Sunfall

by Jim Al-Khalili

  What did he need it for? Had she just made a huge mistake trusting these people? A new wave of panic swept through her. Lambros must have caught the look on her face because he smiled broadly. ‘You do want your ticket to America, don’t you?’

  Shireen was astonished. He must have been there during her VR meeting with Evren. But, surely, he couldn’t have set this up so quickly?

  ‘How could you have known …’

  ‘… that you need to get to New York? To meet Dr Sarah Maitlin? But we’ve known all along. We’ve been monitoring all activity on Hashimi’s pad since you first started researching Dr Maitlin’s background and we guessed, correctly as it turns out, that she would be the one you would reach out to with your, um, new revelations.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ he added when Shireen recoiled in horror, ‘Savak have no idea. And as far as we can tell, neither do Interpol. They don’t have the sort of access to the activities of our community on the dark web that we do. Nor do they have loyal friends like Hashimi. If they did, we wouldn’t survive for long.’

  Reluctantly, Shireen held out her arm and he held his wristpad above hers for a couple of seconds.

  ‘There you are. Your new ID and flight ticket to New York. Now then, there’s something else you’re going to need if you’re to stand a chance.’

  He was holding a tiny capsule between his thumb and forefinger, which he now held out to her. She felt a surge of excitement as she carefully took the small metal cylinder from him. Following his mimed instruction, she twisted open the top to reveal a grey sphere smaller than a garden pea, which she tipped into her palm.

  She’d heard rumours of such e-pills. Their micro-SD cards had a storage capacity of half a zettabyte, equivalent to the capacity of the entire internet thirty years ago. But this was the first time she had seen one. So, this was her reward, the piece of nanotechnology that was to help her deliver the files. Evren must have been very confident she would tell her everything she wanted.

  ‘You must swallow it now,’ said Lambros. ‘It has micro-grappling hooks that will activate when it hits the lining of your stomach to anchor it. It then sits there, drawing power from your body heat, for forty-eight hours before detaching itself.

  ‘As you know, wherever you are, biometrical scanners are in constant operation – facial recognition, iris identification, gait, everything. The pill detects the scanners and sends them fake information. This technology will be much more effective than that squelch jammer you’ve been using.’

  Shireen let the remark slide. She still had Hashimi’s jammer in the rucksack and was hoping to be able to keep hold of it. She stared at the tiny device in her hand. ‘What you’re saying is that it essentially makes me invisible?’

  ‘Not quite. What it cannot do, of course, is help you if you undergo a DNA g-scan, so let’s hope that isn’t necessary.’ Shireen knew full well that a physical DNA sample could not be faked; if she had to go through one at the airport then the game was up.

  ‘But surely, getting through security means I’ll need to pass through a scanner. Won’t the pill itself show up?’ Shireen guessed that the pill’s developers would have thought of this but wasn’t expecting the answer she got.

  ‘Don’t worry, the pill itself is completely undetectable.’

  Shireen shook her head in disbelief. ‘But … ultrasound scanners are designed to look for just this sort of thing. They’d see it even if it was the size of a grain of sand. It’s—’

  Lambros held up his hand, interrupting her. ‘The pill is coated with a metamaterial layer.’

  Shireen had heard of the new smart materials that could be used as cloaking devices. Their optical properties meant they could bend light around them and make themselves invisible. ‘But … the scanners I’ll have to go through at the airport are not electromagnetic. The pill may be invisible to light, but not to high-frequency ultrasound.’

  Lambros grinned, his white teeth gleaming in the dimly lit corridor. ‘You ask too many questions. The pill is coated with a tuneable metapaint that reacts to soundwaves rather than light. Its properties are altered as soon as it detects the high-frequency signal hitting it and it takes less than a microsecond for it to adjust and react to that wavelength. Then … well, for all intents and purposes, it simply disappears.

  ‘Your flight is in four hours, but the e-pill won’t activate for another hour or two, so you’ll still need your quaint jammer to get you to the airport, I’m afraid.’

