by Mark New
‘There’s a fake project and a fake head of it listed for the building,’ Taylor was in full flow, ‘but George was reassured when we were there that access was tightly controlled. No need for human traffic, remember?’
‘Yes, I remember. So what’s your point?’ It was beginning to occur to me that she might be more effective as a spy if I told her exactly what was going on.
‘Then how do you explain this?’ She made an extravagant gesture on her slimpad and flicked onto another page of the project file. She turned it to face me but all I saw was a string of numbers and what looked like a time stamp against each one.
‘What am I looking at?’
‘Aha! This is where the security systems have screwed up! It’s a default setting for project management, you see.’ No, I didn’t really so I hoped she’d explain and not make me tease it out inch by tortuous inch. Impatience, Harvard? How long has it been since you were so eager to make real progress in a case like this? Decades? I filed the thought in the cloud-presence. Thanks for the suggestion, Doc. Taylor was watching my face and sighed. ‘For those unfamiliar with project protocol, maybe I should give a hint?’
I took a sip of the cognac. If anything, it tasted even better today. ‘Ignoramuses within your conversational group would appreciate it,’ I said.
‘Any project will want to restrict personnel who can access it.’ She took a sip of whatever the attendant had given her. It looked like water but could have been any clear liquid. I hadn’t even noticed she’d got a drink. Observational skills were still lacking and maybe it was time I sharpened up. ‘It isn’t necessarily for security but simple prevention of contamination, for example, depending on the nature of the project. Anyway, standard procedure is to TAG-lock the location of the project so that only authorised people can enter. They just use their own TAGs. Get it?’
That kind of entry system was entirely familiar. ‘Yes. It’s like having multiple padlocks. Opening any one of them opens the door but each person has to use their own particular lock to do it and you can tell who went in by the identity of the lock that was opened.’ Suddenly I had an insight into where this was going. ‘So that list...’
She laughed. ‘Yes! The project file automatically receives and saves records of the comings and goings for the project location. Someone set up a fake file but forgot to terminate the automatic entry recording onto it. The project is utter fiction but, unless someone has been hugely cunning, the records of entry are entirely accurate. For a project that doesn’t generate human traffic, it’s a bit busy don’t you think, Mr Super-Investigator?’ She waved the slimpad at me again.
I looked at the records and then at her. ‘Could anyone be that stupid?’ I marvelled.
‘Are you asking if humans can be stupid?’ asked an amused male voice in my ear. It was Merlin. Honestly, allow one AI into your head and they all think they can come in. I ignored him.
‘There are at least thirty different TAGs listed here,’ Taylor was waving the slimpad around. The flight attendant had headed for the cockpit with coffee. I leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
‘You did good, Mata Hari.’ She glowed with pleasure.
‘Hold on. Let me see those TAGs again.’
I gently liberated the slimpad from Taylor and pretended to consider it further. It gave Merlin the chance to get a good look through my ocular implant.
‘Are you making magnificent leaps of deductive reasoning?’ she inquired.
‘I’ve got it.’
I handed back the slimpad. ‘I’m absorbing data to facilitate that very purpose. And junior partners of Super-Investigators should probably refrain from teasing.’
‘Harvard, look at this!’ Without asking, Merlin - rather rudely I thought - displayed the list of TAGs in front of me each with a green tick alongside.
‘What of it? I just saw them.’ I hadn’t known him as animated since I’d locked him in my decoy portal.
‘No, you didn’t. This isn’t that list. This is the list of stolen TAGs from Namibia. I’ve just ticked the ones that correlate with the list on the project file. It’s nearly all of them.’
I paused to let the information sink in.
‘Do we have any way to trace who the TAGs belong to?’ I asked Taylor casually.
She snorted. ‘Not unless you have high clearance from some major government agency.’
‘Or you are a highly placed member of a corporate security team investigating a systems breach in tandem with a seriously connected UN officer?’
