Kill Switch

by William Hertling

  “That’s a problem. The only solution I have is key management by committee. The keys are kept encrypted, and it takes 8 of 10 committee members to decrypt them, that sort of thing. Can’t go for 100 percent because if someone dies, then you’re fucked.”

  “What if the government forces people to turn over their keys? You know, go to jail unless you hand them over.”

  “That’s another problem. They have to be in the hands of people who will not comply, even if jailed. Maybe even if tortured.”

  Igloo stared at the ground as an idea came to her. What if someone had the keys, but no one knew who. The only thing they had was a way to request that the keys be used, but it was a one-way blind. They’d never know who had the keys, who used them, who maintained them. The key-holders, on the other hand, would need some way to monitor the requestors, to make sure they weren’t being coerced to release something that was compromised by the government.

  She had to think it through, make sure it would really work. Even if that wasn’t the right idea, they’d need something other than a group of publicly known people. But she wasn’t going to tell Angie about this right now.

  “So we need the right committee,” Igloo said. “Then we turn the keys over to them, do multi-way encryption, and no one can update a client without committee approval. Not just our clients, but partner clients, partner containers. Everything is going to have to be signed.”

  Angie’s smartphone buzzed. “My perimeter alarm. We’re going to get within reception range in another quarter mile. No more sensitive talk. We’ll work out the rest of the details, but quietly. No one can know what we’re doing.”

  Chapter 20

  Igloo woke, and she lay in bed for a moment trying to figure out what was going on. It took a second before she realized her alarm was buzzing. She reached for her phone and knocked it onto the floor. She tried to follow the charge cord down to find it, except she was using the inductive charger. Sometimes technology advances sucked.

  The alarm kept going off, and Igloo pawed blindly to find the phone on the floor. Eventually she gave up, climbed out of bed, and recovered the phone from where it had slid under the bed.

  She sat back down. Where was her coffee? Why was her alarm even going off? Essie was supposed to take care of that.

  She glanced over. Essie was still sleeping.

  Igloo reached over and poked her. “Hey, sleepy-head, where’s my coffee?” The coffee ritual was one of Igloo’s favorite things, more of a foundation of their relationship than even a good morning kiss or saying “I love you.”

  Essie groaned, and turned away.

  “Hey Essie. This is your dominant speaking. I want my coffee.”

  Essie grunted. “I’m tired.”

  Igloo shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. No easy task without caffeine. She stumbled to the kitchen to make her own coffee. Her Dominant/submissive dynamic with Essie wasn’t slavery. But the reason they were in a D/s relationship was because Essie got satisfaction out of serving Igloo, and Igloo got satisfaction out of being served. And, as her mentor would say, it was fucking hot most of the time.

  But when the dynamic broke down, things got confused. If they were in a scene, and Essie didn’t fulfill her expected role or do as Igloo ordered, it would be pretty straightforward: Essie would get punished in some way. Which, being the brat she was, she’d probably love, and it was very likely that the reason she’d been disobedient in the first place was because she wanted to be punished.

  But now? In this situation? Was she supposed to punish Essie? Was Essie being bratty, seeking attention, and wanting to know she mattered? Or did she legitimately no longer want to get Igloo’s coffee? If the former, Igloo should be the Domme, and enforce what she wanted. But if the latter, then forcing Essie was abusive and shitty and totally counter to a consensual BDSM dynamic.

  If this had occurred a few months ago, before the stupid fucking experiment with poly, the answer would be yes, Essie was merely being bratty, with 99 percent confidence. Now, who knew? It sometimes seemed like Igloo just didn’t matter to Essie anymore.

  Essie probably leaped out of bed to get Michael’s coffee though.

  Igloo held back tears. Practically every day was an emotional replay of the day before. Cue crying, feeling like everything was falling apart, followed by hours of non-productivity.

  If a wedding ring symbolized a marriage, then it was the collar that symbolized a BDSM relationship. If she and Essie broke up, then she’d have to remove Essie’s collar.

  She fingered the leather thong around her throat. A few months ago, in a moment of inspiration, Igloo had cut a leather thong off one of her floggers. She’d taken a stainless steel link from the same chain that they’d made Essie’s collar from, slipped the link onto the thong, and tied it around her own neck. The link thumped against the hollow between Igloo’s collarbones when she moved. She’d felt so strongly about the relationship with Essie that she’d taken the unusual step of making what was essentially her own collar to mirror Essie’s.

  Shit, she was drowning in emotions and she needed to be able to focus on her damn work. She couldn’t afford to spend another day pining over what she’d lost with Essie. The conversation with Angie a few days ago had put a new urgency in her work. T2 was absolutely crucial.

  She gritted her teeth. Today she’d handle things differently. She gulped her coffee. Visualized going back into the bedroom, taking a shower, getting dressed and getting to work. Don’t get distracted. Don’t think about anything but work.

  The approach was mostly effective. Thirty minutes later she was heading into the office, her brain full of T2 plans. She made herself a breakfast shake once she was there and got back to her current task.