  Shireen stared at him while her brain processed this information. Neither of them had moved from outside the door of the room she had exited. Lambros was still looking down at her expectantly. When she couldn’t think of a reason to stall any longer, she placed the pill on her tongue and swallowed.

  16

  Monday, 11 February – Tehran

  There they were again – the two Savak agents, a man and a woman, that she had spotted earlier. They were getting uncomfortably close. Luckily, they hadn’t actually seen her yet, having, she hoped, only tracked her to the busy shopping mall from the trail of blocked CCTV cameras where she’d used her jammer. Pulling her hood up to hide her face, Shireen kept walking as briskly as she dared, out of the mall and across the street, following the signs to the maglev station. She hardly noticed the driving rain.

  At the station, she was relieved to see there were no biometric scanners and she was able to purchase a ticket with her new ID while keeping her face hidden under the hood. Boarding the maglev train, she found a seat – near the door just in case a hasty exit was required. Wiping the rain from her eyes, she took off her rucksack. For all her tiredness, it felt as if every nerve in her body was on high alert. Only when the doors closed and the train started to move did she begin to relax. As they picked up speed, gliding smoothly above the busy Tehran streets, Shireen closed her eyes and thought back over the events of the past few days.

  Her hope was that Savak would fail to anticipate that she’d try to leave the country, that they’d assume she was smart enough not to attempt something so preposterous. She looked around the maglev carriage again. She’d have to change seats soon since jamming any camera for more than a minute or two would raise alarms. Luckily the fifty-kilometre journey out to the airport wouldn’t take long. She turned to look out the window. Rivulets of water ran horizontally on the outside of the glass as the maglev skimmed silently along its monorail track at three hundred kilometres per hour.

  She was snapped back to reality when a shrill shout behind her pierced the hubbub of conversation in the carriage. ‘SHIREEN DARVISH, STAND UP AND TURN AROUND SLOWLY.’

  Turning, she saw the female Savak agent standing a few metres away, stun gun aimed directly at her. Fuck. What a fool she’d been. Raising her arms slowly, she stood and faced the agent.

  She heard a woman behind her scream and was aware of several other passengers in her peripheral vision slowly and silently edging away from their seats and moving to the far end of the carriage. A sudden, unexpected calm washed over her and the analytical part of her brain immediately began to rationalize why this might be. Was it relief that this was finally Game Over? Or was it just her way of coping with extreme stress? After all, the situation was so ridiculous that it didn’t seem real. Yes, that was it. It just didn’t feel like any of this was really happening. In fact, she had encountered scenarios like this on numerous occasions while immersed in VR gaming simulations.

  She contemplated the stun gun pointing at her chest and ran through her options. What would she do if this really were a computer game? An urgent voice in her head told her that the only sensible option was to surrender, then this whole futile adventure would be over.

  She surprised herself by deciding to ignore the voice. Had she really come this far just to give up now? But what were the alternatives? Maybe feigning docile compliance before suddenly striking? No. Ridiculous. This was the real world and she was just a computer nerd, not a highly trained assassin with special skills or hidden weapons. The woman was
small and stocky, not much taller than Shireen, and Shireen didn’t fancy her chances in a fight, even without a gun pointing at her.

  However, the choice was made for her. The train suddenly decelerated as it approached its stop. Shireen grabbed the side of the seat to steady herself, but the agent, holding the stun gun up with both arms, lost her balance and fell forward. It was all Shireen needed and instinct took over. Bending forward, she charged, her leading left shoulder connecting with the agent’s chin with a crunch. The agent gasped and stumbled backward, hitting her head hard on a handrail in the middle of the carriage and landing on the floor with Shireen on top of her.

