Qubit Read online

  Copyright © 2013 by Finn Mack

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9898226-0-2

  Cover image by Martin Saavedra.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the author. All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  You can learn more about the author at FinnMack.com.

  To Stripes—

  The sun shines brighter and my heart skips a beat

  And the sand feels warmer on the soles of my feet

  When you're here

  Qubit

  A Novel by Finn Mack

  Part 1

  Drinks Are On Me

  1

  * * *

  Renaissance Center (Detroit Riverfront)

  Wednesday, January 17th

  2:00 p.m. EST (Eastern Standard Time)

  Lock hunched his shoulders and dug his hands into his pockets, a futile defense against the whip-cold wind rushing angrily towards Jefferson Avenue from the icebound Detroit River. Dark and soaring cylinders of glass and steel loomed over him like implacable gods. Their very name—collectively, The Renaissance Center—was a promise of a future that had never come, a fitting monument to a city that had lost its way.

  Perhaps parking in the garage farthest from his destination was thus a fitting, if entirely accidental, ritual. After all, weren’t he and the city self-similar parts of a mysterious socioeconomic fractal? Anyway, it was a costly mistake when it was twenty degrees below freezing. At last, he approached the 200 Tower, eyeing the revolving glass doors longingly. Beyond those doors lay warmth.

  And a job interview.

  Lock clenched his jaw at the familiar sensation of rusted gears grinding up his intestines. Why did he bother with these things? Before he even finished the thought, he knew the answer. The email inquiry had gotten his attention with those two magic words: quantum cryptography.

  Lock found himself coming up behind a small, round figure that appeared to be wearing at least two heavy coats and three scarves, one of which secured a woolen cap, and another of which might have been a tattered blanket. A few curly white locks of hair had tumbled out from the top of this bundle, which Lock belatedly realized was an old woman. He forced himself to slow down to match her gait, reaching forward to help her push the door forward. The old woman turned back to him slowly with something that looked at first like a sneer, but after a moment, Lock realized she was trying to smile. Her face was moist with tears, perhaps from the cold. Lock nodded at her and forced himself to smile back—it was probably more of a grimace—barely restraining himself from pushing her forward towards the warmth.

  With the old woman shuffling steadily forward in the wedge in front of him, Lock pushed against the door, hearing the frustrated gasp of the wind as the door sealed behind him. He paused for a moment to savor the relief—and to let the old woman get clear of the door.

  What was he still doing in cold, wintry Detroit? Why not move somewhere warmer? Somewhere he could find a decent job? Of course, he knew the answer to that question, too.

  Sophie was here.

  Lock made his way to an open elevator and got on, unbuttoning his coat, being careful as always with the third button, which dangled from the jacket by a single worn thread. And, as he always did, he reminded himself to take the coat to the cleaners to fix the button. He felt the gears grinding again as the floor number displayed above the door measured his ascent.

  Ten. Fifteen. Twenty.

  He’d never used his real name in connection with his interest in quantum cryptography, which meant someone had gone to no small amount of trouble to find him. It wasn’t just a matter of tracing his IP address because he anonymized all his Internet activity using a program called Tor, for which he’d proudly submitted several patches.

  He walked down a poorly lit hallway with dingy blue carpet before arriving in front of glass doors, upon which were etched the words “Patel and Associates,” and through which he recognized what appeared to be a reception area. Lock took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

  In stark contrast to the hallway outside, the office itself was surprisingly well-appointed, featuring burnished wood floors, a perky ficus tree that nearly reached the twelve-foot ceiling, and a thick Persian-style carpet that made Lock want to take his shoes and socks off. The air smelled vaguely of…incense? Whoever these people were, they weren’t recruiters.

  He introduced himself to a caramel-skinned receptionist with a mole on her cheek and silky black hair that was pulled back tightly into a bun. She forced her mouth into a semblance of a smile and told him to have a seat. Lock guessed that he’d interrupted a riveting Facebook session.

