The Breach

by M. T Hill

  These exploits were eventually shut down when it was decided you could only log in from a preregistered phone, and so the mainstream userbase capitulated. Now, if you want to find someone, you’re better off trying in person.

  So why is Freya at Central Library? Because its legacy public-sector-developed IT systems offer a useful workaround. The North West’s last remaining libraries continue to operate non-internet connected machines on which people like to write essays or dissertations or stories, distraction free. These unlinked machines, effectively dead spots, ‘no-internet zones’, have become a phenomenon in the happy-shiny world of ceaseless connectivity. Together these machines form an anti-network, complete with its own subculture of evangelical users, who share tips on locations and swear by the ‘productivity gains’ enabled.

  By their nature, unconnected computers don’t need updating to comply with the new laws. In turn, they don’t hold software certificates for social apps, never mind traffic records. If you can link them to an external connection, you have a way to get online without checks. For Freya, this is an essential tool for information gathering – and the reason she carries a tiny burner modem, which can siphon nearby Wi-Fi. The results can be unreliable, the connection unstable, but most of the time she can get a crude browser to run, and most of the time it does the trick.

  This particular machine is definitely hit and miss. She hard resets the tower four times before it works. When the connection goes live, she opens her browser, tabs to the Big Walls social page, its member list, and begins. First, she searches names beginning with S. Stephen’s private profile is there, but so too is Shep’s – unlocked – which proves a surprise. She clicks through and explores his stream. It’s empty, save for a single picture of him at the bottom. An uneasy smile, focus above the camera. A muted city flowing around him. Possibly taken through a cafe window. Freya exhales. To see him in normal clothes, a loose T-shirt and old-school skater jeans, alters her perception of him. He’s more human, more… susceptible. She takes a long breath and checks the picture is really the only one. It is. Then she notices his friends list is also wide open. She hesitates – it feels too easy. She clicks. Too easy for sure. She now has sixty-odd connections to make her way through. Sixty-odd faces staring back.

  No Stephen. No Ste. But there – a woman against a familiar background. A woman in a climbing centre, arm draped around someone.

  Freya’s fine hairs lift away from her skin.

  ‘Freighter,’ Freya whispers, and clicks. It loads a close-up, high def. There’s Stephen. There’s the woman – there’s freighter. And there’s her real name – Alba. She goes into Alba’s profile. Languages: Spanish (mother), Catalan, English. Current location: Reykjavik, Iceland. Freya goes through her profile pictures. Black, black eyes, like storage ponds. Bright teeth. Her nose is straight, skin snare-tight. Her face is freckled. Her top lip carries a hint of blond down.

  Feeling queasy, even a gentle remorse, Freya scrapes the rest of Alba’s profile: a frenzied intake of information. All of it goes into a plain document: Alba’s engagement with comments; her liked stories; hints at radical politics. Her profile, unlike Shep’s, is almost too full, and active until just a few months ago. Freya pulls up the most recent picture.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Freya says.

  Alba is standing against a tundral background with an infant in her arms. The baby’s facial structure is unmistakably Stephen’s. Its eyes are unmistakably Alba’s.

  From there, Freya logs and searches in a frenzy, copypasting images to her USB stick – screengrabs of profiles, the algorithm’s clunky translations of Alba’s friends’ posts. With a name in hand, it’s easier to search beyond social sites, and she throws the dragnet wide. Soon she has partials of Alba’s education record, past addresses, a small business entry on the English commerce database – some sort of homemade jewellery venture, long since closed. A notice of the baby’s birth on a community site – a boy called Oriol. And all the while Freya recognises the perversity of this, her cataloguing of Stephen and Alba’s life. There’d be no justifying it, should she get caught, and yet she continues anyway: she needs to understand what on the surface looked to be a normal relationship, now riven by the emotional shrapnel of Stephen’s death. What was their wager? What bet had he lost in death? Why had they each posted the same image of the nest?

  Or is their separation what drove Stephen to spiral? The loss of his son?

