by Jem Tugwell
‘Yes.’
‘That must take a lot of time.’
‘It does, but it’s the only way we can catch any mistakes the programmers make before we release an upgrade to the system.’
‘But how can you test every scenario with millions of people using it?’
She was calm, but a little defensive, as if I was questioning her ability. ‘The millions of people all use the system in the same way, so that simplifies it. We’re constantly adding new tests.’
‘Also, the programmers can’t write code for every possible eventuality. There are too many,’ Manu added. ‘They can write “if A then do B”. In Emma’s lock example: “if the person is authorised for the door then open it”, but there is always a catch-all piece of code that says, “and if something happens that we didn’t think of then generate an alert”.’ He paused to let us catch up with what he was saying.
‘So that way you don’t have to write code for every single possibility,’ Zoe said, grasping the concept way before me, ‘and you don’t have to test for every possibility to ensure that iMe works.’
‘Exactly,’ Emma said.
Manu nodded his appreciation of Zoe getting the point so quickly. I was still replaying it in my head so that I understood. He said, ‘And if we get an alert, then I modify the design and we add code and tests to make sure that we cover that new situation.’
‘Are you saying that iMe can’t go wrong?’ I asked, a little confused.
‘Effectively,’ Manu said. ‘The tests prove iMe works as we expect, and the alert means that an unexpected situation is handled in a controlled way.’
‘And if it breaks, you know about it. That’s what you are saying?’ I was trying to simplify it.
‘Yes.’
‘Then you knew Karina Morgan’s signal failed?’
Manu and Emma shared a sheepish glance.
‘Yes,’ Emma said. ‘Her signal disappearing generated an alert. We’re looking but can’t find a logical reason yet.’
‘Did you tell Art Walker when you first got the alert?’
Emma nodded.
I looked at Zoe, and she flashed me a look that she was thinking the same thing. We were getting the run-around. They said they had extensive tests, and iMe worked in those situations, but they were also saying that if anything happened that they didn’t expect, the system said ‘oops’ and generated an alert.
Shit, do they program the self-drive cars the same way? Is there a bit of code in a car that says, ‘unexpected situation’ and lets you die horribly? No wonder the cars went so slowly.
‘OK, let’s step back. How does iMe work?’ I said.
Manu sighed. It must have been the millionth time he’d answered this. ‘The iMe is embedded into your neck. It generates a signal for your location and monitors things like your heart rate, blood sugar, caffeine, and calorie intake. All that data is collected and measured against the Model Citizen standard by the Ministry of Well-being and Health.’
‘Everyone knows that. I meant how does it do it?’ I said.
‘Well, there are lots of sensors embedded in you. They’re in both your body and brain. That’s how the measurements are made and why you can hear your music in your head, make calls by talking, and see data on your HUD.’
‘Everyone knows that as well. We’re not foreigners. What makes it secure?’ Zoe said.
‘I can’t give you the details. That’s classified information, but basically, all the data and transmissions are encrypted and linked to your DNA to make them unique.’
All this technology talk was making me thirsty. ‘Could I have some water?’
Emma reached behind her and passed me a glass and a cold bottle of still water. She glanced at Zoe in a silent question, but she shook her head.
I poured the water, drained the glass and refilled it. ‘Why have I got a missing person?’
Manu and Emma paused for a moment, and then Emma said, ‘We’ve been discussing this, and we think that the reporting software is simply not finding the data. The programmers haven’t found the cause yet.’
I groaned inside at more stonewalling. Time to address the other possibility.
‘Could someone mask or suppress the iMe signal?’
They both laughed at my apparent stupidity.
‘No, you would need to know how we encode the DNA,’ Manu said. ‘You would need the military strength encryption algorithm we use and so many other things. You would also need a huge amount of time.’
‘Can’t I put something over it? Like in a sci-fi film?’ I’d seen a film with people sitting with aluminium foil over their heads to block a signal. They smiled like they pitied my naivety.
‘That wouldn’t work. You can’t simply block the signal. We have invested years and millions of pounds into this technology. That’s why it still works deep underground. The signal always has multiple routes, and there are so many receivers.’
‘Could a receiver fail?’
‘One could, but there are multiple receivers for every area. There’s built-in redundancy to guarantee 100% coverage.’
‘How could suppression work at all?’
‘I suppose, theoretically, it would have to block all of the different transmission routes, but the signal goes through metal, concrete, everything. Blocking it would be exceptionally hard. It’s meant to be. That’s all I can think of.’
‘Yes, that’s the only way,’ agreed Emma.
I tapped my finger on the desk for a minute, thinking about it. ‘Then it can’t be done by some simple criminal or a civilian. It would have to be someone with a huge amount of money to invest in working out how to get around it. Right?’
‘Right,’ Emma said.
‘Or the system is broken.’
Emma reddened, and her posture became rigid. With great care and politeness, she said, ‘The system is extensively tested all of the time. I ensure that everything works in line with Manu’s designs or what Art wants. Nothing is left to chance.’
‘What Art wants? I didn’t know he chose the functionality.’
‘Art has some personal requirements that the system has to provide.’
