Absence of Mind

by H. C. H. Ritz

  He sits down.

  Mila continues to type furiously. By frequently asking the computer for extendedreports of technical details, she keeps her own commands scrolling up too fast for the agents to catch.

  Mary to Phoebe:

  << Good luck, Phoebe! I‘m sure it‘s all a misunderstanding and you‘ll be fine. Hang in there, and don‘t let them violate your rights. >>

  Aziz to other agents:

  << Fine, I’m going to get some coffee. Anybody else want any? >>

  Reuben to Aziz:

  << Yeah, me. Cream and sugar. >>

  Paulen to Aziz:

  << Yeah, black. >>

  Reuben leans against the door.

  Chris to Phoebe:

  << Maintain that right to remain silent, and don‘t speak without an attorney present. >>

  Phillips says, "You‘ll need to turn off your wi-fi, Ms. Bremer."

  In between commands devoted to her legitimate task, Mila has entered:

  > text only

  > noconfirm

  > ghostmode

  > isearch airport code Zanesville OH

  The response comes back:

  CMH

  She raises an eyebrow at Phillips’ comment. "I have to have on my wi-fi or I can‘t communicate with her Navi." She points at Phoebe.

  Paulen to Phillips:

  << Idiot. >>

  Phillips says, "Well, remember what we said. No communications."

  Paulen to Phillips:

  << Watch for emails or IMs or other internet use. It can‘t be that hard to tell if she‘s writing an email. >>

  Phillips eyes Mila’s screen. She enters more commands, resulting in more status reports filling the screen, so that those lines fly past. It’s obvious that she doesn’t have an email client, web browser, or IM app open, so Phillips doesn’t interfere.

  The agent comes back with coffee, which the men accept with Navi’d thanks.

  Phoebe has her eyes closed. She’s started a calming meditation.

  Between legitimate commands, and while keeping the text flying past too quickly to read, Mila looks up three Navi IDs and then types rapidly. She sends a message to Richard Sarran that apparently (but didn’t) come from Julian Overbridge, telling him to transfer Mrs. Bremer from wherever she is to an anonymous person, then tells Jerry Armstead to meet Mrs. Bremer in disguise and fly with her to Cleveland, Ohio:

  > vmsg nid LT05465888 use nid AX02094835 use voicefile AX02094835 “transfer mrs bremer to 715 Main arriving 3 pm, allow pickup from anonymous”

  > email nid QW02209200 “email of your mom, explain later”

  > isearch first flight ATL -> CMH >1500 hrs

  flight 2378 departing 1540

  > vmsg nid ZA02897349 use nid QW02209200 “meet mrs bremer in disguise at 715 Main at 3 pm, take flight 2378 meet mrs bernhart at CMH explain nothing”

  > cmd nid ZA02897349 shutdown -restart 30m -start 14:45

  new msg 2938

  > read msg 2938

  msg 2938 “Doesn’t have. You can leave her a phone message at 740-345-2783. It is a community phone.”

  > vmail phone 7403452783 use nid QW02209200 “mrs bernhart your daughter needs you to meet mrs bremer at CMH flight 2378 today critical explain later”

  Finally, after requesting more data to fill the screen and hide those commands, she types:

  > ghostmode off

  > cmd nid QW02209200 comms-down

  Mila closes the command line window with an emphatic mouse click. "Done," she announces, and she looks up at the agents, her gaze cloaked.

  Paulen turns toward Phoebe. << Navi, police-check Navi ID QW02209200 status. >>

  A moment later, a message pings Paulen. << Navi ID QW02209200: communications disabled. Unauthorized third-party programming installed. Further status unavailable. >>

  Aloud, Paulen says, “Good enough. Phillips, take Bremer’s laptop away and get those cuffs back on her. Let‘s go.”

