MacDonald pushes open a beige door and ushers you into a cramped office. There’s a huge, old-fashioned-looking monitor on his desk, and a glass-fronted bookcase holding a small, dog-eared collection of journals and books. Judging from the dust and the yellowing corners, they haven’t been read in a while. Trophy copies of his papers, you assume. He flops down into a cheap swivel chair, and gestures at the two fabric-padded bucket seats in front of his desk. “Make yourselves at home. I’m sorry I can’t offer you any hospitality—our coffee machine’s broken again, and the corporate hospitality budget is somewhat lacking this decade.”
“Thanks,” you manage. The sense of déjà vu resolves itself: You have seen him before. In a pub, somewhere in town? Brain cells grind into action, and you recite a memorized script. “We’re here to gather information which may be of use to us in an ongoing investigation into a crime. I’m required to tell you that you are not under suspicion of any criminal wrong-doing—we’re here to consult you as an expert witness—but we have to record this interview for use in our ongoing investigation, and if you incriminate yourself, the resulting transcript may be used in evidence.” You tap the right arm of your specs, then clear your throat. “Are you alright with that? Any questions?”
“I shall remember not to confess to any murders I didn’t commit.” MacDonald seems to find your caution inappropriately amusing. You’re about to repeat and rephrase when he adds, “I understand you’re in need of domain-specific knowledge.” He leans forward, smirk vanishing. “Why me?”
“Your name came out of the hat.” You decide to press on. Probably he got the message: In any case, having an inappropriate sense of humour isn’t an arrestable offense. “We’re investigating a crime involving some rather strange coincidences that appear to involve some kind of social network.” The half smile vanishes from Dr. MacDonald’s face instantly. “You’re a permanent lecturer in informatics with a research interest in automated social engineering and, ah, something called ATHENA. Our colleagues recommended you on the basis of a review of the available literature on, uh, morality prosthetics and network agents.”
Kemal, sitting beside you with crossed arms, nods very seriously. MacDonald looks nonplussed.
“Really? Coincidences?” He pauses. “Coincidences. A social network. Can you tell me what kinds of coincidences we’re talking about here?”
“Fatal ones,” says Kemal.
Damn. MacDonald’s expression is frozen. You spare Kemal a warning glance, then say: “We’re here for a backgrounder, nothing more—to see if your research area can give us any insights into what’s going on. I’m afraid I’ve got to admit that I’m not up on your field—tell me, Professor, what is automated social engineering?”
You sit back, mimic his posture, and smile at him. It’s all basic body-language bullshit, but if it puts him more at ease . . . yes. MacDonald visibly relaxes.
“How much do you know about choice architecture?”
He’s got you. You glance sidelong at Kemal, who shrugs minutely. “Not a lot.” The phrase rings a very vague bell, but no more than that. “Suppose you tell me?”
“If only my students were so honest . . . let’s review some basic concepts. In a nutshell: When you or I are confronted with some choice—say, whether to buy a season bus pass or to pay daily—we make our decision about what to do by using a frame, a bunch of anecdotes and experiences that help us evaluate the choice. You can control how people make their choices, even to the point of making them choose differently, if you can modify the frame. There’s a whole body of research on this field in cognitive psychology. Anyway: Choice architecture is the science of designing situations to nudge people towards a desired preference. You might want to do this because you’re marketing products to the public—or for public policy purposes: There’s a whole political discourse around this area called libertarian paternalism, how to steer people towards choosing to do the right thing of their own free will.”
Now it clicks, where you’ve heard this stuff before: There was a fad for it about ten years ago, trials on reducing binge drinking by giving pub-goers incentives to switch off the hard stuff after a couple of pints, free soft drinks and so on. (Which failed to accomplish anything much, because the real problem drinkers weren’t in the pubs in the first place, much less drinking to socialize, but the Pimm’s-quaffing policy wonks didn’t get that.)
You nod, suppressing disappointment: Is that all? But MacDonald reads your gesture as a cue to continue in lecture mode.
“It’s another approach to social engineering. Take policing, for example.” He nods at you. “There’s the law, which we’re all expected to be cognizant of and to obey, and there’s the big stick to convince us that it’s a lot cheaper to play along than to go against it—yourselves, and the courts and prison and probation services and all the rest of the panoply of justice. However, it should be obvious that the existence of law enforcement doesn’t prevent crime. In fact, no offense to your good selves, it can’t.
“For starters, in modern societies, the law is incredibly complex: There are at least eight thousand offenses on the books in England and about the same in this country, enough that you people have to use decision-support software to figure out what to charge people with, and perhaps an order of magnitude more regulations for which violations can be prosecuted—ignorance may not be a defense in law, but it’s a fact on the ground. To make matters worse, while some offenses are strict-liability—possession of child porn or firearms being an absolute offense, regardless of context—others hinge on the state of mind of the accused. Is it murder or manslaughter? Well, it depends on whether you meant to kill the victim, doesn’t it?”
He pauses. “Are you following this?”
