by Simon Royle
Two warehouses over from the one the Mole had made its exit, a seventy-five meter articulated chrome-plated long-hauler stood waiting with all systems running. The last wall space closed and cemented, the three men headed for the entrance to the long hauler. The door was open and Gabriel made his way up the winding staircase until he reached the bridge. He sat down in the primary driver’s seat and pulled the View Devscreen closer to his eye position. Maloo climbed into the seat next to him and Isaac disappeared down the companionway stairs.
“Activate mapped course to Jakarta, full autopilot on,” Gabriel said into the mic that distended from the edge of the Dev screens. It looked like a fly hovering just a cent from his mouth. Telemetric data from the vehicle flooded the Devscreen with numbers scrolling in a constant flow across images which showed the warehouse from the front, rear, side and top of the vehicle.
Gabriel looked out of the front windshield of the bridge, over the sloped chromed snub-nose of the long-hauler, at the cement floor twenty meters below him. The roof of the warehouse was just high enough with only ten cents clearance between the top of the long-hauler and the ceiling. The doors to the warehouse slowly slid open and the long-hauler pulled out onto Wharf One of Old Jurong Port. Gabriel glanced at the time set into the sweeping console of the bridge in front of him. 8:49pm – slightly ahead of schedule.
Chapter 7
On Her Watch
UNPOL Headquarters, Active Trace Command Center
Thursday 5 December 2109, 8:50pm +8 UTC
The Active Trace Command Center (ATCC) at UNPOL Headquarters is the largest single user of Devscreen displays in the world. It is designed to provide a global, real-time surveillance and interdiction capability to UNPOL to safeguard the citizens of the world. Capable of reading a watch face, cameras circling the planet capture movement and display that movement on the Devscreens. Actions are compared against an optional set of parameters for a given area. Parameters might include humans, vehicles, walking, running or driving, and when any of these are triggered the camera can zoom down to a minute detail, Tag the movement and bring up any associated information attached to it. Or, in the case of a human being tagged, its Personal Unique Identifier (PUI).
There are approximately six point three million people living and moving around in New Singapore at any one time. Tracking this amount of movement by human eyeballs is possible but requires too many people. ATCC instead relies on its computational ability to solve this problem. Everything from washing machines and mobile phones to electric automobiles has computational ability. This computational ability is called a Dev. ATTC’s Devs are huge, occupying four floors in the massive complex and drawing seven percent of the total power output of New Singapore.
Cochran entered the command center at a fast walk and immediately headed to the primary Devcockpit console set high and at the rear of the room, picking up the helmet that lay on the console she put it on, adjusting the mic to the right angle for her mouth. The room was buzzing with activity. She thumbed a switch on the console and the room’s buzz was replaced with the sound of two UNPOL officers questioning a suspect. The image on her Dev had a blue frame to show it was the active screen that she was listening to.
She said, “Change,” and the image and sound switched to another suspect being questioned, this time aboard a ship on the ocean just off UNPOL Headquarters. From the Devcockpit she had a view of all the Devscreens in the room.
She immediately issued an UNPOL Blue Notice requesting assistance in arrest and containment or any information related to the whereabouts of Jibril Muraz. The Blue Notice also contained the line ‘suspect is believed to be armed and dangerous’ and was flashed to UNPOL offices globally. Scanning the Devscreens arrayed in front of her, she looked up, hands on her hips, and surveyed the rest of the room. It was busy and had been since Muraz had escaped. UNPOL was on high alert and all shifts had been called in.
The Devs do their work in spotting suspicious movement or actions, and then human eyeballs take over to provide analysis and interpretation. Everyone’s Devstick carries their PUI and the log of that PUI can be pulled up for inspection. Everything we’ve achieved and everything we do digitally is attached to our log and transparent to UNPOL. This is their right, just as we have the right to investigate UNPOL and seek access to all files or information that is on record, unless blocked by Court order for reasons of National Security or the safety of others.
