Tangle's Game

by Stewart Hotston

  As Amanda put it, the number of displays per desk went down in direct proportion to the ability to make money for the firm.

  The lighting was poor, the ceilings too low; it felt like the depths of a supermarket, or furniture store. Meeting rooms were spotted along the interior walls, frosted windows and movement-sensitive lights leaving them in darkness when not in use.

  Amanda didn’t notice the squeeze anymore, or the gloom; but the one thing she truly hated about the trading floor was the noise. She’d worked hard at school and at university to get a job in finance. On her first day in work she had been dismayed that fifteen years spent revising and learning in silence had trained her for an environment enjoyed only by the self-employed. Messages pinged, trade bells both literal and electronic rang, and people talked and talked and talked, over one another, at one another, into phones and to themselves. Arguments about strategies, appetite and clients would be conducted at full volume while those around them tried to take calls undisturbed.

  Nothing she’d learnt had prepared her for the breathtaking self-centredness of it all.

  Now, with a job in sales, she was away from the trading floor more than she was there. Amanda still found it an unhappy place, the stress floating above their heads like a weather system, as unpredictable from moment to moment as a spring storm.

  Her plan was to see her boss, ride out whatever issues he wanted to shove her way, then leave again.

  She got to her desk, a couple of seats from him, only to find he wasn’t there. She logged in, cleared out her inbox properly, and looked up to find two hours had passed and it was heading towards mid-afternoon.

  Her assistant, Thabo, wasn’t at his desk, and her request to book more leave hadn’t been completed. Normally it would have annoyed her, but sitting there in the hubbub she felt something was coming, that it was an ill omen.

  Seeing she was in the office, the different deal teams began asking for catch-ups and briefings, as much for their own comfort as to progress their transactions. Wistfully checking out her boss’s desk, she allowed the day to drift into the meetings that needed to be had.

  By six, the traders were checking out for the day while everyone else remained around, working to keep the institution viable.

  Amanda’s meetings had taken her off the floor to other parts of the building. As she finished with the most urgent of them and headed back through the barriers onto the floor, she saw her boss at his seat. He ended a call as she approached, and so with a deep breath she called out his name.

  He looked up at her, and she saw in his expression that something was very wrong.

  ‘Amanda, shall we get a coffee?’

  Felix was German, his accent American. He’d spent most of his career working in New York before the secession had made him reconsider whether he wanted to live in a country at war with itself. He was built like a second row, but was wholeheartedly committed to football instead, taking every chance to see Bayern play, whether via hospitality or on his own coin.

  He was a passable boss. He kept politics away from his team, navigated remuneration committees to everyone’s satisfaction and only harassed those who he figured needed jolting into better performance or out the door.

  They took the lift to the twenty fourth floor where the corporate canteen was full of people like them, talking business too sensitive for open exchange on the floor and too awkward to risk alerting people by booking one of the meeting rooms.

  The view was panoramic, but obscured on two sides by competing offices. London was declining, its offices only half full as the multi-nationals slowly dripped out of the city for brighter prospects on the continent.

  Amanda’s drink was green tea, bland but savoury on the tongue. Caffeine-light, but less insipid than decaf coffee or fruit tea.

  Felix didn’t wait before starting. ‘What have you been doing?’ he asked.

  Amanda sat, stunned at the severity in his voice, the surety that she’d done something wrong.

  ‘Felix. I’ve been travelling in Europe. I got back two days ago, then tracked back out. You know all this. So why don’t you tell me what you think I’ve done?’

  He regarded her, his eyes scanning her face. A slight tightening around his eyes, gone as soon as it appeared.

  ‘How do I say this?’

  She was dismayed to see he was genuinely at a loss.

  ‘There is… an investigation. Into your activity, your probity. Some events have been highlighted to Compliance which triggered conduct alarms. I was hoping you could tell me what’s been going on, get out ahead of this.’