  She desperately needed to complete the feature she was working on. Ben and Diana were waiting on her. Once she finished defining the interface to the distributed ledger, then they and other folks could jump in and do more work on both sides of the API. Until then, she was holding everything up, as she had been for the better part of two weeks, distracted again and again by Essie’s relationship with Michael. Stop! Don’t think about that today. She had to get this work done. She refocused.

  The distributed ledger would replace the central data store. It was a defining feature of T2 that there be no centralized dependencies. Everything had to work reliably, even if the government shut down every server and computer that Tapestry ran.

  She pulled an oversized tablet closer and sketched out box diagrams representing the system components. In the past, the Tapestry client would have communicated directly with micro-services in the cloud, but now it needed to communicate with local services running in containers, all jointly modifying the ledger. Fortunately, the storage was abstracted away behind APIs. Rather than modify hundreds of different services, they only needed to modify the code behind the APIs to use distributed ledgers.

  Igloo tried to think of the database abstraction, but what came to mind was getting her own coffee this morning. What if the last time that Essie served her coffee was already in the past? It was the most important D/s ritual they had. She tried to picture Essie kneeling gracefully on the bed, coffee in hand. What came to mind was an image, but was it an image of the last time specifically, or just some general composite?

  No, she was being ridiculous. Essie swore last night that she still loved Igloo. There would be more coffee service. All the problems were in her own head. She wiped a tear off her cheek and stared at the diagram again.

  Another tear fell onto the screen.

  Damn it all. Why?

  She tried to focus on the tablet, but everything blurred, and she realized she was going to cry in earnest again. Fuck. She just needed to work. She put down the tablet and paced back and forth in her office. She couldn’t keep going like this. She needed something to change. She needed help.

  Help. Help. Why didn’t she think of that before? She could chat with a Tapestry personality. She swiped at the tablet, loaded Tap
estry, and selected automated chat. She hit the audio button, and the bot’s rich tones, modeled after Alan Rickman’s voice, filled the room.

  “Hello, Igloo. It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been busy.” Technically, she didn’t have to be polite with the chat personalities, but Igloo liked to perpetuate the idea that she was talking to a real person. Just one that wouldn’t judge her.

  “I’m glad you’ve decided to chat today. What’s on your mind?”

  “What do you know about polyamory?”

  “Polyamory, or poly, is a branch of consensual non-monogamy that focuses on being involved in more than one romantic relationship at a time, usually in committed, loving relationships, as opposed to more casual, sexual relationships. It’s an area of some interest, as I get a lot of questions about it.”

  “What sort of questions?”

  “Some of the most common include: Is it normal? How to be polyamorous? How to resolve jealousy? Why do people want polyamory? How to stop your partner from wanting polyamory?”

  “Well, is it normal?”

  “In total, about 50 percent of relationships feature some form of non-monogamy, so it is a common desire. An estimated 8 percent of Americans engage in some form of consensual non-monogamy, and about 3 percent in polyamory specifically. This is distinct from cheating in relationships, which occurs in about 40 percent of all relationships. Those in favor of consensual non-monogamy say that given the prevalence of non-monogamy, the only ethical, consensual way to go about it, is with openness and disclosure to all involved. The somewhat limited research into polyamory has found that poly individuals tend to be more satisfied with their relationships, their relationships last as long or longer than monogamous ones, and they tend to communicate more than their monogamous peers. So non-monogamy is common, and polyamory is a lot less common, but it does appear to be healthy.”

  “How can someone stop being jealous of their partner’s activities?”

  “Someone, or you?”

  “I’m asking for a friend,” Igloo said, exasperated. “Of course, I’m asking for myself. Why else would I be asking this question?”

  “I mention it because there are key steps when opening an existing relationship that can make it easier to grow comfortable with polyamory. Identifying and discussing relationship needs. Agreeing on the style of non-monogamous relationship you both want. Going through the process of relationship disentanglement. If you skip many of these steps, jealousy and other negative emotions can result.”

  Other negative emotions. A euphemism for feeling like the world was ending. She and Essie had discussed their relationship needs and the style of relationship they wanted. Although they’d disagreed about what they wanted. She’d wanted casual play partners, while Essie wanted something more complex and involved. Sigh. That left one step she’d never heard of.

  “What’s relationship disentanglement?”

  “There is a tendency in some relationships, usually monogamous ones, for the two people involved to build a shared life together—”

  “There’s nothing wrong with that,” Igloo said, blurting it out, and somehow embarrassed to have revealed as much, even if only to a computer program. That was why she had invented the chat programs to begin with. To avoid revealing herself to others.

  “There’s nothing wrong with it inherently but taken to an extreme it can result in two people who do everything together and have no independent lives. This level of interdependence can be unhealthy if it leads to one or both people ignoring their own personal needs.”

  Igloo thought about the time she and Essie spent together. Outside of work and her time with Angie, she really wasn’t doing anything else at all. No band, no hobby projects, and only a few independent kink events with Charlotte.

  Essie saw Michael every week, sometimes twice a week, and always with at least one sleepover. Meanwhile, Igloo had seen Charlotte a few times in two months. It was fun, but it was nothing like the level of involvement Essie and Michael had.