  It takes over an hour for fingerprints and photos to be taken and my purse and possessions and clothes to be taken away in a large ziplock bag. I’m given a green jumpsuit, although I get to keep my flip-flops, which look ridiculous with the jumpsuit. Now it’s me and three other women in a dimly lit concrete cell in a federal holding facility. The other women look rough, their expressions cold and closed, like they’ve been here before. They don’t speak to me when I walk in, so I don’t speak to them, either. Instead, I play Solitaire and watch a movie from the jail library on my Navi and try not to freak out.

  I’m out of touch with everyone I know. I’m missing everything. I can’t help Jamie, who still has his Navi in place, trying to turn his brain into mush, and my right side is still hopelessly weak… but at least I can keep myself distracted. And if all else fails, I can talk to my Navi, even if it’s cut off from everything other than the local jail network.

  I tell myself that it’s not pathetic to talk to your Navi if you don’t have anyone else to talk to.

  Waves of cold and trembling keep coming over me, and I keep chasing them away by telling myself that we’re innocent, that either this is some kind of wildly improbable misunderstanding or we’re being set up and that either way, the whole thing is going to go away as soon as our attorney gets involved. We’ll be out of here by the end of the day. Maybe a day or two at the worst. That’s what I keep telling myself. We can’t possibly have run afoul of the FBI in any legitimate way. Not without even knowing it, for heaven’s sake.

  Someone comes to the cell, and I straighten up apprehensively. It’s a guard unlocking the door. He jerks his head at me. “You got your attorney here. Follow me.”

  Thank you, Chris. Bless you, Chris.

  A few minutes later, I’m seated in a bare, ugly room across from a Mr. Pataky, a heavy man with a bushy mustache. He has a dramatic way of speaking, with a lot of broad gestures. “—it’s important that you tell me everything, okay? Nothing you tell me can get you into any more trouble than you’re already in, because we have attorney-client privilege. Do you understand what that means?”

  He goes on before I have a chance to respond.

  “Attorney-client privilege means that anything you say to me is privileged, which means I can’t divulge it to any third parties, including the judge and law enforcement. It means you’re safe to say whatever you need to say. But I don’t want to know whether or not you did it, so don’t tell me. Do you understand?”

  “Yes…”

  “But here’s what you do tell me. You do tell me the truth. Everything that you tell me, tell me the truth.” He shakes a finger at me. “Now, what do you tell me?”

  “The… truth?”

  “Right. Okay, now—charges.” He glances at something in his Navi. “You are charged with accessory to multiple counts of cybercrimes. Do you understand the charges against you?”

  “No,” I say vehemently. “I have no idea what they’re talking about.”

  “Cybercrimes is a catch-all phrase that includes cyber-based terrorism, espionage, computer intrusions, and cyber fraud. That means any of those things—terrorism, espionage, fraud, invasions of privacy—that are done using a computer or a Navi.”

  He glances at something in his display. “You are being accused of being an accessory to Mila Bremer. You know this woman?”

  I’m momentarily surprised, but then, of course he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on. “Yes, I do.”

  “What is your relationship to her?”

  My mouth gapes open for a moment as I wonder for myself what our relationship is.

  “Friends?” he prods. “Coworkers? Spouses? Romantic partners?”

  “No, no,” I hasten to say. “Um… really, acquaintances, at least right up until we started working together on this Navi project.”

  “Fine. Acquaintances. What was the nature of this Navi project? But don’t reveal anything that is criminal. Some defense attorneys like to know the whole picture, but I believe I can defend you best if I don’t know w
hat you’ve done. Remember, I don’t want to know whether you did anything criminal or not. Is that clear? What don’t I want to know?”

  “Anything criminal we did. But we didn’t do anything—”

  “That’s fine. What was this Navi project?”

  “I asked her to help me figure out what was wrong with my brother. You’ve heard about Hyper-Aggression Disorder?”

  “Yes, what about it?”

  “Mila had a theory that it was being caused by people’s Navis, and I was having her investigate that.”

