“I knew it!” George cried out “that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? You want this team to build a quantum computer!”
“This is all still learning at this point,” Saraceni answered. He waited patiently once again for his question to be answered. Alexander was the first to offer a suggestion:
“Well, I’d start by reviewing the approaches tried so far and what’s worked,” Alexander offered.
“Why bother? They’ve only got up to a 32-qubit computer and you need that times like a thousand, at least, to do any meaningful computing. From what I’ve read, that’s at least ten years away, probably longer,” Juliet contributed, twirling her hair absentmindedly around a finger, splitting the ends. Wood watched Saraceni’s face for signs of displeasure at her pessimism.
Saraceni responded evenly, “Humor mewhere would you begin?”
“Well, I think they started by a molecule and using lasers to entangle,” Alexander recalled. Gabriel was next to break his silence. He knew more on this topic than he was letting on, observing the dynamics keenly, still trying to ascertain the true mission of this facility.
“And then nuclear resonance imaging, using magnets, they program with radiofrequency pulses. A tiny test tube filled with special molecules placed inside the machine while scientists use radiofrequency pulses as software to alter the atomic spins,” Gabriel explained. .
“But I heard that’s all irrelevant now, the newest quantum computer is 32 qubits and is using electric current for entanglement. It even solved a Sudoku puzzle and some other basic calculations,” Enam recalled.
George was pensive, “They’re coming at it wrong. Taking baby steps. They’re acting like the end-state goal is to factor some huge number or something. That’s a nice parlor trick, but that’s not the real value to quantum computing.”
“Then what is, in your opinion?” Juliet asked, wondering why George had been hiding this level of knowledge he clearly possesses.
He responded matter-of-factly, “To create a quantum simulation algorithm. Because any physical process, any could theoretically be modeled by a quantum computer. In fact, so well that you couldn’t tell the design you built from the original. I guess unless you wanted to and figured a way to, but otherwise they’d be indistinguishable. But you are obviously needing wayyyy more than 32 qubits, or 138, or even 1000 times that many to achieve something the size of a state.”
“What about the size of a planet, a galaxy, or a universe, could that even be possible?” Kyle asked. Saraceni was glad the youngest team member was participating. The other members respecting him as an equal participant was vital.
“Well, how would we as scientists be able to create something that big when it’s so much larger than ourselves? We would be strictly limited in our ability to program and work on it just due to sheer size. Even if every person on the planet programmed qubits all day long for a living, you wouldn’t have the man power to do it,” Alexander offered, from his vast experience on large projects with serious resource limitations.
Gabriel countered his father, “Unless you could build it to be self-programming, or self-building at some point.”
“But then you lose control,” Enam warned.
“Well, you’re in control of the self-building software, right?” Gabriel responded.
“How would you turn it off if you didn’t like how it was building, or needed to make a correction?” Juliet asked.
A large, loud beacon sounding like a tornado siren screeched out from the building. Wood and Stone jumped up. Saraceni knocked over the whiteboard as he spun about. “The general alarm!” he cried out. “Get them inside!” he said to Stone and Wood. The recruits were on their feet in seconds. Staring out over the half wall of the patio, running bodies streamed across the field in colored groupings. Ten or fifteen teams of twelve people, Gabriel estimated, each in a different color of matching athletic wear. They ran up the hill, appearing like little ants, or an advancing army. The group had their ears covered with double hands.
“Back to your rooms! Stone, Wood, they are restricted to the quadrant-INSIDE- until further notice. Go with them and stay in the empty rooms on the floor until I come for you. You’re not to leave the quadrant either!” Saraceni shouted over the siren. Stone and Wood waved the team in. Gabriel grabbed his father, to make sure he accompanied them, when both froze. Looking over the wall, they saw Mrs. Aquila running across the field in turquoise athletic wear. The fact that she was still a distance runner showed today.
“Mom! MOM!” Gabriel yelled, but she did not hear and kept running up the hill with her team.
