Digital Fortress Chapter 123-126

Chapter 123An livid technician ran to the podium. Tunnel blocks ab break to goJabba sour to the VR on binding. The attackers surged forward, but a whisker onward from their assault on the fifth and utmost w every last(predicate). The databank was running out of eon.Susan blocked out the chaos around her. She ask Tankados outlandish message entirely(prenominal)where and over.PRIME variation mingled with ELEMENTS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKIIts non counterbalance a question Brinkerhoff cried. How fag end it switch an answer?We need a spell, Jabba reminded. The kill-code is numeric.Silence, Fontaine state evenly. He sullen and addressed Susan. Ms. Fletcher, youve gotten us this far. I need your best adventure.Susan took a productive breath. The kill-code entry field accepts numerics only. My scheme is that this is almost sort of clue as to the correct number. The text mentions Hiroshima and Nagasaki-the twain cities that were frivol a safe smart by a tomic miscarrys. Maybe the kill-code is colligate to the number of casualties, the estimated dollars of damage She pa utilise a moment, re recording the clue. The sacred scripture dispute seems important. The vertex of life quantity difference amongst Nagasaki and Hiroshima. plain Tankado felt the cardinal incidents differed somehow.Fontaines expression did not change. N unmatchedtheless, hope was fading fast. It seemed the political backdrops environ the twain most devastating blasts in history needed to be analyzed, comp bed, and translated into some magic number and each(prenominal) at bottom the next five minutes.Chapter 124Final block out under attackOn the VR, the PEM say-so programming was now being consumed. Black, cracking lines engulfed the utmost protective epidermis and began forcing their way toward its core.Prowling hackers were now appearing from all over the world. The number was doubling almost every minute. Before long, anyone with a computer-for eign spies, radicals, terrorists-would have ingress to all of the U.S. governments classified information.As technicians try vainly to sever power, the assembly on the podium studied the message. point David and the two NSA agents were trying to crack the code from their cutting edge in Spain.PRIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ELEMENTS RESPONSIBLE FORHIROSHIMA AND NAGASAKISoshi thought aloud. The elements liable for Hiroshima and Nagasaki drop Harbor? Hirohitos refusal toWe need a number, Jabba repeated, not political theories. Were talk mathematics-not historySoshi barbaric silent.How about payloads? Brinkerhoff offered. Casualties? Dollars damage?Were smell for an have figure, Susan reminded. Damage estimates vary. She st argond up at the message. The elements creditworthy tercet thousand miles away, David Beckers eyes flew open. Elements he decl ard. Were talking math, not history all heads turned toward the satellite screen.Tankados playing ledger games Becker spouted. The word elements has binary meaningsSpit it out, Mr. Becker, Fontaine snapped.Hes talking about chemical elements-not sociopolitical onesBeckers announcement met empty looks.Elements he prompted. The periodic table chemical substance elements Didnt any of you see the movie dilate Man and Little Boy-about the Manhattan Project? The two atomic bombs were different. They utilise different fuel-different elementsSoshi clapped her hands. Yes Hes right I read that The two bombs use different fuels One used uracil and one used atomic number 94 dickens different elementsA hush move across the room. uracil and atomic number 94 Jabba exclaimed, dead hopeful. The clue asks for the difference amongst the two elements He spun to his army of workers. The difference mingled with uranium and plutonium Who greets what it is?Blank st ars all around. gain on Jabba said. Didnt you kids go to college? person Anybody I need the difference among plutonium and uranium nary(prenominal)response.Susa n turned to Soshi. I need access to the Web. Is in that location a browser here?Soshi nodded. Netscapes sweetest.Susan grabbed her hand. Come on. Were passage surfing.Chapter 125How much time? Jabba demanded from the podium. on that point was no response from the technicians in the back. They stood riveted, staring up at the VR. The closing shield was getting dangerously thin.Nearby, Susan and Soshi pored over the results of their Web search. surfacelaw Labs? Susan asked. Who are they?Soshi shrugged. You indispensability me to open it?Damn right, she said. Six degree centigrade forty-seven text references to uranium, plutonium, and atomic bombs. Sounds identical our best bet.Soshi opened the link. A disavowal appeared.The information contained in this file is purely for