And the possible implications of quantum entanglement were even more profound than these bizarre results suggested. Since at the time of the Big Bang, all the matter of the universe was concentrated in a single point, it was conceivable that every last particle in the universe was entangled with every other.
Fermi went on to explain how information could be transmitted faster than light using quantum entanglement, but that it had to be done through knowledge of dark matter and dark energy, which humanity didn’t possess, having only discovered these major constituents of the universe very recently. Although completely invisible, the Milky Way was thought to contain so much dark matter that this mysterious material outweighed all the stars in the galaxy ten to one.
And 73 percent of the universe was now thought to be made up of mysterious energy called dark energy, hidden in the vacuum of space. If human physics was ever in any danger of being impressed with itself, the fact that the science, until recently, had been totally oblivious to the vast majority of matter and energy in the universe, was a humbling reminder of its limitations.
Fermi explained again that he and his colleagues had transported here from Suran using once-in-a-generation resources, so that every atom of extra weight had been inconceivably expensive. The trip had required energy and computational ability beyond even Fermi’s comprehension. While they would have loved to have brought advanced technology with them, the only technology their civilization could afford to send, literally, was a small quantum computer.
“And this is what I’ve detected?” said Hansen.
“That’s right,” replied Fermi. “We have computers many orders of magnitude more powerful, but we could only bring along what you might think of as a laptop. Still, because it operates on quantum principles, it’s thousands of times more powerful than the computers you have here.”
Steve Fuller cleared his throat and faced Hansen. “But bringing this discussion out of the clouds and down to earth for a minute,” he said. “This is one of the reasons I needed to, ah … force a meeting with you. Without putting too fine a point on it, we need you to shut the fuck up about the quantum signature you’ve discovered. Do you think you can do that?”
Hansen was taken aback by the way this had been said. He considered several choice responses before choosing the most benign. “No one takes me seriously anyway.”
“I do,” said Fuller meaningfully. “Consider yourself lucky that no one else has to this point.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means that in your zeal to localize this signal of yours, you’ve been trying to get permits and funds to dig underground just outside of Washington, D.C., for months. Where you think this mysterious signal is emanating from. And no matter how many times you’re denied a permit you won’t stop pressing. And you won’t shut up about your theory either. Do you know how fucking annoying that is? Well, congratulations. You finally made it. Right now we’re sitting in a facility three hundred feet underground, at the precise spot you wanted to dig. Dead center. And I can’t tell you how much we don’t want to be discovered down here.”
Hansen swallowed hard. He was proud his theory had so accurately pinpointed the location of the signature, but he was beginning to get nervous.
“So we need you to tell your advisor and everyone else you’ve been pestering that you’ve made an error. And that you’ve now come to your senses. It’s a good thing we’re moving our headquarters out West in a few weeks,” added Fuller. “Or we might have been forced to kill you.”
He said it with a friendly smile, as though he was joking, so Hansen chose to believe him.
28
FULLER OPENED HIS mouth to continue when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. A woman stuck her head into the conference room and asked when she should serve lunch. Fuller glanced at this watch and asked her to return in thirty minutes.
The moment the door closed, Fuller took up where he had left off. “But I don’t want you to decide if you’ll do what I’m asking just yet,” he said to Kyle Hansen. “Because you still don’t know the big picture. After you do, I’m sure you’ll want to cooperate.”
Both Fuller and Fermi described the seventeen known civilizations in this arm of the galaxy and how interstellar comingling of the seventeen species was handled. And why the Seventeen believed it was vital that one of them send a contingent to Earth in order to save a savage but talented new species from self-destruction. The Wraps had been an obvious choice for this duty for a number of reasons.
Hansen had no sense of how much time was passing, and was astonished when there was another knock on the door. Could thirty minutes have passed already?
Sure enough, the same woman who had visited before wheeled in a serving cart loaded with five metal plates, all of them covered by metal domes, and an assortment of drinks, along with plates, napkins, and silverware. The conversation ceased until she had left the room once again.
Fuller lifted the domes from two of the plates to reveal heaping mounds of two Chinese dishes, beef broccoli and cashew chicken, which had surprised Hansen since the only utensils that had accompanied the meal were Western.
Fuller turned to Hansen. “Hungry?” he asked. “Or would you rather wait for a better stopping place?”
“I’ll wait,” said Hansen immediately. He could always eat. But he couldn’t always learn about the history of galactic civilization.
Fuller nodded approvingly. He covered the steaming dishes once again and continued where he had left off. “The Wraps came to our government and quickly demonstrated their bona fides,” he explained. “Regardless of what you may have heard, this is the only visitation Earth has ever had. And as you’ve learned already, it wasn’t by spaceship. The Wraps offered to use their skill and their quantum computer to help us protect us from ourselves.”
“How?”
“They were short on explanations. Fortunately, they were long on results. First, their computer is somehow able to scan for nuclear and bioweapon signatures at incredible sensitivity. You identified their quantum computer based on its spectra. Their computer can identify WMD basically the same way, although we have no idea how. And we provide all the inputs we have. Our entire huge database. All the information we have on known terrorists, along with every other piece of electronic data we can collect. And they have access to trillions of pages more on the Internet. Their computer can take these inputs and do magic with it. See patterns we can’t. Make predictions with uncanny accuracy.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’ve been begging them to pick a few stocks for me,” he added with a smirk.
“I’m surprised you trusted them enough to give them total access to your data.”
“They earned our trust. It didn’t happen right away. As a show of good faith in the early days, Fermi and his friends alerted us to several terrorist actions that would have leveled one of our cities if not for them. As distrusting as we were inclined to be, it only took saving our bacon a few times before we became willing to be more open minded. Eventually we decided they were exactly what they presented themselves to be. Namely, friendly aliens trying to help.”
“When did they arrive?”
“The exact date is classified, but it was after nine eleven, unfortunately. Not that we didn’t have all the information we needed to stop that one ourselves. What I will tell you is that we are now the most classified department in the world, under the auspices of DHS; the Department of Homeland Security. We wait a few years after inauguration to even tell new presidents of our existence, and the rest of the agencies we serve will never know of us. And I should add that this is a global effort. The Wraps decide on the priorities and where we put resources. If, in their judgment, stopping a plot against Israel or England or somewhere else is more important than stopping a plot against America, we do that. Not that we don’t try to stop them all. We find a way to feed the intel to various protective agencies, our own and in other countries, in such a way that it looks homegrown. We’ve rooted out dozens and dozens of plots that could have spiraled out of control. Plots that through a domino effect could have led to a retardation of worldwide civilization and even the end of humanity. But no one knows we exist, or are providing intel behind the scenes.”