Subtitle: There are places Mankind cannot go.

Excerpt: There are places Mankind cannot go.

Author: Derek Hastings

Jordall frustratingly sent his office chair rolling out of his office into the larger office bay. Then, with another push, he perfectly navigated himself into the smaller break room.

He caught himself gritting his teeth and realized it was time for his afternoon espresso. He had purchased the Illy E.S.E. Pod Espresso machine for the office. It was one of the things fueling the late nights of desperate research. They needed it now as their latest ask by Shin Bet had crashed into the proverbial brick wall. Jordall knew there were many sleepless nights ahead.

Jordall was in charge of Israel’s legendary cryptological 8200 unit and was responsible for ensuring that the reputation remained intact. But the private sector was relentless in poaching their best operators. As the machine finished providing the black life restoring liquid, General Aalon Magino walked in and grabbed an Arizona Iced Tea (with Ginseng) and sat down at the lone table crammed into the corner.

Jordall could feel the General’s eyes on his back. Aalon popped the can open, destroying Jordall’s attempt to ignore him.

Jordall didn’t look at the General but said, “I can’t afford to lose any more of my talent, Aalon! In fact, you’d better be bringing me new talent, or you can get on with your next calendar item!”

Jordall sat across from the General and said, “Our latest tasking from Shin Bet has my teams working double shifts. Some of us don’t go home.”

General Aalon smiled and said, “Someone must have been listening to your prayers, Jordy. I do indeed come bearing reinforcements. I have an impressive group of cryptoanalysts, from MIT and NSA, GCHQ, Japan, and two from South Korea, who supposedly are prodigy-level code crackers.”

“How many total?” Jordall asked.

“Probably, close to thirty. Some of the reinforcements have worked together for a while. Especially the MIT Grad candidates and the NSA. The two Korean’s are twin sisters and supposedly their connection is so close that they habitually complete each other’s theorems.”

Jordall let out a sigh of relief, quickly realizing the task of integration he had coming. Jordall gulped the rest of his scalding hot drink and clinked his cup to the General’s Arizona Can and said, “I suppose this means you actually were listening to my constant complaining and badgering. Thank you, Aalon, I owe you a dinner at the Old Man.”

Jordall saluted crisply as an ex-Israeli Sub Commander would and aimed his chair in the general direction of his office, but caught himself at the door frame. “When will they be here?”

“Some of them are downstairs waiting for their indoctrination.” General Aalon said as he stood to leave. “I believe you’re scheduled to be down there in about two minutes. And, you’re welcome, Jordy!”

Indoctrination didn’t take long, as most crypto/quantum types were highly organized and habitually knew how to fit into an org chart. These were their tribe, their people. They all spoke a different language from most people. Those who had an inkling of understanding described it as a type of linguistic mathematical shorthand way of communicating.

Jordall was one of the few who had the intuitive skill to recognize the informal leadership ladder in the office. But, he stopped trying to count the number of times this tribe had saved his bacon, even when he didn’t realize it was in the fire. These young men and women had an understanding of loyalty that came from a strong spiritual family raised with an impregnable sense of right and wrong.

The most challenging task Jordall had as a leader was deciding which camp (Quantum or Crypto) was first in line for a larger share of the funding from the government and the private investments from the public sector. People like Elon Musk and others were very generous. They realized where the future was going. The financial triage was an ever-present headache. It didn’t help that he had his own research to complete as well.

At two-thirty AM, the office was as peaceful as it would ever get. It was never empty, but the ones in the office at this time were the heads of teams putting the final touches on a slice of research Jordall had assigned. And, this morning, the espresso machine was getting a workout and not just from Jordall.

The Korean Twins were definitely prodigies. Their current work was a hair’s breadth from finding the key or cure for forming a simple barrier against the various forms of noise in quantum research. The sibling competition between them to see who could tweak 8200’s current artificial intelligence core was intense.

Some of the more ambitious brains had each personalized the AI to react conversationally when tasked. But the twins, who were later discovered, broke the code for the AI and supercharged it to make its own conclusions with the data they came up with. Were they missing anything logical in the statistics or data? Mostly, they got inconclusive answers.

Now Jordall sat at his desk at 2:30, staring at a short page of math with a simple paragraph conclusion, which the twins claimed their version of AI had answered to their most recent query. It gave them an answer that didn’t match the query.

The twins sat across from Jordall with worried faces. Their AI had stumbled in its attempt to answer their query on something the AI could only speculate on or state the facts of the situation. They were scared that perhaps they had broken the AI system by covertly rewriting the code.

The last sentence from the AI, which followed a very long but elegant algorithm, “This computation points to a quantum understanding never touched upon in current research. It can only be described as a switch for a state of reality called a self-replicating quantum cascade leading to a molecular black hole. There are objects visible through the hole.

Jordall assured the twins they were safe and sent them home for some sleep. Then found himself in that rare moment of being alone in the building. He figured sleep was what he needed and tilted his chair back to rest. It was a very familiar position. Jordall threw his sandal at the light switch, and the light went out.

But it came right back on.

Standing in one of the office chairs and sitting on the back of the chair was a shining being. Jordall was a brand new Messianic Jew. But still had little religious understanding to discount the situation.

Jordall remembered how quickly Jesus had answered his desperate question. His encounter with Jesus was undeniable and life-changing. On one late night such as this, stressed and worn out, Jordall’s desperation for help brought him to ask if God was real. Would he talk to him? Jesus had shown up while he was at the espresso machine.

So now, with this being sitting in his office, Jordall’s scientific mind realized he was facing an angel. He had nothing to convince him these moments weren’t normal.

The angel smiled and said, “Do not pursue the Korean sisters’ research. The quantum universe is not for mankind. If you pursue it, there will be consequences.”

Jordall asked, “What kind of consequences?”

The angel said, “Let’s just call it Tower of Babel 2.0.”