  Amanda shifted in her seat. Tallinn was only yesterday, and she’d done nothing illegal, nothing anyone could object to. Before that? Heathrow; fucking Crisp. Could he have flagged me? She caught hold of her own elbows, forcing her breathing to slow down. ‘What are they saying?’

  ‘You’ve got nothing else to tell me?’

  ‘Felix, I’m living my life. Chances to misbehave would be fine if they existed, but when exactly am I supposed to have been a bad girl?’

  The levity in her anger was a mistake, she realised, as he clenched his jaw shut. Felix wanted his people serious until they’d closed, when they’d made the money.

  ‘Show me what they’re claiming,’ said Amanda.

  He shook his head. ‘You know the rules. Right now it’s just an amber flash telling me you’re under investigation. No details, not that I could share them with you even if there were.’ He sat forward, pushing his empty cup to the centre of the table. ‘Amanda, tell me what you’ve done.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything,’ said Amanda.

  He sat back, folded his arms, disappointed. ‘You should check your social credit score more often.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘They’re investigating me for a missed Oyster touch-out? You’ve got to be kidding.’

  He frowned. ‘You haven’t seen it? Amanda, it’s clear you’ve done something. For today, go home, think about what you want, your aspirations at this firm, and let’s meet tomorrow and talk through how we handle this.’

  She could see from his stance—ready to leave, judgement made—that Felix believed whatever he’d been told about her. She knew he’d been given the details of the allegation already. She itched to check her score, to see what damage had been done. Sitting there with him, staring north at Kings Cross, she couldn’t see anything obvious that the bank would be worried about.

  They got in the lift together, but he made an excuse to get out on a different floor.

  ‘You remember the woman who employed an illegal immigrant to clean her flat?’ he asked, as the doors opened to let him out.

  ‘They barred her from working in the city,’ said Amanda.

  ‘She wasn’t even responsible,’ said Felix off hand. ‘She hired the cleaner through an agency, hadn’t ever met her. It didn’t matter.’ The doors closed on his words.

  There were no personal communications permitted on the trading floor, no devices except those issued by the firm, and even those couldn’t be used until you left the floor. Amanda struggled to keep it together, found that she couldn’t stay still. She imagined the people on either side of her glancing at her, but when she turned they were busy with their own things.

  I’ve got to get out of here, she thought. Her assistant still wasn’t anywhere to be seen, but she saw her request for leave had been granted. Easier than sending me home without explanation, she thought bitterly.

  She hurried from the building, expecting someone to stop her and ask what was going on all the way out. Instead she made it, unharried and unremarked upon. She was grateful for the lack of drama but, once outside, she turned and looked at the building wistfully.

  The journey back to her flat occurred in a bubble. The noise of the tube, the crush on the escalators, tourists suddenly stopping in the streets. All these things happened to someone wearing her skin, but Amanda was elsewhere, thinking about what could have happened.

  She found herself home,
a new security guard checking her pass, watching her as she got into the lift. Ichi didn’t look up as she walked into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s good you’re back,’ she said. The most she’d volunteered since before they’d bred the CryptoKitty.

  Amanda muttered a palsied response, sat down at the counter. ‘My Soc score’s down in the eight hundreds. It’s never been that low.’ The idea was ludicrous. She turned to Ichi, who’d sat up straight, watching her, waiting. ‘It’s not a coincidence, is it?’ She hoped it was, that in spite of the headache an honest mistake would cause, it was just that; a mistake. A thickness in her veins told her there was no mistake.

  ‘What do you think?’ asked Ichi.

  Amanda slowly shook her head. ‘Why? What could they possibly gain by ruining my life?’

  ‘They’re not thinking about your life, only about what they want.’

  ‘If I give it to them, will they leave me be?’

  Ichi’s expression softened into pity. ‘I’m sorry, Amanda.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do?’ she asked.

  Ichi tutted then turned back to her work. ‘Welcome to the bulge where most of the world live. You’ll survive.’

