by Malka Older
“They have a plan for filling vacated seats, right?” Ken shrugs. “Chaos is part of democracy too.”
He gets a weak chuckle out of her for that.
* * *
The debrief is tedious: two and a half hours of questions about twenty minutes sitting in a dark closet. The repetition of “I don’t know” becomes so physically irritating to Maryam that she begins to suspect she is overreacting, that her annoyance is at least partly trauma-fueled. At least they agree to let her continue the discussion back in La Habana. She insists on seeing de la Campana before she leaves. The small woman is trembling but composed, and manages a smile when she sees Maryam. “They don’t hurt anyone,” she says to her. “You were right. Everyone is accounted for.”
Maryam wants to ask her what it was like; whether the crowd control tactics were exactly like the previous attacks; if she learned anything; whether it was as terrifying as she imagines; but when de la Campana leans forward to pat Maryam’s shoulder, she catches a hint of vomit on the older woman’s breath. She can learn all of that from the reports later, except for the degree of terror, and that she doesn’t really need to know.
The InfoSec officers give Maryam some sugary energy chews on the crow, which don’t exactly steady her but do make her feel better. She spends most of the hour-long flight eyeing the shower facilities but decides she’d rather wait for her own apartment. When they get to La Habana, the InfoSec named Martín escorts her to one of the secure meeting rooms. Maryam expects Batún, but it’s Nejime, projecting in, who interviews her.
“We want to keep this as tight as possible,” Nejime says, though Maryam hasn’t asked. “You say they were aware of your actions?”
“They were absolutely aware someone was interacting with them, although they may not know who. There was no way of avoiding attention.” Nejime sighs. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize; you’ve just brought us the biggest break we’ve had since the attacks started. I’m just frustrated with my own lack of understanding on the techie front. So. What did we learn?”
Exhaustion clobbers Maryam, and even shrugging feels difficult. “I haven’t been able to look through the output I saved yet. I passed it on to InfoSec, but what they were after may not be apparent…”
“It’s fine. Go get some rest; we’ll talk about it later. And, Maryam?” Nejime’s eyes are down, as though in her Doha office she’s already looking at something else. “You know whom to talk to if you are feeling effects from the trauma?”
“Yes, of course,” Maryam says automatically, trying to remember. There’s some kind of employee support service, although she’s never used it before. She supposes she can find it if something convinces her she needs it.
It is not until she is back to her own workstation that she remembers she wanted to tell Nejime about the disintegrating guidebook. The guides seem drastically less important since the morning, but also more appealing to work on than on the data she collected in those terrifying minutes on the Isla de Pinos. Maryam knows she should go home and try to sleep, or whatever it is people normally do at four in the afternoon after hiding from masked assailants in a broom closet, but it is easier to sit down and go back to work.
Maryam starts composing a program to sift through recent intel from La Habana and Dhaka looking for tourism reviews mentioning unusual guidebooks. It is relatively mindless and settles her so much that she is reluctant to stop, even after five. Maryam hasn’t forgotten that Núria arrives home from Oaxaca tonight, but she’s achieving a torturous sense of virtuosity by not checking on her current location. The longer she can stay at work, the more likely it is that Núria will be home alone waiting for her instead of the other way around.
She’s trying to figure out how to better mask the intent of her search when she gets a ping from Núria: Home! I know you’re busy but I can’t wait to see you!
Maryam is out the door before she knows what she’s doing, and has to do a remote check to make sure she closed all her files. It’s already dark out, and La Habana is coming to life, public transport crows raucous and crowded, the streets twisty with couples and groups on their way to shows or drinks. Maryam skips the crush and splurges on the first cab that passes.
* * *
Getting into the unknown tunnel—the null-states tunnel, or nunnel, as Roz has started calling it mentally—proves to be a nontrivial problem, as Djukic explains.
“Look, it’s shallower than 888’s planned mantle tunnel, but it’s still very, very deep. Digging down that far requires big equipment, and you would need a place to put the dirt. Not easy to hide.”
“So, how did they do it?” Roz wonders.
Djukic shrugs. “They dug it in the null states, without feeds watching their every move?”
Roz cocks an eye, wondering if that’s anti-Information feeling she hears or a statement of the obvious. “Yeah, but we have satellite imagery.”
“Well, take a look. Maybe you’ll find something. Still not sure how that helps us dig into the tunnel without them noticing.”
“Could we mask it with the work on the mantle tunnel?”
“Not easily. Remember, the tunnels only cross at one point, and it’s near the middle of 888’s trajectory. There’s no reason to dig above the middle; in fact, we really don’t want to do that.”
“Part of a test, maybe, for your sinkhole theory?”
Djukic scoffs. “Picking, out of the entire length of our tunnel, the one place where they cross? Besides, we wouldn’t have to go that deep to take samples.”
The baby kicks, or elbows, and Roz rubs her stomach absently. “Okay, so let’s say we do it closer to the supposed terminal. Switzerland is not large; if we look for some place close to the border, the tunnel should be shallower as it arches toward the surface, right?”