  He settled his lanky frame into a comfortable brown suede couch and picked up a copy of that morning’s Wall Street Journal. He took in the headlines with morose-orbed blue eyes and attempted to run his fingers through what would have been stringy blond hair, before remembering that he’d shaved his head. Kafka had convinced him it would look sexy. He ought to have known it was a prank. It was Kafka’s way of encouraging him to get over his breakup with Mandy. As he pretended to read an article (“Buggy Trading Systems Put Markets At Risk,” warned the headline), he wondered if he ought to have worn something besides a sweatshirt and jeans. At least they were freshly laundered. And he’d worn his new bright-blue Converse hi-tops.

  Lock caught himself tapping his foot. There really was only one reason why anyone would be interested in an ex-con with a penchant for quantum cryptography. Especially in the wake of the announcement of the Wave Nine. Well, if the Feds were going to pin something on him, he might as well deal with it. Maybe he could be like DJB or Aaron Swartz and take the government head on—

  “Mr. Cairnes, Mr. Patel will see you now,” chimed the secretary.

  Lock looked up from his paper with an affected arching of his eyebrows. He folded the paper back up, set it down, and stood, discretely wiping his palms on his jeans. He walked to the office door, which was closed, and looked over to the secretary—was he supposed to simply open the door, or knock? She nodded wordlessly. Lock opened the door and walked in.

  “Ah, Mr. Cairnes,” said a man in a shiny gray silk suit, standing up behind a large desk made of a dark, heavy-looking wood. The muscles of his round face were relaxed. He blinked slowly and smiled with a faint air of condescension, as though he were amused by a child playing. He gestured toward an even larger black leather couch across the room. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  Lock took in his surroundings, which were entirely consistent with the lobby, and included the addition of two wall-sized pieces of art and a spectacular view of Detroit’s west side and the snow-muted expanse of its frozen river. If he had an office like this, maybe Sophie would look up to him more, like she did Dennis, her stepfather. This office was even nicer than the one Dennis had in Bloomfield Hills.

  “You can call me Lock,” he offered, easing himself into the couch. “What is it you guys do again?”

  “We’ll get to that, I’m sure,” replied Kirin, strolling over to the couch. His heels clicked on the wood floor until he reached the border of a thick intricately patterned carpet. Lock noticed that his shoes were immaculately polished. He looked down at his new blue Converse, which suddenly seemed tacky. Kirin reached out and offered his hand. “Kirin Patel.”

  Lock looked up and took his hand, shaking it awkwardly. Shaking hands was one of those strange customs, like wearing ties, that seemed to be from another time and place. He did his best, certain that his gawky handshake was unimpressive.

  However, Kirin seemed unconcerned as he sat down in an expansive chair, his jacket pa
rting to reveal a slight paunch, his hands placed casually, palms down, on the wide, flat armrests. Lock decided he needed a chair like that for his living room. His vibrating recliner suddenly struck him as…juvenile.

  “Mr. Cairnes—Lock—I’d like to offer you a job,” began Kirin. He reached down to adjust his bright-blue pocket square, as though he’d suddenly noticed that it was out of place. As he looked up, Lock thought Kirin looked like a man who felt as if he’d gotten away with something. “It pays quite well,” continued Kirin, “and I think you’ll find the work very interesting.” He paused and leaned forward slightly. “How does that sound?”

  “A job?” Lock heard himself echo dully. He looked out the far window at the cold blue sky, darkened by the window’s tint, and rubbed his hands together slowly. Perhaps this really was just a job interview. However, Kirin had skipped past the usual pointless questions and gone right to offering him the job. And there was still the question of how they’d known about his interest in quantum cryptography. “Sounds good, I guess,” Lock mumbled.

  Kirin leaned back, looking surprised. “Don’t you want to know what kind of job it is?”

  “Sure,” said Lock, his eyes wandering to the paintings on the wall. The one on the left was white with what looked to him like a brightly colored whirlpool viewed from above—various shades of reds and blues, with a smattering of yellows. Lock decided he liked it and wondered how much it had cost.

