Tangle's Game

by Stewart Hotston

  No one said anything. More shots were fired, but nothing came close. Amanda closed her eyes, trying to block out the shudder of the car as it had mown the soldiers down, the way the noise had drawn out, the thunder of bodies being pulverised.

  They drove away. Amanda twisted as much as she could under Lisandra’s weight to see Kumu shrinking, but no one followed them.

  The boy directed them towards Old Town, the heart of Tallinn, with its ancient curtain wall still standing despite the movement of armies back and forth over the centuries.

  ‘We can’t go to town,’ said Amanda. ‘They’ll come for us there, too.’

  ‘The airport,’ said Stornetta to the boy, who gimballed his head around to take direction from Ichi. She didn’t respond, and after a few hundred feet Stornetta repeated his words, more firmly this time, brooking no further comment.

  The boy did as asked and aside from his occasional reluctant directions, delivered in clipped English, they said nothing more until the airport hove into sight.

  ‘You’re welcome to come with us,’ said Amanda, not quite knowing what she was saying, the words passing her lips as she watched, detached and certain she couldn’t do otherwise, even if she had no idea what she would do if they took her up on the offer.

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ said Ichi.

  ‘Professor?’ asked Lisandra sounding suddenly panicked.

  ‘Tangle Singh sent something to this… woman’—the word was filled with bitter venom—‘I need to see what was so desperate we had to pay for it with our lives.’

  ‘If it helps,’ said Amanda, trying to sound conciliatory and wishing for all the world he’d sent it to Ichi instead. ‘He’s dead. Sending the drive to me was his valedictory.’

  Ichi sniffed loudly.

  Stornetta pulled up in short term parking. ‘Who’s coming with us?’ he asked as they unpacked themselves from the interior.

  Lisandra asked for the keys and, after saying goodbye to Ichi, the three survivors got back into the car and drove away without looking back.

  They had a couple of hours to wait for the next flight, the last flight of the day back to London. Amanda purchased an additional ticket for Ichi. They found a space in one of the garish cafes, Haber and Stornetta playing ping pong non-stop for ninety minutes while Ichi and Amanda sat across from one another nursing coffees and doing anything except engage.

  The flight was called and they were processed through security. Everything was going well, despite a growing itch on the back of Amanda’s neck, a certainty that they’d be stopped, arrested and worse.

  They were about to pass flightside when a young official approached them. He spoke Estonian, addressing Ichi directly.

  She straightened her shoulders, her face holding together even as Amanda watched the edges threaten to give way. After a moment they were taken to one side, allowing other passengers to carry on.

  Tatsu offered to translate, but she’d already missed the main part of the exchange and didn’t want to draw attention if she could help it.

  Seemingly finished with Ichi, the official turned to Amanda.

  ‘Please,’ he said. ‘Look after the professor for us. She is a beacon for our young people, a hope when so many others have failed us.’

  ‘We’re okay to go?’ asked Amanda, incredulous.

  He nodded, surprised at her question. ‘Of course!’ he exclaimed before his expression became sombre. ‘What has happened today is a bad thing, a stain in our conscience, who knows how much we knew beforehand about what would happen. Not everyone here is corrupt.’ His eyes were full of a need for acceptance, to know she understood him, believed him.

  ‘I’m sorry as well,’ said Amanda, feeling the loss from him afresh, personal in a way that Ichi’s anger wasn’t.

  He shook his head. ‘It is our job to keep our citizens safe. We failed, and the answer of why isn’t an easy one to speak.’ He led them to the departure gate. ‘I don’t know why you came, or what is so important, Ms. Back, but if the professor is going with you then, please, do what is right.’

  Amanda held his gaze and in that moment felt a weight on her shoulders that was uplifting even as it settled on her. She nodded, ‘I will do what I can.’ A joke about not knowing what was going on died before she said it, and with nothing more to say they boarded the plane.