  Freya reloads the urbex boards. Stephen’s reports page now a URL she knows by heart. All that familiar writing. And again, shuddering into frame, that unexplainable image, its empty squares.

  When Freya next checks her watch, ninety minutes have slipped.

  She swears and pulls the USB stick and gathers her stuff. The door is stubborn and the lights in the corridor are dim. Her eyes itch, her mascara has clumped up in the dry air. She darts through the library and onto the street.

  When she opens her phone to tell her parents she’ll be late back, she nearly collapses. Horror, cold and sliding. When she thought she saw her ex, she must have forgotten to change her settings. The phone isn’t in flight mode, which means it won’t have been in flight mode the whole time she was inside. Which means, owing to past usage, her modem will have automatically tethered to the mobile, not the library’s corporate Wi-Fi.

  Which means her activity was unencrypted, findable and quantifiable. Which means Shep and Alba will know she’s accessed their streams.

  Before she can even lock her phone, a notification pings on her messaging app.

  did wonder when you’d come digging

  Freya freezes. Who’s this? she replies.

  don’t be a nobhead

  is it that you want to play out?

  i can show you why ste did urbex

  your choice where

  * * *

  Freya sits down on the step, a lump in her throat. She turns the phone’s Wi-Fi off and on, scans for local spots. Every SSID name reads SHEP. ‘Shit,’ she hisses. He’s airjacked her.

  you still there?

  one time offer

  you’d love it

  freya

  see me waving?

  Freya gets up. St Peter’s Square is heaving – commuters, bikes, joggers. Her phone buzzes again.

  haha only messing

  What are you doing?

  only messing

  Freya comes off the library steps and searches left and right. The messages still rolling.

  i get it tho

  more than you know

  why ste did it

  Stop. You’re scaring me.

  don’t mean to. invites are where everyone starts.

  you wouldn’t be on my profile if you weren’t digging

  Get out of my phone. Stop texting.

  chill

  let’s go together

  How did you get my number?

  doesn’t matter

  good site i can show you

  don’t be stressy

  I swear, I’ll call the police.

  why?

  all I say is no writing about it

  no fake news

  freya

  come on

  Why would I go anywhere with you?

  cos you’re alright for a hyena

  Seriously.

  meet at salford mcdonald’s, saturday next, 3pm

  pack light, waterproofs, running shoes. thermals if

  you got them

  don’t bother with recorders

  i’ll show you some cool stuff

  I don’t even know you.

  you sharked my stream haha

  strange woman

  3pm mcdonald’s

  white trader van

  i’ll help you see

  Shep’s airhack subsides. Freya stands there shivering. A tram begins to peel out of the square. As it leaves, she hears a distinctive tapping. She stumbles off the kerb. Out from beneath the portico. There’s a narrow-waisted, broad-shouldered man pressed against the tram’s do
or glass. He’s waving.

  The Steeplejack

  Shep still doesn’t know whether to say yes to Mallory Junior, to the beta scaffold out on the island. The thought of the heat there is one thing, the distance another. But the office computer isn’t programmed for ambivalence – Shep needs more laddering hours to qualify for the trip, and the scheduler can only fudge the numbers if Shep takes a laddering-intensive job this week. So off he’s sent to Manchester Airport for a few days hanging off the Terminal 2 building.

  The crew there is upgrading lightning protection, which means stripping away old fittings and lines and installing a suite of instruments the mayor’s office ordered in from Beijing. Monitoring the airport’s microclimate, or something. Prep-work for another runway expansion, if you ask a cynic. Either way, it’s what the jacks call a shitter – icy wind and spells of hail, persistent drizzle, fiddly bits you can’t do with your mind disengaged. But take what you can get: Shep’s happy to be out of the yard and, for once, close to home. Plus, it’s lively out here. There’s satisfaction in following the planes as they come in to land, the rough squeal and smoke as the tyres make contact.

  ‘You’re on a go-slow today,’ the lead jack shouts over the roar of another take-off.