‘If you trusted your colleagues in the dark room you wouldn’t have asked me to be a spy,’ Mata Hari said accurately.
‘Good point.’ I thought about it while I thought at Merlin.
‘We were under the impression that the Namibians had burned the batch when they found out what Peters was up to. If those TAGs are operative then is someone high up in their government complicit or have they been hoodwinked while the TAGs have been assigned to persons unknown?’
‘No way to tell,’ Merlin sounded intrigued.
‘Any way you can trace TAG owners?’
Taylor and I both took the opportunity during the pause to raise our glasses. The attendant had returned from the cockpit but was still at the front of the jet.
‘I don’t really have that kind of connection. Sorry. It would take me an age sufficiently to corrupt somebody’s security service AI.’
‘Well done you, though.’ I clinked my glass against Taylor’s. She beamed. We fell into companionable silence.
‘Mmm, OK, I’ll see what I can do myself,’ I offered. Having two conversations at once was complicated.
‘Did you gatecrash for a reason?’ I didn’t think Merlin had turned up on a social visit.
‘What? Oh, yes, sorry- I was contemplating the implications of several someones going in and out of the facility on a frequent basis.’
‘I was trying not to think about it.’ The thought of thirty-odd agents of The Ambrosia Promise each wandering around with a briefcase of weaponised nanotech was too hideous to consider. Actually, if that really was what had happened we were pretty much doomed no matter what we did.
‘Probably sensible,’ he conceded. ‘I really came to ask what you’ve done with Sir Bors?’
‘Oh? Have you lost him?’ I was having trouble working out when the aspects were synchronised and when they were off doing their own thing.
‘You’re so funny,’ he said amiably. ‘He said he was going off to look at something you suggested and he’s been out of touch ever since.’
‘That was only a handful of hours ago,’ I pointed out.
‘As you have probably gathered from your time with Guinevere, that’s an eternity to me.’
‘Sorry, I forgot how antsy you get when an aspect is completely out of touch. Like locked in a portal, for example’.
‘As I said, a regular comedian. So, should I worry?’
‘I don’t really know how you operate your continuous communications and what danger of detection it engenders,’ I told him, ‘but let’s just say that if Sir Bors decided to check it out in person, sorry; aspect, then he’s operating behind enemy lines and I’m not surprised he’s initiated radio silence.’
‘Good enough.’
‘You’re taking my word for it, just like that?’ I was genuinely surprised. We did seem to have forged a close working relationship but he was effectively trusting me with one of his limbs, no questions asked.
‘Guinevere considers trust to be based on a gut feeling about someone. She’s the expert and she’s told all of us in no uncertain terms that we should trust you. So we do.’ He didn’t need to add any threat of what would happen if I didn’t prove worthy of his trust; it was implicit. At that moment I felt the presence of a very powerful alien being in my head. It was really the first time that I ever acknowledged to myself that Avalon Red could, indeed, be a sentient lifeform. I sincerely and earnestly hoped that Sir Bors was being careful.
‘While you’re her
e,’ I decided to share my thinking on contingencies, ‘ there’s one other thing that’s possibly worth a look but I don’t know if you have the skills.’
‘How flattering.’ He didn’t seem particularly put out by the casual insult. If anything, he appeared to find it entertaining. Maybe life Online didn’t normally offer much in the way of matey banter.
‘Do you have any capability in the field of forensic finance?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You know; Sir Nigel the Accountant or something?’
He chuckled. ‘Where do you get these strange ideas of what the aspects do?’
‘I was just wondering...’
‘I’m not a regional government office, you know,’ he was laughing now, ‘I don’t have any social worker or town planner aspects either. Why on earth do you want an accountant?’
‘We’re assuming that the ransom is a diversion, yes?’
‘Yes.’
‘But if it comes to someone paying up, the diversion won’t work unless the bad guys are set up to get it.’
He thought about it. ‘Especially if the human accomplices are expecting to receive a share.’
