Kill Switch

by William Hertling

  “Who is he?” Angie said. “Just tell me. I can figure it out in five minutes.”

  “Damn it, you’re not my mother. Besides, I haven’t been into guys in a long while, and you know that. That alone should tell you you’re reacting irrationally. Think about it.”

  That gave Angie a moment’s pause, but she shrugged and started typing.

  “It’s not one person. I have multiple partners. Essie, yes. But also Charlotte. And others occasionally.”

  Angie stopped typing.

  “We’re kinky. That’s all. Everyone has their kinks. Bondage, animal play, impact, D/s. It’s not abuse. I get hit because I like the feeling it gives me. I feel alive, scared, hurt, excited, sexy, vulnerable, and even powerful. I get to choose who can do what to me. I get all the feelings, and they’re all dialed up to eleven. It’s amazing.”

  Igloo dropped into the chair next to Angie and stared at her. “Look, didn’t you ever do something crazy? Bungee jumping? Sky diving? Drive too fast? Date someone exciting just because you wanted to experience wild and crazy?”

  Angie sat back, took her hand away from the keyboard.

  Igloo took a deep breath. “I realize what it must look like to you, which is part of why I’ve been hesitant to come out. But it shares only a superficial similarity with abuse. I’m really totally fine, and I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing.”

  Angie still didn’t speak.

  “This is me we’re talking about,” Igloo said. “Do you really think I’d let someone else boss me around?”

  “I didn’t think I could,” Angie said, her mouth tight. “But it happened to me just the same.”

  Angie’s first husband. Duh. Igloo shouldn’t have said that.

  “I’m sorry. I know abuse. I’ve been abused. Trust me. We’ve worked together for years. This is not abuse. I know it must look bad from the outside. But the people I play with talk about what we want, we learn about what we’re going to do, we assess the risk and do what we can to mitigate it.

  “Homosexuality was once considered a mental illness and now it’s accepted as normal. BDSM is in the same boat. There’s scientific research to support that the people who practice it are healthy, happy, and well-adjusted.”

  “I’m not completely clueless,” Angie said. “But there’s also plenty of abuse under the guise of BDSM.”

  “That is absolutely true, but that’s not the case with me. No one is manipulating me into anything. I do this because I enjoy it. And you might like this least of all, but I top most of the time.”

  Angie stared, obviously not getting it.

  “I’m usually the one doing the tying or the hitting.”

  Angie whacked Igloo’s can of coffee off the table. It flew across the container, striking the wall. A pool of coffee poured out and spread across the floor. Angie’s whole body was shaking, and she curled up on herself.

  “How can you do this, knowing how I feel?”

  Igloo stared at the growing puddle in shock. She’d seen Angie angry, really fucking angry, but she’d never seen her lose control like that.

  “This isn’t about you, Angie. I didn’t choose this any more than I chose to like women. This is just who I am. Believe me, it makes life complicated. Interesting, but complicated.”

  “You should get therapy.”

  Igloo stood back up. “Kink is my therapy. I like who I am. I’m taking back what happened to me. I’m not being a freak about this. Lots of kinky people are survivors. Part of being in a scene, for some people, is recreating what happened to them, regaining control and ownership of themselves. I can’t undo what happened to me when I was a kid, but I can change my relationship to it now.”

  “How does putting yourself back in the same situation equal therapy? That’s not improvement. That’s…sick.”

  “It’s like desensitization therapy. If you’re scared of spiders, you’d spend time looking at pictures of spiders, and getting okay with that. Once that no longer triggered you, you’d watch some videos of spiders. When that no longer triggered a fight or flight response, you’d hold a dead spider. Then someday progress to being in the same room with a caged spider. Eventually, if everything went well, you’d hold a live spider in your hand. You’d master the relationship you have with spiders. BDSM’s a lot like that.”

  Angie shook her head. “If you were bitten by a poisonous spider, would you recommend being bitten by more poisonous spiders to aid in recovery? No.”