14
Thief
The bench I had chosen was surrounded by shrubs. Tonight, London was separated from the stars and moon by thick, dark clouds. I was sitting in deep shadow, wearing monochrome clothes: black shoes, black trousers, black jacket. I hoped that I would be like a black hole in the darkness. Even my woolly hat was black, and I kept fiddling with the front of it. It was the only nervous tic visible as I waited.
When I started investigating, I found that Alan had made it easy for me to take him. His liking for the female interns in his department was the polar opposite of his wife’s appreciation of them. I had dreaded the busy family home in Hampstead, full of kids and dogs, but Alan had been evicted to a tiny two-bedroom new build house in Hounslow. Dark and empty, the house was waiting for him to get home. So was I.
He always used a car or the tube, depending on his mood and the time of day. I didn’t need to worry. Either way, he would end up at home, so I decided to sit on the bench. I could see his front door from here.
The temperature was dropping, the daytime’s 18 degrees was now a chilly and damp 10, but I was prepared. I’d dressed warmly and only my toes, in their light, soundless shoes, complained at the inactivity.
I tensed as each set of car lights drove along the road or as each person walked by. I couldn’t risk using my HUD to track him in case someone saw the back-lit glow from my eye. The HUD didn’t work with your eyes closed; otherwise you’d never get any sleep. I had to be patient and wait. To pass the time, I played a game of guessing how many cars or people would pass before he arrived.
He was the twenty-seventh pedestrian, and I recognised his walk before I could make out the details of his face in the sodium yellow streetlights.
Showtime.
***
Alan wasn’t scanning for threats as he sauntered home. I ghosted in behind him, maybe
twenty metres back, and followed. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care because he didn’t turn to check who was behind him.
iMe made everybody feel more secure – people committing a Proximity crime always got caught. You were free from the risk of gangs, muggings, theft or violence. You were safe – unless I wanted you.
As he got closer to home, I closed the gap. He turned off the pavement and onto a concrete path that led through what the sales brochure for the house would have called a front garden. In reality, it was a few square meters of straggly grass, some thriving weeds and a recycling centre. His hand touched his front door to unlock it, and he pushed it open. The time he took to stamp and wipe his shoes on the thin door mat gave me the opportunity I needed. ‘Alan,’ I said, right behind him now.
‘Jesus,’ he shouted and jumped in shock, half cowering, half falling into the lounge that was also his entrance hall. ‘What the fuck?’
I followed him in, shut the door and found the light switch. ‘Did I startle you?’
‘You… what the fuck are you doing here?’
‘That’s not a very gracious welcome. Your hosting skills have diminished.’
He kept his curtains closed in the daytime, so I had all the privacy I needed. I snapped my hand back and smashed a straight right into his nose.
He staggered backwards, the light reflecting in the soft sheen of fear on Alan’s bald head. Even though he was five-foot-eleven, he was soft and weak. His power wasn’t physical, but came from his political position. He pushed people around with words and threats. I watched his weak punch sail over my shoulder, hit him again, and he collapsed into the armchair and held his nose.
‘You’re fucking crazy!’ He moaned, and took his hands from his nose, looking at the smear of blood.
I took the opportunity to smack another punch into his face. As he was sitting, I had to adjust for the height difference, and it resulted in a weird half-stoop kind of a blow. Despite being far from full power, it was plenty for Alan.
‘Stop, stop!’ His hands were back on his nose, and red trickled between his fingers. He rocked back and forward, sobbing, lost in his pain.
What a baby. I slipped off my small backpack and placed it on the floor. I pulled the tape from my pocket and knelt to one side of his feet. He was still blubbing and snivelling, but I didn’t want to risk a kick in the face. Once I had trussed his ankles together with the tape, I stood back and looked at him.
‘You really are a pitiful heap of shit.’
He smirked at me. ‘You won’t get away with this.’ He was relying on iMe proving I was here.
‘You think I would do this if I could get caught?’
‘But…’
I could see him trying to work out if I was bluffing. I moved behind him, grabbed his hands and taped his wrists together to secure him.
‘I’ll make you pay for this.’
He must have decided that I was insane and would be caught, but I stabbed the syringe into his neck and depressed the plunger.
15
DC Zoe Jordan
Clive and I had been talking for hours. iMe’s broken; no, it’s being suppressed; no, it’s broken. We kept jumping back to the same place, just like one of my precious, antique vinyl records when there was fluff under the needle.
‘Can you believe those two yesterday? They knew all about Karina’s signal failing,’ Clive said, one foot banging his annoyance into the wall.
The case was just too surreal to be true. iMe didn’t have bugs. Or did it?
He returned to his side of the desk and dropped into his chair with a funny ‘argh’ noise, like he had landed in the most comfortable chair in the world. My mum couldn’t sit down these days without sighing either. ‘I bet Art knew all about it when he saw us.’
‘There’s no way the signal could be suppressed, right?’
None of my police training had covered this situation. Why would it when day one had been iMe tracking and how to find anyone, anytime? I needed Clive to take charge and show me what to do.
‘No, I don’t think so. I think there’s a bug and iMe are hiding it.’
