by Malka Older
“Start at the beginning.” There’s a resignation to Mishima’s tone, but Amran is careful not to draw too much hope from that. She’s back in her flat in Nairobi, which is definitely not the living space of a cool, up-and-coming content designer, and other than identifying Gowri Misra—which should, she thinks, count for something—the only thing she has to show for her few days in Guelph is a place and a time for a job interview, five days hence.
“Why was this guy so eager for you to get the job?” Mishima asks. She sounds distracted.
“He gets a commission. Or something like that. For recruiting me.” Dalmar coached Amran on how to act during her interview: play it cool; don’t act like spying is a big deal; don’t try to know everything about the local neighborhood, because they’ll ask at least one trick question about an invented bit of trivia; be honest about how much time you can work. “They’re supposed to show me an example of how they compile intel during the meeting.”
“It’s good work,” Mishima says, her eyes coming back into focus on Amran, who is already listening for the but. “I just want to make sure you’re safe.” A pause. “We’ll have to extend your identity into Nairobi; they’ll probably track you.”
“Maybe not, if they’re trying to avoid Information?”
“Let’s assume they will,” Mishima says, gathering briskness as she goes. “So, you’ll need to go to your job.”
“At Puntland Studios?” Amran asks, startled. “You can—I can—I’ll be going there?”
“Of course,” Mishima snorts. “They were already on board to back up your story; they’ll be happy to take you on for a couple of weeks. I hope you were paying attention to diaspora culture, because they really are developing that series.”
“That’s … They … It’s really fine for me to pretend to work there?”
“Are you kidding? Content studios love this sort of thing, even when they can’t tell anyone about it. Maybe especially when they can’t tell anyone about it. It appeals to their sense of the dramatic.”
“What’s happening with the other thing?” Amran was trying to curb her curiosity, but she can’t resist.
“What other thing?”
“That former Information staffer.”
“Oh, Misra.” Mishima sighs, and Amran wonders if she knew her, had worked with her. “We suspect she left in a private crow, the day you arrived.”
Amran freezes. “Did she … Did they know?”
“Maybe, maybe not. It could be she finished her mission. You said an ad went up, right? There may have been no reason for her to stay longer.”
“Where did she go?” Amran asks, starting to recover from the idea of being made before she even started her work.
“We lost the crow over northern Europe.”
“Russia.”
“Maybe,” Mishima says, repressively, then sighs in admission. Of course it’s Russia; they already know significant numbers of ex-Information staffers are exiled there. “In any case, this intel you brought us, that they’re behind the false ads instead of Anarchy, puts a whole new spin on things.” Mishima waits, but Amran is still elated that she brought them worthwhile intel and has no interpretation to offer. “Anarchy seeks disruption for disruption’s sake. They have an anti-Information agenda but no plan for what to do instead. But these former Information staffers … they want something.”
“Revenge?”
Mishima’s mouth twists: Amran has worked for Information for only five years, and already she imagines vengeance as the first motive of her ex-colleagues. “I was thinking of a power grab, but you may be right.”
* * *
In the interests of finding the man with the tourist guide, Maryam stays at the same hotel in Dhaka, but when she arrives in the restaurant for dinner, the tout isn’t there. There are two couples sitting at tables, speaking Bengali and Sinhalese, according to her auto-interpreter, and a couple of men sitting separately at the bar, one apparently local and one who speaks to the waiter in Nepali. She hesitates at the corner to see if any of them offer her a tourist guide, but though the local glances at her while chewing, neither of them shows any sign of getting up. She decides to go out for dinner.
On her way down to the lobby, Maryam starts searching for restaurants. Her usual approach is to filter by distance and average review (and price, when she isn’t traveling for work), but she remembers what that tout said to her about finding the best—what was it, chotpoti?—through his guide. It occurs to her that she could try compiled tourist guides instead. She’s never really understood the point of those things: why take the time to read some fancy writing paired with artificially lit, unrealistically beautiful photos when all the relevant intel is so easily available? But if she’s going to look for illicit tourist guides, she should try to understand the appeal.
Maryam sits down on one of the extruded chairs in the lobby to read up, opening feeds to the three most popular tourist guides for this neighborhood of Dhaka and browsing on a comparison pattern. Her first impression is that guides are as useless as she thought. There’s a general agreement in tiering the local establishments that doesn’t vary far from her average review list. When she tries to narrow it down, the guides either hedge or disagree.
Some hits and misses, but great atmosphere.
On our first visit the curries were excellent, but the second time they were lackluster and the rice was cold.
Three of us loved the passion fruit lassis, but the rest of our team thought they were too sweet.
Then she reads a description of a macher jhol so mouthwatering that she immediately places her order and walks to the restaurant in question.
Maryam enjoys the food, and although she wouldn’t have been as hyperbolic as the reviewer, she comes away feeling satisfied, not cheated. That helps her understand why people use tourist guides, but why one that doesn’t use Information? What can this organization, so slapdash they have to hand-sell their wares in streets and hotel restaurants, provide that Information can’t?