  The flight was smooth and uneventful, but Amanda barely noticed. Each time she closed her eyes, bodies would tumble over cars, bodies would collapse bonelessly after being murdered. Each time she stared out the window, she heard people screaming, the sound of cars crumpling on impact. Her fingers started shaking, forcing her to grip her hands into fists to hide it, to control it. And hovering over it all was Tangle. She could imagine him laughing at the chaos he’d set in motion.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘WHERE IS THE site?’ she asked Tatsu. They stood just beyond the Arrivals hall at Heathrow, the car parks on one side, public transport into London on the other.

  Old Street, wrote the AI. Can I suggest we stop off before then and obtain an ear piece for you? I could then talk directly into your ear instead of writing everything on your watch face?

  Now Amanda had paid them, Haber and Stornetta were hovering, itching to take their leave.

  ‘We’ve got stuff to do here in town. Plus, we did for you what we agreed,’ said Stornetta. Amanda thought they almost regretted leaving her. They took their time saying goodbye, providing Amanda with three different ways of getting in contact with them if she needed to. They might have been shaken by what they’d witnessed, but they’d taken inordinate pleasure in being there in Tallinn.

  ‘Once we’ve seen to our own shit, we can be back along if you want us,’ said Stornetta.

  ‘Try not to go poking any hornet’s nests while we’re off,’ said Haber, with a smile that was only half-teasing.

  Amanda watched them hop on the Piccadilly line.

  She and Ichi took the express into Paddington station, a grand Victorian edifice of vaulted arches and misted glass refurbished with modern polymers, steel and commerce.

  Ichi tagged along in silence, following without speaking, buying tickets without responding to instructions and, as far as Amanda was concerned, acting like a grisly teenager.

  Once on the train, Amanda checked Ichi out, searching her history and digital footprint. She was surprised to find little trace of the woman beyond a few citations in obscure economics journals. The story of her life was mostly absent until she showed up in Estonia seven years ago. She watched Ichi staring out the window into the dark tunnels through which they sped. For all the softness of her features she appeared wan, wrung out, as if her skin were too big for her frame.

  Her guilt over the events at Kumu warred against a growing, righteous curiosity about why the woman would lie about her past. There was no doubt she’d once been an average academic at a couple of different Midwestern universities, but other than that there was no sign of her being the legendary Satoshi Nakamoto, no hint of the blockchain in her past, no suggestion she’d ever run with the crypto community before arriving in Kumu.

  But, thought Amanda, isn’t that exactly the past you’d have if you’d spent the last forty years hiding from the people who wanted to put you on a pedestal? Amanda could only vaguely understand why anyone would choose to hide away like that, but she knew people who chose anonymity rather than notoriety when given the chance. They were rare, but she knew them well enough to support to the possibility, however slim, that Ichi was who she claimed to be.

  Trying to find a way to sidle up to the question, Amanda asked Ichi why she’d left the US at all, let alone following a journey that ended with her ensconced with a group of idealistic youths on the edge of Europe.

  Ichi didn’t immediately answer but, when Amanda had turned away again to continue her web searching, she spoke.

  ‘You could feel it in the air, in the water. When it changed. We spent years lost in paroxysms of self-righteous anger at the Republicans for the
ir base populism, at ourselves for being ineffectual in the face of emotion, when facts stopped working to convince people because none of us were moderates anymore.’ She turned to face Amanda, but her gaze was lost in the past. ‘We thought it wouldn’t last, that it was a blip, but it takes lifetimes to generate trust and only moments to tear it all down.’ She sketched a tree in the air with her hands. ‘Like a forest, once it’s gone it can’t simply be replaced; and everything it harboured, all its life, its diversity is gone forever.’

  ‘The secessionists?’ asked Amanda.

  Ichi grimaced. ‘They were the end of the process, the logical outcome of where we’d been heading since halfway through the last century. You had a country desperate to find its identity being offered two choices: a capitalism in which everyone was so equal capital didn’t have to differentiate, and one in which so few were equal that capital could chew up everyone else.’ Her face was grim, lips thin and eyes watering. ‘Either way, capital won.’