  “I’d like you to build me a quantum computer,” said Kirin, an expectant smile on his face.

  Lock laughed, partly because of the sheer absurdity of the statement and partly out of nervousness. What the hell was this guy up to? “A quantum computer?” he parroted, his eyes coming back to Kirin’s, his eyebrows raised.

  “Yes,” said Kirin, looking mildly offended. Lock realized he must have sounded dismissive. Kirin elaborated. “What if I told you that we had licensed the technology from Coherence Technologies?”

  Lock stopped laughing. Kirin didn’t look or act like he knew Shor’s algorithm from a brute-force dictionary attack. And no one actually called them Coherence Technologies. They were CoTech, or maybe Coherence. “For the Wave Nine? The NSA locked that up.” Hadn’t they? One rumor on the message boards was that the Wave Nine would be released once the Internet’s cryptography infrastructure had been upgraded to use algorithms that weren’t vulnerable to quantum computing-based attacks. Another rumor held that the NSA already had a quantum computer, and simply didn’t want anyone infringing on their monopoly.

  Kirin ignored his objection. “What I’d like to do is hire you to build a quantum computer based on the specifications from Coherence Technologies.”

  Lock’s eyes narrowed. “I can think of several folks in Ann Arbor alone who are probably better qualified than I am for something like that.”

  Kirin waved his hand. “Nonsense, Lock. We need someone with, shall we say, practical hands-on experience, as much as we someone who understands the physics. Just like the Chief Scientist at Coherence Technologies. There really aren’t that many people like him. Or like you. At least not who would be interested in this job, mind you. The private sector isn’t for everyone. And, again, we’re happy to pay you a generous salary.”

  Lock sat back and took a deep breath, his eyes wandering again to the view of the river outside. Maybe this was for real. Maybe he was so accustomed to failure at this point he couldn’t even trust an opportunity when it was handed to him. He took another breath and tried to focus on the pieces that didn’t yet fit. “You seem to know an awful lot about me.”

  “Of course!” Kirin clapped his hands together as if something had been agreed on, showing his teeth with a Cheshire-cat smile.

  Lock stared down at the glass-topped coffee table, which had one of those interactive magnet sculptures, presently featuring the outline of someone’s hand. Lock guessed it was the receptionist’s. He pursed his lips. The heel of his foot began moving up and down, seemingly of its own accord. He stopped breathing. “I get it,” he intoned, looking up slowly. “You haven’t actually licensed their technology.”

  Kirin’s smiled slipped away for a moment, but then he began to laugh and rub his hands together. “Yes, you’re very clever. Not surprising, I suppose. That’s rather the point, isn’t it? Anyway, right. We haven’t actually licensed the technology. So we also need you to…ah, how shall I put this?”

  “You need me to steal it,” interrupted Lock, his eyes closed.

  “Yes, that’s it,” said Kirin, emphasizing the point with a ringed finger.

  Lock slapped his hands on his thighs, preparing to get up. “Well, I’m sorry, Mr. Kirin—”

  “Kirin, just Kirin is fine. My last name is—”

  “—but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  “We haven’t even talked about the money—”

  “It’s not the money. I just can’t help you.” Lock stood up.

  Kirin quickly rose too, moving a step toward Lock. “Don’t you want to build a quantum computer? Wouldn’t you find that exciting?”

  Lock raised his hands as if to defend himself from Kirin’s advance. “Sure. It’d be interesting. But…well, I’m going to go.” He began walking toward the door.

  “How about a salary of a…a million dollars annually?” asked Kirin.

  Lock was halfway across the room. He turned. Even Kirin seemed surprised by the offer. He was apparently desperate—although Lock now understood why. He was being offered everything he’d wanted—but he couldn’t take it. He couldn’t risk going back to jail again. He couldn’t risk losing whatever was left of Sophie’s childhood. And, hell, it was probably a sting by the FBI or something anyway. “The answer is no. Got it?” He turned back toward the door and walked out of the room.

