The alarm rang stridently, announcing the start of my next working day; it was loud enough to be heard in the bathroom and persistent enough to force me to turn it off. I found I was back in my shabby reality. I went into work and breakfast at the food space did make it a lot better right up to sitting at my desk and looking at the mountain of bollocks I’d have to clear before I could do anything else. Fortunately, I remembered I owed Rosby a turn or two, and moved it all over to her. Her glare should have reduced it to ashes in an instant, except she became even more furious when I advised that she’d been promoted to Executive Assistant and the interoffice requests were now her responsibility.
I left to do actual work, the kind that would ensure we could meet targets and stay out of the chopping line. It made me feel strong and productive, a bit “leadery” really, and I enjoyed it for the few seconds it lasted.
I was pinged to attend a meeting. Allson Gala wanted to discuss matters of pressing urgency with his extended staff. I made my way up the sixteen levels to where Gala’s conference room was located; his office was another sixteen levels up again, among the lower branches of the great management foliage we supported. Since I liked to firm up prejudices quickly, I was annoyed to have to revise my opinion of Allson Gala. He was actually competent, knew how to manage his staff to get work done. A summons to a meeting wasn’t just an opportunity to have his grandeur polished by his minions, it would be about something that impacted us all.
I stepped into the large conference room and nodded to those I knew, and took a seat at the far end of the vast table, which proved to be a really good idea when Gala walked in flanked by a woman I’d never seen before. I felt Dialland Jovial stir as he admired his work and unwanted information flowed into my mind while I struggled to control my face and body language.
By appearance, she was a Natural from the Belteeq Affiliated Systems. They had a longstanding staff-exchange program with the Standing Committee, off system administrative experience was a valuable commodity. It also meant that Belteeqrs were a well-known, integrated sub-group on Mengchi with no apparent interest in disturbing any part of the structure. Hiding where no one was looking was a very good plan.
Jovial was admiring how her blonde hair fell which, evidently, had been a detail that had proven to be surprisingly troublesome to “get just right”. Her bright cornflower-blue eyes, sallow skin, broad shoulders, and long legs were easy. Jovial was pretty pleased with the results. I was having difficulty remembering to breathe.
I’d thought the plot had been interrupted before it had started. Far too late, it occurred to me that action by Jovial’s group must have rung the alarm; now I could see that the house was burning down.
Jovial didn’t know operational details work was strictly segregated for security. He was given requirements and a free hand to implement them. I had no idea if the woman would explode in the room or do something relevant or suspicious. Gala nodded, a signal to be quiet because he was taking the floor. With an amiable smile, he began. “Before I turn over the meeting to Ms Hiba to explain why I’ve called you here at such short notice, I’d like to make an announcement.”
He paused and peered directly at me. “I’m very pleased to announce that the Secure Disposal Resources Section, led by Shakbout are now number five in productivity for the service-wide sector ranking. I’d like to congratulate Shakeout on this significant achievement and I look forward to a peaceful post-election transition.”
The congratulations weren’t fake we’d just sidestepped a visit from the audit death squads. They never stopped with the obvious victim; they liked to root around. Normally, my extremely rapid rise would have been enough to prompt a visit. With the pre-election rush, they simply took everyone who qualified and didn’t bother with anyone who’d scrambled to safety. No one was going to question how I’d done it. The risk of breaking something that had been fixed wasn’t a good plan. The food service had survived the biggest threat and from here on, it would be part of the furniture.
Gala gazed around and gestured dramatically. “I’d like to introduce Ms Hiba from the Central Security Compliance Directorate and hand it over to her.”
He sat back and Ms Hiba sat forward, looked around the room (I didn’t flinch under her intent gaze, though I did experience an odd internal quiver), and began to talk. She had a very nice voice, somewhat deep, very confident, and very clear.
“Thank you. As Assistant Director Gala has noted, I work in the Central Security Compliance Directorate and am here to talk about security compliance. We’re now in the closing stages of the pre-election timescale and the levels of attempted interference with the PS information infrastructure increases hugely during this period. Based on previous events, we anticipate attempts to penetrate the infrastructure to increase by 800 fold per time fraction while actual breaches also increase. Significant breaches will actually decline as the sheer volume of activity crowd out long-term tunnellers. The risk of an amateur cutting across their set-ups is very great, so they usually rest up and let election waves subside before returning to active service.
“To prepare for the storm of activity that will hit the infrastructure during the active voting period, Central Security Compliance Directorate has developed a protocol that gives us temporary oversight over the whole infrastructure. We don’t have any greater aces, nor can we make changes to any part of the individual security modules that each of you manage. The protocol is to give an infrastructure wide view so we can see where the pressures are changing to identify patterns of interference. We don’t take action ourselves—we’re simply an information clearing house and accelerated provider to the relevant enforcement divisions.”
She paused and waited for questions, but none came. “What this means in action terms for everyone here is that, as security module-key holders, I need permission from each of you for temporary access to your modules to copy activity logs for the previous sixteen months. This is to create a valid picture of ongoing activity as a baseline for the analysis.” She passed encrypted sheets to everyone. “Please complete these today and don’t change any security settings right now. After the election has been confirmed, there’ll be a requirement to change them. Please wait until you’ve received that notification.”
