Энди Вейр: Randomize

“Get it done. I’ll give you four hundred thousand for the computer and incidentals. It’ll be in your departmental account by the time you get back to your desk.”

Chen left the office with a smile.

“We fight quantum with quantum.”

Never before had Chen felt such a connection.

The QuanaTech 707’s sleek cylindrical case glistened in the blue mood lighting. In front, a simple monitor and a black keyboard awaited his touch.

Prashant Singh, the representative from QuanaTech, finished inspecting the cabling.

“Okay, we should be ready to power it on,” said Prashant. He looked up at the ceiling. “Kind of a strange room. Were these blue lights always here?”

Chen didn’t take his eyes off the computer. “I installed them yesterday. Cool stuff needs cool lighting.”

“Your staff doesn’t seem very happy,” Prashant said. “I got a lot of dirty looks from them.”

Chen waved off the comment. “I had to move the server racks into the break room to make room for this baby. They’ll get over it.”

“Okay…” Prashant pressed the “Power” button. Within three seconds, the screen showed a blinking cursor. No bells. No whistles. Just a keyboard and a console. Exactly the way computers should be.

“Sweet! I want to make a random number.”

Prashant opened the user’s manual, flipped a few pages, and handed it to Chen. “There are several preinstalled programs for testing stuff out. They’re all listed here.”

Chen took the book and squinted at the page. The blue light was amazing but not great to read by. No matter. It wasn’t about utility. It was all about coolness.

He set the manual aside, cracked his knuckles, and walked over to the keyboard. “Okay, here goes!”

>EXECUTE RNG_TEST

>RANDOM BIT RESULT: 1

>END

>|

“Oh my God! Chills!” Chen beamed. “Are we all set up now? Good to go?”

“Almost,” said Prashant. “I still need to install the long-term memory unit.”

“Ah, right. That shit’s amazing. Keeping state for months at a time? You guys are geniuses.”

“Well, not me,” said Prashant. “The geniuses are all back at the office. I’m just the site sales rep. Truth is, I barely understand the physics going on in there. But I do know no other company can offer five nines of coherence protection on memory qbits.”

He opened a plastic case on the floor. Inside was a well-insulated metal box with a few cables attached.

“Did you hear about the Cove Casino?” Chen said. “Just down the street?”

“No, what happened?”

“They lost two million dollars at their keno lounge this morning before they pulled the plug on it. The scammers used small bets, and hundreds of them. There was no way to sort out the cheaters from legitimate players, so the Cove had to pay out on all the tickets. It’s all over the news.”

Prashant frowned. “We don’t condone our products being used for illegal activity.”

“Yeah, I know,” said Chen. “Point is, I was right. The boss totally loves me now for predicting that would happen.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Prashant.

“I bet I get a hell of a Christmas bonus this year.”

“Good, good.”

“If some scammer tries to reverse engineer my system, they’ll get a nasty surprise. True random, motherfuckers!”

“Okay, but remember it’s only as good as the security on this computer itself,” said Prashant. “If this system gets hacked, someone could replace the software with a pseudorandom algorithm on a seed they pick. They’d know all the numbers in advance.”

“Oh, I’ve got that covered,” said Chen. “This baby is air-walled. It’s not connected to the casino network, has no access to the internet, and can’t take incoming communications in any way. It’ll have a hardwired connection to the keno machine. And I won’t even implement a request-response system. It’ll just feed a set of keno numbers across every fifteen minutes. That way there’s literally no information entering the 707 in any way. You can’t hack what you can’t talk to.”

“Most company fraud cases are inside jobs.” Prashant glanced out the door to see if the other IT employees had heard him say it.

“Not a problem. This server room is a vault, and only I have the key.” Chen patted his pocket. “And the security system texts me whenever the door opens. So even if someone did get my key or make a copy, I’d know as soon as they got into the room. I’d have armed guards here in under a minute.”

Prashant wrangled the cables of the memory unit. “That does sound solid, but remember a system is only as secure as the humans who operate it.”

“I’ve been in IT for seventeen years,” said Chen. “Believe me—I know that.”

Prashant plugged the last cable in. He typed a few diagnostic commands into the system, then nodded approvingly at the output. “Okay, the memory’s online, and the system all looks good.”

Chen stroked the monitor. “Okay, time to do some quantum coding! Daddy’s keno baby needs its numbers!”

“Have fun,” said Prashant. “I’m in town until tomorrow morning. Call me if you have any problems. In the meantime, can you recommend a good restaurant in the area?”

“Are you kidding?” Chen said. “You think you’re buying your own dinner tonight? Oh, hell no. Go up to the high-rollers club. Your name’s on the list. Get yourself anything you want, on us.”

“Wow. Thanks,” said Prashant. “Give me a call if you run into any problems.”

“Will do!” said Chen.

Prashant left the server room with a smile.

Sumi packed her husband’s suitcase. His trip to Las Vegas would be a whirlwind. An afternoon flight there, setting up a computer for the Babylon Casino the same day, and then a morning flight back the next day. Many wives would worry about their husbands going to Sin City by themselves, but Prashant had always been a loyal and devoted man.

Technically he would need only one change of clothes, but his carry-on had more space, so why not include some backups? She packed three immaculately ironed and folded white shirts, along with two pairs of black slacks. She added two blue ties and threw in a red one just for fun. He looked so handsome with a red tie on, but he always wore blue. Ah well. She put a ziplock bag full of homemade pedas on top—a little snack for his hotel stay—then zipped up the case.

She walked to the kitchenette, where Prashant dined on the rice and dal she’d made for him earlier. “Do you have enough yogurt?” she asked.

“Yes, thank you,” he said. “This is delicious!”

“There’s kheer for dessert, so save some room.”

“Mmm,” he said.

She sat at the table across from him. They almost never ate at the same time—she’d grown up in India, where dinnertime was 8:00 or 9:00 p.m., and he’d grown up in the US. Still, the arranged marriage was very successful. She couldn’t imagine herself with any other man.

“Are you nervous?” she asked.

He set his fork down. “To be honest: yes. This all seems very dangerous. Las Vegas is… well… the people there can be very threatening.”

“It’s up to you. We can just do nothing if you want.”

“No, I want to do it.” He gestured around to the apartment in general. “This isn’t what I want for us. For you. A ridiculously expensive one-bedroom hovel in a questionable part of Oakland? People who work in Silicon Valley can’t afford to live in it. It’s absurd.”