  He looks disappointed. “Hyper-Aggression Disorder is caused by problems with some part of the brain—the amig, amid—”

  “Amygdalae.”

  “Right, that, and Navis don’t interact with that part of the brain. They’re hard—”

  “They’re not hard-wired,” I snap. “Navis can send signals anywhere in the brain, and they are hackable. Mila has already determined that the nanobots used during installation have been deliberately hacked to move into the amygdalae and overstimulate it. You want cybercrimes—that’s it, right there. We were trying to uncover it so something could be done about it.”

  He leans back in his chair for a moment. “Oh, I see. You’re after the real bad guys.” He sounds patronizing.

  “In point of fact, yes. And while we’re sitting here wasting our—”

  He leans across the table. “And you have proof of all this, I suppose?”

  “Yes, we have proof. It’s all on Mila’s laptop. She can show—”

  “Then it’s already in the hands of the authorities, because her laptop will have been confiscated.” He looks again at his display. “I see no prior convictions for you. Is that right?”

  Again, I’m openmouthed for a moment. “Of course I have no prior convictions. I’m not a criminal.”

  “Fine, fine. Now, listen, do you understand that you have the option of being tried before a jury of your peers or before a judge?”

  Again, he goes on without waiting for me to answer.

  “I explain to everyone that they have the option of a jury or a judge trial. But that’s assuming we get as far as trial, which we probably won’t. We’ll probably plea bargain so you can serve the least amount of time possible. For now, to give us time to develop your defense, you’ll plead ‘not guilty.’ This preserves your right to a trial—whether judge or jury—in the very unlikely possibility that we go to trial. Any objections to pleading not guilty?”

  “Of course not, since—”

  “You must understand that it doesn’t matter whether you’re guilty or not, and please remember that I don’t want to know whether you’re guilty or not. Even if you’re not guilty, if we can arrange a better plea bargain than the sentence you’ll likely get in a trial—which is probable—then we’ll change your plea to guilty. A plea bargain is where you don’t dispute the charges, and in exchange, we ask for a concession from the prosecutor. It may result in changing your charge from felony to misdemeanor, or it may reduce the number of counts, which is currently at twelve—”

  “Twelve? I have twelve counts against me?”

  “Twelve counts of felony cybercrimes, yes.”

  “Oh God,” I whisper. I put my head in my hands, and Mr. Pataky keeps talking to my hands.

  “As I was saying, the plea bargain can reduce the severity or number of counts against you, and it’s possible, although not terribly likely, that you could end up with time served—which is likely to be a number of weeks or months if we can’t get you out on bail—plus a lengthy—”

  “Weeks or months?” It has taken only moments for my house of cards of denial to be blown down by gusts of reality.

  “Unless we can get you out on bail. That’s a separate issue and one we’ll get to in a moment. Now it’s time for you to make up your mind about how you want to plea. I suggest we begin with ‘not guilty.’” And he falls silent.

  I try to disbelieve everything he has said, pretend it never happened. But he’s still sitting there, and I’m still sitting in a featureless room wearing a green jumpsuit and shackles. Nothing can make this not be true.

  “If I plea bargain, then I don’t get a day in court. So how do I tell the judge about what’s happening here? That we’re trying to uncover some kind of… cyberterrorism plot? Something needs to be done about this, and urgently. As far as I know, and as improbable as it may sound, we were the only people in the country who were even on the right track.”

  “If you plea bargain, you won’t have a day in court. You’ll have a hearing and be sentenced, and that’ll be the end of it.”

  “Then I don’t want to do that. I need to tell the judge—or someone—about what’s happening. If they’re stopping us, then someone else has to pick up where we left off. Someone has to do something.”

  Mr. Pataky leans back and rubs his eyes. Then he sighs gustily. “Your friend is also charged with hacking into the Navis of four other people.”

  I blink at him. “She is?”

  He nods.

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know who they are. But there were five altogether, including your brother. And she’s being charged with hacking into a national database of Navi IDs, and—”

  “Wait a minute. Five?”

