Sunfall

by Jim Al-Khalili

  Shireen opened and closed her mouth in utter bemusement but couldn’t think of anything to say. The guard was clearly not expecting a response because he had already turned away and was looking around to check if the coast was clear. ‘Come on. Let’s get you on board before anyone gets even more suspicious.’

  When she finally managed to get words out, all she could say was, ‘Thank you.’

  He led her through an adjacent gate, which he accessed with a security pass, and down a deserted corridor that led on to the walkway to the plane. A minute later, she was in her seat on the flight to New York.

  She sat still, hardly daring to breathe. She knew that all the time the e-pill was working, she could remain anonymous. What happened after its forty-eight-hour lifetime she had no idea. She hoped that by then she would have achieved what she’d set out to do. For the first time in a couple of days, she wondered how her parents were doing. Had they remained out of sight? She wondered who else would now be looking for her. Maybe she’d even made it onto Interpol’s most-wanted list. I guess I’m now officially an international cyberterrorist. Mum and Dad will be so proud.

  Sighing, she turned to look out of the window as the plane taxied towards the runway. She half-expected to see Savak agents sprinting towards her across the tarmac to stop the plane. Suddenly she was pressed back in her seat as the plane accelerated. The relief of take-off was so overwhelming that she at last began to cry. No one was watching so she let the tears flow freely, silently. Then, without warning, exhaustion overcame her and she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

  17

  Sunday, 10 February – New York

  The Sunday afternoon that Marc had been so looking forward to, spending time with his daughter, started badly. How could he have been so deluded as to think that Evie would rush into his arms, all forgiveness and smiles, as soon as she saw him? He’d picked her up at midday from the smart terraced address that had been, until a few months ago, his home for seven years. Instead, all he received was a brief, perfunctory hug.

  And yet he was determined to try and lift her mood from this brooding, standoffish resentment to at least get a glimpse of the bubbly, ebullient Evie he knew was somewhere underneath.

  ‘I thought we’d spend the afternoon in Bryant Park. You know how much you used to enjoy our Sunday afternoons there.’

  ‘That was when I was five years old, Dad. Maybe you hadn’t noticed, but I’m not a kid any more.’

  He tried desperately to work out the last time they had actually spent time together as a family and realized he couldn’t recall it. Instead he said, ‘Well, you’ll always be my little—’

  ‘—Don’t, Dad. Please,’ she said in a pleading voice, and he sighed. They walked in silence for the next couple of minutes.

  When they reached the junction, he had to stop himself from instinctively grabbing hold of her hand to cross the road. Shit, she’s right. I still think of her as a young child. He decided to tackle full on the issue that was such a barrier between them.

  ‘Look, I know what a disappointment I must be to you, and I know it’ll take time for you to fully forgive me. But you will, when you see I’m not such an arsehole any more.’

  ‘Dad, you’re not a disappointment, honest. And I know more than you probably think I do about depression and how it can control people. But … well, can’t you see that your leaving us – well, leaving me – and going off like that was taking the coward’s way out? Running away from your problems won’t make them disappear, or suddenly make you well again.’

  She was right. Of course she was. His little girl was now a mature young woman with her own blossoming wisdom. He felt a mixture of shame, as her words hit home, and pride in this wonderful person walking alongside him. He resisted the temptation to put his arm around her and instead he tried to make light of the situation. ‘Well, if you really wanted to help make me feel better, you’d let me buy you pizza for lunch and then allow me to spend an afternoon with my favourite human being on the planet.’

  Evie finally smiled. ‘Oh, planning on spending the afternoon alone then, are you?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. OK.’

  After pizza they went for a walk around Bryant Park. Despite a promising start to the weather that morning – the first blue skies seen since the remnants of Hurricane Jerome had drifted back out into the Atlantic – things were now taking a turn for the worse. The wind was picking up and the sky had turned grey. Marc hoped the rain would hold off for a few hours. At least Evie’s mood had thawed considerably.

  ‘You know it’s glorious summer weather down in Waiheke at the moment. I’ve been doing a lot of work on Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and the boat. I’d love it if you could come over to visit.’

  ‘Dad, you do know I go to school, right? And by the time we break for summer it’ll be turning colder down there. Geography isn’t my strongest subject, but I know that much.’

  Marc shrugged. ‘Still, you’ll love it. I bet you can’t remember too much from your only trip to NZ. You’d have been … um …’

  ‘I was seven. Don’t you remember, Dad, we celebrated my seventh birthday at Grandma and Grandpa’s house? They held a party and there was no one my age and you got drunk and got into an argument with Grandpa and—’

  ‘—OK, yes, I remember. Sorry.’

  ‘I miss them, you know: Grandma and Grandpa. Even though I didn’t see that much of them.’

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ he said quietly.

  Time to change the subject. ‘So, anyway, how’re you getting on with Jeremy Golden Balls these days?’

  Evie giggled. ‘He’s fine, Dad, honest. He can be a bit overbearing at times, but mostly he’s OK. And Mum seems happy. She’s very tired, but …’

  Marc looked at his daughter, wondering what it was she was reluctant to spit out. ‘But, what?’

