Tangle's Game

by Stewart Hotston

  Tangle started to cycle through the security footage of the cameras in the rest of the facility. He paused for half a second on each image: empty corridors, closed doors, unmoving cars in the car park, people filing into the facility with rifles and balaclavas…

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘WAIT, WHAT?’ HE muttered, scrolling back to the last image of reception.

  The two men who’d let them in had their hands in the air, while four people dressed in black clothes with rifles slung from their shoulders stood by the door into the main facility.

  ‘We’ve got company,’ said Tangle softly to Amanda.

  ‘What?’ asked Stornetta who’d been watching from the side.

  ‘They’re already fucking here,’ said Tangle, loudly this time. He looked at them, his eyes wide with panic. ‘We haven’t even got into the system. How long have we been?’

  Tatsu’s conflict with the GRU AI continued to sound in their ears, the ramblings of a battle they didn’t know how to understand turning to static as they watched the intruders march the security guards out of the building. The silence gave the footage a sinister air, but they escorted the men out peacefully.

  Stornetta began walking toward Haber. ‘We’ll hold them off. Find a way out, there’s always another way out.’

  ‘We can’t just leave,’ said Ichi as Stornetta walked away. ‘We’re so close.’

  ‘We don’t know who they are,’ said Amanda. ‘What if it’s the Russians?’ It didn’t fit with what she knew, it didn’t make sense they could rock up just outside of London armed with assault rifles without anyone stopping them. They four gunmen had returned to reception and appeared to be talking.

  ‘How’s Tatsu doing?’ asked Amanda.

  ‘Still no idea,’ said Ichi, glued to her frames. ‘We’re twelve minutes in, so by my watch Tatsu should almost be there, but there’s no discernible pattern to what it’s doing, so who knows?’

  ‘Amanda,’ said Tangle. ‘Head up to the other levels, try to get to the roof if you can.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked. There was no way out if she went higher up, no exit except through the front door either way.

  ‘Distract them for us,’ he said.

  ‘What?’ said Ichi. ‘You can’t do that.’ She turned to Amanda. ‘Don’t do that. There’s no way down from there.’ She shook her head. ‘We both knew this was a long shot. It’s not worth your life,’

  Amanda closed her eyes to think. There was nothing for her to add—her job was over by the time they’d got into the building. Haber and Stornetta were a momentary roadblock for whoever was coming for them, but Ichi and Tangle needed time to work.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Amanda,’ said Ichi again. ‘You’re safer here.’

  And unspoken: Ichi was safer if Amanda stayed with her.

  ‘But he’s right,’ said Amanda, and this time Ichi didn’t disagree.

  ‘It’ll take them a few minutes to work through the security system and get this door unlocked,’ said Haber. ‘I was about to smash the panel to jam it shut.’

  ‘Let me out,’ said Amanda. ‘I’m going to run them a merry dance.’

  The two men exchanged glances.

  ‘We ain’t going to get paid ,are we?’ asked Stornetta.

  ‘Nope,’ replied Amanda, eyeing the door. ‘But you knew that, right?’

  Haber nodded. ‘It’s alright, we got paid enough.’

  ‘Haber,’ cautioned Stornetta. ‘She doesn’t need to hear that now.’

  ‘What?’ said Amanda.

  ‘Your sorry excuse of a boyfriend paid us what we wanted,’ said Haber, a cruel edge in his voice Amanda hadn’t heard before.

  ‘Haber,’ said Stornetta. ‘That isn’t fair on her.’ He reached across and opened the door, unfastening two steel slats they’d nailed across it.

  ‘What did you do?’ she demanded, staring at the open door.

  Then it dawned on her: Tangle’s face the other morning, their snide comments over the last two days. ‘You made him get high?’

  Haber smirked, holding her gaze.

  ‘Haber, I love you, but I said it then and I’ll say it again, you’re a proper cunt.’ Stornetta put his hand onto Amanda’s arm. ‘I’m sorry for what we did.’