“Just a sec.” You flick your fingers at the virtual controls, roll your specs back in time a minute to follow MacDonald, who is on a professorial roll. “Yes, I’m logging you loud and clear. If you’ll pardon me for asking, though, I asked about automated social engineering? Not for a lecture on the impossibility of policing.” Perhaps you let a little too much irritation into your voice, as he shuffles defensively.
“I was getting there. There’s a lot of background . . .” MacDonald shakes his head. “I’m not having a go at you, honestly, I’m just trying to explain the background to our research group’s activity.”
Kemal leans forward. “In your own time, Doctor.” He doesn’t look at you, doesn’t make eye contact, but he’s clearly decided to nominate you for the bad-cop role. Which is irritating, because you’d pegged him for that niche.
“Alright. Well, moving swiftly sideways into cognitive neuroscience . . . in the past twenty years we’ve made huge strides, using imaging tools, direct brain interfaces, and software simulations. We’ve pretty much disproved the existence of free will, at least as philosophers thought they understood it. A lot of our decision-making mechanics are subconscious; we only become aware of our choices once we’ve begun to act on them. And a whole lot of other things that were once thought to correlate with free will turn out also to be mechanical. If we use transcranial magnetic stimulation to disrupt the right temporoparietal junction, we can suppress subjects’ ability to make moral judgements; we can induce mystical religious experiences: We can suppress voluntary movements, and the patients will report that they didn’t move because they didn’t want to move. The TMPJ finding is deeply significant in the philosophy of law, by the way: It strongly supports the theory that we are not actually free moral agents who make decisions—such as whether or not to break the law—of our own free will.
“In a nutshell, then, what I’m getting at is that the project of law, ever since the Code of Hammurabi—the entire idea that we can maintain social order by obtaining voluntary adherence to a code of permissible behaviour, under threat of retribution—is fundamentally misguided.” His eyes are alight; you can see him in the Cartesian lecture-theatre of your mind, pacing door-to-door as he addresses his audience. “If people don’t have free w
ill or criminal intent in any meaningful sense, then how can they be held responsible for their actions? And if the requirements of managing a complex society mean the number of laws have exploded until nobody can keep track of them without an expert system, how can people be expected to comply with them?
“Which is where we come to the ATHENA research group—actually, it’s a joint European initiative funded by the European Research Council—currently piloting studies in social-network-augmented choice architecture for Prosthetic Morality Enforcement.”
You look at Kemal, silently: Kemal looks at you. And for a split second you can read his mind. Kemal is thinking exactly the same thought as you, or any other cop in your situation. Which is this: What drug is he on?
“Would you run that by me again?” you ask.
“Certainly.” He nods. “Prosthetic Morality Enforcement. The idea is that by analogy, if a part of your body is deficient or missing, you can use a prosthetic limb or artificial organ. Well, our ability to make moral judgements is hard-wired, but it’s been so far outrun by the demands of complex civilization that it can’t keep up. For example . . . have you ever wondered why discussions in chat rooms or instant messaging turn nasty so easily? Or wander off topic? It’s because the behavioural cues we use to trigger socially acceptable responses aren’t there in a non-face-to-face environment. If you can’t see the other primate, your ethical reasoning is impaired because you can’t build a complete mental image of them—a cognitive frame. It’s why identity theft and online fraud are such a problem: There’s no inhibition against robbery if the victim is faceless. So we need some kind of prosthetic framework to restore our ability to interact with people on the net as if they’re human beings we’re dealing with in person. And that’s what ATHENA is about. Society has become so complicated that people can’t reliably make moral choices; but ATHENA will nudge them into doing the right thing anyway.”
His eyes glitter maliciously in their saggy pouches. “If it works properly, you’ll be needing a new job by and by . . .”
ANWAR: Getting Answers
Sleep comes hard, and after tossing and turning uneasily in the cold wide bed—Bibi is still away—you rise early and head for the office. You’re running on autopilot, going through the motions in yesterday’s soiled clothes because your mind is elsewhere, scampering and spinning the spiked hamster wheel of your fears.
Tariq is dead. That hurts, even before the stabbing fear that you might be responsible. Answers. There must be an answer somewhere. Kicked the bucket. The dead-eyed man and the not-beer bubbling away in the attic and the too-good-to-be-true job and Adam’s sly suggestion that you’ve been trolled, and suggestion for cashing in on it—
You want answers.
Because if Adam’s right, and the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan isn’t just a sock-puppet but a flat-out fiction, a Potemkin Republic set up to snare the siloviki, you’re in violation of the terms of the license they made you sign when they released you. And that’s you, back inside that cell in Saughton for another six months. At least. If they don’t find something new to charge you with.
(And your hamster-mind is skittering ahead in blind panic, trying to figure out ways around the onrushing wall of steel spikes. Maybe if you can prove you’ve been acting in good faith—or perhaps if it is a fake you can resign and dob them in to Mr. Webber or Inspector Butthurt, demonstrate you’re a good and responsible citizen—assuming the madman with the suitcase doesn’t come after you . . .)
The office is as you left it when you received Bibi’s panicky call yesterday afternoon. It feels like an infinity ago. You sit down, open up your laptop, and check for email. Nothing from head office, just a handful of spam. Actually, there hasn’t been anything from head office—the Foreign Ministry—this week. No updates, no memos, no bulletins and reminders about policy on export licenses, charges for visas, cancelled passports, office supplies.