* * *
Once again, Maryam finds herself looking forward to her visit to the sanatorium. She even has an outfit in mind to try on, and she flips cheerfully through the clothes until she finds it. Once she’s suitably retro, Saleha sends her on to Taskeen’s apartment, and Maryam dawdles to suck in the feeling of anachronism, peering in the windows at the jewelry store to see if she can find something quaint and romantic for Núria. She’s tempted to wander beyond Taskeen’s building, although she doesn’t think the site goes much farther, but she doesn’t want to be late, and instead climbs the stairs quickly. Taskeen opens the door before Maryam can knock: Saleha had called her (on a telephone!) to let her know Maryam was coming.
“Faster than I expected,” the older woman says, letting her in. “I do appreciate you coming; I wasn’t sure you would.”
The strict and probably patronizing speech Maryam had planned dissipates. “I didn’t realize you would need to contact me,” she says instead. “We should set up a more secure channel.”
Taskeen laughs as she turns on the kettle. “Was my message not coy enough? I’m afraid I’m a bit sheltered from all the miscreancy online. Part of why I like it here, to be honest.”
Maryam gets annoyed again with Taskeen’s cloistered-innocent act. “You had something to tell me?”
“Ah, yes,” Taskeen says, leading Maryam back to the computer room. “I’ve been thinking about these attacks on the data transfer stations. They must be stopped. I know you said no one has been hurt, but it’s only a matter of time…” She ignites the computer with a firm push of her thumb and turns around, stopping when she sees Maryam’s face.
“I was caught in an attack,” Maryam blurts.
“What?” Taskeen searches her face, then guides her over to the armchair and pulls her desk chair in front of it. “Tell me everything!”
Maryam stumbles through the story. The terror feels impossibly distant now, especially since she can’t conjure up pictures of the masks and
of the looming, painted towers of the former prison the way she would if she were telling it with Information available. Still, Taskeen seems affected.
“Poor dear,” she says, patting Maryam’s hand as she jumps up to get the tea. “I hope you’ve been taking it easy since your ordeal,” she adds, edging back in with the tray.
“Oh, uh.” It would have been easy to keep talking, spill straight into the uneasy tale of the Territorio de la Justicia and accept Taskeen’s comfort, but something holds her back. “I took a short vacation.” That segue seemed a little too careless, Taskeen a little too solicitous. “Made even shorter when I got your message.”
“Of course,” Taskeen replies briskly, handing Maryam her cup. “We should get to work. I do hope coming out here is worth your time.”
“The attacks have to be stopped,” Maryam says, feeling bad about the sharpness.
“I couldn’t agree more!” Taskeen has rolled her chair over to the computer. “In the interest of that goal—I don’t suppose you can share the data from their diagnostic with me?”
“Oh—I have it, yes, but I didn’t convert it.”
Taskeen opens her mouth, and Maryam thinks she’s about to say she has developed her own translation program, but instead she shakes her head. “Tomorrow, then? Don’t forget to ask Saleha to convert it when you come in. It will be very useful. I was thinking that instead of trying to stop them with security measures, which is impractical given the number of sites and risks greater violence, we should remove their reason for being there.”
“We don’t know their reason for being there,” Maryam objects.
“We know they want to take control of Information infrastructure.” Taskeen spins away from the computer and skewers Maryam with her gaze. “I am sure of it, Maryam; that’s their game. They can’t do anything without the hardware, or they wouldn’t be taking such risks. That infrastructure is your capital. You—we—have invested in it over decades. That, along with Information’s more fragile and less transferable legitimacy, is your advantage; it is the barrier to entry that prevents you from being overrun by competitors.”
“You almost make that sound like a bad thing,” Maryam comments.
“Well.” Taskeen holds her eyes for a moment longer, then whirls back to her computer screen. “Whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing is, I suppose, a problem for the economists or the sociologists, not us techies.” Maryam can’t tell whether she’s being sarcastic. “But if you want to maintain control, you must protect that infrastructure at all costs!”
“But not with security?”
“Security is great,” Taskeen says. “But it will take too long to raise your security levels at all the transfer stations. They’re obviously targeting the election. If you can stave them off for—what is it now, a few weeks?”
“Twelve days,” Maryam says, amused that Taskeen doesn’t know.
“I’m sure they’ll try something different after that, but if you can block the current attempt, it will take some time for them to think up something new. You can use that time to enhance physical security. So, what we want is to keep them from accomplishing what they’re trying to do at the transfer stations. Some kind of quick software change that can be implemented across all the stations immediately.”
“They’ve already hacked in once.”
“Yes, but remember their time limits! They only have a brief time on site before security shows up, and only eighteen days before the election. A software change will probably foil at least one attempt and possibly delay them enough to put off the whole plot.” She spins back to Maryam, smiling now. “Come on! I’m sure you and I can put something fun together in a day or two!”
There’s a knock on the door. Maryam jerks out of the reverie inspired by the thought of working together with Taskeen Khan. Taskeen looks just as startled as she is.
“I wonder who that could be,” the older woman says, jumping to her feet. “I’m not expecting anyone.” Maryam follows her to the door in time to see an apologetic Saleha and, behind her in the corridor, a neatly built man who looks to be in early middle age.