  “I’m talking about recovering from psychological trauma, not physical illness.” Igloo sighed. “Look, I’m fine with this, and it’s not a problem. You don’t have to like it, just accept it.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Look, you don’t even have to accept it, you just have to accept that it’s really none of your business. It’s what I choose to do with my life.”

  Angie shook her head.

  Igloo sighed. It wasn’t her responsibility to open up Angie’s thinking, but if she didn’t try, she knew this would form a rift between them, and then they wouldn’t be able to work together. “What do you need to be convinced?”

  “Show me the data.”

  “There’s not a lot.” Igloo knew there were only a handful of studies. She’d read them all.

  “That’s okay. Show me what there is. Give me something to convince me.”

  Part of Igloo wanted to say that it wasn’t her job, that Angie could go look it up herself. But that wasn’t how relationships worked. Angie wasn’t some irrelevant stranger. They needed each other. In this case, Angie was operating at a deficit because she had her own substantial emotional baggage to deal with. That meant that Igloo would have to help.

  “Fine. I’ll dig some stuff up. Now can we get back to plotting to take over the world? Tell me more about your plan to brainwash the sheep.”

  “It’s exposing the truth,” Angie said, “not brainwashing the sheep.”

  Igloo raised her eyebrows.

  “Okay, fine. Call it brainwashing the sheep. Here’s what happens…”

  Chapter 15

  Angie pulled up to the curb.

  Igloo put her hand on the door to get out and turned to Angie. She looked like she’d aged in just the short time they’d been in the shipping container. She made like she was going to say something, then shook her head and got out.

  Angie watched Igloo cross the street. She’d known Igloo would take it hard. But there just wasn’t any other option. Igloo needed to know in order to carry on the work. Igloo also had the project for the onion network running over Tapestry clients. She wondered how long it would take before Igloo would put two and two together. If they were manipulating the feed, they’d choose the stories people saw. But if they controlled the data conduit by which information came to their computer, then they’d control everything anyone saw.

  But that was a tool of last resort, if all else failed, and they couldn’t steer this country back to a more reasonable course using less intrusive methods.

  Angie felt like the future was unfolding in her mind, multiple paths based on contingencies, some decision points within her scope of control, others reactions to the inevitable government interference. Igloo’s project was just one advance move that would morph into the second generation of Tapestry.

  Was Igloo even the right choice for her backup? The revelation about Igloo’s behavior left a pit in her stomach. Igloo, of all people. Sexualizing violence. Allowing herself to be hurt. Hurting others. How could she?

  Igloo’s choices were unstable. Dangerous.

  Angie thought she knew Igloo, and figured she’d be able to trust her to make the same decisions she would, if it ever came to that. But that was false. Igloo wouldn’t make the same choices. But could she still trust her to make the right choices if the time came, even if they weren’t Angie’s choices? That was the key question.

  But if not Igloo, then who? Other people could potentially be the technical leader that T2 needed. But if push came to shove, Igloo, like Angie, co
uld do more. She had the skills and the drive to do whatever it took to ensure success, whether that was hacking a competitor or manipulating the government.

  Angie made a U-turn, drove the car back through the warren of side-streets, and left it across the street from a lot filled with old cars. She walked back to her own car, still parked near the coffee shop, and drove home.

  Igloo would have to do. At least for now. Let her prove that she was stable and sane.

  Before she even opened the door, she heard the heavy thump of EBM booming inside the house. The acoustic assault was even worse inside.

  “Thomas!”

  No answer.

  “Thomas!”

  Sigh.

  “Katie, shut that racket off.”

  The music faded away, thanks to her open-source home automation assistant. Thomas had wanted one of the brand name variations, but there was no way she’d accept that security risk. So she was running the one open source assistant that the EFF endorsed. That Tapestry provided nearly a quarter of the EFF’s operating budget last year was, thus far, a well-kept secret.