Cochran surveyed the list of tagged PUIs and noted their position on the overlay map of New Singapore. The number was around one hundred suspicious acts in progress, but this number rose and fell according to tags being cleared off and new tags being added. The Geographic area of New Singapore had a total of thirty-two thousand, three hundred and thirty-five crimes committed so far this year, an average of eighty-eight point five eight crimes per day. Today, that average was up over ten percent, but Cochran didn’t care about the other ninety-seven point eight seven. The whole department was focused on a single crime; one that was unique in the history of UNPOL, that of Jibril Muraz escaping the Deep.
Most of New Singapore was within ten minutes’ reach. As UNPOL units contacted each suspect and cleared them off the list, the number of suspicious tags started dropping. Within five minutes this had fallen to an average of ten suspicious acts going on at any one time. The Devscreen showed the images of the suspects being halted and questioned, but none of the images showed what she wanted. She glanced at the time again: 8: 53pm. She felt the panic rise in a surge and squashed it down, focusing on the Devscreens in front of her.
A Devscreen to her far left told of events in the tunnel made by the Mole. Mines had been left and the bomb disposal unit was still trying to figure out how to defuse them. Still no progress.
“Send in a remote control unit to sweep. We might lose a couple but it will be faster than this,” Cochran said into the microphone. The UNPOL BDU officer in the tunnel nodded his head. She changed the active Devscreen again. Still nothing. Where, where, where? Where is he? He must have gone out to sea, but everything there had checked out as normal.
A chrome-plated long-hauler pulling out of Old Jurong Port driving along Wharf One caught her eye. She made it the active screen. Three male occupants. She ordered a check of the vehicle. A closed-circuit camera at the exit of Wharf One gave her a close-up image of the two men sitting high up on the long-hauler’s bridge. One was black, had the features of an aborigine from Australia, hair in dreadlocks. The other was white, bearded, with dark hair over his shoulders and wearing a blue NY Yankees baseball cap. The PUIs checked out – they were regular drivers and their PUI images matched their image on the closed-circuit cameras. She flipped the active Devscreen, her fingers drumming a steady beat on the console.
***
In the bridge of the long-hauler, Gabriel had his Devstick folded out on his lap, fingers and voice giving commands. On his Devscreen he had images of all the closed-circuit cameras and satimages that were focused on his route. The satimages he didn’t worry about as they could only see the top of the long-hauler and this was a regularly scheduled trip. The closed-circuit cameras were another matter, and those required the intervention of his actions. He had made his early living being a runner; it was his craft and he was one of the best. Each time they approached a camera, his intervention through his Devstick caused the digital signals to be changed – substituting the correct PUIs and the images from footage that they had captured from the same cameras that were now trying to track them. Normality is the hardest thing to detect, and everything about their profile was normal.
He checked the time: 8:55pm. In another five minutes they’d clear New Singapore and be on the Australasia Travway. Once there, the long-hauler would increase speed to six hundred kilos an hour. They’d be rolling through Jakarta by 10:30pm. At the Australasia Long-hauler park, just outside of Jakarta, they’d swap with the real drivers in the food court. He smiled and thought, three very wealthy drivers, and focused his attention on the upcomi
ng main security zone for the on-ramp to the Australasia Travway – the huge eight lanes either way transport route running from Auckland to Osaka.
They reached the on-ramp and the long-hauler slowed in the queue of traffic waiting, attached now to the mag lev tracks set into the surface of the Travway. The traffic around them was mostly long-haulers with a few EVs, electric vehicles, in the far right lane. They were on the far left lane. The security zone had sixteen cameras. Gabriel had all the cameras up on his Dev. As each scanned the bridge of the vehicle, he altered the signal in the camera, sending the images he had on his dev of the real drivers. They moved up in the queue and a light on the Dev console of the long-hauler flashed green as their speed picked up and they went up the ramp. As they crested, Gabriel looked at the speed indicator on the Devscreen set into the console of the bridge, two hundred and fifty kilos and climbing. Home free.