“Her team lead has her, Gabriel-NOW!” Stone barked, holding the door off the patio open as members of Molior streamed inside. With one reluctant backward glance toward his wife, Alexander Aquila dragged his son inside the door, which slammed shut and automatically bolted as storm shutters descended over the windows. The hopeful rays of radiant sunshine were replaced by a solitary fluorescent bulb in the hallway.
Chapter 14
As teams of recruits raced up the hill, Saraceni hurdled the concrete wall surrounding the patio with the skill of an Olympic athlete, flicked his security badge past the scanner, and entered the building of the adjacent wing through the side door. He raced through the corridor, cut through a laboratory, raced through a second corridor, cut through the art gallery and burst into the briefing room. Ruth Fielding and three other council members were already there, huddled over the main conference table with Elizabeth Hallowell, the main project manager, and Kuminsky, her #2.
All looked distressed and Saraceni’s concern grew as he drew within earshot. Zeb Gata, a contemporary of Ruth’s, barked commands to a few of Hallowell’s team members as he pulled up the alert detail on the screen. Three scattered. The rest remained.
“97.4%!”
“Yes, Sir, it’s raised exponentially since yesterday, and a full half percent in the last hour.” Hallowell responded, her voice cracking.
“What happened to four and a half weeks?”
“Decoherence accelerated.”
“Obviously, “ he stopped, closed his eyes, bowed his head and breathed deeply for a full fifteen seconds before continuing in a much more directed tone. “Okay. We must assess, decide, execute, remediate. Assess: What has caused this accelerated decoherence?”
“We’re not sure,” Hallowell delivered reluctantly. “None of our monitoring showed any spikes.”
“Okay. Root cause analysis should commence but we may not have time for that, given that at the current rate the world may rip apart in a few hours.” He said slightly more agitated. Ruth offered her thoughts:
“While root cause analysis is underway, we should launch any and all countermeasures. If we can’t yet stop the advancement, we must counteract it. Hallowell, what has your countermeasures committee come up with?”
“Nothing concrete, ma’am, nothing we’re sure will work” Hallowell responded.
“Forget sure! Do we have anything that we have any remote expectation might be of assistance? Has anyone had a single idea?” Ruth pressed.
“The committee had some ideas, but many were theoretical. We didn’t even fully vet them all yet since it’s only been a week. This wasn’t expected so early.” Hallowell replied.
“Well get them in here, or there may not be a later,” Ruth commanded, pressing her palms flatly against the table in front of her, grey hair abandoning its proper dominion in its neat placement on her head.
“All of them? Some are only circle 4’s. We were using it as a learning experience,” Hallowell questioned, twisting her fingers together like a small child.
“I don’t care if they are still in The Cupel, get them in here,” Ruth responded in an even, measured, and very serious tone. Hallowell ran from the room to retrieve her countermeasures committee. Saraceni moved in and began examining the alert detail closely. He was amazed at the interdependencies he saw woven together like a cobweb. The highly capable individuals were often the mo
st frustrated to realize the interdependent nature of their society after being recruits. The Cupel produced such attachment to individualism that it was hard to break later.
Kuminsky reviewed the basic symptoms of decoherence to the shock and amazement of all present. Since this had never before happened in the history of the universe, it was difficult to know how to respond. One man in Hallowell’s project team began to cry.
“I know it’s difficult,” someone near him said.
“Get him out of here,” Zeb said quietly to Kuminsky, who quickly ushered the man out.
“What effects are from measurement and what are true effects?” Saraceni asked Ruth and Zeb. Several other council members were arriving.
“We don’t know. The project team can’t distinguish. Which are the system and which are the surrounding environment?”
“Have you tried the superconducting ring?” an elder on the council asked.
“Not yet,” Ruth confirmed, “it’s an option, and if we didn’t have the seepage problem, we would use it, but in the present state, we just aren’t sure what it will do.”