  ‘Say again?’ Shep did a few shifts for this woman on the Ferrybridge decommission and he’s grateful she doesn’t seem to know about Clemens.

  ‘Your laddering,’ she says. ‘Lot slower than usual. What’s eating you?’

  Shep can’t answer. He is slower, and apart from his finger, he knows roughly why. Between second-nature judgements on fasteners and lashings, adjustments for balance (he’s shagged his wooden ladders into the wall so tightly they’ve warped towards the structure), Stephen Parsons plays on his mind. Little vignettes of them together at Big Walls: Stephen beasting a rockover, slipping off a greasy crimp then catching his fall with a quick redistribution of weight, legs reacting with impossible style. Stephen’s hand stuffed deep in a crack, no delicacy about it. Stephen, clinging to an arête by just the tip of his index finger, scanning casually for a toehold. Shift it up, Shep, shift it up. I’ve got you spotted…

  Shep’s ladder grows before him. Sweat stinging his top lip, his eyebrows. Why think about Stephen? Why out here? But it’s simple, it’s her again – the journalist he met at the wall. Freya. Standing on the crash mats with him, expectant, entitled, a deep V of sweat in the swell of her top, clavicles shifting under the skin, neck viscera flaring, mascara starting to diffuse. It’s her fault he’s thinking about Stephen.

  Shep’s earpiece blips, pulling him back. ‘Come on, gents.’ The lead jack, again. ‘We’ll break at four o’clock. Shep, let’s get access finished so we can chill on the roof with a brew for ten.’

  Shep turns his wrist. Two forty-five. If he gets the laddering done, he’ll be able to clock off early for sure. ‘It’ll be right,’ he tells her.

  And it is, give or take a few minutes. The crew tops out. They unfold their pocket stoves and gaze at the runways, walkways, baggage trucks bustling below.

  ‘When you off to the island, then?’ the lead jack asks.

  ‘What?’

  She laughs and lights her stove. ‘Gaff wants me to give you a hard time so you don’t change your mind.’

  Shep rolls his eyes. ‘I haven’t agreed yet.’

  ‘Not what he reckons. Shame, really. Quality of that laddering, I’d have you with me in Ellesmere Port next week.’

  ‘Stanlow?’

  The lead jack mock-shudders. ‘Even the name goes through you…’

  Shep doesn’t mind Stanlow. A big refinery, a fine tangle of a plant. Proper concrete chimneys. When you drive past on the M56, there’s an instant where the pylons all line up perfectly.

  ‘I’m in Newcastle next week,’ he says. ‘Our scheduler said.’

  The lead jack grins into her tea. ‘Oh, that’ll be a treat as well. Then you’re down to Portsmouth for training, aren’t you? Actually, we had another bloke on crew last week who’s heading that way. Proper technician he was. What was his name?’ She nudges the jack squatting behind her. ‘Who was that bloke last week – the big one with the old-school gear?’ The jack grunts. ‘Kapper,’ the lead jack relays to Shep. ‘That’s the one. Kapper.’

  Shep shrugs.

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ she goes on. ‘Pissing about with aircraft warners? For drones?’

  ‘That what Mallory told you?’

  She nods. ‘Why?’

  Shep tries a mysterious look. ‘No reason… I just don’t get why we need the extra training.’

  The site lead laughs again, tilting her face into the drizzle. ‘When you’re working that far off the ground, you’ll be—’

  A plane landing mutes her; he watches her lips finish the sentence. A word he thinks might be ‘freezing’.

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s all right,’ he says.

  ‘Not like here, anyway…’

  ‘No,’ he says.

  The lead jack claps her hands and stands up. ‘Right, gents! Ladderers – Shep, Frank – you’ve done your bit. Get off home. You can give these muppets another masterclass tomorrow.’