***
Cochran checked, for the hundredth time. The time was 10:35pm. He’d escaped. She knew it in the marrow of her tired, defeated bones, and it cut like a hot knife in her gut. She showed no emotion and kept issuing commands, even though she knew it was futile. Rage and despair warred for dominance in her. Rage won. She wasn’t going to just capture this Jibril, she was going to kill him, but only after she’d made him suffer. She was as sure of that as she was that he had escaped. On her watch! The only ever escape from The Deep. The hot knife twisted. She sucked in, evil thoughts of revenge racing in her mind.
Chapter 8
A Normal Life
Jonah’s Env, Unit A, 20th floor, Woodlands Envplex, Woodlands, New Singapore
Thursday 12 December 2109, 5:15am +8 UTC
As I woke up I realized that what had been nagging at the edges of my brain had worked itself out. I knew why I trusted Gabriel, or Jibril in Arabic. It was his eyes: they were like mine.
The escape of Jibril Muraz was reported on newsfeeds globally, and an UNPOL Blue Notice, Contain on Site, was issued. All the major newsfeeds carried it, and his image, this time clothed, was broadcast continuously with appeals for further information. The manner of his escape, however, was a closely guarded secret and known only to those who had to know in order to do their work.
I learned of it in my briefing with the Director, the evening of Gabriel’s escape. My part in the matter of Gabriel had not been released to the feeds. Whereas the bitch from hell, Agent Cochran, had her image repeatedly broadcast, and was reported as saying that Muraz would soon be contained and, ‘no further comment for the moment, thank you.’
I tried to keep busy but it was impossible to think of anything else except what I had been told in that exhausting mind conversation. I had a brief chat with Bill Scuttle, the Senior partner in the firm, and cleared with him that I was going to take a few days self-time and that I’d be back to contribute by Monday. I confirmed with UNPOL that there were no pressing pro bono duties, and I stayed in my Envplex waiting for the sign.
I thought about the sign all the time, worried about missing it. I also thought about my uncle, my so-called uncle. He had murdered my father and is was in a conspiracy to send the planet back into the Dark Ages. It sounded crazy, but I believed it. The fact that I believed it made me think I might be going crazy, but I believed it to my core.
I looked at the Devscreen next to the sleeper. 5:15am. I folded my arms behind my head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Usually I am good at waiting. I can be very patient – it’s part of being an arbitrator. But this wasn’t some spat between two corporate enterprises, Ents, raging at each other over infringed copyrights. This was my life. I had so many questions that I couldn’t ask. Who am I? Who is Sir Thomas? Why did he kill my father? What is the conspiracy? Was I under suspicion? Was I being more closely watched? Is my Env bugged? This last thought caused a quick surge of adrenalin and I sat up and looked around my Env. I let out a long slow breath. If it was bugged and I suddenly started looking for them, it would be suspicious. If they were there, the only thing I could do was act normally. As long as they can't tell what I'm thinking they can’t know what I know.
Lying there I tried to recall my first known memory. I was surprised that the earliest really solid memory was of when I was ten years old. On my tenth birthday I had boarded a flight. It was a holiday and I was flying to a summer camp in Italy from London. As I was an unaccompanied child, an Alitalia air staffer was assigned to get me on the airship. When she saw from my PUI on my Devstick that it was my birthday, she gave me a big smile and, putting her face close to mine with that big smile on it, proceeded to tug my right ear lobe ten times. It hurt. And I wished she would stop. That is my first real memory.
I can remember things from when I was five years old, but not clearly. They’re impressionist memories. But from ten years old, I can remember things quite clearly. People, events, the schools, knowledge learned, decisions made, these memories are more solid. My uncle had told me that my parents died just after I was born, and this is an impressionist memory. A sad little boy standing in front of his uncle, being told why his parents did not visit him like the other children’s parents. I feel and remember the sadness but the exact time, place and circumstances have faded.
