KINRU

by Stuart J. Whitmore

  Birkran sat back in his chair but did not look relaxed. "As long as I am waking up in strange circumstances, I am at risk from whatever these men might do if they discover me. I think you have a moral responsibility to tell me what you know so that I can protect myself."

  The medoc made some more notes before looking back up at Birkran. "Have you ever wondered, Birkran, why you have never met these men in person? Is it just luck?"

  "I suppose it is," Birkran said with a shrug.

  Medoc Tsuran stood and stretched. He then reached down and opened a desk drawer, but from where he sat Birkran could not see what he was doing. "Perhaps you're right," the medoc said. "Perhaps I should tell you what I know."

  Birkran nodded. "I certainly think it's appropriate."

  "Birkran," his medoc said, "the reason you have never met those men in person is that you are those men."

  Birkran open his mouth to reply, but he didn't get a chance. The medoc pulled a small device out of his desk drawer. There was a bright, blue-tinted flash and a crackling electric sound, and darkness engulfed Birkran.

  Chapter Nine

  Anhukarr looked down at himself. His heart hammered in his chest. After feeling largely in control of events for months, he now could not escape the certainty that somebody else not only knew about him but was actively interfering with his life. Waking up in nothing but his baselayer left the troubling question, who had undressed him?

  Beyond the obvious direct access to his physical person, which disturbed him beyond words, the amount of time that had elapsed was much greater than he expected. What had happened in the interim? And since he clearly had lost physical security, he had to wonder, where else might he have been taken?

  Yet he was in his home, not in a prison. Whoever was involved was apparently either unaware of his role in disrupting government or was accepting of his actions. Which of those was true he was not even close to determining. The sheer volume of questions that now faced him nearly paralyzed him.

  Anhukarr stood and dressed quickly. Since it was obvious that his physical security was already compromised in his home, he wanted to leave quickly. He wished that he had not slept through the appointed time to meet the old man, for that would be a logical first destination after leaving his home, but wishing it would not make it true. If the old man was alive and received his message, he presumably wasted his time going to the restaurant only to find Anhukarr missing. What he might think of that Anhukarr could only guess, but it was unlikely to be favorable.

  Anhukarr considered trying to contact the man again right away, but decided against it. He couldn't trust anything in his home now, and if his connection to the old man was not already known by the mysterious interloper, reaching out to him now might provide that bit of information. It was not a sensible risk to take, not for him and not for the old man.

  After gulping down a filling and nutritive meal, Anhukarr prepared to leave. As he did, he was not sure he would ever return, so he pondered setting in motion various self-destruction routines that would eliminate incriminating information and systems. After mulling it over he chose against it. The damage was probably already done. If it turned out that things were somehow not as bad as they seemed, he would appreciate not having destroyed his work unnecessarily.

  "Time to creatively disappear," Anhukarr muttered to himself.

  Anhukarr retrieved from his sleeping quarters a metal case. He set it on his bed and opened it. Inside, he had a variety of tools that he used for creating disguises that would not be noticed without very close inspection. He slipped over his head the key component of his disguise kit, a conformask. Originally created for young children, Anhukarr had long ago reprogrammed it.

  Instead of providing the look of a realistic animal or mythical creature, or a fictional character from a children's entertainment program, his conformask would now allow him to take on the look of actual people whose images he had collected from distant points around the city and in other cities. With a hat, external optic correctors, or other accessories, his real identity would be very well hidden to people he passed on the street. It would do nothing for biometric security measures, but he knew how to handle those without visual subterfuge.

  He quickly changed the appearance of the facial overlay to match the face of a young man from another city. He then pulled out a slim cap and set it on his head at a specific angle to match a popular style that he had seen. He found the style annoying, which made it an apt choice for him to intentionally use. He also unrolled and slipped onto his hands some custom-made gloves that looked like thin lace before he put them on and then blended into his hands almost perfectly after he donned them. Once he was satisfied with his appearance, he packed away the disguise kit and began to collect a few items from his resunit.

  When he felt as prepared as he could be on short notice, Anhukarr left his living space and secured it behind him. Although someone had already breached his security, he did not see any reason to make it easy for any random person to simply walk in.

  "I have to start somewhere," Anhukarr said to himself as he strode away from his resunit. "The old man is as good as any other option, if he actually is still an option."

  Anhukarr took a circuitous route through the city in case anybody was actively monitoring his movements. If somebody was, he hoped they would get bored, confused, or otherwise distracted. He certainly did not want them to be able to predict where he was going, so even though he had a specific destination in mind he made sure it would not be obvious based on his movements.

  Eventually Anhukarr reached a part of the city where maintenance was less frequent and, he guessed by the smell of it, so was sanitation. It did not have the civilized polish of the rest of the city, but it was mostly enabled with sufficiently modern technology.

  He located an unoccupied system access kiosk, one of countless installed at the street level and common transport levels throughout the city. Each one was built as a pocket into a wall, designed so that the user would step in and then turn around to face back out toward the public, with the wall at their back. A self-cleaning information display was attached to an arm on one side of the kiosk, and the user could adjust the display position by voice commands.