“Well, we may soon have no other choice but to give it a whirl,” he responded, his leathery hands pulling up a simulation on the detail screen. Simulation scenarios began running one at a time. The results came back one after another: FAILURE! Inconclusive. Inconclusive. FAILURE! FAILURE! FAILURE! FAILURE! The monitor jumped to 97.5%
“See, you can’t do a simple reversal of current using the ring because the backward flow won’t flow straight back to the original source since the system and environment have shifted. Current just flies randomly all over the place! It may even make the situation worse,” Ruth reasoned. “I’ve been through these scenarios countless times. There is no way to alter the course other than to open a new circle, as we all know, but if we had some countermeasures to not alter the course, but just slow it, that’s all we really need!” As if on cue, Hallowell returned with the countermeasures team, about 30 team members from all disciplines and circles.
“We are at 97.5% and progressing at a geometric rate,” Zeb announced without sparing a moment, “Has the countermeasures team had any ideas that may be of use?” His manner was so stern and authoritarian that the assemblage cowered in his presence.
Ruth aimed to soften the message to promote idea-sharing, reverting as if by instinct back to the core methods of the facility. Just because Zeb had let panic make him harsh, she could not see valuable minutes lost. “Please, we’re looking for any idea at all, even if it’s just a scrap, we may be able to build on it.” She pleaded with the countermeasures team as she prayed silently to herself, to whoever would listen.
A short girl in the back with wide eyes who looked rather like a startled rabbit stepped forward slightly, shoving her fisted hands deep into the pockets of her sweat jacket.
“Yes?” Ruth prompted gently, fearing if she pushed this girl, she might bolt from the room. She looked at Elizabeth Hallowell as a cue for the girl’s name.
“Soo Jin,” Elizabeth relayed to Ruth clearly, the only useful information she’d been able to supply so far today.
“Soo Jin,” Ruth prodded,” do you have an idea?”
“Mikhail had one,” she reported, and stepped quickly back to her place. Hallowell spun instantly to a tall, gangly boy of nineteen, also in the back, who was dressed as if he had just returned from a concert. “Mikhail? Did your calculations yield a result?” Hallowell accused. How dare he keep information from her!
“I wasn’t sure,” he stammered, “it was just an idea I had, but it’s probably stupid.”
“I said share any ideas! “ Hallowell scolded, not realizing her own lack of leadership skills caused this dilemma. Ruth stepped between the two and Hallowell shrunk back next to Saraceni.
“Mikhail, I don’t believe we’ve met.” Ruth smiled at him warmly, sweeping her grey hair back from her face to its usual position, “If you had any positive results at all, we could use anything with which to work.”
“Well, I noticed when this was originally set up, the team added a conservatism factor for every grid across the entire spectrum,” he continued.
“We were told to build in conservatism, to be sure. For safety,” Hallowell defended, correctly, as that was the original instruction.
“Right,” Mikhail stepped forward to the screen and pulled up a large display of amber grid covering the entire screen, the outline of about a thousand small squares, “but we added .008 for each grid, which is a conservative number, assuming every grid were impacted, but if you think about it, we really only needed to build a buffer at the measurement points. He manipulated the display and about 100 of the squares lit up, or 10% of the surface area of the grid, evenly spaced throughout. “So, we have a buffer of 8.0 built in when, using just the measurement points, the buffer should really be just .8.”
“We’re 7.2% over! Oh, thank God!” Zeb cried out. Ruth stared at the grid and smiled.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to find out about an error in all my lives.” Ruth said.
“But, the decoherence is still progressing exponentially,” Saraceni pointed out. At the present geometric rate, that would set them back to 89.7%, but they’d be right back to this point in about 12 hours.
Mikhail, emboldened by the confirmation of his idea as correct, offered up the real idea he’d held back from Hallowell, “I was thinking. Measurement aggravates, if not directly causes, decoherence, so if we measure at 100 points now, and we stopped measurement, then we could slow the decoherence.” The group considered the idea. Zeb walked to the screen and pulled up the critical measurements list as he spoke.