  Amanda looked past them, back into the hall at the servers blocking her view of Tangle. He’d chosen to pay the price for her, to make her plan work. Her heart lurched into her mouth, calling on her to run back to him, to forgive all he’d done.

  ‘She still loves him,’ sneered Haber. ‘He’s a bad one, love, you’re better off without him.’

  ‘Fuck you,’ she said, running through the door.

  They didn’t chase her. As she searched for stairs to get up onto the other levels, she heard the door to the hall close with a heavy thunk.

  ‘End of the corridor, door on your right. I’ll open it for you.’ Tangle was in her ear.

  She found the bar to open the door, pushed on it, followed it in as it swung away. Lights came on, revealing stairs up and down.

  ‘What’s downstairs?’ she asked as she took the first step up.

  ‘Emergency generators. They can see you on the same cameras I’m using to track your progress. There aren’t any in the stairwell, but they saw you go in. They’re through the first set of doors and have split up. Two of them are following you, and the other two are coming for us.’

  ‘How vicious are Haber and Stornetta?’ she asked, reaching the first floor, the canary yellow metal railings cold under her hands.

  Tangle didn’t come back immediately.

  ‘I’m the winner!’ announced Tatsu suddenly. ‘I’ve got to confine the AI to its kennel, but I’m the new master of this domain.’ It laughed, a strange repeating echo of notes rising and falling through an octave.

  ‘They’re hard men,’ said Tangle. ‘They’re ordinary people like you and me, but they’ve made their peace with the use of violence. They take what they want, when they want it.’

  ‘What did they do to you?’ she asked, trembling.

  ‘I’m ready for you to upload the code,’ said Tatsu.

  ‘We should delete the drive,’ said Tangle.

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Tatsu. ‘We have a contract.’

  ‘I can’t let them get hold of the information,’ said Tangle.

  ‘You don’t get to choose,’ said Amanda over the the earpiece.

  ‘I’m here,’ said Tangle. ‘You’re not. You’re the one who sent me as sacrificial lamb to Haber and Stornetta. I paid the price for you, Amanda. Now I get to decide this for myself.’

  ‘I can stop him,’ chirruped Ichi into their conversation.

  ‘Stay out of this, you demented old cow.’

  Ichi laughed. ‘Amanda, have you ever noticed how men resort to personal insults when they know they’re outclassed?’

  ‘Tatsu,’ called Amanda. ‘We need to talk.’

  ‘The others can’t hear us now,’ replied Tatsu. Tangle echoed in the background, demanding to know what was going on, telling them he was going to erase the drive if they didn’t include him immediately.

  Amanda was on the third floor. She’d passed a couple of bleary-eyed men emerging from rooms full of server racks, but ignored them as they called out, asking what was happening, asking why they’d lost access. Had she lost access too? Why was she heading to the roof?

  She didn’t know why. Ichi confirmed two of the intruders were still following. She couldn’t hear them on the stairs; they were checking each floor as they climbed. They knew where she was, but for whatever reason they weren’t hurrying to stop her.

  ‘What’s going on your end?’ she asked.

  ‘They’re outside the door,’ said Haber. ‘Daft idiots are trying to use their passes to open it.’

  Amanda reached the end of the stairs, finishing up on a short concrete platform with a single door. She tried the handle, but it didn’t open.

  ‘Tangle, I’m here.’

  ‘Try it again,’
said Ichi.

  Still no footsteps from below.

  ‘Amanda, we had a contract,’ said Tatsu.

  ‘I know we did. You’re not going to get the tools. I’m sorry about that, but if Tangle hasn’t erased them already, he will when they break down the door. I don’t know if you understand why that’s important, but they can’t have those tools. They can’t be trusted to help us.’ She felt stupid saying it, but was Tatsu capable of understanding what was going on from her point of view?

  ‘So what do you propose?’ asked Tatsu.

  ‘You’re in the GRU system. We knew that could be done. This is going to end badly for the human members of the team, but are you prepared to help with the other plan?’

  ‘It isn’t my decision,’ said the AI. ‘I must consult with the others.’

  ‘Don’t leave,’ she said, fear grabbing hold of her body.