academic use only. Any layman attempting to construct any of the devices described runs the peril of radiation poisoning and/or self-explosion.Self-explosion? Soshi said. Jesus. hunting it, Fontaine snapped over his shoulder. Lets see what weve got.Soshi plowed into the document. She scrolled by a recipe for urea nitrate, an detonative ten times to a greater extent virile than dynamite. The information rolled by like a recipe for butterscotch brownies.Plutonium and uranium, Jabba repeated. Lets focus.Go back, Susan ordered. The documents too big. nonplus the table of contents.Soshi scrolled retroflexed until she tack together it.I. Mechanism of an nuclear conk outA) AltimeterB) Air Prescertain(p) DetonatorC) Detonating HeadsD) fickle ChargesE) Neutron DeflectorF) atomic number 92 PlutoniumG) Lead shieldH) FusesII. Nuclear Fission/Nuclear coalescenceA) Fission (A-Bomb) Fusion (H-Bomb)B) U-235, U-238, and PlutoniumIII. storey of the atomic WeaponsA) Development (The Manhattan Project)B) Detonation 1) Hiroshima 2) Nagasaki 3) By-products of Atomic Detonations 4) Blast Zones Section two Susan cried. atomic number 92 and plutonium GoEveryone waited while Soshi found the right se ction. This is it, she said. Hold on. She quickly s screwned the data. Theres a lot of information here. A entirely map. How do we realize which difference were looking for? One occurs naturally, one is man-made. Plutonium was frontmost discovered by-A number, Jabba reminded. We need a number.Susan reread Tankados message. The prime difference surrounded by the elements the difference amongst we need a number Wait she said. The word difference has multiple meanings. We need a number-so were talking math. Its some other of Tankados word games-difference means subtraction.Yes Becker agreed from the screen overhead. Maybe the elements have different numbers game pool of protons or something? If you subtract-Hes right Jabba said, turning to Soshi. be on that point any numbers on that chart? Proton counts? Half-lives? Anything we can subtract? trey minutes a technician scratched.How about critical smokestack? Soshi ventured. It says the supercritical mass for plutonium is 3 5.2 pounds.Yes Jabba said. Check uranium Whats the supercritical mass of uranium?Soshi searched. Um 110 pounds.One atomic number 6 ten? Jabba looked suddenly hopeful. Whats 35.2 from 110? 74 guide eight, Susan snapped. But I dont think-Out of my way, Jabba commanded, plowing toward the secernateboard. Thats got to be the kill-code The difference among their critical masses Seventy-four point eightHold on, Susan said, peering over Soshis shoulder. Theres more here. Atomic charges. Neutron counts. Extraction techniques. She skimmed the chart. Uranium splits into barium and krypton plutonium does something else. Uranium has 92 protons and 146 neutrons, but-We need the most transparent difference, Midge chimed in. The clue reads the primary difference amidst the elements. Jesus Christ Jabba swore. How do we know what Tankado considered the primary difference?David interrupted. Actually, the clue reads prime, not primary.The word hit Susan right amongst the eyes. Prime she exclai med. Prime She spun to Jabba. The kill-code is a prime number Think about it It makes blameless senseJabba instantly knew Susan was right. Ensei Tankado had built his locomote on prime numbers. Primes were the fundamental building blocks of all encryption algorithms-unique values that had no factors other than one and themselves. Primes worked well in code writing because they were impossible for computers to guess using typical number-tree factoring.Soshi jumped in. Yes Its perfect Primes are essential to Japanese culture Haiku uses primes. Three lines and syllable counts of five, seven, five. All primes. The temples of Kyoto all have-Enough Jabba said. Even if the kill-code is a prime, so what There are endless possibilitiesSusan knew Jabba was right. Because the number line was infinite, one could always look a smallish farther and find another prime number. Between zero and a million, there were over 70,000 choices. It all depended on how whopping a prime Tankado decided to use. The large it was, the harder it was to guess.Itll be huge. Jabba groaned. Whatever prime Tankado chose is sure to be a monster.A call went up from the rear of the room. Two-minute warningJabba gazed up at the VR in defeat. The final shield was starting to crumble. Technicians were rushing everywhere. some(prenominal)thing in Susan told her they were close. We can do this she declared, taking control. Of all the differences between uranium and plutonium, I bet only one can be represent as a prime number Thats our final clue. The number were looking for is primeJabba eyed the uranium/plutonium chart on the monitor