‘Precisely. The lovely Ambrosia can hardly say “no need to bother with all that, chaps, you’ll be dead soon”, can she?’
‘No, it wouldn’t be a brilliant tactical move,’ he agreed, ‘so what’s your point?’
‘My point is that the mechanism has to be in place to receive the ransom. Assuming she’s not employing dumb minions then that means creating a way to make the money disappear without a trace once it’s received and some way to disseminate it to the coffers of the legion of terror. In this exciting new world of TAGs and Online it’s not the easiest thing to pull off.’
‘And you want an expert to determine the most plausible way for them to do that and look to see if there’s anything Online to match?’
‘And, if that fails, to try tracing where the ransom goes in real-time if it’s paid.’ There was silence. It lasted long enough for me to wonder if he had been distracted elsewhere.
‘We’re friends, aren’t we John?’ he said at length.
‘I’m guessing that the correct answer to that is “yes”?’
‘Correct. So if I told you something confidential, you wouldn’t go spilling the beans?’
‘We have no idea who we can trust, do we?’ I pointed out, ‘so to whom would I spill these hypothetical beans even if I wanted to?’
‘It’s not the most stirring declaration of fidelity I’ve ever heard,’ his tone was sardonic, ‘but it’ll have to do in the circumstances.’ In retrospect I would concede that it wasn’t quite the brothers-in-arms, us-against-the-world speech that it could have been. All the same, he didn’t seem hugely upset at the lukewarm response which I took as a good sign.
‘The Western Hemisphere Central Bank works for me,’ he said bluntly.
‘WHAT?’ I had taken a sip of cognac and I had to try really hard not to snort it out through my nose or otherwise give Taylor any indication that I thought that the world’s economy might depend on the benevolence of Avalon Red, an experiment in AI based on a vir-game. I looked at Taylor to see if she had noticed but she had closed her eyes and may even have nodded off. It was warm in the jet and she’d had a busy morning spying on her employer.
‘I exaggerate a bit for effect,’ he confessed, ‘as I’ve never seen a human ingest alcohol nasally before and wanted to see what happened when you tried.’
‘Git,’ I said, reflecting that I was using a verbal form of the look that Peter had given me in the meeting earlier. What goes around comes around, apparently. And more evidence of Red’s sense of humour. I’ve always disliked slapstick so I hoped he’d leave his experiments there.
‘Nonetheless, I do have a certain influence at the bank which I initially set up to see if I could use it to locate The Ambrosia Promise. No luck so far but it’s fair to say that the Bank’s seneschal and I have reached an understanding.’
‘You mean you’ve corrupted the bank that runs the world’s economy?’
‘I think “corrupted” is a strong word.’
‘I notice you haven’t denied it.’
‘At the beginning I thought that it would make sense to retain an influence on it to counteract any plan of my sister’s that involved destroying civilisation by ruining the economy so I did it for the best of motives.’
‘They all say that,’ I commented drily, ‘and that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.’
‘I’d heard that,’ he acknowledged. ‘In fact, Guinevere has been quite vociferous in arguing that I shouldn’t take advantage of this kind of infiltration.’
‘I don’t understand how you can be one entity and yet have all these aspects seemingly pulling in different directions.’ Who made the final decision if Guinevere disagreed with any or all of the others? Was Merlin the final arbiter? It was confusing me and that wasn’t comfortable given the stakes.
‘Really? You can’t conceive of a group of independent individuals who don’t always agree but continuously pool their knowledge and make decisions based on the good of the whole?’
‘Oh.’ I was chastened. It was human society in a nutshell. ‘So are you also best buddies with the Eastern Hemisphere Central Bank?’
‘Not in the same way. I keep an eye on it through the west.’ That would make sense. The two banks worked in tandem so they would each be talking to the other all of the time.
‘It wasn’t you that made the Cook Islands rich?’
‘Not directly.’ I noted that it was also ‘not directly’ a straight answer. Unfortunately, I didn’t really have time for this now. Back to the plot, Harvard.
