on it.  He fastened a lid on the tank and headed to what could easily be called an airlock.  He held his arms wide, and a blast of air blew over him then he came out into the room.

I asked, “So what am I looking at?”

She said with her voice quivering with excitement, “This is Maggie. What we hope will be the first stable quantum state computer able to outperform classical binary computer models with comparable error models even with quantum decoherence.”

I stared at her a moment then back at... Maggie.  She looked frustrated at my obvious confusion.  Then she looked at the man who came out of the booth.  “Carl, are we ready to fire her up?”

The other men came darting over when she said that, eager looks on their faces.  They all put on red safety glasses over their own glasses, Liya did the same and handed me a pair which I put on.  She explained, “We use photons instead of electrons, so the university makes us use protective eyewear when pumping the lasers.”

She asked me, “Give us a simple math problem.”

I shrugged as curiosity filled me, “Six times seven?”

This got some snickers, and she asked with a cute smirk, “Hitchhiker's Guide?”

I nodded with a grin of my own.  She scrunched her nose and typed on a computer on the counter outside of the cleanroom.  A grid came up on the screen, and a bunch of numbers and labels came up under it.  She mumbled, “Show us the answer to life, the universe, and everything, Mags.”

I heard a deep hum and lights came up on the tub.  She input my problem and the grids filled in instantly and the lights went out in the tub and the hum dissipated.

The men all cheered and started high fiving.  The Filipino imp was almost smirking smugly as she indicated the screen to me with a sweeping hand gesture.  I looked at it and in each square on the grid, the number forty-two.  I narrowed my eyes and pointed at one of the squares that had a thirteen instead.

I prompted, “It got it wrong here.”  I thought quantum computing was supposed to be this amazing thing that was going to revolutionize the tech world forever, but it couldn't even do math reliably?

She grinned and nodded, saying with pride, “Ninety-nine percent accuracy in predictive states of the qubits.  That beats the prior record of ninety-five percent from 'first try' by utilizing quantum tunneling in the landscape.  In application, the results like this would use a weighted set and use the most probable result.  We can successfully factorize one hundred forty-three using two qubits so far.”

Wait, I knew this. “Doesn't Sky Computing have a one thousand qubit computer?”

Everyone just froze and almost glared at me.  She spoke slowly, as she looked around at them, as if not to make any sudden moves around a dangerous animal.  “At ninety-five percent.  Their problems with quantum decoherence result in a system multiple times slower than that of a classical binary system.  They can't even conclusively prove they aren't just using a novel approach with simulated annealing instead of actual quantum annealing.”

I grinned over the fact that her intelligence was so far beyond mine I doubted she could dumb things down enough for me to actually grasp.  I said in a serious tone, “Of course.”  This seemed to appease the nerdy gods, and everyone relaxed.

Then she looked at the papers I had brought her where they sat on the counter beside the keyboard.  “Though we are stalled, as we can't accurately combine multiple qubit sets to come out with a predictive algorithm as to have a stable matrix.  We want to be the first.  If we can do it, then we can make the future of quantum computing a reality.”

I nodded, understanding what it was to be stuck.  I looked around to the room of eyes, all on Liya, it was plain to see that they looked up to her as their leader.  I could tell all their hopes were all riding on her shoulders, and that was a big burden, having to live up to other people's expectations of you.  I felt for her.  I didn't need to be taking her away from something so important.

I smiled and said, “Well, I should get out of here and leave you to your work.”

She looked almost disappointed at that.  We started to turn, and I paused and glanced back at the Frankenstein-ed super computer and asked offhandedly, “What does Maggie stand for? I was trying to build an acronym in my head but am coming up blank.”

She blushed profusely and looked down at her ratty shoes and said in a small voice, “Nothing.  It's just... pretty.”

That, I was not expecting.  I couldn't stop the smile that was spreading on my face from ear to ear.  I nodded and agreed, “Yes.  It is.”

She smiled and chanced a glance at me then we started walking back to the door.  She opened it for me and said as I stepped out and turned to face her, “Thank you... Allison.  I would have had to start over without my notes.  I would have lost almost five or six hours of useful production time duplicating them from memory.”

From memory?  Wow.  I nodded. “Not a problem, happy to be of service, Liya.”