  Evie looked down at her feet. ‘Well, the house is a lot quieter these days, that’s all.’

  Ah, yes, of course. He and Charlie had done a lot of shouting in the last few months before he’d moved out. But he’d been locked too deeply in his own dark world to think much about how it might have affected Evie. The truth was he did feel better knowing that Evie, and Charlie for that matter, were happier now.

  Bryant Park was still Marc’s favourite place in Manhattan. There were so many memories of happier family times spent there, picnicking on the grass during the summer. After feeding the pigeons, he’d queue for ice cream while Charlie took Evie for a ride on the carousel. That still seemed like yesterday and he felt a sudden wave of melancholia at the thought of how much his, and Evie’s, life had changed in recent months. He managed to push it away.

  Today the park looked very different. Although still full of joggers and dog-walkers, it now looked bleak under the leaden sky. The cold wind whistled through the bare branches of the tall trees on the outer edges of the park. During the summer months, they blocked out the surrounding skyscrapers, but their leafless skeletons exposed the glass and concrete buildings beyond. They walked slowly around the park, twice, with Evie starting to do more of the talking.

  By the time they made it back to the apartment, the skies had begun to clear again, and the threat of rain had receded.

  ‘Do you want to come in for a bit? Say hi to Mum? Jeremy isn’t around.’

  ‘Probably not a good idea, Evie.’

  ‘No, probably not.’ She gave him a hug, this time for a little longer. He didn’t kid himself that all was well again between them, but today had been a good start. She turned and ran up the steps to the front door.

  ‘I’ll stop by on Tuesday if that’s OK,’ he shouted after her. ‘And I expect you to have some idea what you’d like for your birthday.’ He made a mental note to ask Charlie what she had got her.

  She waved without looking back. A moment later she was inside with the door closed behind her.

  It must have been the familiarity of the street and the house, and the near-normality of the time he’d just spent with his
daughter, but Marc just stood there outside his old apartment for several minutes feeling flat. It seemed the girl who’d laughed at his jokes, and who’d announced gleefully on every occasion: ‘You’re so weird, Dad’, which had been a default reaction to almost anything he said or did, was growing into an independent young woman who no longer needed him. He thought about going up the steps and knocking on the door. What would he say? Would he apologize again, ask for things to go back to the way they were? Too late for that.

  He sighed, wondering what to do with himself for twenty-four hours. He’d decided against the offer to stay with an old friend while in town and had checked into a hotel instead. But he was starting to have serious misgivings about what Qiang had roped him in for the following evening. His younger colleague had been invited to a reception held by the Chinese ambassador, and Marc was his plus-one. Whoopie-fucking-doo. All that banal small talk with politicians and diplomats. He wondered what the protocol was at events like that regarding sloping off early.

  Still, it was great that Qiang was moving up in the world. His involvement with the Chinese investigation into the Earth’s magnetic field had obviously got him fast-tracked along the corridors of power. And if Marc could help him in any way – then it was the very least he owed him. He was also desperate to discuss further with Qiang his idea about neutralino beams. It was all too crazy to be taken seriously, of course, but it was an interesting hypothetical problem to consider.

  18

  Monday, 11 February – New York

  It had been just 48 hours since Sarah’s UN meeting, and she already had several high-level meetings lined up in her diary, mostly about what sort of contingency plans to put in place to cope with a whole range of scary scenarios. She found it infuriating that the politicians she spoke to were still more worried about what the geo-storm after a direct hit from a CME might do to global electronics networks and telecommunication satellites than they were about a potentially catastrophic exposure of entire populations to the radiation itself. At least they acknowledged the very real danger of secondary threats like hurricanes and tsunamis, and it was a relief to see so many other scientists being drafted in.

  What she hadn’t been prepared for was the secrecy. While her warnings about the heightened danger of coronal mass ejections hitting the Earth were being taken very seriously within the corridors of power, both at the UN and elsewhere, in public and across the networks politicians were actively downplaying the threat. Not that this seemed to have much influence either way – most people were immune to what they read or heard on their AR feeds and were cynical about anything politicians said, preferring to just get on with their own lives.

  That was something Sarah could identify with. Right now, all she wanted was to curl up in her hotel room with a book and glass of wine and pretend this was all a bad dream. But that wasn’t going to happen this evening. Spending an afternoon shopping for something to wear to a fancy cocktail party, as she had just done, was the last thing she’d felt in the mood for and it all seemed rather surreal. But a last-minute invitation to Ambassador Xu’s reception this evening meant a necessary trip into town.

  She’d been a little surprised to receive the invitation, but assumed it was Aguda’s doing. After all, she hadn’t exactly endeared herself to the Chinese ambassador so far. Hopefully, Aguda and one or two of the other scientists she’d met at the UN would also be there.

  Her frustratingly extended stay in New York was at least more comfortable now that she had been upgraded to the Plaza Hotel on Fifth Avenue. She estimated she would need another two weeks to finish writing her section of the report the committee had been asked to produce. She had been checking every day with her young research colleague Miguel in Rio and was itching to get back to her own research again. The sooner she could escape from the political machinations of the UN, the better.

