Maden Mike - Tom Clancy Firing Point

But a 128-bit AES cipher passcode would require a conventional computer capable of a “brute force” attack of one trillion “combinations” per second for nearly eleven quintillion years (eighteen zeros) to break through.

The hackers lost the “brute force” arms race because it was far easier to create more complicated software algorithms than it was to produce computer hardware fast enough to beat them.

Thus, cybersecurity made the world safe for commerce and governments.

Until TRIBULATION.

—

TRIBULATION would soon be what RAPTURE could have been if the thieving politicians had left Parsons alone to finish the work she had started.

But they didn’t, so she created TRIBULATION, the world’s first true, universal 128-qubit quantum computer.

Google’s 72-qubit quantum machine Bristlecone recently solved one particular mathematical calculation in less than four minutes. The fastest conventional supercomputer would have required at least ten thousand years to solve the same problem. Impressive by any measure. Google claimed quantum supremacy.

Google was wrong.

TRIBULATION was far superior to the Google machine by orders of magnitude. And it wasn’t only about the quantity of qubits.

Generally speaking, there were two types of quantum computers: annealing and universal. D-Wave deployed a 2,000-qubit annealing machine but despite the larger number of qubits, its architecture limited its range of operations.

But universal quantum machines like Bristlecone and TRIBULATION were virtually unlimited in their applications. What made 128-qubit TRIBULATION exponentially more powerful than 72-qubit Bristlecone was that each of TRIBULATION’s 128 qubits was also quantumly “entangled.” This yielded more than 340 undecillion (2 128) combinations of output states—a number so large it was nearly incomprehensible to the human mind. And TRIBULATION, unlike Bristlecone and other competitors, operated flawlessly, with a zero error rate.

—

The significance of quantum computing was poorly understood outside of scientific circles. Sci-fi movie fans, doomsday preppers, and self-described “futurists” insisted that artificial intelligence (AI) was the greatest threat to humanity.

They were wrong, too.

In just over eleven hours and forty-three minutes, TRIBULATION’s quantum computer “key” could unlock any encrypted door on the planet.

Nothing—absolutely nothing—that was digitized and stored accessibly would be secure once TRIBULATION came online.

—

Parsons shut her laptop and headed for the computer room located in the most secure building, which was also the cleanest and coldest.

To function properly, TRIBULATION depended upon the controlled spin of superpositioned quantum particles, i.e., qubits.

To maintain that controlled spin without interruption or interference, the machine required millikelvin temperatures to operate—temperatures approaching absolute zero, the point at which nearly all molecular activity ceases. If TRIBULATION was a juggler spinning plates—qubits—on the ends of her fingers, she couldn’t have a monkey—unwanted molecular movement, i.e., heat—jump on her arms and start grabbing her hands because she would lose control of the spinning plates and they would crash.

Of the many breakthroughs Parsons’s teams had accomplished, stable, near-zero operations had been one of the most important.

Parsons wanted to take another look at her machine. She could peer at TRIBULATION’s magnificent architecture through a pane of tempered glass. She knew she would feel the love and longing of a mother gazing at her newborn daughter lying in an incubator, unable to touch her. But it was worth it.

Parsons knew that in all likelihood, it would be the last time she’d see her creation, at least for a good, long while. No matter. When the time was right, she’d be back to take full credit for whatever TRIBULATION had wrought upon the earth, for good or for ill.

56

WASHINGTON, D.C.

DULLES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

The Lufthansa/United Airlines Airbus A321 touched down three minutes ahead of schedule, the wheels hardly kissing the tarmac.

Jack’s mouth was full of cotton and spiders, or so it seemed to his aching skull and bleary eyes. He counted three little Jameson bottles stuffed in the seat pocket in front of him but he couldn’t remember how many of the free Heinekens he’d downed before, during, and after the teriyaki chicken dinner now souring in his gut. At least the booze had knocked him out. He slept like a log . . . but he felt like he’d been sleeping under one. One that had fallen on him from a great height.

He could smell his own stink. He hadn’t showered in over thirty-two hours, including a twelve-hour stint in a Spanish jail, not exactly a French perfumery. He wanted to get out of his dirty clothes, take a long, hot shower and wash away the last few days before hitting the sack for about a week. He wasn’t scheduled to report for duty with The Campus for another few days.

As the plane taxied toward its jet bridge, the flight attendant announced that it was okay to turn on electronics. Jack powered up his phone and saw that Gavin had texted.

TEXT ME WHEN YOU LAND. I’LL PICK YOU UP.

Jack groaned. The last thing he wanted to do was deal with the lumpy IT executive. A sweet guy, sure, and a nice enough offer, but Jack didn’t need a buddy right now. Just an Uber. Or a Lyft.

Jack texted back.

THANKS BUT I’LL JUST GRAB AN UBER. TALK TOMORROW.

The plane stood still on the tarmac waiting for the jet bridge to clear. His phone dinged. Gavin again.

I’M ALREADY HERE.

COULDN’T WAIT TO SEE YOU. SO MUCH TO TELL YOU.

Jack shook his head.

TELL ME NOW.

Gavin replied.

IT’S TOO GOOD NOT TO TELL YOU IN PERSON. ALSO, SECURITY.

Jack rubbed his throbbing skull. After all that Gavin had done for him, this wasn’t much of an ask.

AWESOME. CAN’T WAIT.

Jack checked for other messages but nothing important had come over the transom. His stomach rumbled. He hoped he wasn’t going to blow his cookies before he got off the plane.

—

Jack climbed into Gavin’s blood-red Chevy Silverado crew cab idling at the curb and tossed his laptop and carry-on into the back. The truck was so new it still had temporary paper plates. The cab was full of that new-car smell, too.

Also, the smell of french fries.

Jack noticed several wadded-up fast-food bags tossed in the backseat. He suddenly didn’t feel so badly about smelling like a garbage truck.

“Didn’t take you for a truck guy, Gav.”

Gavin fired up the beefy 3.0L turbo-diesel engine. “Used to own a Dodge panel van tricked out like I had back in high school. But the last girl I tried to pick up for a date saw me pull up to the curb and wouldn’t come out of her house. I figured she thought it was a little too serial-killery.” He paused, adding, “The girl before that one, too. So I decided it was time to change my ride.”

“Makes sense.”

“So I upscaled to this cowboy Cadillac.”

“It’s a beautiful rig.”

“Comes in real handy at the Renaissance fairs, too, let me tell ya.”

Jack pulled out his wallet to pay for the parking as they rumbled up to the booth.

Gavin pushed his wallet away. “Friends don’t let friends pay for airport parking.”

—

Ten minutes later, they were rolling along in silence on the wide, four-lane VA-267 back toward Jack’s apartment in Alexandria. Gavin was practically bouncing in his seat, bursting with excitement. But he was too polite to interrupt Jack’s brooding thoughts.

Jack’s mood was as sour as his gut but he finally relented.