  “Hey.” Thomas came into the room with VR goggles around his neck and a racquet in his hand. Sweat poured down his face.

  “Whoa, back away, Mr. Athlete.” Angie took two steps back as Thomas came in for a hug, then ducked under his arm.

  “Morning, sweetie. I love you. How’s Igloo?”

  She sighed. After several years of keeping most of her life a secret from Thomas, between the hacking and the killing, she’d vowed to stop keeping secrets. She’d never come fully clean about her past, but she’d given him the gist of things, minus the killing of abusers. Since then, her work with Igloo had largely taken the form of educating victims, giving them assets and a way out, and providing enough evidence to get their abusers convicted. She’d given Thomas the general lay of the land, hinting at but being vague about the exact nature of their hacking activities.

  He wasn’t thrilled that his wife might go to jail at any time, but he supported her reasons for doing it. Still, he was lousy about operational security, so she kept him out of the loop on the specifics.

  She put her finger on his lips to remind him. “Igloo’s good,” she said, for the benefit of any would-be listeners. “We went for coffee, talked about work.”

  She took every precaution possible to keep their house sanitized, but the proliferation of embedded connected computers was a privacy nightmare. If she could, her home would be free of the internet of things. But Thomas wanted the latest gadgets, and the truth was that it would be suspicious if her home was too thoroughly sanitized. So she settled for zones of security. The highest security stuff was off premises, in safe houses like the shipping container. But even here she had a small space. The walk-in closet in her home office had been transformed into a Faraday cage with a wrapping of copper mesh embedded into the plaster and extending onto the door. A double layer of acoustic batting provided sound isolation. She couldn’t do much from there to disguise her data traffic, but she could bring encrypted disk images home, work on code and data in the closet, and then squirt it back out onto the Internet when she had safe access.

  “Speaking of work,” Thomas said, “how big a deal is that Tapestry party next month? Do I need to get a new outfit?”

  “You’re asking me about clothes?” Angie would wear a t-shirt and jeans every day if she could get away with it. She relied on twice annual shopping trips with Emily, who would stockpile her with the basic feminine clothing suitable for her position, which she would dutifully wear. “Ask Emily.”

  “Katie, message Emily, what should I wear to the Tapestry party?”

  “Message sent,” Katie answered.

  Angie decided she should do the same. “Katie, message Emily. Me too. Need clothes, help.”

  “Did you eat yet?” Thomas asked, as he walked over to the refrigerator.

  “No,” Angie said, dreading the hassle of eating. She had too much work to do.

  “You go work or do whatever you need, and I’ll put something together.”

  Angie stepped up to Thomas, wiped the sweat off his face with a dish towel, then she pulled him close for a kiss.

  “What’s that for?”

  “For taking care of me. I feel like I leave you on your own all the time, and then I come home, and you just take care of me. Sometimes I feel like I don’t give you enough in return.”

  “I’m happy to take care of you.”

  “It’s hard for me to accept. You know, equality and all that.”

  “Equality means we have equal rights to have our needs met, not that all people have identical needs. You need to be fed, I need someone to take care of. It’s all good.”

  “Well, I appreciate it.”

  “I know.” He smiled his lovely warm smile.

  Chapter 16

  Igloo stared at the front door. Her head was crammed with thoughts about Angie’s totally unhinged plan to manipulate the election. Now, still sleep deprived, head spinning with confusion, she had to come home and face Essie.

  She’d been spending her time in a downward spiral of negative thoughts, her mind a maelstrom of jealousy, envy, insecurity, and fear. Things couldn’t go on like this.

  She took a deep breath, and the door suddenly opened.

  Essie smiled at her. “Coming in?”

  Igloo worked up the energy for a smile and a hug.

  “Lunch will be ready in a second. Get cleaned up and have a seat. I’m just going to put the eggs in the water.”

