“Yes, of course,” Bublanski said, suddenly embarrassed. “Take a seat, please. My apologies for the mess.”
“I’ve seen much worse.”
“Is that so? Well. To what do I owe this honour?”
“I was far too naive when I spoke to your colleague.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I have more information now. I’ve had a long conversation with Professor Warburton.”
“That’s right. He’s been looking for me too. But it’s been so chaotic I haven’t had time to call him back.”
“Steven is a professor of cybernetics at Stanford and a leading researcher in the field of technological singularity. These days he works at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, whose aim is to ensure that Artificial Intelligence is a positive help to mankind rather than the opposite.”
“Well, that sounds good,” Bublanski said. He felt uncomfortable whenever this topic came up.
“Steven lives somewhat in a world of his own. He found out what happened to Frans only yesterday, and that’s why he didn’t call sooner. But he told me that he had spoken to Frans as recently as Monday.”
“What did they talk about?”
“His research. You know, Frans had been so secretive ever since he went off to the States. I was close to him, but not even I knew anything about what he was doing. I was arrogant enough to think I understood some of it at least, but now it turns out I was wrong.”
“In what way?”
“Frans had not only taken his old A.I. program a step further, he had also developed fresh algorithms and new topographical material for quantum computers.”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Quantum computers are computers based on quantum mechanics. They are many thousand times faster in certain areas than conventional computers. The great advantage with quantum computers is that the fundamental constituent quantum bits — qubits — can superposition themselves.”
“You’ll have to take me slowly through that.”
“Not only can they take the binary positions one or zero as do traditional computers, they can also be both zero and one at the same time. At present quantum computers are much too specialized and cumbersome. But Frans — how can I best explain this to you? — would appear to have found ways to make them easier, more flexible and self-learning. He was onto something great — at least potentially. But as well as feeling pride in his breakthrough, he was also very worried — and that was obviously the reason he called Steven Warburton.”
“Why was he worried?”
“In the long term, because he suspected his creation could become a threat to the world, I imagine. But more immediately, because he knew things about the N.S.A.”
“What sort of things?”
“There’s one aspect I know nothing about. He had somehow stumbled upon the messier side of their industrial espionage. But there’s another aspect I do have a lot of information on. It’s no secret that the organization is working hard specifically to develop quantum computers. For the N.S.A. that would be paradise, pure and simple. An effective quantum machine would enable them to crack all encryptions, all digital security systems eventually, and after that no-one would be safe from that organization’s watchful eye.”
“A hideous thought,” Bublanski said with surprising feeling.
“But there is actually an even more frightening scenario: were such a thing to fall into the hands of major criminals,” Farah Sharif said.
“I see what you’re getting at.”
“So of course I’m keen to know what you’ve managed to get hold of from the men now under arrest.”
“Unfortunately nothing like that,” he said. “But these men are not exactly outstanding intellects. I doubt they would even pass secondary-school maths.”
“So the real computer genius got away?”
“I’m afraid so. He and a female suspect have disappeared without trace. They probably have a number of identities.”
“Worrying.”
Bublanski nodded and gazed into Farah Sharif’s dark eyes, which looked beseechingly at him. A hopeful thought stopped him from sinking back into despair.
“I’m not sure what it means,” he said.
“What?”
“We’ve had I.T. guys go through Balder’s computers. Given how security-conscious he was, it wasn’t easy. You can imagine. But we managed. We had a spot of luck, you might say, and what we soon realized was that one computer must have been stolen.
“I suspected as much,” she said. “Damn it!”
“But wait, I haven’t finished. We also understood that a number of machines had been connected to each other, and that occasionally these had been connected to a supercomputer in Tokyo.”
“That sounds feasible.”
“We can confirm that a large file, or at least something big, had recently been deleted, and we haven’t been able to restore it.”
“Are you suggesting Frans might have destroyed his own research?”
“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions. But it occurred to me while you were telling me all this.”
“Don’t you think the murderer might have deleted it?”
“You mean that he first copied it, and then removed it from his computers?”
“Yes.”
“I find that hard to believe. The man was only in the house for a very short while, he would never have had time — let alone the ability — to do anything like that.”
“O.K., that sounds reassuring, despite everything,” Sharif said doubtfully. “It’s just that...”
Bublanski waited.
“I don’t think it fits with Frans’ character. Would he really destroy the greatest thing he’d ever done? That would be like... I don’t know... chopping off his own arm, or even worse: killing a friend, destroying a life.”
“Sometimes one has to make a big sacrifice,” Bublanski said thoughtfully. “Destroy what one loves.”
“Or else there’s a copy somewhere.”
“Or else there’s a copy somewhere,” he repeated. Suddenly he did something strange: he reached out his hand.
Farah Sharif did not understand. She looked at the hand as if she were expecting him to give her something. But Bublanski decided not to let himself be discouraged.
“Do you know what my rabbi says? That the mark of a man is his contradictions. We can long to be away and at home, both at the same time. I never knew Professor Balder, and he might have thought that I was just an old fool. But I do know one thing: we can both love and fear our work, just as Balder seems to have both loved and run away from his son. To be alive, Professor Sharif, means not being completely consistent. It means venturing out in many directions all at the same time, and I wonder if your friend didn’t find himself in the throes of some sort of upheaval. Maybe he really did destroy his life’s work. Maybe he revealed himself with all his inherent contradictions towards the end, and became a true human being in the best sense of the word.”
“Do you think so?”
“We may never know. But he had changed, hadn’t he? The custody hearing declared him unfit to look after his own son. Yet that’s precisely what he did, and he even got the boy to blossom and begin to draw.”
“That’s true, Chief Inspector.”
“Call me Jan. People sometimes even call me Officer Bubble.”
“Is that because you’re so bubbly?”
“Ha, no, I don’t think so somehow. But I do know one thing for sure.”
“And what’s that?”
“That you’re...”
He got no further, but neither did he need to. Farah Sharif gave him a smile which in all its simplicity restored Bublanski’s belief in life and in God.