She beamed a smile at me that almost knocked me on my ass when I said her name.  Great balls of fire, that was sort of sexy.  She asked almost shyly as she half shut the door, giving the feeling she was using it as a shield, “Will... will you be on the ferry again tomorrow?  I have observed you consistently on a daily basis and have concluded that it is your daily routine, but without further empirical evidence I...”

I cut her off with a chuckle.  “Yes, I'll see you tomorrow.”

She gave me a little wave and shut the door as she blushed.  If it was possible for her to be any cuter, I didn't see how.  I smiled at the closed door then turned around, in the best mood I have been in months, and started my trek back to the Pike.  My leg twinged, bringing me back to myself and I sighed, I still had PT to look forward to in just a bit.

I closed the door behind Allison and for a moment leaned my back against it.  Why was I smiling so much?  I pushed away from the door and stepped back into the main lab.  The boys all stopped what they were doing and wordlessly looked toward me.

I glanced around then blushed and articulated a reasoned response to their sudden officiousness, “Shut up, I'm a girl too.”

This placated them, and they went back to work.  I had to smile at my boys, they were efficient but easily sidetracked, especially when it came to the subject of females.  I knew that, barring any other distractions, that we had the potential to make the breakthrough we had been seeking in our field that would propel computing into the next era and beyond.

I glanced back at the door as I picked up my notes from beside the control console.  I found myself smiling.  Allison had taken time away from her own activities to track me down and bring my calculations to me so that I didn't suffer any slowdown in efficiency by having to reproduce them.

I shook my head to clear it, I couldn't allow myself to be distracted from the task at hand.  I laid out my notes and placed the missing ones in their place on the counter, and I stood in front of them, Lenny and Hachi joined me, and we just stood there, absorbing the formulae, rehashing the calculations in our heads to find the anomaly that was creating the obstacle.

We would be there for hours like that just as we had been the past three months.  At least Carl and Jamal were making headway on the hardware while we were stalled on the math.  This was so exhausting.  I glanced at the door again, Allison was so tall, and those steel grey eyes...  Come on  Ligaya, don't get distracted, you have work to do.

At exactly twelve fifteen, as always, we all stopped and went to the staff lounge on the second floor of the Physics Building.  We all sat at the same table and while the boys told some humorous jokes about path integral formulation.  I took out the little brown sack from my shoulder bag and placed it in front of me.

As I positioned the items from the sack that my mother had prepared for me in the proper order and placement in front of me, I smiled and looked up.  “My dad told me another joke last night.”  My team quieted up quickly and looked on in anticipation.

I don't know where he hears these, but all my life he has come up with humorous anecdotes, riddles, or silly jokes that I can actually understand.  He should be a stand-up comedian.  I hear that making people laugh is an art form, though humor mostly eludes me.

The boys looked on as I grinned and asked, “Why did the chicken cross the Mobius strip?”

They shook their heads and Jamal offered, “To determine if the closed boundary is homeomorphic to an ovaloid shape?”

I snickered.  That was actually pretty good, but... “No, not to see if it was egg shaped, Jamal.”  I paused and smiled brightly at them and delivered the punchline, “To get to the same side.”  It only took a moment for them to process it, then we were all giggling.  Dad was a comic genius.

Carl smiled and nodded as he started eating his tuna salad sandwich like he has eaten every day since he joined my team. “I'm going to steal that and tell it at my next Theoretical Physicist Club meeting.”

I nodded then looked at my meal.  I had to smile.  There was a little note from my mom, stuck to the lid of the plastic container that kept my sandwich fresh like always.  It read, “Sana masaya at maganda ang araw mo, Liya, mahal na mahal kita. Mom.”  Which loosely translates to, “Hope you have a fun and beautiful day, Liya, I love you so much. Mom.”

I removed the lid and had to grin, as always, she had cut my shredded chicken sandwich into random pieces, no uniformity to them at all.  She knew I liked structure and consistency in my life and routine, so she does this to play with me and I love her for it.  It took me months to figure out that was what she was doing after I complained about it endlessly to no avail.

