Now & Again Read Online Free PDF Page A

Faster would be nice.”
    Complex icons and data swiftly populated the interface. Using deft finger and hand motions she paused, enhanced, cut, and saved pieces of the colorful gibberish. Gathering her selections of data with a quick hand, she tossed them onto one of the side screens. Next she typed a flash of code and then watched as her recently cleared middle screen repopulated with dense columns of numbers and symbols, all changing as they scrolled up. Quyron rolled close to the display and began to methodically scan the lines for incongruities. “Echo,” she said out loud. “I’m going to need a hand with this.”
    * * *
    One of the turning points in the establishment and exploitation of the multiverse, and part of what made Reivers Corporation possible, was the rapid development of practical quantum computers. The core of a classical computer obeyed the well understood laws of classical physics, a quantum computer harnessed the unique properties of quantum mechanics to create a new mode of information processing.
    The idea surfaced when scientists were confronted by the
atomic divide
. They knew that at some point in their technological battle to pack ever higher processing power into ever smaller packages, they would arrive at sizes that were no larger than a few atoms. When that happened, problems would arise, because at the atomic scale, physical laws switched to quantum mechanical laws. Why, no one knew, but the prospect of these problems raised a fundamental question. Could an entirely new kind of computer be devised based on the principles of quantum physics?
    A classical computer was binary and had a memory made up of
bits
, where each bit represented either a zero or a one. The fundamental unit of information in a quantum computer was a quantum bit, or
qubit.
A qubit could exist not only as a zero or a one, but also as a blend, or superposition, of those states. In other words, a qubit could exist as a zero, a one, or simultaneously as both a zero and a one. This ability allowed for far greater flexibility than the binary system and held out the enticing promise of elevated speed, since multiple computations could be performed simultaneously.
    As it turned out, in practice, when the qubits were in a state of decoherence, much to the scientists’ surprise, they performed simultaneous calculations not only in our own universe, but also in
other
universes
. In essence, qubits were smears of probability that not only opened the windows to the reality of other timelines, but also offered a tenuous path towards simulated sentience.
    * * *
    Quyron found nothing suspicious in the data so far. Her hand unconsciously stroked her chin as she talked to herself. “What the hell is going on? The propagation curves are solid all the way to cutoff.”
    Outside her office wall, she heard the warbling alarm change to the single sustained tone again. Distracted, Quyron went to the transparent wall and stood quietly staring down. Below, a covey of techs gathered in front of a hissing, static-filled screen. As she watched, the monitor was disrupted by a senior tech and it snapped to black. Shortly after that, the tone was silenced.
    Quyron returned to her workstation wearing a troubled expression. No longer interested in the columns of data still scrolling on her screen, she waved them away and brought up 3-D schematics of the arena. She had just rotated the view and zoomed in to an area deep beneath one of the buildings when a soft chime tinkled.
    Quyron double-tapped a small titanium barbell that she wore in a rim piercing of her right ear and softly said, “This is Quyron.”
    She noticeably stiffened at the familiar voice and then looked puzzled.
How could he know about this already? Isn’t he out of the country? What time zone is he in?
    “No sir, I wouldn’t say that. It seems to be growing in severity though and I…”
    She stopped as the other voice cut in. She let him talk but obviously disagreed with what he