Callsign: King - Blackout

11

Less than fifty feet away, in a cramped room surrounded by flat screen monitors, Bandar Pradesh watched the live video feed of the ten power plant managers receiving their new quantum phones. He glanced to another monitor that displayed the status of the quantum network.

Brown had omitted mention of the fact that the phones themselves did not actually contain quantum processors, or rather, did not contain complete, independent processing units. In fact, it was a bit misleading to use standard computer jargon to explain the functionality of a quantum computer, but that was something Brown had never really been able to grasp. Like most people, the man was unable to conceive of a world that was not governed by Newtonian cause-and-effect mechanics. Conventional computers relied completely on principles of physical logic-if-then relationships, ones or zeroes-but quantum computers utilized an entirely different set of rules where those relationships had no meaning whatsoever.

Of course, it wasn’t necessary for Brown to understand the technology, any more than it was necessary for every automobile owner to understand the function of an internal combustion engine. In fact, Pradesh thought, it was probably better that he didn’t seem to want to know. That had made it so much easier for the Indian computer genius to accomplish his real objective.

Pradesh watched as the number of users on the network jumped from two to six…then to eight, then nine, and he waited for the tenth and final user to go active. The network relied on multiple inputs for operation. Moreover, the system was its most effective when those input nodes were linked randomly to existing conventional networks, so it was not enough to simply build several devices and turn them on. To make the quantum computer fulfill its purpose, Pradesh had designed the computer to utilize ten nodes, all connected to the worldwide communications network via their independent users. More would have been better, but given the prohibitive cost of producing the devices and the dictates of Brown’s original plan, ten would have to suffice.

The number on the screen did not change.

Pradesh watched it with growing impatience, and then turned his attention to the closed-circuit television screen where he saw the ten men were busily downloading new applications and exploring other features. No, Pradesh realized. Not all of them.

He isolated the one man in the group who was not holding one of the devices, and consulted the guest list. “Downey,” he muttered. “Why aren’t you playing with your new toy?”

On an impulse, he zoomed in on the man’s face and ran the image through a battery of tests. To his surprise, the facial recognition software-a variation of the same program used by casinos to identify card-counters and other troublemakers-indicated a less than seventy-percent probability that the man in the image was actually Bill Downey.

Frowning, Pradesh rolled back the footage to the moment where Downey walked onto the stage and tried a different program. This software ignored facial characteristics and focused instead on body mechanics, comparing the way the man moved to both the real Bill Downey and to an exhaustive database collected from security feeds in travel hubs around the world. If this man had taken a commercial flight anytime in the last five years, his distinctive gait and mannerisms would be in the database.

He immediately got a hit from a flight originating from New York less than twenty-four hours earlier. Not Downey though-the real Downey had been in Paris all week, and this man wasn’t a match anyway. Then another hit came up, and this time it was accompanied by an urgent message, flashing in red letters.

Pradesh stared in disbelief for a moment before following the instructions in that message. He took out his phone and made a call. “There is a complication,” he said as soon as the connection went through. “King is here.”

“King?” came the reply. “He’s still alive? Brown was a fool to think that piece could be so easily taken off the board. But this game between Brown and King has no bearing on our objective.”

“You don’t understand,” Pradesh persisted. “He is in disguise as one of the ten.”

There was a long silence. “So?”

“He isn’t activating his node. He appears to have no interest in it. He put the device in his pocket.”

“That is a complication,” admitted the man at the other end of the line. Another thoughtful pause. “But there is a simple solution. I’m sure Brown will be very interested to know that Jack Sigler has crashed his party.”