Avalon Red

by Mark New

  ‘The UN is going to pay the ransom?’ Merlin asked with a frown. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Yes. Now would be a good time to prime your AI banker pal,’ I told him. ‘Let’s hope it helps to break the case before we all turn into gloop.’

  Chapter Nineteen

  I made another cup of tea. The storm outside was blowing harder and I was pleased that Chesil Beach was taking the brunt of the heavy waves and not my cottage. Avalon Red was presumably now priming the Central Bank to tell him exactly where the money went. It would prove interesting if, and only if, it gave us a few leads to follow. I couldn’t help feeling that we weren’t making progress fast enough to prevent a very determined psychopathic entity from turning humankind into fertiliser. On the other hand, the assassination attempt was puzzling. I really didn’t know what I’d done to provoke it. Despite the conversation at the Round Table, I couldn’t accept that The Ambrosia Promise had tried to kill me as currency for someone else. She just didn’t seem to be the commercial kind of killer. That really left only the enquiries that I was making separately from my dealings with Avalon Red. On that particular subject, I had decided not to tell Red that there had been a message from Sir Edward as well as from Peter. My presence was requested at the court of the weird bird at my earliest convenience so that was where I was about to go. The other piece of information that I had withheld from my associate was that Peter had also asked to meet me Online. There was no real reason not to disclose this to Red but, after spending the better part of three decades practising operational security, old habits die hard. I didn’t seriously suspect Peter but it was possible that he could be followed or set up or something and with Ambrosia capable of delivering death by black ice, I wasn’t interested in taking chances. I thought that now I could rely on the new upgrades for security. Peter wanted to meet in a vir-game and I should have sufficient control to escape anything dangerous. My immediate priority was a rare moment of solitude. I sat down with my mug of tea and made myself comfortable.

  ◆◆◆

  I entered Knights of Camelot through the same portal as before but this time I found that it was the work of mere seconds to bamboozle the entry seneschal and enter as a bot character. I was hugely impressed with those new upgrades. I went to the stables and found a horse in the same stall as before with the same abilities and price. The label called him ‘Lightning’ this time. It was a generic playing piece so I wasn’t surprised. Out of curiosity I searched the database to see where Storm was now, if he was still alive. It took microseconds to track - another impressive feature of the upgrades - and to my slight surprise Storm was still owned by Sir Michael, my Danish friend. It looked like he had embraced the possibilities in the vir-game world beyond looking at pixellated flowers and was now a knight of some renown. At least, he was involved in some quest or other and seemed to have a good range of equipment with him. I felt oddly proud of my role in his development.

  Lightning and I approached the fortifications after a short gallop and I noted the presence of the two guards again. This time, to exercise the implants further, I used the label function to order the sentries to open the gates upon my approach as though I was an ingame seneschal; one level higher than a mere bot. They complied instantly and there was no interest from any security protocol. Whatever Sir Tristan had added it was highly impressive. I’d have to try assuming the role of a higher seneschal and see if I could boss around the lower AIs. I hadn’t developed any eagerness to become a gamer but the principle, if it worked here, would apply to other AIs Online. Who knew, I might become a pal of some banking seneschal myself one day.

  I knocked and entered into Guard Captain Sir Edward’s office in one smooth motion. I grinned at him as he leapt to his feet and peered at me closely before I eventually let him off the hook.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said helpfully. He knew who I meant. ‘Do you ever actually leave here?’ I wondered.

  ‘Sometimes my presence is required in the real world,’ he said drily, ‘but not too often.’

  I remembered my pressing concern and decided to get it out of the way straight away.

  ‘And what the hell is that bird supposed to be?’

  He looked pained. ‘It’s supposed to be a blue phoenix but it’s never really looked right to me.’

  ‘No, I know what you mean.’ I considered the tapestry on the wall behind his desk. ‘Do you think that someone wanted to use a phoenix but was wary of breaching someone else’s copyright?’

  ‘And that’s why they made this particular phoenix look like a duck? You may be right.’