“Well, we can’t stop measuring altogether because of The Cupel. That might cause even greater problems.” His fingers flew and calculations spewed across at an alarming rate. No one else but Ruth could even follow them that fast. “But…. if we shut off all measurement except for the minimal juncture points, basing on the present decoherence rate and progression factor…” He ran to a notebook on the desk and double-checked using a slide rule. A student in the back chuckled.
“It will still progress, but the slower rate, coupled with the resetting back to 89.7% will buy us three more weeks!” he announced jubilantly. The group cheered and Saraceni exhaled a long sigh and slumped his shoulders in relief. Ruth turned to Saraceni, placing a hand on his shoulder reassuringly.
“Our fate will still rest with you, and Molior, as it has all along, but you will have the time to execute the original plan.” The weight of her hand felt like the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Back in the sequestered quadrant, Molior members were piled in the hallway inside the closed door. Kyle and George, who had been the first to run in the door at the sound of the alarm, had been knocked to the floor and were being helped up by the others. Gabriel pounded on the door.
“My mom’s out there! What’s going on?” he shouted.
“She’ll be fine. There’s time for them to get inside,” Wood reassured, pulling him from the door.
“Then why did the doors bolt and shutters draw down?”
“Precautions. We take no chances here, especially in this quadrant. We try to be safer than we have to be. If you knew the stakes, you’d understand.” Wood continued to try to diffuse the situation, but his first thought was that he was notably nowhere near Saraceni’s level of communicating.
“Enlighten me!” Gabriel jerked his arm away from Wood’s grasp and turned back toward the door. Wood looked at Stone, searching for his affable manner to intercede.
“He can’t,” Stone confirmed.
“Well somebody better or I’m outta here. I’m tired of all this cloak and dagger, I want some god damned answers,” Gabriel continued. His father watched, partially wanting to hold his son back, but also agitated and wanting answers himself. He wanted to see where this would lead.
“You’ll get them,” Wood was just trying to calm him down at this point, “as soon as Saraceni arri
ves, he’ll explain everything.” As he said it, he knew it was a promise he couldn’t make for Saraceni, but hoped optimism and faith would be enough. George, who was on his feet again by now, leaned over halfway, hands on his knees.
“George, you look woozy, are you okay?” Chandra asked, kneeling down before him. He looked at her just a few inches from his face, but she became blurry at the edges. Her brow was knitted tightly in concern.
“You look like Sampson’s wife.” he said, and fell over, holding his head. David Running Wolf rushed to his side, as did Wood and the rest crowded around.
Kyle leaned over with his hands on his knees and also looked woozy.
“Kyle?” Chandra asked . He was breathless and woozy, but responded in a weak voice.
“I’m okay.” The group turned their attention back to George.
“You’re the doctor, what should we do?” Wood asked David.
“I do genetics research, I don’t work in an ER! My M.D. rotations were 12 years ago!” David responded, simultaneously checking George’s vital signs and turning him on his back. He opened George’s eyes forcibly with his fingers. Juliet took one step in and clutched Wood’s arm in desperation.
“Do any of those scanners in the training room do anything useful like medical screening? Will they tell us anything other than DNA minutiae?” Alexander offered.
“Yes!” Stone shouted. “Grab his feet!” The team collectively picked George up by the arms and legs and raced him down the hall to the training room.
“Platform 7!” Wood shouted and the group deposited George’s limp form on the platform. Wood booted it up and the orb in the corner began to glow.
“Come on, come on,” Jane pleaded with the machine impatiently. The program ran and Stone and Wood huddled together, reading the results.
“Well, is he okay?” Gabriel spoke for the group. Wood and Stone turned and looked slightly more relaxed, but not without concern.
The Cupel Recruits Page 14