Another reason I believed Gabriel is that Sir Thomas and I look nothing alike. And from what I had seen from the very scant images of my parents, I didn’t look much like my supposed father, Sir Thomas’s brother. If what Gabriel had said was true, and I chose to believe it was, then everything that had been told to me about the origins of my existence was a lie.
I have the images of their funeral service, but apart from that, only two other images of my parents exist. I am in none of them. I had always thought that strange. Don’t mothers always hold their babies and have an image taken? As a boy it was hard to build fantasies around such flimsy evidence of existence, but still I tried. I can remember that. Lying in my sleeper in the dormitory at night imagining that in the morning my parents would be there to take me home. I tried to remember what I dreamed about, after I turned ten, but drew a blank. I tried to remember what I dreamed about last week. I don’t dream, I realized. I have no dreams.
It was hard to frame Sir Thomas in my mind as an evil person. My inheritance from my parents, under Sir Thomas’s management until I turned eighteen, had grown substantially, and I didn’t need to contribute to earn cred. Sir Thomas had also seen to my education and placed me in different schools throughout my youth. He said in speeches that my circumstances were what led him to form the Oliver Foundation, a globally recognized scholarship program for orphaned children.
We had neither lived, nor traveled together. We would meet usually in a meeting room set aside for the purpose at the school or academy I was attending. In one sense I grew up surrounded by people, in another I grew up totally alone. It struck me how little I actually knew about my uncle and I realized that this was not a good thing. I had to know more.
Why did you murder my father? Just to think of that spun the thoughts in my head into a whirlwind. As a society we abhor violence in any form, mental or physical. We are taught from a young age that it is the basest of behaviors, that murder is the most heinous of all violence. The finality of it extinguishes all hope and leaves nothing but negative energy. That my uncle could be capable of such a thing shocked me to my core. Somewhere out there was a man who had answers for me, my brother, he had said, and I believed that too.
Perhaps it was this unsubstantiated, born in the gut sureness that had thrown my thoughts into such confusion. I couldn’t work it out. Usually I am a skeptical person. Not negative. I’m optimistic, but I’m also pragmatic, and therefore skeptical. It wasn’t usual for me to believe in something without having solid evidence to justify that belief. Here I had no such evidence, only an event foretold coming to pass. But there was something else that made me believe Gabriel and it had nothing to do with evidence. It was his eyes.
As much as I wanted to just lie in the sleeper, the lack of a sign gnawed at my conscience. He had told me that
he needed my help on a matter of ‘global importance’. It was difficult to sleep with those words constantly in my brain and I felt guilty just lying there. I should be doing something, but what? Wait for the sign. I tried to think what he would have wanted me to do and the only thing I could come up with was to make myself available for discreet contact.
A part of me, a really significant part of me, was afraid of my uncle. To my knowledge I had never met a murderer and just to know that about someone was terrifying. I pushed that thought away with the less sure one that Sir Thomas didn’t know that I knew what he was. The trifling comfort it provided allowed me to sketch out a plan of action. Act normal but try to find out more about Sir Thomas. If Gabriel was smart enough to figure out how to get into and out of the Deep just to meet me, then for sure he was smart enough to send me the sign irrespective of what I was doing. I climbed out of my sleeper and walked naked over to the Clearfilm desk in front of the window that looked out over the causeway to Johor.
I was about to turn on the Dev on the desk, but my hand stopped before it touched the small red button that would bring it alive. What was I going to do on the Dev? Was anyone watching? Would not using the Dev create suspicion? I had to keep up appearances. I had to make it look as if everything was exactly the same in my life. The Dev suddenly became a threat in my mind. We called it Dev, short for Device, the ubiquitous apparatus that provided us with the means of communication. In the twentieth century when personal computers were first invented, they were indeed personal, but by the end of that century most of them were connected to the Internet. The Internet and another invention, the mobile phone, caused the convergence, Dev, that made terms like phone, computer and camera almost obsolete.
