Reincarnated: Vive La France

Alan Turing stepped out of the car onto damp cobblestones.

The building in front of him was bland.

A pale, two-story structure with shuttered windows and an wooden door.

It looked like a minor government office or perhaps a storage depot.

"This is it?" Turing asked, turning to the man who had accompanied him from the Élysée.

Renaud gave a faint smile. "Appearances, Mr. Turing, are the first line of defense. Shall we?"

The door opened with a creak, and a plainclothes guard stepped aside without a word.

They walked down a short corridor to another door this one made of reinforced steel, with a locking mechanism that clicked in three distinct places before it opened.

The second door revealed a completely different world.

Rows of workbenches lined the room, each cluttered with gears, wiring, rotors, paper rolls, and unfamiliar contraptions under white dust covers.

Large chalkboards filled one wall, already covered with streams of letters, numbers, and notations.

Teleprinters sat in the corner, their type hammers still.

Turing stopped and looked around, astonished. "You've… been busy."

Renaud gestured broadly. "This, Mr. Turing, is Section V officially a telecommunications equipment testing site. In reality… it is yours now."

"I see," Turing said, walking to one of the benches and pulling back a dust cover.

Underneath sat an incomplete mechanical frame, clearly intended to house a series of rotating drums.

"That was started last year," Renaud explained, "in anticipation of someone like you. The President doesn't believe in waiting for the right man to appear before building the right tools."

"I must say," Turing murmured, "it's… unusual for a government to think that far ahead."

Renaud gave a dry laugh. "You haven't met our President, then."

They walked deeper into the room.

Four men in overalls were unpacking crates filled with wiring and Bakelite panels.

They looked up as Renaud and Turing approached.

"Gentlemen," Renaud said in French, "this is Monsieur Alan Turing. He will be leading our cryptanalytic work from today forward. You will treat his instructions as mine."

The men nodded, and one a broad-shouldered engineer with dark hair stepped forward. "Luc Fournier, Monsieur Turing. Electrical systems. I'll make anything you design come alive, if you can draw it on paper."

"Good to meet you," Turing said. "And these?"

"Jean-Pierre Masson," said a thin man with quick hands, "mechanical assembly. If it moves, I'll make it move faster."

"André Vidal," said a bespectacled man, "I'll handle procurement. Officially, I order typewriter parts and telephone switches."

"And Henri Lemoine," said the last, "signal interception and transcription. I get you the raw material the messages."

Turing nodded, impressed. "You've thought of everything."

"We've thought of enough to get you started," Renaud said. "The rest will depend on what you ask for."

One of the chalkboards caught Turing's eye.

It was covered in sequences of letters grouped in fives.

XQZLM KATNR OIPHF VWBGC …

Beneath them, partial attempts at substitution patterns, some crossed out, others circled.

"Intercepts?" Turing asked.

"From the German border," Henri said. "Army communications, low priority, but they use Enigma for all of it."

Turing stepped closer, scanning the letters. "Three-rotor encryption. Daily key changes."

Henri raised an eyebrow. "You've seen this before."

"I've read about it," Turing said carefully.

"More than that, I think," Renaud murmured.

Turing ignored the comment and began pacing slowly. "I'll need a complete set of intercepts for at least the last six months. Even traffic you think is unimportant. Sometimes the pattern lies in the unimportant."

Henri nodded. "I'll prepare it."

Luc asked, "And the machine frame we've started is that the direction you want?"

Turing studied it. "Partially. But we'll need more parallel processing more drums running at once. And I'll want an interchangeable drum system to test multiple wiring permutations quickly."

Luc grinned. "Good. I was worried you'd come in and tell me to throw it away."

"Not yet," Turing said.

Renaud checked his watch. "The President will see you at lunch. He wants to hear your first impressions."

The dining room at the Élysée was quiet.

Moreau was already seated when Renaud and Turing entered.

"Turing," Moreau said warmly. "How was your first look at the workshop?"

"Efficiently hidden," Turing said. "And well-prepared."

"Good," Moreau said. "Now, tell me what will you need first?"

Turing didn't hesitate. "Intercepts. As many as possible. Preferably with some plaintext comparisons if you have them weather reports, routine signals."

Moreau nodded. "Henri will arrange it. What else?"

"A full machine shop. I'll need a lathe, milling equipment, and precision tools. Also, a separate room for the machines when we begin building away from interference."

"You'll have it," Moreau said. "Personnel?"

"I'll start with your four men. I may need more mathematicians later, but too many cooks in the kitchen is a danger."

Moreau smiled faintly. "You'll find we share that opinion."

Renaud poured wine for each of them. "And security?" he asked.

"Maximum," Turing said. "I don't want anyone wandering in uninvited. And anyone who touches the machine must understand exactly what is at stake."

"They do," Moreau said. "I chose them carefully. None of them are the type to mistake work for politics. And none of them will talk."

Turing nodded slowly. "Then we may have a chance."

"You sound cautious," Moreau said.

"I am cautious," Turing replied. "Enigma isn't simple. It's designed to make brute force impossible. Every day the key changes, meaning we start from scratch unless we can find a repeating structure."

Moreau leaned forward. "And you think you can?"

Turing's expression was unreadable. "I think I can if you give me enough time."

"You have time," Moreau said. "Germany doesn't."

That afternoon, Turing returned to Section V with Renaud.

Luc and Jean-Pierre were already unpacking more crates.

Henri had laid out six months' worth of intercepts, each neatly typed on thin paper.

"This is only half," Henri said. "The rest will be here tomorrow."

Turing sat at a bench and began sorting them, muttering to himself as he noted letter frequencies, repeated patterns, and the oddities that caught his attention.

Luc watched him work. "You read those like a musician reads sheet music."

Turing didn't look up. "In a way, I suppose I do. Each line is a melody. The trick is to find the key it's written in."

By early evening.

Jean-Pierre had cleared a space for the machine assembly, lining up tools in exact order.

Renaud returned briefly. "The President says you'll have the additional equipment within two weeks."

Turing nodded, still scanning a sheet. "Tell him I'll use every minute of it."

As the clock approached eight, the men began to pack away their work.

Turing stayed seated, eyes still on the paper.

"First day," Luc said, pulling on his coat. "Most people would be taking it in. You're already solving it."

Turing finally looked up, a faint smile on his lips. "I didn't come to Paris to take it in."