  “Eggs? Like real eggs?” Was she serious? She washed up, then sat at the dining room table and sipped the coffee waiting for her. She pulled out her phone, looked at all the morning’s notifications. The automated test suite had found some new corner cases in her code. Most of them were meaningless—the new test AI caused numerous false alarms, but buried somewhere in there would be real issues that could cause failures in the field if Igloo didn’t address them.

  A few minutes later, Essie set down an egg sandwich on a toasted croissant.

  Igloo set down her phone. Wow, Essie really had been serious about eggs. Why the sudden change of heart?

  Essie topped off Igloo’s coffee and adjusted the symmetry of the place setting so everything was in alignment, then took a seat next to Igloo.

  Without the electronic distraction, all her messy feelings started to bubble up. She stared at her plate, food perfectly and artfully arranged. Her heart sank. Essie clearly had gone to some special length for Igloo, even cooked eggs for her instead of the usual vegan fare, and now Igloo was going to ruin everything. But she just couldn’t be quiet any longer.

  “I need some boundaries around what you’re doing with Michael,” Igloo blurted out. “Just temporarily. Until I can get a handle on my feelings.”

  Essie carefully set her coffee on the table. “What sort of boundaries?”

  “No sleepovers. They’re too painful for me to handle. I miss you too much, and I worry about you.”

  “I’ve already had sleepovers, and now you want me to go back on that? That’s awkward.”

  “It’s not permanent.” Igloo hated the pleading in her voice. Why couldn’t she be stronger? “Just give me a few weeks to get used to the idea.”

  “You’re never going to get used to it if I’m not doing it. Look, this week wasn’t as bad as last week.”

  Igloo couldn’t meet Essie’s gaze. She wanted to just lay down the law, but she was afraid Essie would leave if she tried. What happened to the Igloo who took charge? Where was Igloo the dominant? “You don’t understand how much pain I’m in. Just coping with dates is hard enough. Why do you have to have sleepovers?”

  “He gets off work late, and it takes time to set up the welding equipment, get everything prepped. Then we’re hungry and tired.”

  “Maybe you could try sleeping,” Igloo mumbled, then instantly regretted it.

  Essie shook her head. “Look, do you want me to drive home at three or four in the morning, half
asleep? Seems like a recipe for an accident.”

  “Why can’t you just go on a regular date and come home by a reasonable hour? That’s what normal people do.”

  “We’re welding and eating burgers and cuddling. There’s not even sex.”

  “Burgers? What kind of burgers? Meat burgers?”

  “Yes, I guess they are meat,” Essie said.

  “Jesus fucking Christ. I’ve been eating vegan with you for the past nine months, trying to get you to eat meat with me, and you know him for a month, and you’re eating burgers with him?!”

  “He said I should try it, so I did.”

  Fucking fuckity fuck. He said. Try it.

  “When you say ‘He said I should try it,’ you mean like in a D/s context?” Igloo held her head. Why couldn’t the pain just be over?

  “Oh, come on,” Essie said. “Are we going to pick apart every sentence we exchange?”

  “Just tell me.”

  “It’s not a D/s game. The burger smelled good, so I tried it. I liked it. End of story.”

  Igloo took a deep breath. She felt like Essie was leaving something out, but she had no idea what. There was more going on than she was revealing.

  Chapter 17

  Cyber Command was two floors down and half a building away from Enso’s office, but he’d rarely been down there. They were, for the most part, compartmentalized from other aspects of the intelligence community.

  Enso and Alice walked down together, went through a security review, then entered the Cyber Command suite.

  Colonel Benson was the officer in charge. Enso and Alice were escorted to her office. They entered to find her already in discussion with another officer. They both stood and shuffled around the small space to make room for Enso and Alice.

  “Colonel Benson,” Enso said. “Glad to meet you.”

  He held out his hand, and Benson hesitated long enough to send the message that Enso was beneath her before taking his hand. Enso didn’t care. It happened all the time. People didn’t like back channel influence. But you can’t have a super black agency and official lines of communication.