The rest of my meal was the same as always, the less distraction I had in my schedule and habits, the more time I could dedicate to my work.  I had a hard boiled egg to the left of the sandwich, a small container of rice with vegetables to its left, and an apple dumpling for dessert above the sandwich.

I made one concession to adjust my routine, as it made sense with the new addition to my schedule.  I poured fresh coffee from the carafe which Hachi had retrieved for our table, into the thermal mug I had received from The Pike.  It efficiently kept my coffee hot for much longer than the University's ceramic mugs.  If I refilled the mug at the conclusion of lunch, then I'd have warm coffee for much of the afternoon in the lab.

I was reluctant to choose a new location for my breakfasts, but now I find my reticence was unfounded.  The Pike is proving to be a superior choice to my original selection of  Common Grounds Java.  That Eve girl was playful and reminded me of mom, and then there was... Allison.  I blushed and hid my smile as I ate my problematically random sandwich.

The rest of the day flew by.  We had adjusted one of the rational probability densities in my work and spent the rest of the day pondering the impact to the equation as a whole.  I was exhausted by five.

Then precisely eleven minutes later we had shut down all the equipment and were heading to our various homes.  I had a slight throb in my head from all the number crunching, but I believe the change we implemented would give us a more stable footing if we finally have our breakthrough.

I mumbled to myself, scolding vehemently, “When, Ligaya, not if.”  I tried not to think negatively, I'd rather be positive like a proton.  I giggled.  Much better.  Who says physicists can't be funny?

I took out some light reading once I was on the bus heading toward the Sound, the Richard Feynman lectures.  I had to find something simple to wind down with, or I would obsess over my calculations.  Mom and dad say that you are supposed to leave your work at the office.  Hard to do when I'm thinking all the time.

I paused and smiled down at my shoes.  At the beakers and atoms I had drawn so long ago.  I was so close, I was going to keep my promise.  I got off the bus on Alaskan Way, just past the fire station.  I liked to walk the last block.  Keeping in motion felt better to me.  It was irrational I know, but when I sat still it was like I could feel entropy closing in on me.  Dad always says that a moving target is harder to hit.

As I reached the ferry terminal, I waved my ORCA card over the plate on the turnstile, then went out to the docks.  I liked sitting outside when the weather wasn't too cold, I didn't have too many days left before I had to start wearing heavier clothes and my jackets.

I stutter stepped when I looked up from my reading to find an open bench.  A familiar muscular and fit woman with long black hair and steel grey eyes was sitting on a bench, leaning both arms on her cane as she gazed out over the water.  Her skin had a slight olive tone that most people would miss, it hinted at someone in her family's past having middle eastern heritage.

What was she doing here?  Past data suggests that an anomaly in her day had caused her to be on my ferry the prior evening since I had never seen her on the return trip before.

My heart started pounding, and I felt warm again.  That solidified my supposition that I was coming down with something.  I should start bundling up against the cooler air so the illness wouldn't get worse and affect my work.

I looked down and shuffled toward an empty bench when she looked up and smiled.  It was such a pretty smile.  I know I'm not a very good judge of what is and isn't pretty, but she had a certain pleasing symmetry to her smile as she cocked her head a bit and said, “Liya, fancy meeting you here.  Have a seat.”  She moved over slightly on the bench.

I swallowed and nodded once and sat beside her, she watched me intently as I did.  Small talk.  That was the social convention, right?  I asked in an attempt to convey my confusion. “What are you doing here?”

I knew that sounded terse and awkward, so I quickly amended my query in a panic, “Not that it is a bad thing.  I mean... the unexpected variable... I...”

She chuckled, and the smoky tone seemed to shiver through me in some sort of harmonic vibration that had my face heating up as she said, “It's alright, Liya, I just... missed... my ferry so I'm forced to catch this one home.”

Ah, understandable.  I nodded and offered, “I always am sure to leave a buffer of plus or minus two minutes in all of my plans to account for any unforeseen occurrences like that.”

She kept looking at me, her head cocked as she looked me over.  I felt so... small.  There was a smile quirking at the corners of her mouth, which just made me smile.  Then she nudged her chin toward the book.  “Don't let me interrupt.”  Then she looked around with a look I couldn't identify on her face as she raised her chin slightly, the light cool breeze coming in over the Sound rustling her hair, “A beautiful night isn't it?”