I worried that he was going to go back into one of his frequent dark moods, but he jumped up and started circling the PCU desks again. Most of the time he was silent, lost in his thoughts, with the occasional mutter.
Clive finished his tenth lap of our desk and stopped right behind me. If I had one of Cyber’s office chairs, I could have swivelled to see him, but I had to twist my body around on this cheap, rigid thing.
‘We can’t wait for iMe. Let’s do a proper old-school investigation,’ he said with an enthusiasm that surprised me. This wasn’t the usual, dark depressive, but maybe a flash of the old Clive.
‘What does that even mean, Boss?’ When he was old-school, I was a teenager at-school.
‘They spent a fortune on CCTV – coverage everywhere. We should check who was at Karina’s house. Start with her getting home that night and then go forward and backwards to see if anyone was waiting for her or called after she got home. See if her boyfriend came home early.’
‘Sure, can do.’
‘Shit.’ He seemed to deflate like a balloon as if all the fight leaked out of him. ‘I bet they’ve neglected the cameras.’
The first call I made was a dead end, and I could see Clive’s frustration. By the tenth, he stormed out of the room. I watched him go. I didn’t want to fail.
I still had a few names on my list who said they would find me the right person and call me back. I scrolled up and down the list, hovering over each of the names, willing them to call.
I tried to wait.
I searched for an available car and told it to be at the front door. I needed to make things happen.
***
Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council projected a corporate image of the castle and parks, but their office’s boring old brick facade had nothing regal or elegant about it.
A sullen, pale man lolled at reception stroking his stringy beard and staring at the ceiling. He had the spaced-out look of a virtual reality gamer who didn’t like his actual reality.
I pushed the flashing, red, urgent version of my PCU badge at his HUD and he jumped, full of anxiety. ‘DC Zoe Jordan,’ I said. ‘I’m going to see John Robinson.’
‘I don’t know where he is…’
‘I don’t need you.’ I moved towards the corridor behind him.
‘You can’t go–’
I held my hand out to silence him and smiled. ‘I can.’ The man was too used to fighting virtual dragons to be any match for me in real life. It was game over for him before it even started.
After jogging down some dim corridors, I found the office with John Robinson’s signal in it. I banged the door open without knocking and went into a small space. It held a metal desk, two plastic chairs and a startled man who didn’t look like he was on the up in the council. His skin sagged in layers around his neck and jowls, and his musty, old tweed jacket was now much too big for him. He was one of the No-Tucks – people who were much fatter before iMe managed away their weight, but couldn’t afford the cosmetic surgery to remove their excess skin.
I pushed my badge at him and got the same reaction as I had at reception.
‘Ah… DC Jordan…’
‘Mr Robinson, you didn’t call back.’
‘Well… no…’ He looked around for an excuse, but all I could see was draft health and safety stuff. The one he was writing said something about the dates for training on the council’s new dress code to ensure standardisation across all gender categories. ‘I was going to, but I’ve been busy…’
‘Nothing is more important than this.’ I leant on his desk to emphasise the point and was rewarded by a wall of lentil breath that was so bad I could taste it.
‘You were enquiring about CCTV footage?’
‘Yes, specifically Holmlea Walk in Datchet on the evening of the 23rd April. I saw the cameras when I was there. I need it now.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry… but I don’t think I can help you.’
‘Has the footage been overwritten?’
‘No. But you must understand, DC Jordan… The council’s under tremendous pressure to deliver services across the whole of Windsor and Maidenhead, and CCTV was tremendously expensive.’
‘You said was expensive.’ I knew what was coming.
‘With the introduction of iMe, the CCTV became redundant. With the cost of the equipment, all the maintenance and cleaning the cameras – well, the council couldn’t justify the cost.’
‘You shut the system down.’ Another dead end.
‘Yes.’
‘And left all the cameras up as a deterrent and to save the cost of taking them all down.’
‘Yes, you have grasped the situation quickly.’
‘Not really, it’s a story I’ve heard a lot today.’
***
By the end of the morning, I was ticked off and back at my desk in PCU. I’d been to all the councils and outsourced security companies. I didn’t just try Karina’s home, but also her work, the train stations and the route of her walk. To be thorough, and hopefully impress Clive, I also checked the homes of Manu Ameobi, Emma Bailey and Art Walker. Nothing. All those cameras and not one of them worked.
Clive came in and slumped into his chair. His earlier spark was gone. I think he had avoided coming back earlier to spare himself the disappointment. ‘Been researching Art. Anything on Karina?’
‘Nothing, Boss.’
‘Shit.’
‘I also tried the iMe people’s homes: Art, Manu and Emma. Same story.’
He seemed underwhelmed. I didn’t get a ‘good job, Zoe.’ Instead he shrank further into his chair.
‘I need a drink,’ he said. ‘Pub lunch?’
***
I stood at the bar with Clive and looked around the pub. The high ceilings and large windows gave it a lovely bright and airy feel. The wooden tables with places set for food with chequered linen and electronic menus made up about 75% of the space. The rest was a ‘snug’ of comfy chairs, sofas and display walls.
‘What do you fancy?’ he said.