  ‘Serves you right for being such a cheapskate about your accoutrements.’

  ‘I’m wary of spending taxpayer’s money on frippery,’ he lied.

  ‘A fine excuse. It’s Lord Patrick’s place according to the labels so why don’t you just tap him for upgraded facilities?’ Sir Edward just looked at me until the penny dropped. ‘Oh,’ I caught on. ‘You’re Lord Patrick, too?’

  ‘I use a variety of Online personas,’ he said grandly, ‘and I’m a cheapskate in all of them.’

  I helped myself to the chair in front of his desk and he resumed the seat behind the desk from which he’d sprung when I entered. He leaned back and put his hands behind his head. He was probably in that position wherever he was in the real world. Most people have difficulty co-ordinating with their avatar if they don’t have it matching them in some way even if it’s only from the waist up. I had no such problems now; the fact that I was actually mirroring my avatar at this point was coincidental.

  ‘I’d be interested to know what happened to the bot I assigned to follow you Online,’ he said conversationally.

  ‘Oh, have you lost it?’ I wasn’t surprised he’d tried to keep tabs on me. It was just his nasty suspicious nature, nothing personal.

  ‘It reported that it was following you to some concert or other and I haven’t heard from it since then.’

  ‘How unfortunate. Never mind, it might turn up.’ I strongly suspected that Sir Lancelot had happened to it and it wouldn’t be turning up this side of armageddon.

  ‘You know the UN is going to pay the ransom?’ he abruptly changed the subject.

  ‘Yes. Is that really a good idea?’

  ‘My understanding is that they felt they had little choice. The Security Council isn’t happy about it but the recommendation they received persuaded them.’

  I frowned. ‘Recommendation from whom?’

  ‘Your little gang at Argonaut. Minus you, of course.’

  ‘Peter didn’t mention it. Mind you, he’s asked to see me so maybe he’s going to confess when we catch up.’

  ‘Hmm. He told the Secretary-General that Argonaut were unable to guarantee that the security they had in place would prevent use of the codes.’ He pulled a face.

  ‘I suppose nothing is guaranteed in life. Are they actually going to get the codes back if they pay up?’

  ‘The Security Council thought that, on balance, the FKKT would adhere to the terms of the agreement and Sec-Gen asked me to try to bring them to justice afterwards when the codes are safe.’

  ‘Because terrorists can be relied upon to keep their word and you’ll recognise them later by the shiny new SUVs they’ll all be driving?’

  ‘It’s always a pleasure to deal with a man who shares my utter scepticism.’

  ‘I’m so sceptical that I don’t believe the FKKT have anything to do with it.’

  ‘I didn’t think you would. I don’t either. Somebody is playing silly buggers and when I find them there’s going to be trouble.’ His arms were on the desk now. Not so relaxed after all. For all our mutual understanding I wouldn’t ever want to make an enemy of him.

  ‘What if,’ I said thoughtfully, ‘there was some way to trace where the ransom went?’

  ‘You mean after it’s been through umpteen million false accounts all over the world in microseconds, been protected by every banking seneschal in existence and laundered till it’s the cleanest curren
cy in the world? Good luck with that.’ I didn’t say anything. It took him several seconds to catch on. He sat up straight, frowning. ‘No, you can’t,’ he said slowly after pondering for a second.

  ‘Do you mean that I’m incapable of it or that you’re forbidding me to do it?’ I asked innocently. ‘English is such an ambiguous language sometimes.’

  ‘I don’t have the ability to do it myself,’ he admitted ‘but if I did then I would be very tempted, despite its rather dubious legality.’

  ‘Spoken like a true maverick law enforcement officer,’ I teased. ‘What if you received the information anonymously? Wouldn’t you feel obliged to check it out?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘I couldn’t ignore that kind of lead,’ he said carefully, ‘and even though I ought to investigate what would, on the face of it, have been a serious breach of financial regulation I only have limited resources so I’d have to prioritise the anti-terrorist action.’