  ‘Capitalism is not to blame,’ said Amanda. ‘Half the world’s societies would never let me anywhere near property, money or education. Capitalism makes that possible.’

  ‘There are many forms of capitalism. The one that triumphed in the USA? It privileged the few at the expense of all others. It went further than that; it set the poorest against each other, hiding from them that together they could have argued for a better future.’

  ‘Socialism didn’t work last century, no matter where it was tried,’ said Amanda. ‘The Chinese are the only ones to have lasted and they’ve made a virtue out of dressing up a state-controlled capitalistic oligarchy as communism.’

  Ichi’s eyes narrowed in Amanda’s direction. ‘You’re not a complete ignoramus.’ She shrugged with grudging approval. ‘It doesn’t matter what label you want to put on it if you’re trying to find ways of dismissing it without learning from what it has to teach. The strategy was that of the robber barons; grab everything, more than you could need in a hundred lifetimes, and hide it from those whose labour you used to take what you’ve got. It’s Ayn Rand on steroids, a teenage boy’s rancid rendition of “My Way.”’

  ‘Yet here you are with enough money not to work for a living, probably a trust somewhere providing you income, invested in equities and receiving dividends. I’d guess it’s, what? Passively managed so you don’t need to make any decisions. And pays you through a blockchain wallet so you don’t need to pay tax,’ Amanda was riffing, following through her own thoughts as she imagined how someone like Ichi lived. ‘You realise you’re one of the one percent right?’ She swept an arm around to take in the entire carriage. ‘Every person here on an average wage is, globally, part of the top one percent. You can be as socialist as you like because you’re well off. It’s a nice place to be.’

  ‘That wasn’t why I left the USA,’ said Ichi.

  ‘So why, then?’

  ‘The country’s never really gotten over its Puritan urge to control what people think, despite its claims of libertarianism; all that really meant was the government should leave us free to harass one another without interference. It was clear the South and the heartlands were going to object to any President who tried to roll back the harm the populists had done. But we were too naïve, too willing to ignore how strongly the other side felt, how serious they were in their hatred of women, of blacks, Hispanics, of everyone but themselves.’

  ‘In my experience it’s not just white men who are the problem,’ said Amanda tartly, thinking of the Asian men who’d dismissed her rather more explicitly than the white men with whom she worked.

  ‘It was white men in charge,’ said Ichi blankly. ‘They still are. You know why the secession happened? Because a bunch of congressmen from the north and the coasts decided they’d had enough and moved to enact universal healthcare. It wasn’t race, it wasn’t gun control, it was a group of people who simply wanted people to have access to healthcare without having to go bankrupt.’

  ‘They tried all of it, though, didn’t they?’ said Amanda. ‘They put a new constitution together, one they said the Founding Fathers would have written if they were alive today.’ Amanda shrugged. ‘I’m not one of you, but from where we sit across the pond it felt like there was no way either side could bridge the gap. I guess we also felt the military would side with the populists; that it was, basically, full of racists.’

  ‘Nothing’s that simple. The Army was as much a reflection of the country as anywhere else. If you’d asked me five years ago who’d lead the secessionist movement I would have said Texas or Alabama. When the governor of California made his speech saying they’d agreed to secede from the Union, there was no one more surprised than me.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘I punched the air for joy. The people in my building threw a party to celebrate, we had a BBQ in the yard, balloons with Freedom written on them.’ She sighed. ‘God, we were idiots.’

  ‘Who’s going to win?’ Amanda asked.

  ‘The Chinese?’ said Ichi glibly. ‘We’re done, Amanda. The Union is finished, broken. Those who fought to keep it together under Lincoln were the ones who broke it apart now. The other side probably wants it over so they can get on with instituting the kind of fucked up medieval monoculture they’ve always dreamed of.’

  ‘Which is a great history lesson but doesn’t seem like a reason to emigrate,’ said Amanda.