There were still no questions. Gala closed the meeting and we filed out. Gala and Ms Hiba remained behind, engaged in an animated discussion. I walked back to my office, filled with appalled admiration at the superb brilliant simplicity of the plan so much under everyone’s nose, they’d not see it. The PS information infrastructure wasn’t designed to be fantastically difficult to penetrate. It was, however, time-consuming to obtain critical penetration and control without detection. Any section that had been penetrated could be easily shut down, without disabling the rest of the infrastructure.
This was done by sacrificing efficiency for security. Each section of the PS infrastructure was self-contained and linked by feeble reporting lines that allowed the minimum required information to flow sluggishly from one point to another. Penetrate any module and you’d have to repeat the process from scratch for the next one. The links wouldn’t support a leap from one to another with sufficient power to actually breach the module. This meant the PS was epidemically inefficient, with costly duplication and confusion across the whole service. No one cared. The BookWorms were the hidden information infrastructure that provided enough operation effectiveness to be acceptable; when needed, a centralized process could be temporarily implemented, which created an opportunity for attack, something everyone on all sides of the situation knew.
The solution to this problem was encrypted copy-write, which again harnessed the limitless power of distributed inefficiency. When I wrote on the paper Ms Hiba had given me, it would be encrypted and part-copied to three other sheets distributed at random through the service. To decrypt, each sheet had to be touched in sequence by designated persons; a fourth person then received the entire encrypted scheme and had 120 seconds to unravel it with t
he key charm they’d been handed. The theory behind this was that the coordination required to successfully enter was so great, it couldn’t be secretly maintained long enough to break codes. Doing so was a staple of a sub-genre of dramatic fiction that I really liked; some proposals floating around were monuments to ingenuity.
Someone, somewhere, had realized the power of the process—a shiny, sparkling lure that would trap and absorb your time and attention. People desiring to penetrate the PS information infrastructure wanted to show how clever they were. Give them a difficult problem to solve and you tapped into their vanity, and they were hooked. The group didn’t want to penetrate the PS System, but take it over as part of a greater project. Possessing a very different sort of vanity, they sidestepped process distractions and simply asked for access to the entire system. We’d offer it with a smile and relish the satisfaction that came from another box ticked.
The encryption didn’t matter, since all the information would flow steadily to those people waiting hungrily for it. Access to every module, to read activity logs, was an open door and I was sure they had enough skill to stroll unnoticed into the infrastructure and do whatever they wanted. This strongly implied that someone, or multiple someones, very close to the top were involved. Getting Jovial’s carefully brewed lifeforms into the positions they were in, required influence and political muscle.
When I returned to my office, Rosby was sitting at a her almost clear desk and smiling angelically. My heart sank. This could only mean trouble. I made a light swerve towards the workshops and Rosby smiled even more brightly, and shook her head. Whatever it was, there was going to be no avoiding it. I stepped into my office and found the female PR agent in my chair.
This time she was alone, which I didn’t like at all. She motioned the door and I closed it. I was about to point out that that she was sitting in my chair in my office, when she spoke, her tone matter-of fact. “Nice office and nice chair, too, not exactly standard issue, but very nice, lucky you.”
She was correct that it wasn’t standard issue and it was very nice. Akion had decided that I should have a better chair and had one delivered; it mixed comfort and support in very pleasing proportions.
“This is your office, please, there’s no need to stand. Take a seat. We have matters to discuss and you standing there looking uncomfortable won’t do.” She waited for me to do as requested. “Let’s get started with the nonsense that you’ve been reporting from the UPCR. Apparently, you think that I’m an idiot and would accept any box of rotting predator shit that you choose to serve up … and that this could transpire without consequences. And, speaking of consequences, we might as well get that out of the way right now.”
She zapped me with a a small nerve-stick she pulled from a pocket, and fire spiraled through my body. It was over instantly, but the after-effect would linger for hours and I’d have pink piss for a couple of days.
“Now that we’ve established a fuller understanding of what you’ve been chosen to do, you can tell me directly what’s actually going on.”
But I couldn’t tell her, because my tongue wasn’t willing to cooperate and I was busy remembering how to breathe without thinking too seriously about it. Finally, I was able to talk and breathe at the same time. I’d expected something like this, having believed the PRA wouldn’t be satisfied with the reports I was to deliver. I wasn’t ready to mention that Zusak Sedge was involved, either. I’d developed what I feverishly hoped was a suitable cover story that contained sufficient truth, so that omissions wouldn’t attract attention.
“They were expecting me. They know I’m a plant sent to gather information and they told me that my continued good health was utterly contingent on my conveying the information they’d provided and not adding or amending it in any way. I don’t know how they knew, because I never said anything.”
“They know because they were expecting you and you fit the profile. They knew we’d investigate them, so we sent you in the front door to divert attention from real work being done at the rear. That had been going well until this morning … when we found our assets distributed across several floors and walls of what was supposed to be a safe house. It was a Zusak Sedge signature piece. “
The only good thing about being zapped: any involuntary spasm that might otherwise be a screaming indicator, was accepted as an aftershock. Given the spasm I’d had at the mention of Zusak, I was grateful for this smallest of mercies.