“So sorry to bother you while you have a guest,” Saleha says, “but this gentleman wanted to see you. He said your mutual friend Nejime recommended he stop by? I was going to call, but…”
“Oh!” Maryam blurts, blushes, and then starts again, turning to the stranger. “Won’t you join us for some tea? I know Nejime as well; I’m sure we’ll have a lot to catch up on.”
Saleha gives Taskeen a questioning glance before stepping out of the way, but the old woman nods with her eyes on Maryam. A moment later, Saleha has waggled her goodbyes and the three of them are moving into the kitchen. Maryam’s face is still burning: she wonders if she just flunked her first spycraft test. She takes a moment to marvel at the unexpected directions her career has taken over the last few weeks.
The stranger speaks first. “Rajiv,” he says, holding out a hand to Taskeen, then to Maryam. When Taskeen brings her hand away, it’s folded around something, and she works the miniscule item out to the tips of her fingers. Rajiv taps his ear.
Taskeen looks amused. “You’re not supposed to bring this in here,” she says, but she fixes the auto-interpreter into her ear anyway.
“Nejime asked me to stop by and offer some suggestions on secure communications.” Rajiv looks comfortable and composed, a light smile on his face as if he hadn’t just sauntered into a stranger’s house. He’s no taller than Maryam and built wide—a broad flat chest, a wide face—but it is not until Maryam registers that he’s speaking Nepali that she remembers where she saw him before.
“You were in my hotel last night!”
Rajiv’s smile grows as Taskeen looks back and forth between the two of them. “Yes, I was. Well spotted.”
Maryam doesn’t mention that she only noticed him because she was looking for a tourist-guide tout.
“So, secure communications, is it?” Taskeen shoots Maryam a look that says, as clearly as a private message, This joker is going to come in and explain to us, us, how to manage coded intel? “Do go on.”
Rajiv can’t have missed the look, but he doesn’t lose his smile as he starts flipping projections into the air.
Fortunately for him, the training has nothing to do with coding. He’s there to teach them how to navigate the world of Information without attracting the attention of those who might be looking for you, or looking for the same bit of data you are. They spend the morning talking about non-programming methods of infosecurity, and he defers to Taskeen whenever the subject even comes close. “I’m not going to tell you how to code your way into pretending you’re someone you’re not—you’d know much more about that than I would.” He nods at the older woman. “But these are a few ways where you can shape your footprint on Information to reduce your exposure. They won’t protect you as much as a manufactured identity, but they are less intensive and—the big advantage—will not give you away if they fail the way a new identity or other flash coding approaches will.”
Taskeen sniffs at that—Maryam can almost hear her retorting, My covers don’t fail—but listens as Rajiv explains about drop-sites in plazas, misdirection, overcrowding, and oblique searches. “Most of these are venerable techniques, adapted for the digital world.”
“What about using the telephone?” Taskeen indicates hers, possibly facetiously.
“Too easily bugged,” Rajiv answers, and moves on. In the safety of the sanatorium, where Information has no feeds or (publicly avowed) interfaces, they practice designing parameters for searches, communications, and travel. “Information claims to be transparent, but that is deceptive,” he says. “Look at where the attention of the world is focused and use that glare to distract from what you’re doing.”
“For example, the election?” Taskeen suggests.
“Exactly.”
Maryam stays quiet, wondering if the tension between them is something more than the jousting between experts in competing fields.
After three hours, Taskeen begs off, claiming a fatigue that Maryam can’t quite believe, but Rajiv doesn’t seem surprised or disappointed. “If it’s acceptable to both of you,” he says, a phrase that Maryam reads as a concession to politeness rather than a request for permission, “we’ll meet here again tomorrow morning to continue, and then you and I”—nodding at Maryam—“will practice street security.” He turns to Taskeen. “I take it that sort of training is not useful for you?”
“Of course it isn’t,” Taskeen says. “I almost never leave the compound, and only reluctantly for unmissable family events.”
Rajiv and Maryam leave the sanatorium together, which seems to comfort Saleha—she waves them a cheerful goodbye—but it also allows Rajiv to lean in just before the outer door opens and ask, “Do you trust her?”
By the time Maryam has finished gaping in surprise, they are out on the street, back under the feeds, and she doesn’t know how to answer. She shuts her mouth and watches the passersby—a series of six skinny men in dhotis carrying piles of bricks on their shoulders, a gaggle of college students in bright colors—until her overworked brain has finished porting over what he taught them about Information to the real world. Then she waits until a truck lumbers by, and covers her mouth with a corner of her headscarf, pretending to cough. “I’m not sure,” she says, loudly enough for Rajiv to hear over the clatter of the vehicle, and then quickly blinks through the surrounding feeds to make sure neither her voice nor her lip movements appeared on any of them.
“Not bad,” Rajiv says, face turned toward her as if in concern over her cough. “But check the feeds first, ideally not in such an obvious way, and then you can use angles instead of cloth. Subtler.” He grins, then goes serious again with startling swiftness. “I’m interested to hear more of your experience with her. She’s such a legend but…” Maryam raises her eyebrows. “I have concerns. We’ll revisit the question tomorrow?”