  * * *

  Shep washes in the airside Portakabin’s toilet sink, applies a squirt of deodorant, and decides he’ll head over to Big Walls. He’s more confident in his finger after his last session, and thinking about Stephen all day has got him in the mood. As he pulls on his T-shirt, his phone starts going off in his pocket. He ignores it, assuming from the vibration pattern that it’s a spam call. He bags his overalls, harness and hi-vis, and signs out at contractor security. His phone goes off again. He takes it out, annoyed. It takes another beat for him to realise what’s happening on the screen.

  Freya Medlock searched for your account

  Freya Medlock accessed your stream

  Freya Medlock enlarged your picture taken on

  Heart pounding, Shep swipes open to drill into the hits. Activity from a single IP, a winking dot on a map, with a name attached: Central Library Services, Manchester. Then a pop-up: Do you want to block Freya Medlock?

  Shep shakes his head for the front-facing camera.

  Do you want to suspend your stream?

  He shakes his head again. He has the feeling of both relief and power. Unexpectedly, suddenly, in control. A quick, fast-holding idea, some fantasy of connection. Wasn’t he only thinking about her an hour ago?

  At the same time, he wants to know for sure. He weighs it. The library is probably an hour from there. Airport traffic will melt away soon enough, and the driverless commute doesn’t clog the M60 orbital till gone six. Even then, the manual carpool lanes are free-flowing. If all else fails, he keeps an inflatable passenger in the back of his van. Stick a helmet on it, strap it in, and off he goes.

  Not that he holds any real doubts. He’s exhilarated by the idea she’s hunting him. That, perhaps, he occupies her mind in the way she has staked territory in his.

  He gets in the van and grips the wheel. His bad finger pulses. A second fantasy takes hold. What about a mission? Remembering the bunker gives him palpitations, and his bad finger trembles. As much as he wants to return there – as much as it’s calling – the thought of exploring it alone repulses him. It has done ever since he drove south from the Lakes with his van seat and carpets soaked in petrol.

  But if there’s someone to go with… Why shouldn’t Freya be the person to confirm what he experienced down there? Why should he have to confront that alone? And why should it matter that she’s never done it before? If she really wants to know what it’s like, who’s going to be a better guide than him?

  * * *

  Shep’s journey only takes forty minutes, his van’s tachometer flashing speed warnings the whole way. He’ll sort all that later: a simple wipe, a rolling back of the figures. He parks in a Gilper bay near the Midland Hotel, listens as the compound scans pretty much everything but the contents of his underwear. When it’s done, he gets out and sprints down Lower Mosley Stre
et to the busy junction with Oxford Road.

  Here the cloud relents, and a golden line slides across Central Library’s slatted windows to reveal silhouettes of people moving inside. It reminds Shep of angling – standing on some slippery bank, peering into still water, marvelling at the suggestion of thick, slow fish rubbing together in the shallows. Trout, or carp. A shuttering of blue-gold scales, gone the next moment. He inhales as the clouds close up again, Mancunian half-reflections desaturated on the glass, before he bounds up the library’s portico steps and into reception. The counter seat is empty. His phone is still buzzing with notifications in his pocket.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  He looks up. A middle-aged woman is leaning over the first-floor balcony, neck muscles like bungee cord.

  ‘I’m after a computer,’ Shep tells her.

  ‘Give me a sec,’ the woman says, and vanishes.

  Shep stands tapping the counter. A smell of cleaning products and coffee and books. Too delicate, too clerical, for his taste.

  The librarian emerges through a door behind the reception desk. He unconsciously mirrors her changing expression when she puts on her glasses and blinks at him.

  ‘A computer room,’ she says.

  ‘Please.’

  The librarian gives an upward nod. ‘Let’s have a gander…’

  Shep marvels at her swift typing. The librarian squints. ‘Research suites are all booked up,’ she says. ‘We have the tablet stack, though, and there are other quiet spaces around the building.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve just had a message,’ Shep says, holding up his phone. ‘My friend’s here already.’

  The librarian’s cheek twitches. She touches a finger to one nostril.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ Shep asks. ‘About my height. Hair down to about here. Freya, she’s called.’

  The librarian narrows her eyes.