Devil's Fork (19 page)

“
So what you are saying is
that if you just stop everything and look at an arrow in flight,
like by taking a picture with a camera, you will see a stopped
arrow. But after trillions of these stopped moments, the arrow will
have hit the target, so it clearly moved. Even though it wasn’t
moving at any of the instants we looked at it.”

“
Exactly.”

“
That makes sense. Or
should I say it’s a paradox” She paused, “And so what does that
have to do with—“

“
So what quantum
cryptography does is it turns a message I write into that flying
arrow. To understand my message you have to see the arrow fly in
motion and hit its target. But if someone like SLOTHMAN intercepts
my message and looks at it, he will only see the arrow frozen in
the sky. He will be looking at that snapshot of an instant. Because
he is doing this, he will be looking at some nonsense that’s not my
message. Kind of like that—“ he pointed to the nonsense that J.D.
had written on the board earlier, “RWMUW XTPIY GTSPN
PPEZ.”

Sara thought about it. “So just by looking
at it, he made the message unreadable.”

“
Precisely. That’s why
quantum cryptography is almost impossible to hack.”

“
And so what about that
Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle?”

“
That’s the property of
physics related to this. You can either measure a particle’s speed
or direction, but not both together. Just like how you can look at
the arrow or you can look at it
fly
but you can’t do both.”

“
No, but that principle is
really interesting. Can we say that again? So either a particle’s
position or speed can be known but not both. Right?

“
Yes.”

“
What if I told you that
could be related to totalitarian governments?”

Mark leaned forward. He had a puzzled look
on his face along with a small smile. “How?”

J.D. looked up to. He had finally heard
something that he did not know, Sara thought. She stood up and
started pacing back and forth. She felt better able to explain her
idea.

“
Heisenberg Uncertainty
Principle. Either the position is known or the speed is known, but
not both. How about this. For any totalitarian regime, either what
it is saying is true or what you are observing is true. They are
never both true. Sometimes neither is true. We can call that
the
Totalitarian Uncertainty
Principle
. ”

Mark and J.D. both looked up into the
ceiling and paused for a moment.

“
Wait say that again. For
any—“ J.D. started saying slowly.

Sara tried not to talk too
fast. “Take any totalitarian government— The Soviet Union, Nazi
Germany,
North Korea
. For everything related to society or foreign relations, they
are saying something. But you are also observing something as well.
They are almost never the same. For example, let’s take the easy
one. North Korea says it is a paradise where life is perfect. But
what we see is evidence of famine, widespread disease, and gulags.
So either they are lying and what we are observing is true. Or they
are telling us the truth, and we are just observing their society
incorrectly. But it cannot be true that it is a paradise
and
we are observing
these horrors. And this is
always
the case for totalitarian governments.”

J.D. had been thinking, and was finally
ready to speak. “But wait a minute. They all say that the sky is
blue. And we can observe the sky is blue. So doesn’t that break the
Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle?”

“
No, because the principle
relates only to things related to the
society
. So it relates to the state
of the economy, social relations, and foreign relations. This
principle is not related to scientific facts.”

Mark jumped in, “So wait a minute. You’re
saying that everything we see in these societies does not match up
with what their governments are saying?”

“
Yes.
It
never
matches up. I can’t tell you how many totalitarian governments
are out there today saying they are not trying to develop nuclear
weapons. But then we look at their research sites and what do we
see?
That they are trying to develop
nuclear weapons
. So either they are lying
or we observed their research site incorrectly. Here’s another
typical one. In the former Soviet Union they were saying that
everyone was equal in their society. There were no classes or
aristocracy like under the Tsar. But what did we observe? We saw
that there was a large mass of people that were dirt poor. But
there was an elite regime-class that had large apartments, weekend
villas, and cars with drivers. So either they are lying that they
have no classes, or we just are misunderstanding something when we
see their leaders live luxurious lives. We are seeing the same case
now in North Korea. Let’s take Nazi Germany. Throughout the 1930’s
Hitler was rearming the country and building tanks, planes, and
guns. We could see that. And during that time he was telling the
world he supported peace and international agreements. Again,
either he was lying – which he was – or we misunderstood and
mis-saw what we thought looked like rearmament. In all of these
cases the totalitarian government said one thing while you could
see something else going on.”

“
But in all of those cases
you were observing the truth and the regime was lying. What cases
are there for the other side of the Totalitarian Uncertainty
Principle? Meaning what they say is true and what you are observing
is false?” Mark said this in a way that showed he was thinking
too.

“
I’ve got one” Sara said.
“In the Soviet Union, they had these massive military parades.
Thousands of troops would goose-step through Red Square. Tanks
would drive by. Missile launching vehicles would drive through as
well. They would all be saluting General Secretary Gorbachev.
We
observed
what
looked like a very strong and intimidating military. But then what
was Gorby out there saying? He was asking the US for disarmament.
He said he wanted to lower military tensions between the two
countries. He was basically saying they were militarily weak when
asking for disarmament. So we observed that their military was
strong, but they were effectively saying that their military was
weak. In that case they were telling the truth. We were observing
them incorrectly. We looked at those military parades with fear. We
incorrectly saw it as strength, whereas they were really just a
show, a charade, a fraud. Their conventional military was actually
using old technologies.”

“
What about that last part
of what you said? You said ‘sometimes neither are true.’ What do
you mean by that?”