  With his identity concealed by his special gloves, Anhukarr tapped the display once to wake it up. The screen lit up and displayed a standard message advising him that he was under surveillance and should therefore not expect any privacy. He did not let the grin that he felt forming reach his face.

  Hacking directly from a public kiosk was essentially impossible. Anhukarr knew that the only way to do it was indirectly, and he had set himself up for that a long time ago. Anybody monitoring his actions on the kiosk display might think he was eccentric, but they would never know that there was an actual pattern to what he was doing.

  It had taken him a lot of time and thought to design a system of granular macros that could be triggered by persistent processes, each process designed to keep an eye on specific aspects of a variety of compromised systems. The payoff was worth it, though, and he especially appreciated that capability now that he did not feel comfortable working from his own resunit. With an innocent query on one system, an empty file would be created on another. Following a specific access path to learn about the weather forecast, and data would be piped into that file from another system. Piece by piece, he assembled what he needed.

  There were limits to what Anhukarr could do in the kiosk, and there was no way that he could create a secure voice channel. However, he could give himself access to a nearby building that contained interfaces that were more directly usable. It took quite awhile to accomplish what he needed to do, but the part of the city he was in was quiet enough that nobody stood waiting to use the kiosk. When everything was done, he stepped out of the kiosk and wandered casually in the direction he needed to go. Several minutes would need to pass before his work took effect, and he didn't want to draw attention to his destination by moving quickly to it and then waiting.


  After allowing more time than was strictly necessary, he casually but thoroughly looked around to make sure nobody was directly watching him. Confident that he had not caught anybody's eye, he tried the door that should now be unlocked. The old fashioned latch mechanism opened easily and he quickly entered. The corridor inside was dimly lit, so Anhukarr paused briefly to let his eyes adjust. He then walked to the third door on the left and found that it had been successfully unlocked as well.

  The door led to a small room that was crammed with old technology. Anhukarr guessed that it had been moved there with the intent of being sold for scrap or just turned in for recycling, and then whoever was supposed to do that never finished the job. Some of it was in pieces, and much of it was no longer compatible with modern systems. As much dust as he found on things the first time he discovered the room, many weeks prior, Anhukarr assumed that the room and its accumulated junk had been forgotten for years.

  The discovery of a live port in the room had inspired Anhukarr to start piecing together a complete system from the available parts. The system he ended up with was years out of date but fully functional. Since the older technology lacked the embedded identification mechanisms of newer systems, it made for an excellent access point when he had the patience for the tiny display and slow processing.

  On this day, however, he was just happy to have any kind of direct access without fear of being monitored. He didn't plan to do anything more than to try to make contact with the old man. Once the old system was powered up, he promptly started preparing a secure voice channel. He initiated a call as soon as the channel was ready.

  "Need to figure my next step if this doesn't work," Anhukarr mused as he watched a counter tick up the number of times the old man would have been hailed via chime or visual alert. He was mildly surprised when the connection status icon went green.

  "Yes?" the man's voice hissed from the low fidelity speakers that Anhukarr had recovered from the junk pile.

  "This is Anhukarr. I apologize if you received my earlier message and then wasted time trying to meet me. I had a sleep episode that lasted an unusually long time."

  "I see."

  "Is there a chance you might meet with me now? Things have gone even more poorly than before," Anhukarr said. "I would value your thoughts on my situation."

  There was a long pause before the man answered. "I am busy now. I can meet you this evening. Since my presence at the restaurant may have been noticed, let us use the taplounge six doors north of there. The one with the blue and green sign. You know the one?"

  "Yes," Anhukarr confirmed.

  As soon as they settled on the time, Anhukarr closed the connection and ran his scripts to securely erase potential traces that might have remained from it. The meeting was much later than he wanted, but he knew he had to be grateful that the old man was available and still willing to meet with him. Anhukarr felt secure in that room, so he decided to wait there until it was time to leave for the meeting. With a soft snort, he mentally mocked the fleeting thought that he might take a nap to pass the time.

  "No," he said as he launched a simple but engaging game on the old computer, "now is a time when I must stay alert. No sleep until I have answers."

  Chapter Ten

  Anhukarr stepped through the exterior door of the taplounge about five minutes before he was supposed to meet the old man. There was no value in waiting to time his arrival with that of the other man, since doing so could lead others in the taplounge to ponder their relationship. It would be better to appear to meet casually and strike up a conversation, and then take that conversation to a booth where they could speak privately.

  The first order of business was to obtain a drink, since not having one in hand could also lead to undue attention, and that attention might include being told to leave. Like the seedy part of the city where it was nestled, this taplounge seemed dark and cheap. The selection of beverages on tap appeared oriented toward those who could not afford good flavor to go with the intoxication they sought.