  ‘I had a friend, a few years older than me, already retired. She was a good woman. You know the phrase “good people”? That was her. She had the blessing of being Jewish, with some south Asian descent on her father’s side.’ She laughed. ‘So beautiful, men and women ten years younger would stop in the street to ask her if she was single.’

  ‘What happened?’ She could feel a rawness to Ichi, something age had done nothing to dim or heal.

  ‘We went to a protest about the secession. One of the nationalists drove a car at our group. I was getting soda for the two of us, was at a stand thirty feet away and heard this roaring. Turning around to see which dick was showing off I watched, confused, as a car raced past me and ploughed into the crowd I was about to return to. I didn’t see her get hit, but she was there on the ground afterwards, a mess of blood and splintered bone. He was dragged from his car and torn to pieces by witnesses. In the days afterwards, the President described the people defending the driver as “good people,” called us “agitators.” Then the hate mail started after we got doxxed. I was gone a week later.’ Her tone was flat, as if it was someone else’s history she recalled.

  ‘Why so quickly?’

  ‘My friend? She had histories of the Shoah. I read one out of curiosity more than anything. What I never understood was why people waited when they knew it was only going one way. When I received the first porn .gif with my head cut onto the gurning body of some woman acting out a rapist’s fantasy I caught myself hoping it would pass, that it would be okay if I waited it out. Then I remembered her book, the lesson of history. I was gone as fast as I could pack.’

  Amanda wanted to ask about Ichi’s own background, but the train was pulling into Paddington.

  From there they took the Elizabeth line, alighting at Tottenham Court Road to find the electronics Tatsu was pestering Amanda to wear.

  ‘This is one of the reasons I love London,’ Amanda told Ichi as they walked along the street, weaving between people from all the corners of the planet. ‘Despite all the changes the city accepts, there’s a chaotic vibrancy that refuses to be corporatized, or even managed.’ She pointed out the Prada store nestled up against a Middle-Eastern coffee shop with people sat outside smoking shishas. There was rubbish in bags on the pavement, people petulantly crossing the road in defiance of traffic while above them rose a converted office block housing the ultra rich from across the rest of the world.

  Ichi threatened to warm up, smiling slightly when they cut through an unlikely alleyway to emerge on a major street, bustling with big red buses. Yet she still refused to speak unless asked a direct question.

  Amanda chose a
n earpiece that fit snugly into her ear. The shop keeper tried to convince her of the benefits of a subcutaneous device, but she wasn’t keen on them.

  From there they took the Central line to Bank, switching to the Northern to get them to Old Street. Emerging from the sickly yellow of the underground up into the concrete grey of the Silicon Roundabout, Ichi inclined her head.

  ‘This is an ugly city. Everything’s built as if nothing else matters.’

  They followed Ichi to a datacentre north of the tube station, set back a little way from where Provost Street branched off City Road. They walked past the single grubby red door twice before they stopped in front of it, checking their GPS and shaking their heads.

  ‘Nice,’ said Amanda to Ichi. The older woman shrugged with indifference. A burred, corroded panel on the doorframe blinked into life under her fingers and a goggled man with curly hair and patchwork teeth looked back.

  ‘I’ve got no appointments, so go away,’ he said, rasping through a lifetime of smoking.

  ‘We’re here to access an offline server,’ said Amanda. Beside her, Ichi watched the street, hands in pockets, wind blowing in her face.

  ‘What company?’ he asked, eyebrows raised as if he were dealing with a certain kind of idiot.

  Amanda said the name of her bank. ‘But I’m not here with them.’

  He opened and closed his mouth. ‘What? Nevermind, then. You’re not coming in.’ The video feed switched off.

  ‘Do this for a living, do you?’ asked Ichi.

  Amanda buzzed the door again.

  ‘What? You ain’t coming in. This is the worst test I’ve ever seen.’ The man came close to the camera on his side, but Amanda still couldn’t see his eyes through his goggles.

  ‘It’s not a test,’ said Amanda. She pulled out the drive. ‘I’ve got a very rare CryptoKitty on this drive and I’d like to breed it with yours.’