“What the hell does a cat have to do with anything?” Coldmoon interrupted.
“Never mind the cat. The many-worlds theory is a phenomenon of quantum mechanics, which says that all possible worlds are physically realized in countless universes parallel to our own.”
“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not surprised. The important thing is that our elderly engineer succeeded in building a device that employed quantum effects to predict the future.”
Coldmoon shook his head. “I’m going back to bed,” he announced.
“Don’t be so hasty; I think you’ll find the rest of the story worth your time. That engineer’s machine used quantum mechanics in a very original, very practical way. Most physicists spend their time speculating and theorizing; he actually built something.”
“That can see into the future,” Coldmoon said. “Of course he did.”
“Modicae fidei!” Constance said, annoyed. “Be quiet, and maybe you’ll learn something.”
A short, awkward silence ensued. Chastened, Coldmoon poured himself another cup of coffee and, as requested, kept his thoughts to himself.
Pendergast tented his fingers. “The many-worlds interpretation states that we live within a multiverse: a place in which all possible outcomes of any action are occurring simultaneously. Schr?dinger’s cat is alive in one world and dead in another.”
“There’s that cat again,” said Coldmoon.
“Or to be more prosaic: In our own universe, we are here speaking calmly among ourselves. In a different but parallel universe, you got up and did indeed go back to bed. In yet another, the ceiling is rotten and has just fallen down on our heads. And so on, ad infinitum.”
He stopped, as if expecting another protest from Coldmoon. When none came, he glanced at Constance. Then he continued.
“Events in universes parallel to ours don’t always change that dramatically. Physicists believe the universes most like ours are those which run closest to us in the quantum stream of time. According to brane theory, these universes are layered next to each other, like membranes, in higher dimensional space. So close that they sometimes touch, and thus open a window or portal between the two.
“Our elderly engineer managed, using the principles I’ve just described, to create a machine that could open that window and peer through it into another universe, very close to ours, except running at a slightly different timeline. The machine doesn’t see into our future. It’s looking into a universe almost identical to ours, one minute ahead.”
“This is crazy,” said Coldmoon.
“I assure you this is well-established physics that many, if not most, physicists believe in.”
“So what good is it to look one minute in the future?” Coldmoon asked.
“It makes all the difference, as you shall see.”
Coldmoon fell silent, and Pendergast went on. “So: Our elderly scientist built a prototype machine. That extra minute of predictive time would be enough to warn a pilot of catastrophic events. Lightning, extreme turbulence, engine failure. However, the engineer was tired of being laughed at by his colleagues. He needed to make a dramatic demonstration of its power, one that anyone could appreciate. That would be stock trading on Wall Street. It would display where a stock price would be, one minute ahead. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the value of such a device.
“The old man confided in Alicia Rime. He told her he was going to bring his device—which was small enough to fit into a briefcase—to the Seattle headquarters, where he could demonstrate it to the CEO and board of Boeing at a retreat the weekend after Thanksgiving.
“Rime thought it was a crime for Boeing to get a device like that, especially after the way she, and the engineer, had been treated by them. She tried to convince the engineer to keep the machine for himself and not give it to Boeing. She suggested the two of them could quit their jobs and use the machine to make money. But he was adamant: it belonged to Boeing, he had developed it on their time, and so forth. They had a bitter falling-out. She’d come to hate Boeing and—though she had no rights to it—saw the machine as her ticket out. But her elderly acquaintance never gave her the opportunity to examine the device or even get a look at the plans, and by now they were estranged. And he kept the device, and plans, in his safe at all times, or on his person.
“She knew he was planning to take a flight from Portland to Seattle: Northwest Orient 305, carrying the briefcase with the device. She also knew the type of jet that flew that route was a Boeing 727-100. This is a critical pivot in our story, because she had an intimate knowledge of that aircraft as well. For example, its three engines were mounted unusually high on the rear fuselage. It was able to fly at a lower altitude and lower speed without stalling than any other commercial jet. But particularly important, and virtually unique to the 727-100, was the airplane’s aft airstair, and the ability of this stair to be lowered during flight—from a control in the rear that nobody in the cockpit could override. This ability was so secret that it was even kept from many of the crews that flew commercial flights. However, it was not a secret to the engineers at Boeing.