  ‘You realise that the information, having been obtained illegally, couldn’t be used to prosecute the perpetrators?’

  ‘You’re suggesting that it would come to trial?’ he scoffed. Like I said; I wouldn’t want to be his enemy.

  ‘It’s funny that you’re moaning about a lack of resources.’

  ‘Most of my budget goes on supplying you,’ he complained. ‘Or checking up on things you want looked into. Talking of which...’

  ‘Yes? Something to report?’

  ‘Sort of. A puzzle to report. Those TAGs you wanted checked out?’

  ‘You’ve found the people concerned?’ This could be significant.

  ‘No, that’s the point. I told you it was interesting. They were among the batch of TAGs from Namibia weren’t they?’

  I nodded. ‘They turned up in New Mexico after being reportedly destroyed by the Namibian government.’ I knew from long experience that Sir Edward could be trusted.

  ‘That’s the puzzle. I personally went to see the head of the Namibian security service at his Online office and he showed me the proof of the TAG decommissioning.’ I took his word for it that it constituted proof. No doubt it had been an educational experience for the head of Namibia’s service to meet Sir Edward even if it was Online.

  ‘So how could anyone have used them in the USA?’

  ‘They couldn’t.’

  ‘That rather ignores the fact that they did, don’t you think?’

  ‘I said it was a puzzle, not that I knew the answer.’

  That was utterly bizarre. I had been working on the assumption that the people dispersing from New Mexico were using these false TAGs and that we could trace them - with difficulty, admittedly - somehow. Bad guys collect the nanoweaponry in briefcases, say, using the false TAGs and then disappear from surveillance by using alternative TAGs - perhaps their real ones, perhaps more ghosting - when they left the country. If we could tie in other TAGs we could possibly have connected them up and found the perpetrators. But how could you use a TAG that doesn’t exist? It wouldn’t be recognised by any AI even at your local supermarket let alone a military-grade nanoweapons facility. A puzzle, indeed. I wished I could bring Peter into this as his expertise would be useful but I still wasn’t sure that I could take the risk. As the end of the world became nigher, greater risk-taking might soon be justified. Perhaps I’d hear what Peter had to say first and then make a judgement call.

  ‘Any further enquiries you can make?’ I asked.

  ‘I’ll keep digging but don’t expect miracles.’

  ‘Fair enough. If I come up with any miracles of my own, I’ll let you know.’

  He smiled. ‘Some would say surviving hypoxia on a trans-orbital jet was miraculous.’ News travels fast.

  I smiled back. ‘Just lucky.’

  ‘People like you and me make our own luck.’

  I stood up. ‘Then be lucky, my Captain.’

  ‘You too. Keep in touch.’

  I waved a hand in acknowledgement as I left the office.

  As Lightning and I rode off I turned back to look at the flag flying over the house. It really did look like a duck.

  ◆◆◆

  Peter didn’t share my utter hatred of vir-games but he didn’t consider himself to be an aficionado either so his selection of clandestine meeting place for us was within an area of a popular game that was noted for its social function Online and not its gameplay. Naturally, for those who wanted action, the game provided all they needed on its front line but the developers hadn’t neglected the social aspect. That was why ‘WW2: D-Day’ was one of the bigger - and most lucrative - Online games. I loathed the whole premise. That was a touch hypocritical, I knew, because Doc’s naval game wasn’t really any different and I could tolerate that. The difference in my own head was that World War Two was still relatively recent and the game was based on real campaigns whereas Doc played out make-believe engagements in an historic setting. When I really thought about it, I had to admit that I might just be making a fuss about nothing. It wasn’t as if WW2 was within anyone’s living memory and the subject had been used for games before the advent of the Online versions. A major attraction of the game was that it was hugely fashionable to meet socially in an Online version of southern England in the weeks immediately after the invasion of Normandy. Pretty much all allied and neutral nationalities (that was ingame nationalities since you could choose your own character) were welcome and I understood that there were similar meeting places in the opposing nations for the Axis nationalities. It still seemed wrong to me but there was no accounting for taste where money-making vir-games were concerned.