You frown and check your settings. They look alright, but how can you be sure? Maybe the Ministry’s mail server is sulking. Or perhaps there’s a public holiday that lasts all week, and nobody thought to tell you. Or a general strike or a meteor strike. Whatever the cause, it’s disturbing. So you turn to your handy quick reference guide to running a consular mission, and bounce around the hyperlinks until you come to a list of voice contacts. Ah, technical support. Issyk-Kulistan is four hours ahead of Edinburgh; you paste the contact into your phone app and wait patiently as it tries to connect. And tries to connect. And clicks over to dump you in voice-mail hell. An interminable announcement in the sonorous Turkic dialect rolls over you, before switching to English and informing you that: “You have reached the mailbox of senior consular support engineer Kenebek Bakiyev. Direct customer support is available on Mondays and Wednesdays between the hours of 8 A.M. and 1 P.M. For outside hours support, please leave a message after the tone. BEEP. I’m sorry, this mailbox is now full.”
You stare at the screen. “What the fuck? What the fucking fuck?” The calendar on your desktop is telling you that today is Wednesday and the time is ten past nine, local time—ten past one in Bishkek.
You are not an idiot; you were not born yesterday. You know exactly what’s going on here. You’re supposed to buy the story and sit tight until next Monday, aren’t you? It’s a delaying tactic. What kind of technical-support line is available for ten hours a week, carefully timed for when most of its customers are still asleep in their beds? They’re gaslighting you. Or maybe not. A sudden moment of doubt: Issyk-Kulistan is very poor. What if they can’t afford to run a proper support desk or help-line? If this is the best they can do—how secure is your pay?
You check the phone wiki again and again. Digging deeper, looking for clues. Then a thought strikes you, and thirty seconds later you’ve got another number. You feed another contact to the phone app, and ten seconds later a voice answers you in the flattened vowels of London’s East End: “’ Ello, you’ve reached the consulate of the Independent Republic of Issyk-Kulistan. How can I help you?”
I not we, you notice. “Hi,” you say, “this is Anwar, at the Scottish consulate. Listen, can you tell me, have you had any email through from the Ministry since Monday afternoon?”
It takes a minute or two for you to get Mr. East-Ender to grudgingly acknowledge your identity, and another minute for him to get the picture, but by the time you put the phone down, you know two new facts: that IRIK have only bothered to establish a one-man consular presence in England, and no, he hasn’t heard anything from head office either.
Your moustache twitches at the half-imagined odour of dead Rattus norvegicus, and you turn to your browser. There are news aggregators and search engines and attention proxies, and you are a master of the web, a veritable expert. Even though you’re having to pipe everything through a mess of translation agents, it is but the work of half an hour for you to churn through a hundred searches, refining and reducing and recycling your terms until you’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s not going on. There’s no public holiday today. There are no football matches, riots, or debates going on in the chamber of deputies. More significantly, a bit more digging reveals that there are no bandits, bank robberies, or bombings. In fact, Issyk-Kulistan is a bit of a news black hole. It’s as if a cone of Internet silence has descended across the entire country, and nobody outside has noticed.
Your skin crawls; you’re running low on excuses. If Adam’s right—then the sock-puppet nation is about to be wadded up and thrown away. And you know too damned much. You know about empty-eyed men with suitcases they want you to look after, and trade delegations with bags of not-bread mix. You don’t have to be Inspector Rebus to know what happens to bagmen who aren’t sitting tight when the music stops.
You try a different strategy and waste a few minutes hunting for notifications of service outages afflicting the major trunks in and out of the country. Then you have a moment of blinding realization.
Voice mail.
You flip through the Ministry
’s online directory until you come to a different section. With a shaky finger, you drag the address card into your phone and prod the connect button, already rehearsing your abject apologies. It rings twice, then a man answers it, speaking an unfamiliar language. There’s music in the background, tinny voices singing. “Hello?” you say tentatively: “Is Colonel Datka there?”
“One moment.” The speaker’s English is very good, almost unaccented. There’s a scraping sound, as of a hand covering a mobile phone, some muffled conversation. “Felix is tied up right now, but he’ll be along in a minute. Who should I say is calling?”
Your tongue swells abruptly, and you cough. “To whom am I speaking?”
“This is Bhaskar.” Whoever Bhaskar is, he sounds amused. “And you are?”
“This is the Scottish consulate,” you say, your voice barely above a dry-mouthed whisper. “I need to talk to the colonel.”
“The—you say the Scottish consulate?”
“Yes.” You swallow, hoping the phone app they gave you is adequately encrypted. “There’s a problem.”
“A problem. And for this problem you need to talk to Felix Datka.” His tone sharpens.
“Yes.” You realize you’re clutching the edge of your desk as if it’s a life-belt. “I know what you’re doing, what you’re using me for, and I don’t, I can’t . . .”
“Wait, please. Ah, Felix—you, you had better explain this to the colonel himself. He will speak to you now.” There’s a muffled noise, as of a phone being passed between hands, and then a new speaker.
“This is Felix Datka. Identify yourself.”
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