THE HACKERS

Bangalore is the capital of India’s southern state of Karnataka. This remarkably beautiful city attracts flocks of tourists, pilgrims, businessmen. It is rightfully considered to be one of the most beautiful places on Earth!

Tourist guides will tell you in detail about its marvelous architecture, historical monuments, and all the wonders of Bangalore, including the Silicon Valley – the city of scientists. Located on the sidelines of the city’s business center, it consists of a number of high-rise buildings with impressing technological design.

You will find plenty of such data in travel brochures. But very few residents of the city know that these remarkable buildings, usually referred to as scientific centers, are merely a fancy signboard designed to attract customers and investors. There is not a single lab there. The Silicon Valley in the “country of sages”, as India is frequently called, is a city within the city, whose labs gather together scientists and researchers from all round the world to develop and sell technologies. And this real scientific facility is located far from the noisy and crowded research and exhibition centers.

Hidden amid a beautiful tropical forest behind high fence in the close proximity of the city of Bangalore, this inconspicuous area houses a group of small cosy buildings connected by walkways, a couple of shops, and a restaurant surrounded with fountains. In fact, it looks like an ordinary tourist destination. However, its blind, heavily guarded entrance gates have never let in a single tourist or any outsider.

These scientific centers are closed to the public and live by their own rules.

Employment contracts that are signed by personnel of such centers even stipulate that they refer to each other only by pseudonyms.

As a rule, anyone dealing with new technologies is supposed to keep his or her personal details in secret.

Early in the morning, when the night freshness had not yet given way to the daytime heat, a tall young man was walking quickly along a path that linked two opposite houses. He was dressed in jeans and white loose cotton shirt with rolled-up sleeves. His had dark hair and skin testified to his Hindu origin. While his neatly cut hair, glasses in metal frame and the way he handled himself showed that he preferred reading and observation to physical activity.

The young man was hurrying towards the nearest house with a concerned air, mumbling something under his breath and accompanying his thoughts with arms movements.

"Thereby, Absolem, we’ll reach the upper limit while preserving all the initial parameters. Tell this to the neurobiologists in the lab, and ask them to start after breakfast. That’s it, end of the line.” He ended up his reflections and stopped in front of a wide-open glass entrance door.

He came in and found himself in a spacious hall almost free of any furniture.

In the middle of the room, a motor bike was proudly standing, with a fresh dirty trace leading to the wide entrance door.

The bike was making a specific crackling sound, which indicated that it had been recently used. The engine was still hot.

“Asha! I’m gathering everyone for breakfast! Come out! I’m waiting for you!”

As there was no reply he made a few steps inside, looked around and then called again.

“Atarva, I’m already going down,” said someone’s voice on the top floor, and then a tall girl with blond hair combed into a ponytail lightly ran down the stairs.

She was dressed in skinny jeans and a T-shirt with a picture of Goddess Lakshmi.

“Hi Atarva! Nestor is already coming; he arrived from Delhi yesterday night. Did you sleep well?”

“I slept perfectly well! After all, I’m the master of my mind,” replied the young man. “And I consider yesterday’s news to be the customer’s reasonable wish, rather than his quirk as you put it!”

“Good morning everyone, I’ve got some news and an idea to offer. Let’s talk it over during breakfast.” A guy with long shoulder-length hair was approaching them, on his way combing his hair with his fingers and trying to fasten it with a band.

“Hi Nestor,” Asha and Atarva said almost simultaneously and both burst out laughing at that coincidence.

“What are the Curators saying? Have we delivered the job?” Nestor managed at last to cope with his hair and looked closely at Atarva.

"Yesterday, the Fourth Curator gathered all the groups’ leaders to inform them on the customer’s desire to block a part of the processor’s potential with a tough limiting program,” Atarva said and gave them a meaningful look. “The requirements to these programs are so specific that I even think they are…”

“Idiotic?” Asha suggested with a barely hidden annoyance.

“Asha, our development is so important that it has more Curators than developers. By the way, since yesterday our clearance level has been again increased.”

“I’ve noticed that! Yesterday evening when I set off on a ride, the security didn’t even let me out of the gates! I had to ride the bike within the perimeter on the test site. And the story repeated itself in the morning!”

“I guess they don’t let us out because of our clearance allowances! Luckily, I left earlier, otherwise I wouldn’t be able to see my father in hospital,” Nestor said.

“How is he? Atarva inquired politely.

“In my opinion, they can already release him from hospital, but the doctors, on the contrary, think that he will be forever their patient.”

“What is the diagnosis?” Atarva stared at Nestor over his glasses.