The PR agent hadn’t stopped talking for a blink. “If it turns out that she’s involved … I’m sure she’ll be working with a local network. She always likes to plug into one that’s active locally and use its resources.” Her lips drew into a trim line as she studied my face. “Now that they’ve eaten, they’re going to be more relaxed. You’re considered window dressing, so you’re not a threat. There’s a small opportunity to check out what’s going on. If there’s any sign of Sedge, back away. She’s too big a problem. What I want are the names of her local associates.”
“I’m watched all the time. Dr Sand is suspicious enough already, so how am I supposed to avoid him?”
“That’ll be easy. He was my asset, and keeping on top of you was part of his cover. You’re on the inside now and considered to be contained. Over the next four days, I want you to see who’s talking to whom and when. Whatever’s being planned is going to come to the boil soon or they’d not have taken the risk of cutting up Sand. Their mistake is my gain.” Standing, she walked to the door, turned back, and nodded. “Nice work with the food space. Use that kind of thinking and find out where the leak is.”
Since she’d come alone, I had a feeling she was using me as window dressing again. As I watched her leave, I realized having a broken leg didn’t stop a headache.
Fortunately, the rest of the day continued without any other life-threatening circumstances. As I left the office, I tapped Lincoln to meet me at the Whirlpool Fountain, and she replied she would.
I took transit to the Fountain, located in one if the oldest and most exclusive parts of Mengchi. If you had a residence here, you not only had the money, you had the history as well. Beyond subtle walls and rising plants were generations of string-pullers working very hard to retain their positions. It bothered me a bit that I was going to help them tonight. It was reasonable to consider them the enemy; they were feasting on the flesh and blood of countless generations of lifeforms like myself.
I turned the corner and entered an open space where the Fountain was located and saw Lincoln sitting by a wall, near the pool. She was studying a charm on her wrist and I was struck by how well she looked. Aquatic Ornamentals were not designed to live full time on land. Placed in water and the difference became clear. They possessed a healthy energy glow in water that was dimmed on land. As I approached, she shone a little, appearing as if she’d just stepped out of water. It looked good on her.
The charm was a simple bracelet made of multiple, loosely braided strands. Its simplicity belied tremendous craft and power, and was a masterpiece of custom manufacturing. How had Lincoln afforded it? Even with her alternative activities, which were undoubtedly well paying, such a charm was astronomically expensive.
Lincoln glanced up and smiled. “A mysterious summons to a lonely location. I have a feeling there’s heavy lifting required.”
“True.” I sat beside her and nodded to the charm. “Beautiful work.”
She moved it from view. “Just a bangle I treated myself to.”
I laughed. “A custom-built charm that captures moisture from the atmosphere and ensures you’re constantly surrounded by the required depth of water for maximum health is a bit more than a bangle. Controlling your own personal climate is nice work.”
“Controlling the actual climate would be nice work, but that storm last week created havoc at the docks. No one in or out for hours. You’d think that clever heads would be solving a problem like that.”
Lincoln stared when I guffawed.
“Sorry. It’s just that what we�
�re sitting on is a monument to the utterly misguided attempt to do what you’ve been talking about. Climate and weather control was one of the first major projects undertaken on Mengchi after the super-farms started to make mass power a possibility. A researcher called Larch Unfos developed a theory about how to control wind and temperature to deliver desired weather results. A huge chain of weather stations were constructed around the planet in a configuration that would amplify the power supplied from specially built super-farms.
“It was a long-term project and it took 50 years to build everything, and organize the power distribution before being switched on. Nothing happened at first and for the next 30 days there was a scramble to alter the configuration to achieve results … and then they did. There used to be 10 different major landmass formations on the planet, all inhabited, eight of them submerged under water. One had every living creature transformed into a tree before it sank slowly over the next 150 years. Thingler became the spiral shape that it is today and Larchfall became a wandering landmass that submerges and rises at random. At least as far as anyone knows it is random, no one has actually landed on it and sent any information.
“The two most popular explanations are that climate is so complex, trying to map it to a charm would in turn create a charm of such complexity that it wouldn’t function, and the other is that one of the changes created a malignant configuration with visible results. The storms that you were speaking of are one of the results of the attempt. No one’s going to stop them, because no one knows what might transpire if they do.”
“Right, storms, but why the laughter?”
I winked. “That’s the lesser known part of the story. Larch Unfos was here, on this spot, when disaster struck. This was the site for his laboratory, part of a much bigger academic and government research facility. When disaster arrived, the laboratory exploded and there was no trace of Larch Unfos. Two hundred years later, a fishing ship hooked something near the main fishing grounds and reeled it in. For a long time, there’d been stories of iceberg sightings, which made no sense as it was warm water. The fishing boat crew had seen something and the captain was curious and persistent enough to track and capture it. It was an iceberg all right, with something trapped inside. The iceberg had resisted all the efforts the crew had made to crack it open. Finally, they brought it in for a reward.
Bottle Born Blues Page 9
