One thing worries me, though.
What if the smeared Po-kwai takes control again? Out of nothing but curiosity, she changed me enough to make me disclose a secret that I—once—would never have shared with her in a million years.
Armed with knowledge, disapproval and pity, what would she change next?
11
Lui agrees that we have to accelerate our schedule, to forestall Po-kwai’s growing influence. My relief is mixed with apprehension; the prospect of rushing ahead to the break-in, without the gradual progression of rehearsals I’d been expecting, leaves me feeling desperately ill-prepared. In theory, the burglary may be little more than a long sequence of the kind of tasks I’ve already performed—but I still can’t fight down an image of each successive feat as one more storey piled on top of an impossibly precarious house of cards. The last time I broke into BDI, at least I understood the nature of the risks I faced—even if my knowledge of the details turned out to be incomplete. This time, I’ll be relying entirely on my smeared self agreeing to collapse—a process akin to suicide, for him—in a suitably advantageous manner. And why should he? Because ‘most’ of his component selves (in a vote weighted by probability) want him to? It may look like it’s worked that way, so far—but what do I really know about his motives? Nothing. I become him; he in turn becomes me; but his nature remains opaque to me. I want to believe that he’s aware of my aspirations, moved by my concerns—but that may be nothing but wishful thinking. For all I know, he could have more in common with the Bubble Makers than with any human being on the planet, myself included.
I am, of course, free to change my mind. The Canon will do nothing to compel me. But I can’t give up, I can’t back out. I know I’m serving the true Ensemble in the only way I can—and although it may be absurd to hope that this ‘blessing’ guarantees my success, I have to believe that it makes the risk worth taking.
In KowloonPark, just thirty-six hours before the break-in is due, Lui hands me a device the size and shape of a matchbox; sealed, black and featureless, except for a single unlit LED.
‘One last party trick,’ he says. ‘See if you can make the light come on.’
‘What is it?’ I hide my irritation; my immediate response is that anything not directly concerned with tomorrow night is a waste of time—but I have to admit that everything he’s suggested in the past has turned out to be helpful.
He shakes his head. ‘I don’t want to say. For every task you’ve attempted so far, you’ve known exactly what you were up against. Succeed with this, and you’ll have proved to yourself that even that knowledge isn’t necessary. And you’ll have proved that whatever BDI has in store—however difficult, however unexpected—you’ll be able to defeat it.’
I think this over, but in all honesty, it doesn’t ring true. ‘I don’t need to prove that; I’m already convinced. I never had circuit diagrams for the dice generator, the locks, the cameras. Believe me, I rid myself of the telekinesis myth long ago. I know I’ve been choosing outcomes, not manipulating processes. It’s all been “black boxes” to me; I don’t need a literal one to drive home the point.’
I try to hand the thing back, but he won’t accept it. ‘This is special, Nick. Longer odds than anything you’ve done so far. Roughly comparable to the entire BDI break-in. If you succeed, it’ll mean you can be certain that such weak eigenstates are accessible.’
I flip the box over on my outstretched palm. He’s lying, but I can’t think why. I say flatly, ‘Make up your mind. Which is it: the challenge of the unknown, or a test of sheer improbability?’
‘Both.’ He shrugs, then says—too affably by far—‘But if you really want to know how it works—’ I give him a look of pure disbelief, and he goes silent.
Even with P5’s help, it’s hard to judge the weight of something so small—but there’s certainly more in the box than, say, just a standard, pinhead-sized microchip and a battery. Lui tries to look nonchalant as I toss the thing into the air. The way it spins suggests a roughly uniform distribution of density: no lumps, no empty spaces. What kind of electronics fills an entire matchbox?
I say, ‘What is it? Graphite you want turned into diamond? It’s too light for lead into gold.’ I frown. ‘Maybe I’ll just have to cut it open and see.’
Lui says quietly, ‘There’s no need for that. It’s an optical supercomputer—taking random stabs at factoring a mega-digit number. To do the job systematically would take about ten-to-the-thirtieth years. The chance of the machine succeeding in a few hours, by pure good luck, is proportionately infinitesimal. However, in your hands —
For a moment, I’m actually scandalized: earnest, tormented Lui Kiu-chung is pimping my talent (borrowed from Po-kwai, stolen from Laura) for filthy commercial gain… but my shock soon gives way to grudging admiration. Let a computer smear—with the right kind of quantum randomness—and you create, in effect, a ‘parallel’ machine with an astronomical number of processors. Each one executes the same program, but applies it to different data. All you have to do is be sure that when you collapse the system, you choose the version that happened to find the needle in the mathematical haystack. And the world’s first service to factor the huge numbers at the heart of (hitherto) de facto unbreakable codes is sure to rake in a fortune—at least, until word spreads too widely that such a service exists, and people stop trusting the codes.
I say, ‘How do you know I won’t just make the thing malfunction? If I can do it to locks, I can do it to computers. What if I choose some hardware failure so the light comes on for a wrong answer?’
He shrugs. ‘That can’t be made literally impossible—but I’ve taken steps to minimize the relative probabilities. In any case, it’s easy enough to check the answer—and if it’s wrong, we can just try again.’
I laugh. ‘So, how much are you charging for this? Who’s the client? Government or corporate?’
He shakes his head primly. ‘I have no idea. There’s a third party, a broker—and they’re discreet about their own identity, let alone—’
‘Yeah, sure. But… how much are you getting?’
‘A million.’
‘That’s all?’
‘There’s considerable scepticism. Understandably. Later, once the method is proven, we can raise the price.’
I grin at him, and toss the box high in the air. ‘And what’s my cut? Ninety per cent sounds fair.’
He’s not amused. ‘The Canon has considerable expenses: the mod that lets you smear still hasn’t been fully paid for.’
‘Yeah? And once you have the eigenstate mod, you won’t need my help at all, will you? So I’d better make good use of my bargaining position, while it lasts.’ I was joking when I started the sentence, serious by the time I finished it. I say, ‘Is this what the true Ensemble is, for you? Selling code-breaking services to whoever’s willing to pay?’
He doesn’t reply—but he doesn’t deny it. He just gives me that old look of deep spiritual agony.
I ought to be angry—angry that he planned to screw me, angrier still at this blasphemy—but the truth is, after all the pathological brain-fucked fanaticism that the loyalty mod has engendered in most of the Canon—myself included—there’s something almost… refreshing about his simple opportunism. I ought to be outraged—but I’m not. If anything, I feel a pang of envy: it seems he’s manipulated his chains into a form that makes them almost irrelevant. Unless he was some kind of saint beforehand—someone who never would have dreamt of profiting from the Ensemble’s work—his original personality may now be virtually restored.