  Shireen sat up, astride the dazed agent’s midriff, and looked around. The train had now stopped, and the carriage doors slid open. Most of the passengers were scrambling to leave, and the few standing on the platform ready to board took one look at the scene in the carriage and hesitated. However, a handful had decided to gather round and enjoy the action, gawping at the two women on the floor, by their glazed stares each making a retinal recording, no doubt for immediate uploading on social media. But thankfully, no one tried to intervene.

  Shireen spied the agent’s gun lying on the floor a metre away and smiled to herself. She’d wasted countless hours playing ‘shoot ’em up’ video games and regarded herself as something of an expert on all types of firearms, whether standard issue or illegal. This was a Leyden Taser. It fired two tiny needles, delivering a painful electric shock, instantly incapacitating the victim for a few minutes.

  The doors closed, and the train began to move again. The agent let out a groan and lifted her hand to her head. Shireen rolled off her and reached for the gun just as the agent opened her eyes and sat up. Without thinking, she pointed it and pulled the trigger. The stun gun fizzed, and the darts embedded themselves in the agent’s neck.

  The agent jolted and arched her back as the electromagnetic pulse shot through her body, then quickly slumped back into unconsciousness. Shireen stood and turned to face the other passengers. She felt trapped. Even though the gun would need reloading, she held it up, arms outstretched, and swivelled round, taking it through 360 degrees. Most of the passengers took a step back, but a couple simply held their ground. She knew she wouldn’t be able to stop them uploading their footage immediately, each one trying to be the first to report the incident in the hope of it going viral. So, she had very little time to do what she needed. Her mind was racing. One more stop before the airport: Rahahan Square and the Central Station where intercity trains left for Qom, Isfahan and Shiraz in the south, Mashhad in the east and Tabriz in the west. Could she still pull this off? She had to try. ‘You all saw what happened. I’m not a criminal, but I need to get away to clear my name. Please don’t stop me getting off at Rahahan. I have to catch my train out of the city.’

  To her astonishment, several people began to applaud. Others nodded approval. Of course. People hated Savak. Those of her grandparents’ generation had many stories to tell, but even they admitted that the agency had gained further notoriety in recent years, as though trying to make up the lost forty-five years of Islamic state rule during which it had been disbanded. She walked slowly towards the doors as people backed away, opening up a route for her. She never once lowered the gun. After all, she had not spotted the second agent yet. He must by now know what had happened.

  The two minutes to the next stop were the longest of her life. Police at Rahahan station would surely have been alerted by now – would there be a welcoming committee on the platform already? At least no one on the train seemed interested in trying to overpower her; they were a passive audience eager to see how the incident played out.

  Just as the train began to slow, a crazy idea popped into her head. It could make all the difference and it might just work. She returned quickly to the unconscious agent. The woman was far heavier than she’d expected, but she summoned up all her energy reserves and slowly pulled her up into a sitting position against a seat where she would have a clear view of the maglev doors. However, she needed the agent conscious for what she had in mind. She slapped her across the face. No response. She slapped her again, harder this time, and the agent’s eyes slowly flickered open. Good. She was pinning her hopes on the woman not being able to move very quickly just yet, while her muscles recovered from the electric shock, but she would hopefully be conscious enough to activate her AR and record the next few seconds.

  Shireen grabbed her rucksack from the seat and rushed towards the doors just as they swished open. Moments ago, she had felt utterly exhausted – now, she was buzzing. Without looking back, she squeezed through the throng of passengers trying to board. No welcome committee, thank God. Once on the platform, she pushed her way past the crowds towards the exit, ignoring their curses and angry shouts. Looking back, she caught a momentary glimpse of the Savak agent stumbling from the carriage before she was hidden from view. Shireen had no time left. If the agent managed to keep the train at the station it would be all over. She felt a wave of relief on hearing the warning bleeps signalling departure. At the last moment, she dived back onto the train through the doors of the last carriage just as they were sliding shut. The train began to move again, and she turned to hide her face from the platform side.