  "Keirak's, medium," Anhukarr said to the order screen. It was a low-end ale that wouldn't raise any eyebrows from the other customers, yet he considered it to have the best taste of the fermented beverages available. As empty as his stomach was, he wasn't about to order anything stronger.

  A medium glass of Keirak ale slid into the delivery slot. Anhukarr submitted payment using old, non-traceable tokens to unlock the slot and retrieve his drink. He took a sip and then casually glanced around.

  The taplounge seem to be about half-full, but Anhukarr didn't know if that was the most it ever filled up or if there were busier times. This was his first time in this particular establishment. There were several people standing or sitting alone, but most patrons were clustered in groups of two to four people around small tables or sitting in booths. Along one wall to the left of the order station was a narrow ledge for drinks, above which were mounted a series of touchscreens for patrons to use. Only one of those was in use, while the others merely displayed the advertising logo for the taplounge.

  Anhukarr walked casually to the nearest available touchscreen and set his drink down in front of it. He tapped the screen to awaken it and brought up a list of sporting games scheduled for the next few days. He didn't really care, because he wrote off such activities as one of many ways the government sought to distract and pacify the general public. However, he guessed it might be appropriate content for someone patronizing that taplounge. As he looked through the game information, he kept his eye on the entrance door in his peripheral vision. At almost exactly two minutes past the appointed hour, the old man walked in.

  With his eyes still on the screen in front of him, Anhukarr watched as the old man ordered a drink. A few moments later, the old man meandered over to a nearby screen. Anhukarr noticed with approval that the man brought up information about a sports team that matched what was currently on his own screen. He took a sip of his drink and casually glanced over at the screen in front of the old man.

  "Ah, I see you like the Onslaught too," Anhukarr said. "Looks like they're doing well this year."

  The old man nodded without looking over at Anhukarr. "They should, considering how much was invested in them during the off-season."

  "Right, it would be disappointing for that to not pay off," Anhukarr agreed.

  The two chatted idly, off and on, for several minutes, slowly sipping at their drinks as they did. Eventually, the old man suggested that they split an order of kepprala, a fried root that was a popular snack among the working class. Anhukarr agreed to find a table while the old man retrieved the food. He looked for a booth that offered the best privacy from other patrons of the taplounge, then maintained a casual gait as he walked over to it. He sat down with his drink and took a tiny sip, trying to make it last as long as possible.

  "Many troubles in the city as of late," the old man said as he placed his own drink and the plate of kepprala on the table. He waited until he was seated across from Anhukarr before saying more, and he kept his voice down even more. "I take it that you have had some of your own."

  Anhukarr nodded. "Indeed. I seem to have acquired a visitor in my sleep. I feared as much before but hoped it was misplaced paranoia. Today, I had it confirmed in a most disturbing way."

  "I see. Or perhaps I don't, why don't you give me some of the details."

  Anhukarr nodded again and took another sip of his drink. He wanted to devour the kepprala, he was so hungry, but he only took one piece before giving the old man a succinct explanation about his experience that morning. As he talked, the other man nodded minimally in thought, sipping from his drink but saying nothing.

  "At this point," Anhukarr said when he was done describing the evidence that someone had access to his living space as well as him, "I don't feel safe being there, nor do I feel safe doing any of my work there." He hoped he had not paused too much before the word 'work.' He had never told the old man in detail what he was doing, but he was fairly sure the man
understood that his actions were not legal. As far as he knew, though, the man did not know that he was Triple-A.

  "That is problematic," the old man said after another sip. He paused to eat another piece of kepprala. "Did you know that Rann Deryala is missing?" he asked after a moment, seemingly changing the subject.

  Anhukarr shook his head. "No. Do you think that is in some way relevant? Do you think he might be involved?"

  The old man looked away for a moment before returning his attention to Anhukarr. "Have you seen the rendered image being distributed to help the public identify Triple-A on sight?"

  Anhukarr felt his stomach tighten. "No, I was not aware that the police had distributed anything of that nature."

  A faint smile crossed the old man's face. "From what I have heard from my sources, Triple-A tweaked the government a bit more than normal by contacting Rann Pillane directly. That might have given them some added motivation." He pulled a small tablet from one of his pockets. "Here, this is what they're distributing." He set the tablet down on the table and turned it so that Anhukarr could see.

  "Ah, that is interesting," Anhukarr said as relief washed over him. The image on the tablet screen looked nothing like him. It didn't even look like one of his disguises. He wasn't sure what data source the government used to create the image, but it seemed to be generally worthless. "Well, I suppose we know who to look out for. But, how do you connect this with Rann Deryala, or me?"

  The old man's smile increased. "Now that is an interesting question," he said. He took another sip of his drink before picking up the tablet and putting it back in his pocket. "What do you think? Do you suppose that is an accurate image of what Triple-A looks like?"

  Anhukarr felt paralyzed. The relief he had felt was gone. The old man knew he was Triple-A, he was suddenly sure of it. Yet, like the mysterious person or people who had access to him in his own resunit, the old man was taking no action to alert anyone to the presence of a most-wanted criminal.