“Definitely,” agrees Djukic.
“Let’s say we just want to get something really small in there. A tiny feed camera.”
“That would be better. We don’t want to disrupt the structural integrity of the tunnel.”
Another problem to worry about. “And supposing it’s being used to transmit data. How are we going to hack into that?”
The environmental engineer gives her an are you crazy look. “Definitely not my department.”
* * *
Information has never been great at internal data dissemination. It’s a fact that is brought up again and again at meetings, usually with what can you do grins or head-waggles and some reference to irony, but Rajiv has never found it surprising or funny. Rather, it’s emblematic of everything that he hates about the organization: the hypocrisy; the bread-and-circuses approach to avoiding the strictures of their trademark transparency; their disregard for their own staff; their patchy, politically motivated competence. Information never bothered to create a strong organizational structure, preferring a pretense of egalitarianism that lets the worst personalities accrue power; of course intel-sharing is haphazard, along with human resources, opportunity, and funding.
But if Rajiv despises Information, he is also used to it. Like a hated apartment he’s lived in far too long, he knows every creaking board and leaky faucet and quirk of the composter. Rajiv knows how to navigate Information. (Long ago, before he gave up on them, he used to joke with his colleagues that in order to spy for Information, they had to be able to spy in Information.) He has elaborate alerts webbed through his interface and catches everything anyone writes or whispers about the transfer-station attacks, so he knows almost immediately that the latest one went wrong.
Rajiv reads everything he can about it on the intranet and from public compilers, then goes for a walk. He follows his normal route to the chess café he frequents several times a week, but deviates into a narrow, feedless alley and dodges into a tiny shop front festooned with flags: Russia, China, Switzerland, Saudi, Western Sahara. The proprietor, blinking through some content or other, ignores Rajiv as he steps into one of the booths and closes the cheap soundproofing behind him.
Rajiv taps in the long-memorized phone number and murmurs the password calculated from the previous day’s average temperature on the Baltic Sea.
“Hello?”
“What happened?” Rajiv hisses. There is something liberating about this antiquated form of communication. Invisible and with his voice distorted by ancient lines, it’s easier to loose his frustration. “I told you increasing the frequency of the incursions was going to be risky.”
Moushian, used to Rajiv’s irascibility, laughs. “We knew it was inevitable. Someone was going to get a look at the diagnostics eventually. I doubt they figured out what they were looking at.”
Rajiv snorts. “If anyone can figure it out, it’s her.”
“What? Who found it?”
Rajiv gives a brief synopsis of Maryam’s career.
“Dangerous,” Moushian says thoughtfully. “But also possibly disgruntled?”
“You think she might join us?” The possibility hadn’t occurred to Rajiv, but he’s gotten used to assuming that he’s locked in irreconcilable enmity with everyone around him.
“Can you create an opportunity to find out?”
Rajiv sighs. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Carefully, though—we need you for the live run. Don’t compromise yourself.”
“Everything else going well?” Rajiv can’t keep himself from asking. It’s safer for him to know nothing about the other fronts, but now, so close to the decisive point, he feels the absence of that knowledge like a blindfold. He has kept his heart rate down during countless mental-emotional scans and stealth operations, but this slow-motion toppling of the world order is nerve-wracking.
“Progressing as planned; don’t worry.”
* * *
It is very late that night when Núria realizes Maryam can’t sleep.
“What’s wrong?” She props herself up on her elbow and tweaks the bedside lamp to emit a modicum of light.
“I—” Maryam stops to consider whether she’s being indiscreet. The attacks on the data transfer sites are public knowledge, if so downplayed as to have gone unremarked. Her travel plan was obvious, as de la Campana pointed out. Núria might not put the two together, especially given their tacit agreement not to peer too closely into each other’s work travels, but it’s there for her to see if she looks.
Maryam decides that’s license enough. “I was at a data transfer site today when it was attacked.”
“What?” Núria sits up. “Are you all right? What were you … What happened?” Even in the dim light, Maryam can see her eyes moving as she blinks up the intel.
Maryam intends to sketch the outline of it, avoiding the details of her virtual exploits, but once she starts talking she can’t seem to stop. When she describes the mask staring up at her through the feed Núria grabs her hand, and when she gets to the part where InfoSec shows up, Núria grabs all of her in a tight hug.
“Querida,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all that. How terrifying!”
Maryam’s voice comes out steady and calm. “I’m fine. It’s all fine.” She is glad Núria can’t see her face. “Nothing bad happened. I was never really in danger. Not like…” Not like you are, every time you go out there.
Núria pulls back and shakes her head at her, the modified strands in her hair glinting copper in the light. “You were very brave. And what you did with the”—she motions with her hands, indicating complexity—“the, what? Can we call that hacking? You were amazing.”
“I only took obvious countermeasures,” Maryam answers, bemused.
“I wouldn’t know how to do any of that.”