  Her words stung. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ said Amanda angrily. ‘If I’d been lazy or had a habit of standing people up or letting them down, I could understand it. I don’t protest, I work hard, I file my taxes and tip hard.’

  Ichi remained hunched over the coffee table. ‘What reason has been given?’ she asked.

  ‘There isn’t one,’ said Amanda. ‘Just bright optimistic suggestions on how to improve my score.’

  Ichi stood up, walked over to Amanda. ‘Show me.’

  Amanda pulled a screen out of the air. ‘See, the score’s changed, but they’ve offered no explanation.’

  Ichi ignored her, scrolled up and down, moving through her profile, looking at pages Amanda hadn’t seen before. Still scrolling, she put a hand on Amanda’s arm. ‘You’re being trolled. Someone’s done this deliberately.’

  ‘Tell me something I don’t know,’ said Amanda, on the verge of tears, wondering what Felix had been shown.

  ‘You’re not listening. This isn’t some prick downvoting you, looking to extort you from a terminal in Cracow. Someone with access has changed your profile. You should follow up with the firm, but I guarantee they’ll not be able to find a mistake here.’

  The drive was on the table, part of the detritus Ichi had gathered as she worked. Amanda scooped it up, held it out between her and Ichi. ‘This fucking thing.’ She thrust it into a pocket. ‘Fucking Tangle.’

  ‘He gets a lot of blame from you,’ said Ichi calmly.

  ‘Well who else is at fault?’ shot back Amanda.

  ‘You could have handed that in as soon as it came into your hands. You didn’t have to read it, travel overseas, flee a firefight.’

  Amanda stared at her, wide eyed. The idea of giving Crisp the drive made her shiver.

  ‘I’m just saying. You’ve chosen a certain course and now they’re punishing you.’ Ichi laughed without humour. ‘What? You thought you’d just do this and someone else would pay? That other people dying was as close as you’d come to settling the bill?’

  ‘The police, then,’ said Amanda.

  ‘You do that,’ said Ichi, lacing her fingers together and gesturing at her.

  ‘You think I shouldn’t?’ asked Amanda.

  Ichi sat down at the workstation she’d set up, didn’t answer.

  ‘But where else do I turn?’ she asked, but Ichi wasn’t interested.

  ‘You’ve done no research of your own, Amanda. I’m the one spending my hours going through what Tangle gathered together, verifying it. What are you going to say to them?’

  ‘I’ve seen enough,’ said Amanda. ‘I don’t need to have this all put together with a bow, that’s their job. The whole point is to give them the information, Ichi, not to work it all out before I get there.’

  Ichi shook her head, but Amanda did not want to read analyses, did not want to get any more entangled than she already had. She didn’t want to say to Ichi, but if someone would just take the problem away from her, she’d let them. She wasn’t trying to save the world, she just wanted to make sure whoever did take it on would.

  ‘I need to show you this,’ said Ichi, unfazed.

  ‘What does it matter?’ Amanda was tired, already heading for the door. ‘I don’t need to know anything else. If you’re right, this is way beyond me, beyond you, Ichi—Nakamoto, whoever you are today.’

  Ichi’s shoulders hardened, shrinking in.

  I’ve lost her, thought Amanda, angrily satisfied.

  ‘The police deal can with this,’ she said. ‘It’s their job.’

  Ichi’s silence was a small but implacable border between them which Amanda couldn’t now cross.

  Restless, finding her feet on the threshold, coat around her shoulders, Amanda left Ichi working. It occurred to her to stop her, to take away the material, since she was going to the police. She was on the pavement and heading for the tube before she decided she would do just that.

  She turned on her heel, then around again so she was facing the tube station. Biting at her lip, Amanda looked both ways, trying to figure out what she should do. It was important to have Ichi hold off; the police would want to know what she knew and she wanted to be as clean as possible so she could walk away and never look back.

  And yet.

  Ichi was working on something that mattered.

  It was rain that decided her destiny, spots falling like tiny shocks on the back of her hands, splashing into her eyelashes in glittering baubles.

