'D-Cipher'
The small, polished, square sign in front of the L shaped building with tinted glass walls overlooking the Hudson river pronounced the philosophy of the corporation completely. They were cryptography experts, nothing else. D-Cipher was a not-for-profit company, sustained entirely on government and military contracts. Research and associated development in cryptography systems and products was their sole competency.
They treated their employees well. Every one of the hundred odd engineers and scientists had unmatched compensation packages. Once hired, you never wanted to work anywhere else, and when you retired, you had enough for six generations of your family to live like royalty.
They hired people sporadically, only when there was a definite, inescapable need. They spent weeks, even months, scouring the most hallowed universities, the most reputed names in the industry and the most aggressive competitors for the best talent. Each candidate was screened thoroughly, and put through a gruelling set of technical and personal interviews spanning three days. Only the top two or three percent were offered positions.
For all these reasons, Alicia Brosnan, Neil F. Eastwood, Miranda Tell, Troy Freeman and many others had applied without hesitation when they saw D-Cipher advertise positions.
******
Three days, a dozen different
types of ciphers sets, and a multitude of endless, probing technical and personal
interviews later, they were completely exhausted. When the short, squat man
led them into the room, they were not quite sure what they felt. An amalgamation
of proud confidence - one of them was sure the answers to all the questions
on the tests were correct, elation - one of them had left the interviewers
flabbergasted with rebuttal questions, shaky discomfort - one of them received
quizzical
glances to the answers during the personal interview, and, cunning pride -
one of them had sold the idea of a glamorous new instrument during the technical
interview; these were the emotions that entered the large conference room.
The blinds were drawn and fastened. A long table stood in the center. Spotless
white boards lined the walls. A ceaseless mechanical
knocking sound emanated from somewhere beneath the room.
Six handshakes and about twenty minutes later, they had learned
That Alicia Brosnan was an all-star. She had entered Stanford at fifteen and graduated summa cum laude at eighteen. At twenty-two, when her peers were still plodding through the qualifying exams, she had been appointed full professor of applied mathematics at Yale. She played the flute and violin in her 'spare time'.
That Troy Freeman was the bastard son of a monorail worker and hairdresser in Seattle. Having left home of his own will at sixteen, he had found his own way in the world. He'd put himself through college on government loans and odd jobs, and served three years in the Army's Intelligence division creating and cracking communications codes. He had been in the news recently, for tracking down a hacker who had broken into the Pentagon.
That Miranda Tell, was a junior programmer, at the Kingston Programming Laboratory's 56-bit DES card department. In college, she had planned to major in mathematics, but switched to applied mathematics, then to computer science instead. She had recently discovered that her position at KPC was no longer suitable, and perhaps D-Cipher would be the right career move at this point in her life. She had also recently broken up with her boyfriend of four months.
That Neil F. Eastwood had graduated valedictorian of an upscale high school in Maryland, and had studied mathematics and economics at Dartmouth. He had moved up faster than anyone else to become the youngest Vice-President of Investment Management quote High-Risk Securities at a large Wall Street financial services concern.
******
A few minutes later, a slender gentleman in his late fifties entered the room as if a shadow was being cast on its walls.
"Good Afternoon.",
he said, his voice barely audible, " I am Spencer Rosengarten. I congratulate
you on your tenacity over the past three days. We are now at the final stage
of our process." He slit the envelope he carried, and crackled open the
sheet of
paper within. His hands trembling a little, he slid it across the table.
"This is your last
examination: you are required to work together to uncover this" he paused
to giggle, " trifling mystery. It is an encoded message." He paused
again. Then, with his fingertips touching, and eyes toward the ceiling, he
finally said, "You are being observed, of course, and one of you - the
one who we deem most capable - will be offered the position. You have one
hour. Any questions?"
Seeing no one move, Alicia asked, "What is that infernal sound?"
"Oh that," he said, " is testimony to an unfortunate flaw in our ventilation technicians. Anything else?" He paused, then rose abruptly, and left as gently as he came.
Troy rose in time to the door being shut, and snatched the paper with chagrin. "What the hell is this." His eyes scanned the sheet of paper rapidly, then rolled upward and to the side. As his mind relinquished control of his fingers to process the problem, he didn't notice Neil ease, then snatch the paper from his hand. Neil stared at it briefly, then handed it over to Alicia. She glanced at it, before handing it to Miranda.
The paper contained a few words of perfectly unintelligible text. Each letter stood for another letter, not necessarily exclusively, but possibly following some sort of pattern. The mathematical function, or algorithm that described the pattern was the key to solving the code.
