The Fear Index

skimming the white-tiled floor.
    Hoffmann went in first; the others followed. Compared to the relative silence of the trading floor, the busy racket of the computers sounded almost industrial. The arrays were stacked on warehouse shelving, their rows of red and green indicator lights flickering rapidly as they processed data. At the end of the room, in a pair of long Plexiglas cabinets, two IBM TS3500 tape robots patrolled up and down on monorails, shooting with the speed of striking snakes from one end to the other as VIXAL-4 instructed them to store or retrieve data. It was several degrees colder than the rest of the building. The noise of the powerful air-conditioning needed to keep down the temperature of the central processing units, combined with the whir of the fans on the motherboards themselves, made it surprisingly difficult to hear. When everyone was inside, Hoffmann had to raise his voice for the people at the back.
    ‘In case you think this is impressive, I should point out that it is only four per cent of the capacity of the CPU farm at CERN, where I used to work. But the principle is the same. We have nearly a thousand standard CPUs,’ he said, resting his hand proudly on the shelves, ‘each with two to four cores, exactly the same as those you have at home, except without the casing and repackaged for us by a white box company. We’ve found this to be much more reliable and cost-effective than investing in supercomputers, and easier to upgrade, which we’re doing all the time. I guess you’re familiar with Moore’s Law? This states that the number of transistors that can be placed on an integrated circuit – which basically means memory size and processing speed – will double every eighteen months, and costs will halve. Moore’s Law has held with amazing consistency since 1965, and it still holds. In CERN in the nineties we had a Cray X-MP/48 supercomputer which cost fifteen million dollars and delivered half the power a Microsoft Xbox now gives you for two hundred bucks. You can imagine what that trend means for the future.’
    Elmira Gulzhan was clasping her arms and shivering exaggeratedly. ‘Why does it have to be so damn cold in here?’
    ‘The processors generate a lot of heat. We have to try to keep them cool to stop them breaking down. If we were to shut off the air-conditioning in here, the temperature would rise at a rate of one degree Celsius a minute. Within twenty minutes it would be very uncomfortable. In half an hour we’d have a total shutdown.’
    Etienne Mussard said, ‘So what happens if there is a power cut?’
    ‘For short-term interruptions, we switch to car batteries. After ten minutes of no mains power, diesel generators in the basement would cut in.’
    ‘What would happen if there was a fire,’ asked Łukasiński, ‘or this place was attacked by terrorists?’
    ‘We have full system back-up, naturally. We’d trade straight through. But it isn’t going to happen, don’t worry. We’ve invested a lot in security – sprinkler systems, smoke detectors, firewalls, video surveillance, guards, cyber-protection. And remember, this is Switzerland.’
    Most people smiled. Łukasiński did not. ‘Is your security in-house, or outsourced?’
    ‘Outsourced.’ Hoffmann wondered why the Pole was so obsessed with security. The paranoia of the rich, he guessed. ‘Everything is outsourced – security, legal affairs, accountancy, transport, catering, technical support, cleaning. These offices are rented. Even the furniture is rented. We aim to be a company that not only makes money out of the digital age; we want to be digital. That means we try to be as frictionless as possible, with zero inventory.’
    ‘What about your own personal security?’ persisted Łukasiński. ‘Those stitches – I understand you were attacked in your home last night.’
    Hoffmann felt an odd stab of guilt and embarrassment. ‘How do you know about that?’
    Łukasiński said, offhand, ‘Someone told me.’
    Elmira rested her hand on Hoffmann’s arm; her long brown-red nails were like talons. ‘Oh Alex,’ she said softly, ‘how awful for you.’
    ‘Who?’ demanded Hoffmann.
    ‘If I could just say,’ interjected Quarry, who had slipped in unnoticed at the back, ‘what happened to Alex was nothing whatever to do with company business – just some lunatic who I’m sure will be picked up by the police. And to answer your question directly, Mieczyslaw, we have now taken steps