  She tapped her wristpad and checked the invitation on her AR. The Chinese Embassy was sending a car at seven, so she had just under an hour to kill.

  Suddenly her wristpad pinged as a text message came through. Odd. It was on her private account, and only her parents had access to that. It must be her father. She hoped everything was OK. She quickly focused her eyes on the AR display in the top right of her field of vision, but the message wasn’t from her parents.

  It was short, as though composed in a hurry:

  My name is Shireen Darvish. I wish you no harm. I know you are leaving the hotel at seven. Meet me downstairs in the female bathroom near the lobby at 6.50. I have information you have to see.

  Please. I have no one else to turn to.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and took a few deep breaths. Alarm and anxiety quickly morphed into curiosity and she read the message again. OK, think. Someone has got hold of your private contact details. Fine – there are plenty of smart hackers out there. But this all sounds very cloak and dagger.

  Of course she wouldn’t be able to resist this. Anyway, what’s the worst that could happen in a hotel bathroom with people coming in and out all the time? She spent a few minutes online trying to learn a little more about this Shireen Darvish, but drew a blank. Very strange. It was unheard of for an individual to leave not a single footprint on the net.

  At a quarter to seven, she grabbed her coat and bag and left the room.

  The hotel lobby was busy and noisy, with a number of new guests arriving, leaving their islands of suitcases clustered around the reception desk as they checked in. Other guests were heading out into the early New York evening. Sarah stopped to look around. She couldn’t see anyone who looked remotely suspicious or who might be watching her. She glanced at the time. 6:50. She turned and strolled as casually as she could to the door marked ‘Ladies’.

  A well-dressed middle-aged woman was coming out just as Sarah entered.

  Once inside and the door closed, she looked around. She couldn’t see anyone, but two of the cubicle doors were shut. She whispered, ‘Hello? Ms … Ms Darvish? Are you in here?’

  Silence.

  Puzzled, she waited a few seconds before turning back towards the door.

  Suddenly she heard the click of a lock and the far cubicle door opened slowly. A diminutive girl, in her late teens or early twenties, stepped out very cautiously. She had an unruly crop of bright pink hair and several nose rings. Sarah’s first impression was that she looked exhausted and very, very scared. She watched her carefully while at the same time making sure she could make a run for the exit if she needed to.

  ‘Please. We don’t have much time.’ The girl spoke in a soft, halting voice in perfect English with what sounded like a Turkish or Persian accent. She sounded, and looked, on edge, her eyes darting around nervously. She quickly ducked down to look under the only closed cubicle door and, presumably satisfied that it was empty and that they were alone, gestured to Sarah to approach her. ‘My name is Shireen Darvish and I’m a computer science student from Tehran. You must believe what I am about to tell you.’

  Sarah remained rooted to the spot.

  The girl took a step towards her and began to speak faster, as though reciting a prepared speech. ‘I have in my possession highly secret documents that I have gained access to. I don’t have time to explain how, but you need to see them. The world needs to see them before the information is erased for good.’

  Sarah must have looked incredulous, but what the young woman said next sounded even more preposterous.

  ‘I know how this must look to you but believe me when I say I am not crazy. It’s possible that the fate of humanity depends on you getting this information out and using your reputation to back up its authenticity.’

  Yup, that sounds exactly that. Crazy. As though humanity wasn’t in enough trouble already. And yet there was something about this woman: a desperate, haunted look in her eyes. She might be deluded or unstable, but Sarah was willing to bet she genuinely believed what she was saying. Her AR was giving her no information at all as she stared at the young lady. She was clearly being very ca
reful at keeping her identity a secret.

  Sarah took a deep breath, her curiosity stronger than ever now. ‘OK, tell me a few things first. Who do you work for?’

  ‘No one. I told you, I’m a student at Tehran University.’

  Sarah realized she had not made herself clear. ‘No, I mean who else is involved in this?’

  ‘I am working alone.’

  Sarah stiffened in surprise. ‘You mean you were able to gain access to such highly sensitive information without help?’

  Shireen looked at her quietly, her big brown eyes now shining in defiance.

  ‘Oh, come on, I wasn’t born yesterday. If this information is as sensitive as you say it is, then the firewalls would be so impregnable that even Google and SonyIntel would struggle to get past them, so who’s backing you?’ Sarah wondered what sort of organization could be behind such a high-risk operation. Did this young woman belong to one of the many global cyberterrorist cells or could she really be an exceptionally talented cyb acting alone? In any case, in today’s world with its ubiquitous electronic surveillance, it would have been almost impossible for a fugitive from the law, as she must be with all this cloak and dagger secrecy, to travel halfway across the world without being caught. So, either she had help from powerful people or she was in possession of superpowers. Either way …

  Just then the bathroom door opened, and two elderly women walked in. One went into a cubicle while the other looked at Sarah and smiled, then headed to a large mirror to check her makeup. Sarah walked over to the far corner of the bathroom and began washing her hands. The young Iranian followed her and turned on an adjacent tap.

  When Sarah felt confident they couldn’t be overheard she whispered, ‘Do you really expect me to believe you travelled thousands of kilometres, risking so much, to meet me physically when you could have just contacted me from Iran?’