"It's a substitution cipher" declared Troy. " We must plan on worst-case situation analysis. The only way we can break this thing is by following the rules of engagement in a unified chain of command. We go in reverse alphabetic order..."
"Nah. Let's try frequency matches. Its probably quicker. Why use brute force..." Neil interjected.
"I said, a unified chain of command." retorted Troy. Neil glared, " and just how did you get command, army boy?" " Because I am trained in combat, Ivy boy."
"Boys, boys... let's try and focus on the problem." this was Alicia. "This looks like a substitution. I've broken many dozens of these in under fifteen minutes. Now let's try frequency substitution trial-and-error, which, statistically, has been proven to be the quickest way, starting with the infamous letter e"
******
Forty minutes later, the boards were covered with frenzied calculations, lazy scrawls and deliberate graphs.
"Do you have it?" cried Troy, "Do you have it?"
"Wait a minute commander, wait just a minute..." said Alicia, furiously scribbling on a pad.
"Here is the sine analysis." This was Neil. "It looks like a DES variant."
"And here are the constants for the block cipher." Miranda handed in an inexplicably overused sheet of paper.
"Exactly how the fuck am I supposed decipher this? And this here, is wrong."
"I didn't really have time for beautification, you know. And that was a minor error. Here, it's now correct."
"We can't afford minor errors, you ..."
"What did you say?"
"You, shut up. And you, sit down. And gimme that." Alicia separated the rivals, and snatched the two sheets of paper.
Troy finished the final calculation on the board. Alicia interpolated the final graph.
"Okay, we have a phrase: 'something-something defendas gladio; et something-something defendam calamo'"
"What the hell is that? Some kind of Rusky?" there was genuine anger in Troy's voice.
"It's Latin, you inconsiderate brute. It says - defend something with the sword and the pen will defend something".
"How do you know Latin? What on earth is something?" asked Neil.
"I studied it at Stanford. To the second question, I don't have the first damn clue. Unfortunately." replied Alicia, ruefully.
"Wait a minute... do you think what I think?" Neil's eyes were shining.
"A far shot, but I'll bite..." Alicia smiled inscrutably, " this is a riddle. Plain and simple. The clue to the something is in the rest of the phrase."
"How much time do we have?" asked Miranda.
"About twelve minutes."
"I say we do another set of calculations - I have trouble believing the riddle theory" said Troy.
"You go ahead, then." Neil's statement was final. So was Troy's acknowledgement.
As Troy withdrew to the far end of the table, the others began debating combinations.
"How about the world,
and the universe? Defend the world with the sword,
but the pen will defend the universe?"
"Nah, too simple. How about man and mankind?"
******
The door unlatched, and Spencer Rosengarten crept in again.
"Your time is up. What do you have?"
"Sir. We have the following partially deciphered Latin phrase. 'something-something defendas gladio; et something-something defendam calamo'." proclaimed Troy.
"Is that your final response?" asked Rosengarten wearily. They nodded.
"We have noted your individual contributions. I regret to inform you, however, that we are unable to extend any of you an offer at this time."
"What?! After all that? I really should get it, without my leadership, the rest would have been nowhere." announced Troy.
"Nonsense. This was a test of pure mathematical ability. The rest of you wouldn't know to do this kind of math to save your poor pathetic lives." chided Alicia.
"It only matters who did the basic background work. And that was me. The position is rightfully mine. I alone have the right background for this position. No other place is as dependent on time and value as Investments and Finance." said Neil nonchalantly.
"Oh really, how about combat, then?"
This was followed by a few moments of amicable bickering. Miranda broke the silence.
"Is it 'me', and 'you'?"
"What?" asked Spencer, incredulously.
"The riddle," repeated Miranda, " is it defend me with the sword, and I will defend you with the pen."
"Yes." said Spencer, quietly. "You are correct."
They all looked at Miranda Tell.
She answered the question on everyone's mind: "That knocking beneath the room was actually the words 'me' and 'you', in Morse code."
******
"I suppose that's that. Congratulations, Miranda." offered Alicia, as they walked out. Miranda affectionately ran her fingers over the offer letter.
"Thanks" she said.
"I don't suppose she knows who Ockham is" Neil asked Alicia, referring to the 14th century philosopher who propounded a theory that of all the explanations possible, the simplest one often is the truth.
"How ironic." Alicia smiled sadly.
"You know, Miranda, you did break the rules of engagement. You were told to only do the math. The thinking was left to Alicia and Neil." said Troy somewhat reproachfully.
"Oh, I don't know about that, Troy, " said Miranda, with a twinkle in her eyes, " I just listened."