  I had a snack before entering the game, having belatedly realised that I hadn’t had anything to eat since the hospital breakfast that morning. Then I gritted my teeth and entered the game portal, bamboozling the seneschal easily. Actually, it was even easier than fooling the Knights of Camelot AI and I couldn’t help but speculate on just how powerful the new upgrades had been. I was going to have to ask Sir Tristan for a user’s manual.

  So it was that I walked into a generic country pub called ‘The Royal Oak’ in the heart of Dorset at lunchtime on 23 June 1944 by way of an avatar dressed as a major in the Dorsetshire Regiment. I had assumed the mantle of a seneschal bot which gave me a measure of control over the non-player characters in the pub. It would, in theory, be easy to spot any bot that was trying to spy on me because I had immediate access to their programming. About half the tables in the pub were full and I noted that nearly all of the characters in here were NPCs. Real people preferred the bigger towns and cities, it seemed, as I discovered when I checked the game statistics provided to the bots by the Game Seneschal. Within seconds of accessing the data, I was privy to all of the game information so finding Peter’s avatar standing by the bar was easy. He had adopted the persona of a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Engineers. I checked his label to find that he had probably hacked his character. The game usually required either many hours of ingame activity to qualify for such a rank or a hefty amount invested in the game’s virtual currency and Peter, it seemed, had offered neither. I adjusted my own label - the bit other players could see - to ‘security seneschal’ and walked up to him and saluted sharply.

  ‘Good afternoon, Sir. I was wondering how you attained your rank after only three hours gametime without using the Online gameshop facility?’

  He returned the salute. ‘Well, that’s easy to explain,’ he said casually. ‘I cheated the game controls, much as you did yourself, John.’ So much for my cover.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ I didn’t think I had made an error on entry but safer to ask, just in case.

  ‘I was expecting you; you tend to dress as a member of the Dorsets anytime you’re dragged kicking and screaming into a war game; and your sense of humour lends itself to such idiocies.’

  So no error than just being myself, apparently. I cursed inwardly at my own sloppiness; I was more out of practice than I cared to admit. There was a serious sidenote here in that I should be more careful wi
th Online disguises if I was going to interact with anyone who knew me well.

  ‘Busted fair and square,’ I conceded. ‘Shall we sit down?’ I ordered ale and we picked a table at random. ‘Is this any particular pub?’ I asked.

  ‘No, I don’t think so. Even the village isn’t based on anywhere real.’

  ‘Doc would hate it,’ I observed. Doc was a stickler for realistic scenarios.

  ‘Talking of whom, I have a confession,’ Peter said at once.

  ‘Is that why you wanted to see me?’

  ‘No, but I think I ought to tell you anyway.’ He took a pretend drink. I just left my beer on the table because it isn’t real.

  ‘OK, fire away.’

  ‘When you agreed to assist Argonaut, I checked with Doc to see if you were up to it.’

  ‘Charming,’ I decided against revealing that I already knew. ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Nothing much, just that he thought you were operating within normal parameters.’ That was the stock phrase our unit used to use for the cyber-warfare equipment.

  ‘And now that I’ve worked with you a bit, do you concur?’

  ‘We haven’t worked together a lot on this,’ he reminded me, ‘but your investigative skills seem up to scratch and your attempts to wind up the Latimers are admirable. I presume you have good reason?’

  ‘Yes.’ Well, it was true that I wanted to keep them off balance for reasons other than sheer bloody-mindedness.

  ‘And you’re not going to tell me what it is?’

  ‘Not immediately, no.’ This kind of conversation where we were honest with each other (and, as ranking officer when we served together, he knew I kept information from him at times) was just like the old days. Although our talk here had been very brief, we hadn’t had one like it since I had a fit of the guilts over his injury. And maybe it was time to acknowledge that the expression ‘fit of the guilts’ was a way of avoiding the phrase ‘clinical depression’ in my head. Peter tilted his head slightly to one side and I could tell that he was sizing me up.