“It’s just what I do,” Maryam says. “You must do much more impressive things all the time.” Núria’s shoulder is smooth and curved above the bedsheet. Maryam wants to touch it. She reminds herself that they are together, she is allowed, and reaches out to run her hand along the soft skin, wishing she didn’t feel so awkward.
“Oh, my work is not so heroic these days. I consult on security measures or patrol silly borders.” Núria leans back against her pillow, relaxing into Maryam’s touch. “It is a little … frightening, though.”
“Your work?”
“No, I mean … with the election coming up, all the talk I’m hearing, the insistence on having that border guarded, it’s like something is building up … like these attacks. I didn’t know how many there were until now. It feels like we’re on the brink of something, like it might all fall apart.”
Maryam feels terror return to her belly, thinking of what that might mean. Especially from a soldier. “You’ve been spending too much time with the camaradas.” She tries to make it sound teasing, but Núria doesn’t laugh.
“At least they think about these problems, try to face them.”
Her tone isn’t accusatory, but Maryam feels stung anyway. “They complain about what’s wrong,” she says, realizing she sounds petty and defensive. “They don’t seem to have many ideas for what to do.”
Núria doesn’t seem bothered, shrugging her delectable shoulder as she snuggles into her pillow. “Well, they try. But hopefully, since Information has your super hacking capabilities, we won’t need to worry about it.”
Maryam, staring at the ceiling, is unconvinced. “I didn’t do anything. I didn’t find out anything.”
“Not yet,” Núria murmurs, and rolls over to curl into Maryam’s arms. That, at least, feels perfectly natural, and Maryam starts to relax. “But you will.”
CHAPTER 8
The next day Maryam feels twitchy. Maybe it’s a reaction to the trauma, or delayed uncertainty about telling Núria so much. There must be a reason that Information hasn’t asked YourArmy to help secure the data transfer stations: they want to keep these attacks as small as possible in the public consciousness. And, she keeps reminding herself, no one got hurt. If anything was lost, it was only data.
Work helps calm her: she spends the day focused on election-related techie stuff, which is challenging intellectually but not ethically. Maryam does feel guilty about not analyzing the data she culled from the attack, but every time she thinks about it she gets a wave of nausea. Other people are working on it, so she gives herself a pass. She’s braced for awkwardness at home, but that night, she and Núria cook together with almática music in the background. Their sex is less urgent than the night before but more comforting, and afterward they curl up together in bed and watch Centenal Searchers together: pretty much the perfect evening, and suggestive of stability and commitment.
The next night, Núria has plans to go to Magdalena’s place for another camaradas tertulia.
“You should come!” she tells Maryam. “It’ll be fun.”
“I’d love to,” Maryam lies. She would love to go if it were fun, but she has never been able to find her rhythm with those women, all united by culture, ideology, and attitude. “But I need to catch up on work. You know, after the past couple of nights.”
Núria rolls her eyes at her weak attempt at flattery but doesn’t push it, which plunges Maryam into doubt again. She wishes she had gone, instead of sitting alone worried about what might be happening there without her.
Work, then. Maryam is still reluctant to look at the transfer station data—she feels as though it might infect her, might give her away to those masked fiends—and instead she c
ombs through the results of a program she set up to trawl for references to guidebooks. The initial hits all seemed to be about legitimate, Information-based tourist intel combined in various forms by compilers. Maryam adds the terms scoop, unbelievable, intellicious, secret, and pro-tip, with a secondary filter for responses containing couldn’t find it or not where you pointed, and reconfigures her search to look for items that are either designed for virality or tightly restricted by audience. She still nets a lot of standard travel guide promotion, but 314 results in she finds:
Super-weird secret tips! I was in Delhi last weekend and found an amazing travel guide *on paper* that told me every little detail about the neighborhood. Very useful! Unfortunately it was poor quality paper and has already deteriorated, so I can’t share.
Maryam opens a globe and places pins in Havana, Dhaka, and Delhi, then goes back to her search results.
Some sketchy guy in Alexandria tried to offer me a secret “tourist guide”—has anyone else come across this scam?
Does Information know everything? These intellicious travel guides say no—but they’re almost impossible to find.
Almost impossible to find, indeed. But now she knows they’re out there, and on at least three continents.
She can feel her concentration slipping as the evening continues. Her thoughts keep straying to the salon that she decided to skip. Who showed up? Is it one of their raucous evenings or a quiet one? Does Núria miss her?
Anything is better than jealousy. Maryam resolutely opens the cache of attack data and dips into it. A system diagnostic is not the most fascinating reading, but she does feel virtuous, justified in missing the stupid salon.
She could, of course, speed through the feed closest to Magdalena’s door, figure out who went to the tertulia and whether they are all still there, or whether most of them have left already … Maryam catches herself and slams shut the tiny projection she had just opened. This is ridiculous. She has just made up her mind to go to the tertulia, pride and laziness forsooth, when she gets a secure comms call from Nejime.