“
Well, if both what you
observe and what a totalitarian regime is saying is the same, then
it usually means that both are lies. You are observing something
false and they are telling you lies. The best example of this is at
the border between the two Koreas. From the South Korean side you
can observe what looks like a town in the North. It looks pretty
normal – there are apartment buildings, factories, stores. The
North Korean regime is also saying that its people are living
happily in that town, as in the rest of the country. So these two
match up – they say people live normal lives, and that town across
the border looks normal. But actually
both
are lies.”

Mark and J.D.’s eyebrows rose.

Sara continued, “That town
is a fake town. It was built by the regime so that anyone observing
in the South would
think
there was a happy and prosperous town on the other
side of the border. Nobody actually lives there. So what they said
– that their people are living normal lives – and what we observed
– a normal-looking town – were both false. That’s the last part of
the Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle.”

For a few moments, silence filled the air.
Everyone thought through the discussion. Soon, Mark spoke up
again.

“
OK. So we know
totalitarian governments are basically liars. That’s what this
says, right? So what?”

“
This gives us a guidepost
in dealing with them. In the Western world, this principle
generally doesn’t hold. If the economy is going through a
recession, you can see the leaders in government acknowledge it and
even start criticizing each other for it. What you see matches with
what they say because lies cannot live long in a free society. But
totalitarian governments don’t work this way. We sometimes assume
that what they are saying matches what they are doing. Or worse, we
assume that they will do what they say they will do. The
Totalitarian Uncertainty Principle can be a tool for dealing with
them. Whenever they say something – that they want peace, that they
want war, that they don’t want nuclear weapons, or anything else –
we have to assume that it will not be consistent with what we see.
We have to assume that they are either saying a lie to our ears or
they are creating a charade to lie to our eyes. We have to always
assume that they are lying about
something
.”

The room stayed silent for a moment. Then
Sara continued.

“
It also provides a way for
us to see if
we
live in a totalitarian state, if that were ever to come to be.
If for some reason we consistently see that we are observing
something in our own society that is the opposite of what we are
being told, we can start to wonder if we are living in a control
state.”

Everyone in the room shifted awkwardly in
their chairs. Sara looked at her watch. It has been a while now she
thought. Has Tom radioed in? She decided to walk over to the
Command Room and check.

As she walked into the tense room her knees
started feeling weak. She walked up to Anderson.

“
Did he call
in?”

“
No.”

“
But it has been a while.”
She looked at her watch. “He should have been past the beach by
now. He should have called in already.”

“
With such a high KPA
presence, he probably did not want to radio in until he got to a
more secure location. Or he got caught right on the beach or those
woods behind it.” Anderson looked her right in the eyes when he
said that.

Sara felt a chill rush through her back. She
closed her eyes for a moment and tried to think.

Am I worried about the mission or about
Tom?

CHAPTER 27

WEDNESDAY

Seoul, South Korea

Jiyeon sat at her desk at the NIS building.
After seeing off Tom, she knew she would not be able to sleep. She
decided to go back to the office. She could sit next to her phone.
Maybe Mr. Park would call with news when the mission was completed.
Or maybe he would call Mr. Lee again and Mr. Lee could call her.
Either way, it would be easier to sit here than at home she
thought. Mr. Lee had strangely left right after seeing off Tom. He
did not say where he was going.

She tried to get some real work done. She
opened up an email. She read it. She did not understand what she
read, so she read it again. Still nothing. Her mind kept floating
away, thinking about what was quietly happening a few hundred miles
north. Somehow her mind did this while it was reading.

She looked around the office. It was already
quite late. The office was almost empty. Except for Mr. Kim, of
course. Jiyeon stuck out her head and took a peek at him. He was
sitting in his dark office. He was reading a document. His office’s
blackness contrasted sharply to the well-lit hallway outside.
Jiyeon kept staring.

What is he always reading?

She squinted her eyes to see if she could
discern any of the papers on his desk. It was too dark in his
office to make anything out.

Suddenly, Mr. Kim mechanically raised his
head up. Jiyeon could see that he was looking straight at her. Her
heart began to beat faster. His face was expressionless. He held
his stare and did not look away. She could hear her heart beat.

What’s making me so
nervous? He works in my group
.

But he did not stop staring. Jiyeon gave in
and put her head back down, pretending to read something on her
desk. But her heart was still beating fast and she felt her face
get warmer.

She decided to walk over to the kitchenette
and get some water. Cold water can relax anyone she thought. She
got up and started walking down the hallway, away from Mr. Kim’s
dark office. She walked past rows of empty desks. Empty dark office
after empty dark office flew past on her other side. She looked
inside some of the offices and saw pictures of someone’s kids, all
smiling. She thought it looked strange to see someone smiling in
the dark.

Finally after what felt like a hundred
steps, Jiyeon arrived at the kitchenette. It too was well lit. She
grabbed a cup and filled it with cold water from the filter. As she
tasted the cool water’s refreshing sensation, she thought about how
Tom did not even have this luxury right now. She leaned against the
refrigerator, her arms crossed while she held her cup. She was
staring well past the wall in front of her. She wondered where Tom
was. Was he crawling on the beach? Was he running through the
forest? Was he stressed? Was he scared? She tried hard to picture
what he would look like scared, but she could not do it. She did
not know why she wanted to picture it anyway. She then thought
about the other possibility. Was he – found? She forced down a sip
of cold water.