  She ducked into the tube station and made her way down to New Scotland Yard. She didn’t know where else to go if not there. She didn’t know where her nearest station was—besides, she thought, they’re not set up for international terrorism.

  The headquarters of the Metropolitan Police force had moved a few years back to an art deco building on the Thames, in sight of the Houses of Parliament. The entrance was on Embankment overlooking the Thames, a curved-glass-fronted one-storey extension that reached out onto the pedestrian causeway running along the river. It softened an austere white lump sat between warm colonial redbricks with windows that were just a little too small for the way people worked.

  Inside it was busy, but there was more of the corporate atrium to it than a police station out of the movies. Amanda immediately felt like she’d made the wrong decision.

  Tourists were lined up along one wall, waiting patiently, tales of petty thievery and lost property hanging forlornly over them. At the front of the queue were a man and woman in constables’ uniform slowly processing each case as they arrived. Amanda watched for a moment, out of curiosity as much as anything, but quickly concluded they weren’t the police she was looking for.

  The atrium was spacious, marble-floored, with a bank of lifts off to one side requiring electronic passes to operate. On the opposite side, a large reception with three people manning it, their heads visible over the high front. A second queue of people, these dressed in suits, Londoners on business, carrying leather bags and thick folders. Extendable barriers kept people corralled into the right place; lost passes there, accompanied guests here.

  There were no police officers to speak to. Amanda joined the queue for reception and, once at the front, was greeted by a very short man with blonde hair pulled back into a bun and a smile that didn’t reach past his lips.

  ‘I need to see someone in the electronic crimes department,’ said Amanda.

  ‘Do you know who you need to see?’ he asked, without looking up.

  With a sinking feeling Amanda said she didn’t.

  ‘So you don’t have an appointment, then,’ he said, not waiting for her to respond. ‘Can I take your name?’

  Amanda waited while he tapped at his screen. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but felt the situation was poised delicately, that if she disturbed him her chances of s
eeing anyone would shrink from unlikely to zero.

  He asked about the purpose of her visit, which stumped her. She’d prepared an entire spiel for the right person, but it hadn’t occurred to Amanda that she’d need to summarise what had happened for anyone else.

  She racked her brains, watching his attention wavering. Panicked, she launched into it. ‘I’ve come into possession of information about fraudulent payments, circumvention of international sanctions, and support for extremist groups.’

  A few minutes later a young Asian man in an ill fitting suit with watery eyes and an unhappily patchy beard emerged from a lift.

  ‘Ms. Back? Ny name’s Freddy Sutcliffe,’ he said in a broad Birmingham accent.

  He took her up to the first floor, offered her a coffee which promised more than it delivered. She put it down, instantly forgetting it existed.

  He apologised for how long she’d been waiting. ‘The receptionist didn’t really know what to do with what you told him.’ He laughed loudly. ‘It’s not something they hear everyday. International sanctions busting!’

  Amanda listened, horrified but too shocked by his tone to speak up.

  ‘Are you the right person to speak to?’ she managed to ask.

  He picked his own coffee up with fingertips around the lip of the cup, took a sip with his elbow out to one side like a wing. ‘I think so. We’re not the right people for sanctions, that’s the Home Office.’

  ‘Even if there’s a crime been committed?’

  ‘You’re in banking?’ Seeing the look on her face he said, ‘Don’t panic, I looked you up.’ One hand raised in her direction, palm towards her as if worried she might take offence and launch herself at him. ‘“Crime” isn’t really the right term, certainly not one we’d investigate here. If there’s a breach of sanctions through the financial system, then the regulator’s the one you need.’ He spoke like she should know, which as he said the words she realised she did. She felt stupid.

  ‘So I’m only really interested in the extremism you mentioned.’ He waited for her to elucidate.

  ‘The Russians are planning a series of falseflag operations across Europe. They’re routing money through private blockchains.’ She gestured at him. ‘That’s the sanctions breaching. They’re using the banking system to manipulate other states’ political stability.’