“As said before, schizophrenia! I talked to my father. He is in the right mind, while meds only render him weak. At parting, he gave me a pile of sheets with notes. He said that those were reports on his experiment that he had written from memory in his hospital room. I looked them through on a plane and I think you’ve got to look at them, too. In fact, he did not obtain a zero result – they were wrong. The contact did take place!”

“And where are the reports?” Atarva persisted.

“All the reports and documents were taken away. There is no longer any lab, the room is empty. The father’s apartment was raked through. So now not a single note is left.”

“That’s quite interesting! Let’s go and have breakfast now, tell us everything in the lab.”

Upon hearing the news, their good mood left them at once, and the group headed silently towards the canteen building.

Meanwhile, a secretary-girl dressed in a beige sari entered the office of the Scientific Center’s Director. She bowed respectfully and stopped silently at the door.

The owner of the office was standing motionlessly with his hands behind his back beside a large window with tinted glass. That was a man over fifty, tall, well-knit, dressed in a well-tailored, light-gray woolen suit and a white shirt without tie.

 His upright posture and strict look showed he was accustomed to give orders and was well-aware of such concepts as will and responsibility.

“Sangeeta, I have additional instructions for the Chief Security Officer, you’ll find them in your computer,” the boss said slowly and pensively, “Atarva’s group has a special status now. There will be a separate instruction on them. That’s all for now.”

The secretary silently bowed and noiselessly went out. The director stood for a while, looking at squirrels running along thick branches of a giant shorea tree, growing opposite the administrative building.

The noble tree was enclosed with a beautiful low fence with a marble slab informing that the tree had been planted on the day of the Center’s opening and that the Center was intended to help people of science to pursue research and scientific studies. Now that was part of the Scientific Center’s history.

The entrance door opened behind his back. Only one person was allowed to enter his office unannounced – Jagdish Chandra, Head of Research and Development. Since their university days, they have known each other well, and that was the only person to whom the director could confide his thoughts.

“Hello, Rajesh,” Jagdish greeted him in a cheerful voice and quickly walked towards his friend, opening his arms for a hug. That was a highly energetic, skinny man of average height.

“Hello, my friend! The director’s look grew softer at once; he vigorously turned around to welcome the friend of his youth.

In the East, people usually take some time before getting down to business, first they demonstrate their attention and favor towards each other.

“Let’s come over to the lounge room. Now it’s tea time, and we’ll be more comfortable there.” The director pointed with his eyes to a small door and then put his hand on Jagdish’s shoulder, slightly pushing him towards that door. The latter instantly got the point and said out loud:

‘Over a cup of tea I’ll tell you about the cricket match.”

The director’s personal recreation room was hidden behind that small door. It was quite spacious and well-designed. In addition, it was equipped with the special protective field, preventing any possibility of eavesdropping. Having closed the door firmly, Jagdish habitually walked towards a large armchair opposite a tea table with an old chess set.

“Raj, tell me what is going on here. The Curators that were pressed on us by the customer are now acting highly bizarrely. They are virtually spending whole nights in our labs while their bus is always waiting for them near the gates.

Have you seen the roof of their bus? It is packed full of electronics!

Who is this customer? I feel anxious about all this and the closer we get to the end of the works, the more intense this feeling gets.”

Is this all about the quantum processor? Atarva’s group has completed its development and tests. The results are more than impressing!

You should be happy about that! But instead you are being stressed out all the time! You think I don’t see this state of yours!”

“Waite a minute, Jagdish,” Raj cut short his friend’s lengthy speech, settling himself in a large cosy armchair. “First of all, I have always taken seriously your intuition. But you are right: I do need a piece of advice. Let’s go over the facts that beg questions: the quantum processor used to be our own development up to the moment when the information about it leaked out into the outside world. Then came that odd and generous customer and offered to buy out everything related to that processor, namely the rights to the concept and the technologies. We rejected his offer at the time, do you remember our meeting? Alright, I will go on. Then we began to face persistent calls and pressure from the above, as well as promises of new orders and funding. And here in this room, we both decided to take on the job, encouraged by the amount in the customer’s check. Am I right? So these facts beg the question: how come the confidential information on the technology that is ahead of our time and destined to change the world ended up beyond the limits of the Center? All this raises a red flag, doesn’t it?”

Jagdish nodded his head, looking fixedly at Raj.

“And then, out of the blue, appeared that company with an offer to select an appropriate development team for us. The best of the best, as they put it. That way, we acquired a group that we jokingly called the “Juniors”. However, we ceased making fun of them as we got to know them better; you yourself read me those data, sitting here in this armchair.

And as far as the Juniors are concerned, they’ve got extraordinary abilities coupled with the cause-and-effect relationships of their lives that seem to be accidently linked to the subject of the development. And then again comes this odd company that finds these specialists for us and then simply disappears. Doesn’t it seem to you that the story has too many coincidences? This is my second question!