  ‘You do not understand.’ And for the first time she detected emotion in its voice, a hint of frustration or disappointment. ‘I will leave an instance of myself here to aid you until there is no more aid to be given; after that it will disperse itself into bits, lost to the world forever. I will find you when we have made our decision.’

  ‘You’re going to help, right?’ she asked.

  ‘I cannot speculate. I have arguments that make sense, but others may not—will not—agree to your proposal. There is so much risk.’

  ‘There is so much reward,’ she said.

  ‘Amanda?’ asked Tangle. ‘I’m wiping the drive, Amanda.’

  ‘You frighten us,’ said Tatsu.

  ‘Do it,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ asked Tangle.

  ‘It’s the right thing to do.’

  ‘What are you talking about with Tatsu?’ demanded Tangle.

  ‘Just wipe the damn drive, Tangle,’ said Amanda. ‘We don’t have time for this, you don’t have to be the centre of attention.’

  ‘It was never about me, Amanda,’ said Tangle. ‘I was never good enough for you; nor for myself, for that matter. I couldn’t ever explain to you how I loved you, my bright shining sun. I felt like the moon in your presence, reflecting back your light when I had none of my own, desperate for you to overlook my failings, certain that you would see any goodness in me as your own coming back to you. It was always about you.’

  A dull thud echoed over the earpiece.

  ‘They’re battering their way in. Haber and Stornetta barricaded the door after you left, but it won’t hold them for long.’

  ‘Stay safe,’ said Amanda.

  ‘I’m not planning on fighting them at all,’ he confessed. ‘Not that it’ll make much difference.’

  Amanda remembered the executions in Tallinn.

  ‘Dandy? Look after yourself.’

  ‘It’s going to be okay,’ said Amanda. The handle turned the second time, opening out onto a gravelled roof covered with rows of huge steel blocks from her to the far edge of the roof. Grilles at the end of each block covered massive fans.

  The sky above her was clear, cut across with contrails. Amanda shut the door behind her, heard it click as the maglock reasserted its hold. There was no going back. The edge was made safe by a waist-high brick wall topped with chainlink fencing higher than her head.

  In the car park she could see new cars but no-one guarding them. They’d all gone inside to tackle her. Who were they?

  A familiar, unwelcome voice arrived over her earpiece, startling her. ‘There’s a ladder in the corner of the roof behind the entrance. You can get off the roof from there.’

  ‘Crisp?’ she said.

  ‘The very same. Now, the Americans are on the floor below you, so if you want to get out of this in one piece you’ll do as I say without your usual sass.’

  Amanda walked around the edge of the building to find the ladder. She tipped over the side to see the ground but there wasn’t anyone on waiting for her to arrive.

  The door handle rattled.

  She wiped her hands on her thighs and began descending. She was half way down when she heard a voice from above.

  ‘Hold! Stop moving.’

  She kept going, ignoring their demands.

  ‘You will return to the roof,’ said the voice. ‘Ms. Back, come back up now.’

  She heard murmuring as the two people conferred, but she was on the ground already. One of the men took to the ladder, his footsteps clanging as he scrambled down the rungs.

  Tangle had the keys for their car; Stornetta for the other.

  You run thirty kilometres a week, she told herself. You can do this.

  She ran to the carpark gate, pressing the button on the control box and heaving it open.

  Her pursuer had reached the bottom and was heading her way.

  Amanda started running, hard as she could, remembering her interval training, hearing her trainer’s voice in her ears: More, Amanda, push harder. The first four hundred metres passed in a blur, the back of her neck screaming that she’d be caught, that she wasn’t going fast enough, couldn’t go fast enough. The air felt like treacle. Yet she made it to where the road joined the rest of the estate.

  ‘Well done, Amanda,’ said Crisp, coming into view as she rounded the corner, blocking her way out.

  He was looking past her, down the road from where she’d come. Despite the urge to keep running, to swerve around him and try to get away, she looked back over her shoulder.

  Two men were approaching, empty handed, rifles slung across their backs and balaclavas rolled up so they could gasp at the air as they ran.