  Donning his jacket in the elevator, he exhaled, his weight lifting slightly off his feet as he descended. He glared up at the descending floor numbers displayed above the door. “God dammit,” he cursed, slapping the burnished aluminum elevator wall, and wondering why he’d bothered coming at all.

  Sentosa Cove, Singapore • The Li Home

  Thursday, January 18th

  9:00 a.m. SGT (Singapore Time)

  Vipul Rathod felt a bit giddy as he shifted the black Acura SUV into park. Traveling without his usual entourage was liberating. And especially so since he’d just pulled into the ample driveway of one of his family’s chief rivals. If there was ever a place he was supposed to have his bodyguard, this was it.

  He got out and walked along a curving sidewalk toward Li Mun’s sprawling estate. The morning sun seemed to make everything shinier, and there was a nice breeze blowing in off the ocean. It seemed like an awfully nice day to be contemplating murder.

  He reached the porch and noticed a child’s scooter lying on its side. Did the old fattie have grandchildren? He pressed a button next to the large double doors and heard chimes playing a pleasant, familiar-sounding tune. He stepped back and waited, crossing his arms and looking askance at the neighboring lot. It was just as impressive as Li Mun’s. Perhaps I should get one of these places for myself, he thought.

  The door opened just wide enough for a tall, severe-looking man to glare at him. “You’re Vipul Rathod?” he said with a heavy Chinese accent. Fresh off the boat.

  “Yes,” replied Vipul.

  The door opened a little wider. Vipul stepped into a large tiled foyer. “Raise your arms,” said the first man. He raised them and felt two sets of hands patting him down. They found nothing, just as he knew they wouldn’t, because he carried no weapons. He didn’t need them.

  “Right this way,” said the stockier man, leading him into a large living room that was almost completely white, with white marble floors and patches of white rugs, as well as a white suede couch that formed a cushioned perimeter around the room. Light streamed in from two large sliding doors, offering a view of the ocean, which glimmered like a vast display-case of diamonds. He made his way into the room slowly, taking in the various details.
A telescope. A large painting of a black circle on a—what else?—white canvas. A glass table with obsidian carvings of…something.

  “Please make yourself comfortable,” said a woman’s voice behind him. Vipul turned. The stocky man was gone. The woman before him was so beautiful his knees nearly buckled. Waves of black hair cascaded down to her elegant neck. She had high cheekbones, almond-shaped eyes with golden irises, and lips that made him think of fresh raspberries. “My father will be with you shortly,” she said, and Vipul became light-headed. She was still talking. “Can I offer you a drink? Some coffee? Orange juice? Or mineral water, perhaps?”

  “No,” Vipul managed to croak, his tongue sticking momentarily to the roof of his mouth. “Thank you.” He tried to smile, but realized that it hadn’t quite come off. It never did. He wasn’t much for smiling. Or women, for that matter. But this one…he wondered if she thought he was too small, too boyish looking. Or maybe she went for that. Women often told him he was—

  “Very well, then. Like I said, my father will be in momentarily.” She turned and walked down a hall that led out of the vast living room. Vipul’s head tilted as he watched her hips sway with each step. She disappeared around a corner, and Vipul was two steps into the hallway himself before realizing he’d started following her. That was Li Mun’s daughter? To hell with my brother, he thought. I should be proposing a dynastic marriage. Maybe his brother had the same idea. Maybe that’s why he’d never mentioned the daughter. There was already enough bad blood between them as it was, without throwing Helen of Troy into the mix.

  The thought of his real reason for coming focused him. He turned back toward the living room and sat down in a corner section of the expansive couch, then leaned back and mentally rehearsed the imminent encounter. A few moments later, he heard a shuffling sound. He turned and saw the old man entering the room; he was impressively rotund, with dark pockets of flesh beneath heavily lidded eyes, and sported a disastrous comb-over. Hard to believe, thought Vipul, he’s one of the most powerful men in Singapore.