The Mandela Effect

Chapter 71

On the other side of the door, it was an entirely different world. It was like stepping from 1945 straight into the 22nd century. The stuffy, damp air of the old building gave way to the slightly chilled, dry air on the other side; analog electronics to digital; incandescent lights to LED; and dirty, broken tile to clean, new Terrazzo.

Jon was caught-up staring at every surface. Wolfe had moved a little bit ahead of him, but stopped and turned.

"I forget how stark the transition is," Wolfe laughs, "you alright."

"How would you build and maintain this secretly?" Jon asks.

"Very carefully," Wolfe says shrugging, without a lot of confidence, "I'm not sure. It's always been this way for me.

"It's kinda mind-blowing," Jon added.

"I think it's worse," Wolfe qualified, "because you pass through the ante-bellum building first. But yea."

"Sorry," Jon says, hustling to catch up.

"If you think this is crazy," Wolfe says, "just wait."

Wolfe led him down the connecting hallway to the only visible door in the place. Wolfe pushed it open and led Jon into the stairway beyond. Down they went: flight after flight. It seemed like they must be ten flights underground at least when Wolfe finally stopped at a landing and yanked a door open. He went through and Jon followed.

This hallway was different. It wasn't an entry, where theoretically someone might stumble in. This was a working space, and there was nothing to hide. The entire hallway was glass: walls, floor, and ceiling. On either side, at regular intervals, there was a glass door.

The frame of the hallway, at the corners of the floor and ceiling, were metal. The glass below was tinted darker than the other three walls. It was a smoke color: gray but still transparent. the walls were a gradient: a lighter, smoke color at the base to entirely clear at the top.

Behind the glass, on all sides, were computers. It looked like a massive server farm, almost as far as the eye could see; not just on the sides but all around the hallway. Where they walked felt more like a tunnel than a hallway. Jon was about to ask when Wolfe beat him to the punch.

"Computers," Wolfe says, "recently upgraded to quantum computing. It's the largest quantum computer in the world, but obviously no one knows about it."

"Right," Jon says non-chalantly.

"This building contains 90% of all the quantum computing in the world," Wolfe added, "if you can believe that."

Jon was trying to take in the size of the computer below them and says, "I can."

"I'm sure you get it," Wolfe continues, "but for the nickel tour: it's all ballistic glass. It's meant to protect the computers from us, but also to protect us from them. Apparently, the heat put out by all of the computers mixed with the cold air from the cooling units is a fine balance. If you put in body temp objects, it would be uncomfortable for sure, but also it might cause precipitation to form in the room."

"Precipitation?" Jon asks, "like rain?"

"Maybe rain," Wolfe explained, "Maybe snow, maybe wind, maybe ice. I dunno - they say precipitation."

Jon nodded at the answer.

"The glass is tinted and frosted," Wolfe continues, "because people have apparently been falling down and/or getting vertigo in here since the space was modified into this structure."

"I was just feeling a bit of that myself," Jon says, "I had to look at the floor to get my bearings."

"Yea," Wolfe acknowledged, "you get used to it but I remember."