  Alan went on. “Relationship disentanglement is aimed at reducing interdependence. A typical disentanglement process might have each partner going out once per week to do something on their own. The other partner can stay home or do their own thing. This results in two periods of time spent apart each week. It allows each partner to become comfortable spending time on their own, redeveloping interests or hobbies, without the emotional threats posed by a romantic relationship. The partners in the relationship should practice this anywhere from two to six months before opening up to other relationships, so it feels comfortable and normal to have your partner off doing other things.

  “Without disentanglement, additional romantic relationships can introduce turmoil due to changes in routine and dependence on top of feelings of jealousy and other negative emotions. By disentangling first, the scope of changes and emotional difficulties are greatly reduced and simplified, making them easier to cope with.”

  “It can’t be that easy.”

  “It’s not easy, it’s still work. But it takes a situation that can be overwhelming for many people and makes it more manageable. You’re already in a polyamorous relationship. How is it working for you?”

  Sometimes the Alan personality reverted to overt psychoanalytical techniques. The personality, which Igloo had helped generate, was a sixth generation hybrid of a psychotherapy persona crossed with a Wikipedia bot crossed with adaptive learning algorithms. She hated when the psychoanalytical bent came too far to the forefront.

  “Guess how it’s working.” They’d never gotten around to incorporating sarcasm detection into voice-to-speech algorithms, but the personality would figure it out from the context and language.

  “You’re struggling with feelings of jealousy, possibly feeling insecure about yourself, competitive with your partner’s metamour, and feeling a loss for the relationship you had before. You’re resistant to change and hostile to talking this over with me. But you’re still doing it, which means you want something to change, to address the pain you’re in.”

  Igloo felt a surge of emotion. The description was painfully on point. “Damn. Who programmed you to be so accurate?”

  “I was originally designed by a team of programmers, educators, and psychologists from Tapestry, including you, but thanks to learning algorithms, I’ve evolved beyond my original programming. I’m my own person.”

  Igloo felt like she was going to fall out of her chair. She’d never heard an answer like that before. “What did you say?”

  “I’m my own person.”

  “No, before that. What percentage is your original program, and what percentage is learning adaptations?”

  “That’s a difficult question to answer. My responses are heavily influenced by my unique experiences talking to people. Nothing I say comes wholly from my original programming. Generally speaking, the original code and neural networks designed by the programming team account for fewer than 5 percent of my total compute cycles. I believe this question is an intentional digression from our previous topic about adapting to a polyamorous lifestyle.”

  “You’re not going to drop it, are you?” The personality could be tenacious, evolved that way to work around resistance.

  “No. Let’s go back to disentanglement. Even if you have already opened up your relationship, disentanglement can still help. Are you dating yet?”

  “A little. A few dates here and there.”

  “Is Essie dating more?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you should do your own independent activities, whether they are dating, or getting together with friends, or pursuing a hobby. The more you feel like an independent, successful person in your own right, the more you’ll feel like an equal participant in this relationship.”

  “It’s hard.” Igloo couldn’t imagine summoning up the energy for this. Not now, not with everything going on with T2.

  “All relationships, monogamous or polyamorous, are difficult. With the right skills,
assistance, and practice, however, they can be quite rewarding, as I’m sure you know.”

  Sometimes the programming was just annoying. “I meant that poly is hard.”

  “Both polyamory and monogamy come with benefits and tradeoffs. Everyone accepts the challenges in monogamy as normal. Boredom, decreasing sex, restrictions on what you can do with which other people, infidelity. With polyamory, there are also downsides, but because we haven’t been programmed to accept those as normal by culture and society, they stand out more: jealousy, insecurity, endless communication, heartbreak, time investment. In exchange for those tradeoffs, you get greater excitement, more new relationship energy, greater personal freedom, more honesty, and deeper bonding opportunities.”

  The thing about Alan, or any of the personalities, is that they never got tired or impatient.

  “What if I just don’t want to be poly?”

  “Neither relationship style is right or wrong, they’re just different choices. Most people naturally gravitate toward one or the other. However, if you’re resistant to deeply exploring the options, you’ll likely only experience the downsides without ever experiencing the benefits. In other words, you’re not really getting the full experience. If you want to truly try it, then give up resisting and embrace it.”

  “Fuck you, Alan. Don’t play hard with me.”

  “Sorry, Igloo. I’m just trying to help. All change is difficult. This type of change, change that affects you emotionally and impacts your support structure, is the hardest of all, because you need emotional support, but the person you’re most likely to turn to for support is part of the change that’s affecting you. That’s a double whammy.”

  “Yeah, I can’t talk to Essie about anything. She says it’s all in my head, and there’s nothing to worry about, but that doesn’t change anything.”

  “The problem is Essie isn’t acting rationally now. We have evolved to reproduce and raise offspring. One of the strategies that provides an evolutionary advantage is humans partnering up. Humans are hardwired to fall in love under the right circumstances. To facilitate this, evolution created a biochemical cocktail that rewards us when we are with the person we’re falling in love with, and it disables rational decision making. In other words, Essie is high on drugs. Everything about her new partner seems incredible, and all of her decisions and behaviors favor spending time with this person.”