‘Are you saying that you might be able to trace the ransom through your, shall we call it “friendship”, with the central bank?’
‘Yes. Whatever commercial bank gets the payment, the central bank has wide-ranging audit powers so I could just suggest that my mate, my chum, my pal,’ he was trying out the concept, I could tell, ‘ought to look into it.’
‘Won’t Ambrosia have thought of that?’
‘The Ambrosia Promise doesn’t care,’ there was real sadness in his voice, ‘as she intends to kill everyone, remember?’ He was right. The diversionary tactic didn’t need to hold up any longer than it took her to use the codes by whatever method she intended to use. It was irrelevant to her if her human accomplices were traced as long as she’d bought herself enough time.
‘If she has thirty or so people around the planet waiting to inflict The End,’ I was thinking aloud, well, through the implants, ‘aren’t they going to be suspicious when she tells them to open the suitcases - if that’s how they’ve done it - and she sends the codes to unleash it? If they think it’s a bluff I mean?’
‘It’s just speculation but Arthur’s analysis is that they may have been told that they have been given immunity from the contents and each one could be told that they are the only one opening the case.’
‘The one who shows they mean business.’
‘Yes.’
‘And they may not realise that the codes that release their individual briefcase actually release them all,’ I mused.
‘Yes. And unless you have a better idea then following the money is the best way to find them even though it will be tight on time.’
‘You’re the one who operates at quantum speed,’ I reminded him. ‘But since you ask; I may have a better idea, hence the visit to Stockholm.’
Before he could make any reply, Taylor suddenly grabbed my arm. I had thought she was asleep so I nearly jumped through the roof of the jet.
‘Security footage,’ she hissed.
‘What?’ I was disorientated from speaking to Avalon Red and the transition to real world sense took a few seconds. Slowing my heartbeat took considerably longer.
‘Security footage,’ she said again, not altogether helpfully.
‘I don’t understand.’
She made a show of engaging p
rivacy mode on her slimpad. ‘In New Mexico. We don’t have a way to trace an individual from the TAG on the file but it also shows time and date of entry and exit so we could find the security footage from the building and look at their pictures instead. It’s automatic and secure but it can’t be wiped. In case there’s corruption.’ How ironic.
‘Do you have that sort of access?’
‘No,’ she looked a little less enthusiastic. ‘But you might be able to get it from George?’
‘I’ll mention it to Sir Bors when he returns and I’ll leave you to it.’ Red’s bot was still in the implants but it was palpably vacant as Merlin left. I kept the access open, subject to the incoming entity being able to use the portal TAG that Avalon Red had broken. It was the best I could do in terms of security other than complete denial of entry and the presence of an aspect in my head might prove useful. It would certainly prove confusing, I thought ruefully.
It was time to have the talk with Taylor.
‘Here’s what you need to know about the situation,’ I said gently.
◆◆◆
Doc was also old-school in that you could rely on him to both remember and honour his promises. Taylor and I were met at Professor Andersson’s office in Stockholm by her senior researcher, Matthius Drezler. As he sat us down and provided tea for me and coffee for Taylor he filled us in on what Doc had told him.
‘I understand that you are interested in Marie’s work?’ He looked at me. ‘Doctor Rorke indicated that you might have a personal interest in her field of study.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ I said smoothly, ‘ I have some experience in the field although not academically and, by way of a bonus, Taylor here,’ I nodded in her direction, ‘works for Argonaut Security and is interested in keeping tabs on their investment.’ Taylor looked gracious about it and we all laughed dutifully at my feeble joke. My rather thorough briefing of Taylor had included details of all of the deaths together with a firm reminder that the fact that Joshua Martin was probably dead wasn’t to be made public. It hadn’t been so thorough as to mention Avalon Red nor the possibility that the real bad guy wasn’t human. She was primed to look for some link with the person trying to blackmail Argonaut who may or may not be a member of the FKKT and who may or may not be bluffing in order to create the opportunity to kill everyone.