  He nods. “What about it?”

  “Five is the number of patients that I had obtained consent from in order to investigate HAD. What are the names of the people? I’ll recognize them if they’re my patients.”

  He reads the names off his display.

  “Yes, those are my patients.”

  “Wait, wait, wait. Hold on.” He leans forward and speaks with emphasis. “Are you telling me that all of these people are patients that explicitly granted consent to have their Navis investigated?”

  “In writing. I have the paperwork. Well, I had the paperwork when I had access to the internet,” I amend. “We could have the hospital send it to you. Does the FBI not know that they were my patients and that they gave consent and that Mila is an approved Navi technician?” I can’t keep the annoyance and frustration out of my voice.

  Mr. Pataky looks at something in his display while he speaks thoughtfully. “It’s not a felony to tamper with the Navis. It’s a felony to hack into people’s Navis without their consent, but if you’ve got consent, it’s only a misdemeanor. Let me check the statutes. Give me a moment.”

  I put my head in my hands again and try harder to wish this whole thing away.

  Mr. Pataky reads portions of sentences out loud as he scans pages in his display. I don’t understand any of them.

  “Ah-ha! Here we are. Thought so. It’s a misdemeanor. That reduces your charges significantly. If you plea bargain, you can end up with community service or something. Tell me what hospital it is and what the consents are called and everything else I need to know in order to submit a request for those specific documents.”

  After I do so, he goes on, “Now, look, it’s time for your bail hearing in a few hours. You don’t speak unless the judge asks you a direct question. I’m your attorney. I represent you, so I’ll do the talking. Do you understand that?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “I’ll do my best to get you out on the lowest bail possible. What are your financial resources?”

  I shake my head, my mouth dry. “I don’t think I have any. Mila does. I can only hope that she would pay my bail as well as her own.”

  “If not, you can probably get a bail bondsman to cover your bail, depending on the amount. You’ll only have to put down 10 percent. How much money does Mila have? Never mind, I’ll talk to her next. I’ll ask her.”

  I shake my head again. “A fair amount, I think.” I consider the fact that she was willing to pay me $2,500 every week for a time. “At least ten thousand?”

  “Well, that’s probably not enough to cover more than one of you, assuming it’s even enough to cover one of you. But your bail should be lower, since you’re only being charged with accessory to the crimes. I’ll advi
se her to bail you out, and then we’ll probably arrange a bondsman for her. That’s if I can talk them down. We’ll see what happens. It all depends on the whim of the judge and the skill of the prosecutor.” He stands up and heads for the door. “Watch some movies and take your mind off all this. It’s all you can do for now. They’ll bring you to the courthouse in a few hours.”

  The next time I see Mila, we’re getting shackled to the same length of chain at the holding facility to be transported to the courthouse. I’m surprised at how urgently I want to reach out to her, touch her, reassure her. Her face is drawn and pale. She looks exhausted. She only glances at me and says nothing.

  Another woman is added to our chain, which reach our wrists as well as ankles. She’s another tight-lipped woman, emaciated like she’s done too many drugs.

  They put us into a van like they did after they booked us. A short ride later, we’re taken out and escorted into the courthouse through a back door, down carpeted hallways, and then into the courtroom by another back entrance. Once there, a female security guard watches us with casual distrust.

  The courtroom is imposing. Everything is designed to intimidate, from the height of the judge’s bench to the stone walls and the way sound echoes, making me self-conscious of every cough or shift in position. The floors are blue carpet, and the seal of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Georgia is on the floor and on the wall behind the judge’s chair. An American flag hangs behind the chair, too.

  The three of us are seated to the side of the courtroom in a small row of chairs. No one is behind the bench yet. No one sits in the few rows of seats in the audience area or in the jury box. A handful of attorneys in dark suits are at two tables in the center of the room, staring into their Navis. Mr. Pataky sees us and immediately comes over.