Patricia Cornwell Discusses “Quantum”

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: You could be relaxing, taking in the royalties, why again now? Why are you starting off again?

PATRICIA CORNWELL, NOVELIST: Well, I mean, it takes one to know one because I think people like us everywhere we go there’s a story to be told. And I think some of us were put here to be the ones to tell the story, to put a face on something. Like you, when you go to all these far fun places that I’d be scared to go to and you put a face on it. If I go into space or I take in the morgue or in the forensic labs, I’m putting the face on these things. And that is what we’re here to do because if we don’t do this, who’s going to do it? And if we don’t have stories, we don’t know who we were, we don’t know who we are, and we don’t know how to behave.

AMANPOUR: You are known for the incredible amount of research you do. I think you said it’s scary. I mean, this process was a bit scary for you.

CORNWELL: Well, its mind withering because I always tell people never forget, I’m an English major, you know, I dropped science. I couldn’t — I can’t do math. I have no sense of direction yet I’m a pilot. I’m scared of the water but a scuba driver. You do stuff because you have to learn these things. But it is mind withering, these people are so freaking smart that they’re working these fields and they’re dealing with things that are very abstract. It’s hard for us comprehend that we live in a world where almost anything can allow you to be spied on. And further more, that you can remotely do catastrophic damage.

AMANPOUR: Talk to me about your protagonist, Calli. Tell me who she is, how you conjured her.

CORNWELL: Calli Chase or Captain Chase works at NASA Langley. She’s in charge of cyber investigations for their police. But she’s not a regular cop. I mean, she’s a quantum scientist, a quantum physicist, and a test pilot. She was got into the cyber world in military police. But the thing with Calli and her twin sister is from the get go, they had been raised by this NASA parents and this guy who ends up being the commander of space force. They’ve been groomed to sort of be the ultimate new kind of James Bond type of thing. This people who go into space but it’s militarized because it’s going to be, we’re headed that way, and you’re dealing with the unseen world of electromagnetic energy, radio waves, how satellite communications, stuff that may sound boring but you think it doesn’t affect you. Try looking up tomorrow morning with the GPS knocked out all over the world and see how things go for you.

AMANPOUR: Let me play this sound bite. It’s actually you basically in the institute doing some of the research. We’ll going to play this.

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CORNWELL: I’m wearing a diaper. It’s not bad. I’ll make you all look good, don’t you worry. It’s easy to do anyway. I’m blown away by this. See you.

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