  Had she done enough? The agent had seen her get off and the passengers would corroborate her stated intention to catch a train out of Tehran. If all went to plan, the authorities would be hunting for her in and around the vast Central Station for long enough to buy her the time she needed to board her flight. She chose a seat towards the back of the carriage and, for the second time in the space of a few minutes, slumped down exhausted, grateful that the other passengers were ignoring her.

  The squelch jammer could still do the trick of disrupting the airport security cameras, but she should now assume the new identity that Evren had provided for her. There would surely be heightened security at the airport, but if the e-pill she’d taken did what it was meant to then any cameras and scanners running surveillance software would register her fake ID. She sighed inwardly: it was a big if. She just hoped that there were no Savak agents at the airport, as they wouldn’t need to rely on biometric software to identify her.

  On arrival, she made her way through the airport terminal without further incident. Reluctantly, she dropped the jammer into a bin as she passed. It had taken her this far, but she couldn’t afford to be caught with it at security. Next hurdle: the departures gate. Ahead of her, just as she’d anticipated, were the ultrasound scanners. Crunch time. The e-pill should have activated by now, but would it get picked up in the scanner? She had no choice but to keep going. She stepped into the pod, and the reinforced glass screen swished closed behind her as she followed the pictorial instructions and raised both arms above her head. Time stood still. The scan took only a few seconds, but it seemed to last for ever. Lowering her arms, she turned to wait for the exit door to slide open. Instead, a disembodied voice above her head announced: ‘Scan inconclusive. Please turn around, placing your feet on the marked spots again, and raise your arms over your head.’

  She resumed the position. Her heart was pounding. Stay calm. Stay calm.

  Finally, the door swished open and she was through, her panic replaced with euphoria. That clever little pill had come through after all.

  Her flight had already begun boarding by the time she reached the gate. Joining the back of the queue, she shuffled along with the other passengers, most of whom looked like businessmen and -women, and all seemed preoccupied with their retinal feeds. She wondered why boarding was so slow.

  It was only when she got to within a few metres of the gate that she saw the reason for the delay: a security guard holding a DNA g-scanner, taking micro skin samples from each passenger.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  So near, and yet so far. She was overcome with a sense of despair and felt close to tears. Was the genetic scanner a recent addition? Was it there for her? Turning around as casually as she dared, she started head
ing back the way she’d come. She just needed a few moments to think and regain her composure. She hadn’t come this far only to fail now.

  She had reached the end of the queue and was almost back in the open departure area again when she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me, miss, could you come with me?’ The burly security guard towered over her. He was in his thirties and looked to be wearing a uniform several sizes too small for him. His cap, pulled down over his eyes, covered a mop of long, unruly hair.

  Panicking, she jerked away from him, trying to twist her body free, but the hand on her shoulder tightened with a steely grip, his fingers digging into her painfully. ‘I wouldn’t try that if I were you,’ he hissed, ‘you really wouldn’t get very far.’ Several passengers turned to stare. She looked up at the guard and nodded weakly. With his hand still firmly gripping her shoulder he led her away from the gate.

  As they walked, he said quietly: ‘You are Shireen Darvish, aren’t you?’

  She looked at him silently. So the game was up.

  ‘That g-scan would have revealed your identity, so you panicked, right?’

  You were clearly picked for this job because of your astonishingly sharp intellect. Shireen no longer had the stomach for her usual defiance. ‘Did I look that guilty?’

  The guard grinned. ‘No, I knew what you looked like because Mother Cyb described you to me. I’ve been expecting you.’ He took his hand away from her shoulder.

  Shireen recoiled in shock. How could Evren betray her? Why would she betray her now? Why let her get this far? It didn’t make sense.

  The guard saw the shock on her face and his grin grew even wider, showing several crooked teeth. ‘Hey, stop panicking. My job was to ensure you boarded this flight safely, which means bypassing the g-scan. To be honest, we weren’t expecting this level of security just yet, but you must have triggered something.’ Then he added, somewhat sheepishly, ‘You know, I’m a big admirer of what you’ve done, as are all of us in the cyb community.’