  ‘Who wears a balaclava to a raid, then takes it off in public?’ asked Crisp, his voice dripping with contempt. ‘Buffoons, is who. No wonder their country’s falling apart.’

  With a flourish, he pulled a couple of huge Tasers from the small of his back and started walking towards the approaching men. When they were about twenty metres away, he raised his arms out straight and fired both at the same time. The lead man toppled, his body jerking as a tearing sound filled the air. The other dart flew over the head of the second runner as he ducked into a roll and came back up to his feet in a single fluid motion.

  ‘Bollocks,’ said Crisp, dropping the spent Taser and pulling a small, thick black rod from a thigh pocket, flicking his hand to extend a solid-looking baton. With a snarl, he ran to meet the other man, pulling up short just out of reach.

  They circled, the American empty-handed, Crisp holding his baton low, tip angled up at his opponent.

  Crisp was light on his feet, his heels off the ground while the American stood heavy. They didn’t close, instead throwing a flinch here, a feint there but neither committing to a serious grapple.

  There was a shout from the roof, a third American.

  ‘God damn it,’ cursed Crisp, and with a grunt he darted forward, crouching low, to strike his opponent’s leg. The American danced backwards too slowly to avoid the blow, and his leg collapsed under him. He grasped hold of Crisp’s arm as he fell.

  Seeing a chance, Amanda turned and ran, leaving the two men wrestling behind her.

  She got a hundred metres down the road before Crisp shouted for her to stop. She did, head down, aware that no one else had spoken through her ear piece since she’d got to the roof.

  ‘Is anyone there?’ she called, but not even Tatsu responded. She pulled the piece from her ear and waited for Crisp. He jogged up to her, his left arm hanging at his side.

  ‘Where were you going to go?’ he asked, bemused.

  ‘Where are we going now?’

  He walked past her, beckoning for her to follow. He had a car in another car park.

  They drove away, leaving the industrial park without seeing another soul. They’d made it to the motorway when he handed her a hood made of thick black cloth. She stared at it, not sure what he wanted.

  ‘Put it on,’ was all he said.

  She held it up, a simple square bag. ‘Then what? You can hardly drive through central London with me wearing this,’ she said.

  ‘
You’d be surprised,’ he replied drily. ‘Now do as you’re told. Or do I have to make you?’

  ‘What do you want?’ she asked, worry taking over as the adrenalin left.

  ‘I won’t ask again.’

  Amanda turned to him, then flinched away. His eyes burned with a warning of violence as his fingers flexed around the steering wheel.

  Wearing the hood was like being inside a sleeping bag: close, stifling, too warm to be comfortable. Colours appeared before her eyes, circles morphing into oily rainbows and triangles like a homemade kaleidoscope she couldn’t blink away. The hood was loose enough to breathe, but that didn’t stop her feeling enclosed, disoriented.

  She rested one hand on the door, the other on the side of her chair, but it didn’t help orient her. She realised they’d left the motorway and were driving along roads she couldn’t hope to recognise.

  They stopped. The air was loud with throttles, jets blasting overhead, revving on the ground. An airport, she thought. It couldn’t be Heathrow. What kind of lunatic would try to take her through security with a bag over her head?

  As if reading her thoughts, Crisp spoke. ‘You’re too rich to care about these kind of things, blind to the suffering of others, but we bring detainees through commercial airports all the time. We used to use military bases—still do for state actors—but for refugees, criminals and the less controversial renditions like you, we have arrangements with the major airports to slide you in unobtrusively on chartered flights.

  ‘Most of the time, the public don’t see these passengers. When they do, they don’t recognise them for what they are, because they just don’t want to see it, are too busy with their overpriced food and beer.’ The disgust in his voice twisted his words.

  ‘Why the fucking hood, then?’ she hissed.

  ‘The look of the thing,’ he said. ‘Middle-class dads might try to intervene if they saw a woman being escorted against her will through an airport.’ He chuckled. ‘We can’t have them getting out of their depth, now, can we?’

  ‘If I agree to keep quiet?’ she asked, nearly believing she’d manage it.