Page 35 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest
Find the value of the integral: ∫0^π sin(x) dx
Another math problem. Murph tore off his virtual headset and dashed over to his steel work desk. He tapped the keyboard and a mirror image of his gaming console pulled up. He grabbed paper and pencil from a drawer and scribbled away. It was the kind of problem he was solving when other kids his age were still watching cartoons. It took just a couple of moments of noodling to calculate the resulting cosine values at the boundaries. He came up with the number: 2.
How did this relate to anything?
As if reading his thoughts, another message appeared:
Decode this Base64 string: UXVhbnR1bSBMb3ZlICYgdGhlIENoYW9zIEtpd2lz
Once again, Murph opened up a new terminal window, uploaded the text, and deployed the Base64 command. The result shocked him:
QUANTUM LOVE & THE CHAOS KIWIS
That was the name of his favorite punk rock band in grad school.How crazy is that?
He was too busy and too broke to follow them around on tour backthen. But he owned two bootleg tapes he had listened to until the magnetic oxide layer began flaking and the tape stretched out like an old rubber band.
The only time he ever saw them in concert was when they came to MIT’s Kresge Auditorium…designed by…Eero Saarinen.
That concert was the first time he’d ever taken a girl on a date.
Murph’s face suddenly flushed red, a combination of sheer delight and utter dread. He wanted to shout with joy and puke his guts out all at the same time.
Maybe all of this wasn’t just a game. He throttled back his emotions and typed a short burst of hexadecimal code into the anonymous text box:
“Linlin?”
She responded in hexadecimal.
“UR the only one that can help me.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to die.”
Murph’s mind raced with endless possibilities. Linlin was the first girlfriend he’d ever had, the only girl he had ever loved. He drove her to the airport when she left Boston years ago. Her parents were sick, and they needed her back in China. But she never came back to Boston. Didn’t even reach out to him. All these years, he had no idea where she was or what had happened to her. He assumed it was all about him. She broke his heart, and it had never fully mended.
Murph continued the coded speech with her.
“Why will you die?”
“Can’t explain. No time. Can you meet me here?”
Linlin sent a set of coded GPS coordinates.
Murphy pulled up a map. Thailand.
“Ok?” Linlin asked.
“Ok”
“How soon?”
“24hr +/- Are your comms safe?”
“Comms?”
“Communications. Safe?”