I nodded... then snapped out of my distraction and looked around, setting the open book on my lap as I just took in the twilight of Seattle and its reflected lights that were shimmering across the surface of the water.  She was correct, it was aesthetically pleasing.  I sometimes forget to just sit and take in the world around me.

I absently closed the book, set it on the bench between us, and nodded as I watched the ferry coming in to port.  “Yes.”

This seemed to please her.  She didn't look at me as she gazed out over the world, taking it all in, absorbing it, but she smiled.  What did I say?  I liked how it felt to make her smile.  I would endeavor to accomplish the task whenever she was around.  Maybe I could get dad to tell me more jokes I could relay to her on the morning ferry rides.  If she didn't mind speaking with me, that is.

I didn't know what else to say or how to engage her so we just sat there, taking in the physical world around us.  I wasn't very good at this small talk paradigm.

The ferry docked, and cars started driving off.  There were always fewer vehicles arriving than departing at this time of night.  Rush hour.  Foot traffic started lining up, waiting for the cars to board first.

I stood and looked at her when she didn't move.  I asked, “Why do you always go last?  Doesn't convention dictate that those with physical limitations, the elderly, and those with small children board first?”

She winced, telling me I had committed some sort of social faux pau.  Wasn't it a valid question?  She shrugged and finally stood beside me as she said, “I suppose it does, but there are plenty of people less capable than me.  I don't like to see myself as having physical limitations I suppose.  I'm getting better by the day.”

She didn't want to take advantage of her disability?  That was counter-intuitive, but not having any physical limitations of my own, so maybe the dataset I was working off of in my supposition was inherently flawed in some manner?

Then the troubled look on her face turned into a grin as she added, “Besides, this way I get to people watch.”

I smiled back without knowing precisely why.

Then she said with what I took as a wry grin, “After you.”

I'm not always sure how to interpret some grins, it is hard for me to identify the subtle differences in attitude and emotion exhibited by people.  She followed me onto the Kaleetan.

When we reached the passenger deck, I hesitated when she started toward the upper deck.  I asked, “What do you do up there?  I notice that you seem to prefer to be out there even in unfavorable environmental conditions.”  Was it some sort of uneasiness she had because of her disability?

She looked up the stairs then at me and shrugged, I found her eyes so penetrating.  She responded thoughtfully, “I love the ocean air and seeing the majesty of Puget Sound.  The wonder of seeing Mount Rainer to the east and endless waters to the north.”

Then she said in a quieter voice like she was embarrassed, “Besides, sometimes I get to see the whales, even in the offseason like now.”

Whales?  I like whales.  They are very intelligent.  I always used my time on the ferries to either read or to work on my math.  I sometimes forget that there is so much going on in the world outside of my numbers.  I hesitated again and asked my hands since I couldn't seem to bring myself to look back up in the eyes of the tall and fit woman. “Do you... mind if I join you?”

She cocked her head and then nodded once.  “By all means.”  She made an ushering motion, and I quickly made my way up the stairs to the observation deck.  I could hear her grunting slightly as she climbed the stairs behind me.

I wondered why she took the stairs if they caused her such discomfort.  There was a perfectly serviceable elevator on the ship.  She seemed to approach everything so illogically, but a part of me was saying it made sense.  Was it some sort of self-sufficiency paradigm I didn't quite grasp?  I made a mental note to ask my dad about it, he knew how to read people.  Sadly, a skill I didn't inherit... like interacting with others.

The ferry started moving as she led me to a railing.  She closed her eyes and leaned into the breeze which was intensified by the motion of the ship cutting through it.  Her long hair streamed back, and the slightly stressed look on her face bled away into something so... peaceful?  I blinked.  She looked so beautiful at that moment, and I had to smile.

She opened her eyes and looked down with an unreadable expression on her face and nudged her chin out to the Sound.  She closed her eyes again and took a deep breath.  I closed my eyes and did the same, leaning into the chilled breeze.  I could feel the motion of the ship through the deck, smell the salt air, hear the ship's engines and the waves all around us.  The call of seagulls as they shadowed us, hoping to scavenge any dropped food the passengers may leave behind on the exterior decks.