and threw up his arms. There moldiness be a ascorbic acid entries here Theres no way we can subtract them all and check for primes.A lot of the entries are nonnumeric, Susan encouraged. We can drop them. Uraniums natural, plutoniums man-made. Uranium uses a gun gun barrel detonator, plutonium uses implosion. Theyre not numbers, so theyre unlikeDo it, Fontaine ord ered. On the VR, the final rampart was eggshell thin.Jabba mopped his brow. All right, here goes nothing. setoff subtracting. Ill take the top quarter. Susan, youve got the middle. Everybody else split up the rest. Were looking for a prime difference. inwardly seconds, it was clear theyd never make it. The numbers were enormous, and in many cases the units didnt match up.Its apples and diabolical oranges, Jabba said. Weve got gamma rays once morest electromagnetic pulse. Fissionable against unfissionable. Some is pure. Some is percentage. Its a messIts got to be here, Susan said firmly. Weve got to think. Theres some difference between plutonium and uranium that were missing Something childlyAh guys? Soshi said. Shed created a second document windowpane and was perusing the rest of the Outlaw Labs document.What is it? Fontaine demanded. Find something?Um, sort of. She sounded uneasy. You know how I told you the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb?Yeah, they all replied in unison.W ell Soshi took a deep breath. Looks like I made a mistake.What Jabba choked. Weve been looking for the wrong thing?Soshi pointed to the screen. They cluster around and read the text the habitual misconception that the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb. In fact, the device employed uranium, like its sister bomb in Hiroshima.But- Susan gasped. If both elements were uranium, how are we supposed to find the difference between the two?Maybe Tankado made a mistake, Fontaine ventured. Maybe he didnt know the bombs were the same.No. Susan sighed. He was a cripple because of those bombs. Hed know the facts cold.Chapter 126One minuteJabba eyed the VR. PEM authorizations going fast. Last line of defense. And theres a assemblage at the door.Focus Fontaine commanded.Soshi sat in front of the Web browser and read aloud. Nagasaki bomb did not use plutonium but rather an artificially manufactured, neutron-saturated isotope of uranium 238.Damn Brinkerhoff swore. Both bombs used uranium. The ele ments responsible for Hiroshima and Nagasaki were both uranium. There is no differenceWere dead, Midge moaned.Wait, Susan said. Read that last part againSoshi repeated the text. artificially manufactured, neutron-saturated isotope of uranium 238.238? Susan exclaimed. Didnt we fair(a) see something that said Hiroshimas bomb used some other isotope of uranium?They all exchanged puzzled glances. Soshi frantically scrolled back and found the spot. Yes It says here that the Hiroshima bomb used a different isotope of uraniumMidge gasped in amazement. Theyre both uranium-but theyre different kindsBoth uranium? Jabba muscled in and stared at the terminal. Apples and apples PerfectHow are the two isotopes different? Fontaine demanded. Its got to be something basic.Soshi scrolled finished the document. Hold on looking hunky-doryForty-five seconds a voice called out.Susan looked up. The final shield was almost invisible now. here(predicate) it is Soshi exclaimed.Read it Jabba was sweating. Whats the difference There must be some difference between the twoYes Soshi pointed to her monitor. LookThey all read the text two bombs employed two different fuels precisely identical chemical characteristics. No ordinary chemical fall can separate the two isotopes. They are, with the elision of minute differences in weight, perfectly identical.Atomic weight Jabba said, excitedly. Thats it The only difference is their weights Thats the key Give me their weights Well subtract themHold on, Soshi said, scrolling ahead. to the highest degree there Yes Everyone scanned the text. difference in weight very slight gaseous scattering to separate them 10,032498X10?134 as compared to 19,39484X10?23.** There they are Jabba screamed. Thats it Those are the weightsThirty secondsGo, Fontaine whispered. Subtract them. Quickly.Jabba palmed his estimator and started entering numbers.Whats the asterisk? Susan demanded. Theres an asterisk afterwards the figuresJabba ignored her. He was already works his calculator keys furiously.Careful Soshi urged. We need an circumstantial figure.The asterisk, Susan repeated. Theres a comment.Soshi clicked to the bottom of the paragraph.Susan read the asterisk footnote. She went white. Oh dear God.Jabba looked up. What?They all leaned in, and there was a communal sigh of defeat. The tiny footnote read **12% margin of error. print figures vary from lab to lab.